Directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Kevin Williamson, one of the glossy teen horror movies from the 2000s takes a high school packed with familiar social cliques and slowly turns it into a paranoid alien nightmare. Now it’s coming to free streaming for a new generation of fans to scream along to.
The Faculty still feels like one of the era’s most purely entertaining entries. The movie also knows exactly how to use its cast. Its highly impressive ensemble — backed with names that ended up in all manner of blockbusters within five years of this — all bring something specific to the group dynamic, which helps the story feel more alive than a simple body-snatcher riff. The adults are great too, as they understand the exact level of genre camp the movie needs.
Now that it’s streaming free on Pluto, The Faculty is in a perfect position for another round of rediscovery. The cast of the movie includes Jordana Brewster (The Fast and the Furious, D.E.B.S.) as Delilah Profitt, Clea DuVall (Girl, Interrupted; Zodiac) as Stokely Mitchell, Laura Harris (The Fifth Estate, Severance) as Marybeth Louise Hutchinson, Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down) as Zeke Tyler, Shawn Hatosy (Alpha Dog, The Pitt) as Stan Rosado, Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) as Casey Connor, and Famke Janssen (GoldenEye, X-Men) as Miss Burke.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like? Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky
Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🏜️Paul Atreides
🖖Capt. Kirk
✊Princess Leia
🔦Ellen Ripley
🔥Max Rockatansky
01
How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher? The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.
02
What is your greatest strength in a crisis? The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.
03
What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for? Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.
04
How do you relate to the people around you? Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.
05
You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do? How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.
06
What has your heroism cost you personally? Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.
07
How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in? Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?
08
When everything is on the line, what keeps you going? The answer is the most honest thing about you.
Your Hero Has Been Identified Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
Arrakis · Dune
Paul Atreides
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.
USS Enterprise · Star Trek
Captain Kirk
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.
The Rebellion · Star Wars
Princess Leia
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.
You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.
The Nostromo · Alien
Ellen Ripley
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.
The Wasteland · Mad Max
Max Rockatansky
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.
Was ‘The Faculty’ Successful?
Opening on Christmas Day 1998, the movie debuted at #5 in the U.S. and it made $11,633,495, eventually grossing $40.3 million, which was considered something of a disappointment. That was put down to the decision to release it on Christmas, which, in hindsight, wasn’t the smartest move given people tend to like happy, warm and fuzzy things at that time of year. The film was met with mixed critical reviews originally, but it has since been reevaluated.
Ryan Coogler has named The Faculty as one of the movies that influenced his 2025 film Sinners. Speaking about it, he said he loved how Rodriguez blended the vibes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing into a story set at a 1990s high school, and that he was especially drawn to the film’s unusual mix of genre and setting.
