A good sci-fi thriller doesn’t actually need every superhero ever created, a $200 million budget, or Christopher Nolan blowing up an actual airplane while Robert Pattinsontalks backwards to make everyone’s heads hurt. Actually, it can be as simple as a dinner party, a comet, a group of friends, and that slow realization that, yes, everything is going wrong outside, so maybe you should just stay indoors.
Coherence, the forgotten sci-fi thriller from 2014, has suddenly jumped 87 places on the U.S. streaming charts, and it’s also been inside the top 10 chart on JustWatch. It’s one of those movies you’ve never heard of, but you wish you had. Four couples gather for dinner the night a mysterious and powerful comet passes overhead. As unexplained events begin to bend reality in frightening ways, the couples realize that visitors from a strange house down the road may be trying to prevent them from surviving the night. As the night unfolds, people experience terrifying revelations about themselves, forcing each one to question their own reality. Relationships strain under the pressure and, for at least one woman, the prospect of continuing on in the house becomes even more unbearable than whatever unknown fate lies down the road.
James Ward Byrkit directed the movie on a tiny budget, with Emily Baldoni (Five Feet Apart) leading the cast as Em alongside Maury Sterling (Homeland) as Kevin, Nicholas Brendon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Mike, Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers) as Lee, Elizabeth Gracen (Highlander: The Series) as Beth, Hugo Armstrong (Fear the Walking Dead) as Hugh, Alex Manugian as Amir, and Lauren Maher (Pirates of the Caribbean) as Laurie.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars
Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.
💊The Matrix
🔥Mad Max
🌧️Blade Runner
🏜️Dune
🚀Star Wars
01
You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.
02
In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.
03
What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you’re honest about what you’re actually afraid of.
04
How do you deal with authority you don’t trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
05
Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.
06
Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.
07
Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.
08
What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
Your Fate Has Been Calculated You’d Survive In…
Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.
The Resistance, Zion
The Matrix
You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.
You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.
The Wasteland
Mad Max
The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.
You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.
Los Angeles, 2049
Blade Runner
You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.
You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.
Arrakis
Dune
Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.
Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.
A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star Wars
The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.
How Good Is ‘Coherence’?
The cast of Coherence (2013) gather on a couch in a house.Image via Oscilloscope Laboratories
The movie currently holds 89% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s just 89 minutes too which, as we often say, is the perfect length of time for a movie plus you’ll spend about the same time after trying to work out exactly what you just watched. Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com praised the movie’s ability to overcome its tiny budget, calling it “proof that inventive filmmakers can do a lot with a little”, while the acclaimed critic Mark Kermode in The Observer called it: “impressively stripped-down, experimental sci-fi.“
Coherence is streaming now on Prime Video, Peacock and several free services in the United States.
