Chris Pratt's Must-See $300 Million Sci-Fi Thriller Is Officially Leaving Netflix Next Week

Published Aug 27, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT

A decade later after its 2016 release, Passengers has ended up largely defined by exactly that kind of conversation. Right from the start, critics and audiences alike were split on their reactions to the film's basic premise. Some watch it and see the intended drama, about crew members on a colony ship who are awakened 90 years ahead of schedule. Others, like Rebecca Hawkes writing for the Telegraph, describe Passengers as "a creepy ode to manipulation." One thing's for sure, a lot of people saw this movie. Passengers made over $300 million at the box office on a budget of about half that, likely leading to lots of heated debates on drives home afterward.

If you're interested in making up your own mind on the subject, Passengers is still on Netflix, but only until Aug. 31.

Wish you were here; wish anyone was here

Passengers is set aboard the Avalon, a corporate-owned starship carrying 5,000 colonists and 258 crew members on a 120-year journey to the planet Homestead II. All the colonists are kept in suspended animation, while automated systems maintain the Avalon. The plan is to only awaken any of the humans once the ship is on final approach to its destination.

That plan gets scuttled after 30 years when the ship's autopilot takes it through an asteroid belt, and its shields aren't able to fully stave off a major collision. That causes an electrical short, which awakens mechanical engineer Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) 90 years ahead of schedule.

Jim quickly discovers he's alone aboard the ship, aside from several tutorial AIs and an android bartender (Michael Sheen). Messages to Earth have a 19-year travel time and he can't figure out how to operate his hibernation pod. With potentially decades in isolation ahead of him, Jim eventually yields to temptation and wakes up another colonist named Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) just to have another human to talk to.

To be fair to Passengers, this isn't treated like it's a quirky meet-cute. Aurora is as dismayed as one might expect under the circumstances. Director Morten Tyldum shoots Passengers like a sci-fi drama that's maybe one aggressive edit away from being an outright horror scenario.

In fact, Passengers may actually have multiple horror movies hidden in its runtime. For Jim, he's initially marooned on a vast ship, effectively alone, and blockaded in several different directions by AI-powered "helpers" that end up being no help at all. In 2026, the part of Passengers that's aged the best might be the sheer amount of time that Jim spends wrestling with automated customer service.

For Aurora, the entire reason she came on the Avalon at all was to write stories about being a first-wave colonist on Homestead II, but Jim’s decision to wake her up means she won’t live to see the planet. The biggest decision she’s ever made has been taken out of her hands by a crazed stranger. Scary stuff.

Image: Sony Pictures Entertainment

On its own merits, much of Passengers is driven by its set design and visuals. It's careful to portray space as both beautiful and dangerous, and the interior of the Avalon is the dystopian shopping mall of the near future. This is a blend of Star Trek techno-optimism with the strange sterile cleanliness of a corporate-run hospital, which all feels designed by committee in a way that anticipates the sterility of modern genAI. Pratt also has to carry much of the movie’s first hour on his back, and he just about pulls it off.

If there's one thing that Passengers is remembered for, however, it's how polarizing a reaction it got from the filmgoing public. If you're looking for something to watch this weekend, check it out and see which camp you fall into: is it a sci-fi drama with an uncomfortable premise, or the tragic story of Aurora Lane?

Passengers is streaming on Netflix until Aug. 31.