The Best Apocalypse Movie Hits Free Streaming This Month (& You’ve Probably Never Heard Of It Despite Its All-Star Cast)

The beauty of sci-fi movies is that the genre is incredibly diverse. If you look up the sci-fi category on any streaming platform, you will find everything from alien invasions, robots, space travel, zombie outbreaks, clones, time, travel, and even superheroes — and that’s just scratching the surface. You’ll also find different tones, with some sci-fi flicks being deeply serious in nature while others are outright hilarious and still more leave you with unsettling questions about humanity. Nestled right into that latter category are apocalyptic sci-fi stories. These are tales about the end of the world as we know it, stories that frequently examine not only the fragile threads that hold the idea of humanity together but the delicate nature of our own relationships as well. Now, one of the best apocalyptic movies ever is free to stream this month — but there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of it despite its all-star cast.

Released in 2011, Melancholia is the second film in Lars von Trier’s so-called Depression Trilogy. The film stars Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, and Alexander Skarsgard in a story that centers around a young woman named Justine (Dunst) who gets married and falls into a deep depression just as a rogue planet is discovered in the night sky. The film received great critical acclaim and is considered by many to be one of the best films of the 21st century, but it underperformed at the box office. Still, the film is a stunning work that is less about disaster and more about personal crisis, relationships, and fate and it’s free to stream this month on Tubi.

Melancholia Is a Film That Examines How Mental Health Impacts Pending Disaster

In Melancholia, Justine marries Michael (Skarsgard) at a castle owned by her Sister Claire (Gainsbourg) and brother-in-law John (Sutherland). At the same time, Justine notices the star, Antares, shining brightly in the sky. Despite a wedding generally being an event that should be joyous, things quickly go sideways. Justine finds out she’s gotten a promotion and, feeling like she’s being pushed into a life she didn’t choose for herself, slides back into depression. She quits her job, calls off her marriage, and later notices that she can no longer see Antares in the sky.  It turns out that the reason Antares disappears is that a rogue planet called Melancholia has appeared from behind the Sun and will pass close to Earth but not collide with it. Justine is now in a deeper depression than ever and cannot eat and can barely get out of bed. Claire is growing more anxious about Melancholia, John quietly tries to prepare for the worst, and Justine declares all life on earth to be evil. While Melancholia does indeed miss Earth initially, things rapidly change when the planet comes back for a second time on a collision course. How the sisters reach respond to certain doom makes the end of the film particularly stunning.

To be very clear, Melancholia is a bleak film. Not only do you have Justine’s unrelenting depression and the ratcheting anxiety about a rogue planet potentially bent on colliding with Earth, but it also becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that no one is going to survive this movie. There is no happy ending, the world does not get saved, this isn’t Armageddon and nukes on an asteroid. But knowing that actually allows for the real story to shine. While this is very much a sci-fi about the end of the world, it’s really about depression and mental health and how that can impact one’s relationship with impending disaster. Justine, through her depression, almost seems enthralled by the idea of the world quite literally coming to an end. She welcomes it and almost can’t wait for it to happen. Claire, who is arguably the more mentally well of the sisters, grows increasingly more anxious and unhinged as the end gets closer. John, who has remained calm throughout, cannot face it and takes his own life. In the end, you get Justine at peace while Claire fully panics.

It’s a gorgeous, if not unsettling, visual depiction of how one’s mental health can shape how they experience things, but the film is also just gorgeous. The sequences where you see Melancholia on the horizon are absolutely stunning. The actual collision of Earth and Melancholia are also just gorgeous and the effects used for some of the otherworldly natural events that happen as the two planets get closer to one another remain truly brilliant works of art 15 years later. And there’s something sort of haunting about that. For a movie so bleak and so unsettling, it’s truly gorgeous. Maybe there’s a lesson in that. You can find out for yourself by streaming Melancholia on Tubi this month.

Have you seen Melancholia? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.