When you hear Stephenie Meyer, you probably think of the most iconic vampire saga since Bram Stoker himself wrote Dracula. But Twilight isn’t the only thing she wrote, and it doesn’t even hold a candle to her true masterpiece: a science-fiction survival story called The Host.

Written in 2008 and quickly adapted into a movie that released in 2013, The Host is a relatively faithful adaptation directed by Andrew Niccol and stars Golden Globe winner Saoirse Ronan, Jake Abel, Max Irons, William Hurt, and more. While it did flop back in 2013 and only has a 10% Rotten Tomatoes score, the film and book both have a cult following that keeps the TikTok edits on For You Pages even 13 years after the film’s release.

If you’re open-minded and looking for a unique, standalone sci-fi film with a mesmerizing soundtrack, you can stream The Host for free on a variety of platforms. Read on to find out which.

The Host

Release Date

March 29, 2013

Runtime

125minutes

Director

Andrew Niccol

Writers

Stephenie Meyer, Andrew Niccol

Where can I watch The Host (2013) for free?

Several streaming options

The Host is a standalone sci-fi romance that’s been out for 13 years. While Stephenie Meyer was in talks early on to write more books, she ended up opting to keep it a single novel — so don’t worry, there’s no cliffhanger or canceled sequel to worry about.

Here are the streaming services where you can watch it for free:

What is The Host about?

Human survivors in a “post-apocalyptic” alien utopia

The world is finally at peace — although, it wasn’t humans that did it. Nor is humanity even the one enjoying a world without war, sickness, or natural disasters. Years ago, parasitic aliens took over the Earth and “fixed” the world to rule over and improve everything humans once had, including their bodies and lives.

As you’d expect, humanity didn’t like that very much.

One particular human, Melanie, has been trying to keep her little brother safe in this new world for years. But when her body and mind are taken hostage by one of the very parasites she swore she’d destroy, she’s completely helpless. But Wanderer is not like the other parasites, and as she realizes that Melanie is unlike any of the other hosts she’s had in her thousand years of life, the two must reluctantly work together to find the family that they both care so deeply for. Faced with enemies both human and alien as well as the friction between their shared mind, Wanderer learns exactly what it means to be human — and that pain isn’t something that you necessarily always want to be without.

Wildly underrated and unique, The Host is a sci-fi romance and survival story unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It paints a refreshing but disturbingly clean dystopia and walks the line between hope, despair, and how desperately holding on to what matters most in the end is something that may — or may not — transcend species.