Captive State

Captive State (2019) is Rupert Wyatt's science fiction thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Nine years after an alien invasion, occupiers run the planet and Chicago has become a city of total surveillance.

The aliens stay mostly out of frame, and that is the whole point. Their rule leans on human collaborators, hunter drones and a clamp on all communication. Police officer William Mulligan (John Goodman) tracks an underground cell plotting a bold strike against the regime. At the center sits Gabriel (Ashton Sanders), the younger brother of a vanished resistance hero. Vera Farmiga and Jonathan Majors drift through neighboring threads, and right up to the finale you cannot be sure whose side anyone is on.

Wyatt, who directed Rise of the Planet of the Apes, builds a cold drama about occupation and betrayal rather than a laser-blasting blockbuster, closer to a spy film than to space action. The camera stays down in the grime of a working-class district, where a single explosion costs more than a dozen lines of dialogue. Stream Captive State (2019) online on iFILM.