Terminator Meets Inception Sci-Fi Movie Is Now Available To Stream For Free

Published Aug 23, 2026, 9:45 AM EDT Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant, CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more. Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor. He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre. To learn more, visit his website at shawnlealos.net. There is a great sci-fi movie that is best described as Terminator meets Inception, and it is currently available to stream for free. In 2006, Rian Johnson enjoyed his breakout when he directed the high school noir movie Brick. That movie stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a high school student who is trying to find out who killed his ex-girlfriend and left her body in a drainage tunnel. Three years later came his con-man movie The Brothers Bloom. That then led to 2012, when Johnson directed his first sci-fi movie. The movie is Looper, and it reunited Johnson with Gordon-Levitt in a twisting time-travel movie where Gordon-Levitt plays a man who kills people that the mob in the future sends back in time to hide the bodies. He then finds that his new target is the future version of himself, played by Bruce Willis, and the two different Joes then battle as the older version tries to kill the person who becomes a villain in the future. The time travel and the idea of sending someone back in time to deal with a problem are very reminiscent of Terminator, while the comparisons to Inception are also slightly prevalent with the dream levels. This is thanks to the memory slips with two variants of the same character in Looper coming into contact with each other. Now, audiences can stream Looper for free. Looper Is Available To Stream On Tubi Looper is available to stream for free 14 years after its initial release. Looper is available to stream right now on Tubi, which is free for everyone to watch with commercials. Not only that, but the movie is also available to watch for Apple TV subscribers, as it was recently added to that streaming service as well. Apple TV subscribers won't see commercials when streaming this movie. In Looper, Gordon-Levitt stars as Joe, a 25-year-old in the year 2044 who works for a Kansas City crime syndicate. He is an assassin known as a "looper" who kills people sent back in time from the year 2074, where tracking devices have made it impossible to dispose of bodies. Furthermore, any loopers who survive to 2074 are sent back in time to be eliminated by their past selves to close the loop. Looper plays with the idea of time, where in some cases, Joe dies, and in another case, old Joe's wife is killed. That is when old Joe decides to kill the "Rainmaker" when he is sent back to close the loop, which would save his wife's life and protect his future. As with all movies about trying to change the past, bad things happen, and young Joe has to do the unthinkable to save the future. Looper Blends Terminator, Inception & More Sci-Fi Movie Elements When breaking down the plot, Looper is almost like a reverse Terminator. Instead of sending something back to kill the hero of the future, this movie has someone coming back in time to kill the villain from the future. Of course, this also bears similarities to other sci-fi stories that ask whether killing a child would save lives in the future. This movie shows there is another way. The film also feels a lot like the story in Inception, as it's a cerebral puzzle-box sci-fi story and plays around with its rules in a similar way. There are dream levels in Inception that are similar to the idea of how going back in time impacts the future in Looper. Of course, Gordon-Levitt appeared in both Looper and Inception, which is another nice comparison. Looper Is A Great Modern Sci-Fi Movie Looper was a big success when released, making $176.5 million on a $30 million budget. The success of this sci-fi movie helped lead to Johnson getting to direct a Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, which was the next film he released. Critics also praised the movie, awarding it a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score, praising its smart sci-fi story and old-school action beats. Audiences also praised it, with an 82% rating. While Johnson departed the sci-fi genre after the polarizing response to his Star Wars movie, he showed with Looper and the unfairly criticized The Last Jedi that he has the chops to work in the genre. He has spent the last seven years working on mystery movies in the Knives Out franchise, but Looper proves that he can do sci-fi with the best of them. Release Date September 28, 2012 Runtime 118 minutes Director Rian Johnson