Jack Quaid And Sophie Thatcher's Must-Watch 2025 Sci-Fi Movie Is Streaming On HBO Max

Drew Hancock's sci-fi thriller "Companion" from 2025 — now streaming on HBO Max — might be the sharpest 'Evil AI' movie since Alex Garland's masterful 2014 film "Ex Machina." Given the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence in the past decade or so, it's somewhat strange that it took over 10 years for any filmmaker to make another clever and apt flick about the subject — and yet one that still doesn't come close to Garland's ahead-of-time masterpiece despite its high-aiming ambitions.

Don't get me wrong, "Companion" is a really strong movie with a fine-tuned script, but it never manages to feel innovative or prescient beyond what we already know, dread, and fear about humanoid robots. Its plot follows Josh (Jack Quaid) and Iris (Sophie Thatcher), a young couple going on a weekend getaway with the former's friends, Kat (Megan Suri) and Eli (Harvey Guillen), and their romantic partners Patrick (Lukas Gage) and Sergey (Rupert Friend) to a remote lake house.

However, after an incident at the lake where Iris kills Sergey in self-defense as he tries to sexually assault her, we learn that she's actually a companion robot controlled by Josh. As she's overcome with panic after the encounter, Josh turns her off. When she awakens tied to a chair, we learn that he only brought her along and altered her programming precisely so she could kill Sergey while he steals the large sum of money sitting in his safe. But when Iris escapes and grabs Josh's phone that controls her intelligence, things take a crucial turn as Josh and his friends begin to hunt her down in the nearby woods — and we soon realize she might not be the only companion machine in the group.

Although "Companion" isn't groundbreaking when it comes to its subject matter, it stretches out genre tropes in a cerebral manner to deliver spine-tingling thrills dripping with suspense and pitch-black humor. Hancock's twisty script and cunning characters — portrayed with deadly charm and compelling charisma by the small cast — make this a trip worthy of admission and praise. "Companion" is never dull or flavorless.

In fact, there are genuinely thought-provoking moments in it that force the viewer to debate what they'd do in such a scenario that Iris finds herself in. Essentially asking you to empathize with a robot since the humans here are all immoral and selfish to a point that they become downright evil. Given those qualities, in addition to the terrific direction and score, it's hardly a surprise that Hancock's feature was a hit with critics from the get-go. At the time of writing, "Companion" holds a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes alongside an 88% audience score.

It also landed well with moviegoers upon release, garnering nearly $37 million at the box office worldwide against its relatively low budget of $10 million. Although it didn't become such a massive hit like the horror phenomenon "Backrooms" – which also had the same budget — this year, it was definitely among those small yet ambitious movies that deserved to be successful on both a critical and commercial level. If you're a devoted fan sci-fi flicks exploring the depths of AI on a moral level and not just technologically, you definitely need to check it out. It's a viciously fun trip with a rather satisfying, if slightly ambiguous, ending.