Finding great sci-fi movies on Netflix must be like finding dinosaur DNA entrapped in amber. They exist, but they just don’t come up very often. Thankfully, January is one of the months when Netflix has provided some A-list material, unlike the latest fantasy movie selections.
This month, Netflix has two sci-fi epics at the top of its list: Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and Dune: Part Two, a sequel that came out almost a year ago. The first part of Dune is also on Netflix through the end of the month, but only Part Two is sticking around into February. You find these films among the best sci-fi movies on Netflix below.
We’ve curated guides to the best sci-fi movies on Amazon Prime Video and the best sci-fi movies on Hulu, too. Need more recommendations? Then check out the best new movies to stream this week, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
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Interstellar2014 -
Dune: Part Two2024
Interstellar (2014)
74%
8.7/10Time is the ultimate commodity in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, even as it’s running out for the human race. In the near future, the Earth is dying, and humanity will follow soon after unless a new home for our people can be found. This gives former NASA astronaut Joseph “Coop” Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) the motivation to go on one last space mission to find a suitable planet for humanity to settle on.
Unfortunately for Coop, time in space isn’t moving at the same rate that time is on Earth. By the time Coop realizes this, decades have passed, and his children have grown up. But Coop can’t come home until the mission is complete, which may mean he’ll never return.
Dune: Part Two (2024)
79%
8.5/10Dune: Part Two picks up shortly after the first movie, as Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), accept refuge among the Fremen after losing everything in an attack on their house. However, Paul is exactly where he wants to be, as the Fremen teach him how to survive and fight back against his enemies.
As the Fremen start to see Paul as their messiah, a young woman named Chani (Zendaya) sees him as a man who denies any ambitions to lead her people into war. Paul and Chani even fall in love with each other, but the demands of Paul’s position may be too much to ignore as the final battle for Arrakis approaches.
Subservience (2024)
56%
5.3/10The premise of Subservience appears to be “what if Megan Fox was M3GAN.” In this case, Fox’s android character is called Alice, and she’s a domestic AI robot designed to make life easier for humans. Nick (Michele Morrone) badly needs the help because his wife, Maggie (Madeline Zima), has a serious health condition, and he can’t raise two kids on his own.
Alice proves to be just what Nick needs, and he’s everything she wants. When Maggie begins to recover, Alice plots to get her out of the way and steal Nick and his family for herself. And she’s more than willing to kill Maggie to achieve that.
Oblivion (2013)
54%
7.0/10Welcome to the end of the world. You may have missed a few things along the way. Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is definitely underinformed in Oblivion. Six decades after an alien invasion, Jack is stuck on Earth repairing drones alongside his partner, Victoria “Vika” Olsen (Andrea Riseborough). But Vika isn’t the woman that Jack keeps seeing in his dreams and half-remembered memories.
That woman turns out to be Julia (Olga Kurylenko), who is no figment of Jack’s imagination. She’s spent a few decades on ice, and the world has radically changed in her absence. Julia may also be the only one who can open Jack’s eyes to the reality of his identity and what he’s really been doing. More importantly, Julia’s return gives Jack a chance to forge his own destiny.
Elysium (2013)
61%
6.6/10Writer and director Neill Blomkamp offers another view of the future in Elysium, and the future sure sucks if you aren’t rich and powerful. All of the wealthy people get to live in the luxurious orbital station known as Elysium, while everyone else toils on an overpopulated Earth. The life of Max Da Costa (Matt Damon), an ex-convict, is shattered by a fatal dose of radiation suffered on Earth. His only hope for a cure is an illegal shuttle ride to Elysium for the medical bays located there.
The price of Max’s trip is that he has to steal some files directly from the brain of his ex-boss, John Carlyle (William Fichtner). By going through with that heist, Max has unwittingly involved himself in a coup attempt on Elysium by Jessica Delacourt (Jodie Foster). To prevent her plans from being exposed, Jessica sends a dangerous killer, Agent M. Kruger (Sharlto Copley), to silence Max long before he can get off Earth.
A Quiet Place Part II (2021)
71%
7.2/10Oppenheimer‘s Cillian Murphy steps into the world of John Krasinski’s sci-fi/horror franchise in A Quiet Place Part II. The prologue briefly brings back Krasinski’s Lee Abbott and establishes Murphy’s Emmett as a friend of the family just in time for the alien invasion that wrecked the planet. After the events of the first movie, Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt) is the last one standing alongside her children, Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe), when the Abbotts run into Emmett again.
Emmett isn’t the only survivor who has figured out how to remain relatively undetected by the aliens. Djimon Hounsou plays the unnamed leader of a group of humans who may offer the Abbotts sanctuary. But is anywhere on Earth truly safe from the invaders? Have the Abbotts unwittingly put their trust in the wrong men?
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
81%
7.9/10Why is Godzilla Minus One so much better than the American MonsterVerse movies? There are two reasons. First, Godzilla has no redeeming qualities in Minus One. He is simply a monstrous force of nature. The second reason is that Minus One has a human story that resonates through Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki).
Shikishima should have died twice, first as a kamikaze pilot in the last days of World War II, and then during his initial encounter with Godzilla. Because he fails to act or give up his life, Shikishima views himself as a coward… and that’s a view shared by others. Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe), a woman who lives with Shikishima, sees him as the man he could be. She gives him something to live for, even if it means he may ultimately have to die.
Upgrade (2018)
67%
7.5/10The R rating for Upgrade doesn’t fully prepare you for just how brutal the fights in this movie can be once Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) becomes a lethal weapon of vengeance. It’s not what he wanted to become, of course. But without STEM (Simon Maiden), Grey would still be trapped inside his own paralyzed body following an attack that claimed the life of his wife.
Billionaire Eron Keen (Harrison Gilbertson) offered STEM to Grey to give him back his life. Yet instead of a dream, it’s becoming a nightmare as the AI STEM takes more and more control over Grey’s body.
Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)
6.3/10It took Zack Snyder two movies to retell the story of The Magnificent Seven in space, which is essentially what Rebel Moon is. Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire introduced Kora (Sofia Boutella), and revealed her personal connection to Motherworld, the heart of the empire that dominates the known universe. It also established that Kora is the title character in the sequel, Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver.
Kora and her remaining allies triumphed in the first part of the film when they survived an Imperium trap. But now the real challenge begins, because the Imperium is marshaling its forces to conquer Veldt, Kora’s adopted home. And she’ll do anything to protect her people, even if it kills her.
Spaceman (2024)
56%
5.8/10Alien’s promo line infamously states that “in space, no one can hear you scream.” Spaceman isn’t a horror film, so there’s not much suspense about whether astronaut Jakub Procházka (Adam Sandler) will survive. But since Jakub is alone in deep space, no one can hear or see just how badly he is being consumed by his loneliness, his inner turmoil, and his failing marriage to Lenka Procházka (Carey Mulligan). No one except Hanuš (Paul Dano), an alien spider that Jakub encounters on his journey.
Hanuš sees and knows everything in Jakub’s mind, often to the detriment of Jakub himself. Reliving painful memories isn’t something Jakub wants, and yet he’s so desperate for any kind of companionship that the prospect of Hanuš leaving him behind is absolutely devastating to him.
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
32%
8.6/10Zack Snyder’s space opera, Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, should be familiar to fans of Star Wars and other sci-fi epics. It takes place in a universe that is ruled by Motherworld and its intergalactic army, the Imperium. Kora (Sofia Boutella), an ex-member of the Imperium, sought to redeem herself by starting a new life out of Motherworld’s reach on a moon called Veldt.
When the Imperium finally arrives on Veldt, Kora can’t run anymore. To defend her adopted homeworld, Kora recruits a former Imperium general, Titus (Djimon Hounsou), as well as Kai (Charlie Hunnam), Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), Tarak (Staz Nair), Nemesis (Doona Bae), and more. But even this assortment of warriors may not be enough to withstand a full assault by the Imperium.
They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
75%
6.7/10Very early on in They Cloned Tyrone, a drug dealer named Fontaine (John Boyega) is brutally murdered in front of one of his clients, Slick Charles (Foxx), and one of his Slick’s girls, Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris). But much to the surprise of Slick Charles and Yo-Yo, Fontaine shows up the next day without any memory of what happened to him.
While investigating the mystery of Fontaine’s apparent resurrection, the trio uncover a clone conspiracy that has very troubling implications for their lives and their future. And if they want to save themselves, Fontaine, Slick Charles, and Yo-Yo need to fight back.
Captain Nova (2021)
5.5/10Captain Nova (Anniek Pheifer) has come from the future to save the past in the Dutch sci-fi movie that shares her name. Unfortunately, for Nova, the trip back in time has also changed her into a 12-year-old child. And young Nova (Kika van de Vijver) soon realizes that her mission is now nearly impossible because of this unforeseen side effect.
With few other viable options, Nova teams up with a kid named Nas (Marouane Meftah) as she attempts to rewrite the future by taking on a greedy corporation. And if Nova fails, her future is destined to unfold in the same way that it did before.
Rim of the World (2019)
5.2/10McG’s Rim of the World takes its inspiration from the kid-centric sci-fi films that Steven Spielberg produced and directed in the 1980s. At the Rim of the World summer camp in California, Alex (Jack Gore) is a boy who is still grieving the loss of his father when he starts bonding with his fellow social rejects, ZhenZhen (Miya Cech), Dariush (Benjamin Flores Jr.), and Gabriel (Alessio Scalzotto).
Much to their collective surprise, Alex and his new friends discover that they are in the midst of an alien invasion. And they may be the only ones left who can deliver the key to victory to NASA … if they can live long enough to escape.
What Happened to Monday (2017)
47%Warriors of Future (2022)
Spiderhead (2022)
54%The Adam Project (2022)
55%
6.7/10Stowaway (2021)
63%
5.6/10Synchronic (2020)
64%
6.2/10The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
80%
7.7/10The Swarm (2020)
5.3/10Army of the Dead (2021)
57%
5.8/10Oxygen (2021)
67%
6.5/10Spectral (2016)
6.3/10The Midnight Sky (2020)
58%
5.6/10Outside the Wire (2021)
45%
5.4/10The Discovery (2017)
54%
6.3/10The Wandering Earth (2019)
57%
6.0/10Mirage (2018)
7.4/10Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)
61%
7.1/10Advantageous (2015)
59%
6.2/10Project Power (2020)
51%
6/10Bird Box (2018)
51%
6.6/10See You Yesterday (2019)
74%
5.2/10Beyond Skyline (2017)
46%
5.3/10Okja (2017)
75%
7.3/10(2019)
64%
6.7/10
