The best sci-fi movies on Netflix
Some of these sci-fi movies are stranger than fiction; some are surprisingly relevant to modern times.
Science fiction is a remarkably flexible and all-encompassing field, allowing writers, filmmakers, and actors to showcase their creativity without the constraints of other genres. All sci-fi movies can contain elements of action, drama, romance, adventure, and mystery (the best movies have a mix of subgenres) without blurring the lines; the same cannot always be said the other way around. At its heart, science fiction is a genre with something for everyone.
With this in mind, we've browsed through the sci-fi movies currently available on Netflix to give you a selection to suit every taste. If you're looking for something to watch as a family, something great to share with friends, or something unusual you've never heard of before, we've got you covered.
For more recommendations, check out our lists of the best movies on Netflix, the best sci-fi shows on the platform, and the best sci-fi movies on Hulu or Prime Video.
Editor's note: This article was updated in February 2023 to include Project Power.
The Adam Project (2022)
Runtime: 1 hour 46 minutes | Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Catherine Keener, Jennifer Garner, Zoe Saldana, Walker Scobell
If you're looking for a 1980s Amblin adventure movie If you're looking for an interesting return, then Shawn Levy's Netflix original sci-fi film, The Adam Project, is for you. The film follows a young boy (Nova Vox Cobell) who discovers his future self (Ryan Reynolds) is an astronaut who crash-lands on Earth. If you're expecting typical saucy performances from Reynolds, you'll be surprised to learn that Scobell actually gets the best parts of the film. Reynolds comes across as tougher and more mature, and the film itself does a great job of balancing humor with heart. Watch out for touching performances from Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner as Adam's parents, but also watch out for Catherine Keener's picturesque villain. — Liam Gaughan
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Project Power (2020)
Runtime: 1 hour 53 | Directors: Henry Just, Ariel Shulman
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dominic Faye Shibak, Rodrigo Santoro superhuman abilities. Built on a cleverly provocative premise, featuring exciting Philosophical in its implications, Project Power offers star actors an exciting playground to explore. Leading Jamie Foxx (Spider-Man: No Return) with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception) and Dominic Fishback (The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray), Project Power features a highly complex Based on the stunts and action sequences of the film, it laid the groundwork for a CGI-laden film with concrete aspects and an alluring mystery. – Yael Tygiel
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Runtime: 1 hour 36 minutes | Director: Mark Russo
Awake (2021)
Cast: Gina Rodriguez, Ariana Greenblatt, Lucius Hoyo Smith, Shamir Anderson, Jennifer Jason Lee's daughter may be the cure for global insomnia. Director Mark Raso, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joseph Raso, takes care to describe the idiosyncrasies of the post-apocalyptic world he portrays, navigating the aftermath of a mysterious disaster and bringing With fatal consequences. Starring Shamir Anderson (Wynonna Earp) and Jennifer Jason Leigh (Hunters), Awakening reveals Rodriguez's balance of strength and vulnerability as a mother tasked with protecting the keys to potential redemption Flexible skills. – Yael Tygiel
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Runtime: 1 hour 42 minutes | Director: Charlie McDowell
Cast: Robert Redford, Jason Segel, Rooney Mara, Jesse Plemons, Riley Keough
The Discovery (2017)
The Discovery is a riveting sci-fi romance directed by Charlie McDowell, who co-wrote the riveting screenplay with Justin Lader. Beginning with a heartbreaking start with Dr. Thomas Harbor's (Robert Redford) scientific revelations about the existence of an afterlife that led to a dramatic spike in suicides, The Discovery tends to discuss the scientific process and takes a detour to focus on how his discoveries affect the The doctor's son (Jason Segel) tries to help a young woman, Ella (Rooney Mara), with her own problems with her own concept of death. With a talented cast, The Discovery presents delivers truly inquisitive and thought-provoking ideas, leaving viewers hungry for more answers and discoveries. – Yael Tygiel
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Runtime: 1 hour 37 minutes | Director: Federico D'Alessandro
Cast: Maika Monroe, Ed Skrein, Gary Oldman
Tau (2018)
Directed by Federico D'Alessandro (Spider-Man: Homeless), Tau is a stylish film based on a compelling horror concept. The director's previous film experience in Hollywood blockbuster art departments gave him a unique vision , and is perfectly represented in Tau. Starring Maika Monroe as Julia, a woman who finds herself imprisoned by a sadistic artificial intelligence Tau's Gary Oldman also sees Ed Skrein (Deadpool) as Julia's captive, continuing his impressive run of villains. Written by veteran sci-fi TV writer Noga Landau (see ), Tau offers a fun ride with predictable sci-fi themes and horror elements, but a brilliant cast that sets it apart. – Yael Tygiel
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Runtime: 1 hour 52 minutes | Director: Boots Riley
Cast: LaKeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler, Omari Hardwick
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Combining surrealism with sci-fi, fantasy and dark comedy, Sorry to Bother You is a unique and bold film from the visionary Boots Riley. The film follows Cash (LaKeith Stanfield), a struggling young artist who takes a job as a telemarketer to make ends meet. After adopting a "white voice" on the phone, he begins to find success at work; however, he soon learns that the company's motives are darker than he first imagined, and is torn between his ethics and his greed. Bold and sharp satire, Sorry to Bother You delivers a refreshing story unlike anything you've seen before. – Taylor Gates
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Runtime: 1 hour 44 minutes | Director: Daniel Espinosa
Cast: Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris
Morbius (2022)
Surely you've seen the memes, but now, you can watch the movie that inspired them all from the comfort of your couch . Based on the Marvel Comics character, Morbius stars in the titular role of Jared Leto - and what a character. The movie focuses on a biochemist trying to cure him of a rare blood disorder. However, he is instead infected with a type of vampire and must feed on the artificial blood he created to satisfy his cravings. As his desire for the real thing grows stronger, Morbius must also try to escape the FBI agents who are hunting him. Despite its critical reception and box office failure, Möbius' cultural impact on Summer 2022 is undeniable. Worth watching to see what all the talk is about. – Taylor Gates
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Runtime: 1 hour 53 minutes | Director: Grant Sputore
Cast: Hilary Swank, Rose Byrne, Clara Rugaard
I Am Mother (2019)
Danish actress Clara Rugaard stars in this riveting sci-fi film, I Am Mother , which tells the story of a lonely girl who is raised by a robot she calls her mother. Voiced by the multifaceted Rose Byrne (Physics), Mother has Convince her wards to believe they are the only survivors of a vicious plague. But when the stranger played by Oscar winner Hilary Swank arrives, everything the mother says is called into question. Michael Lloyd Green's screenplay, I Am Mother, based on a story by director Grant Sputore, makes a provocative philosophical point that requires Investigate in , so these talented actresses can discuss while kicking ass. – Yael Tygiel
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Runtime: 2 hours 6 minutes | Director: Frank Darabont
Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden
The Mist (2006)
Based on Stephen King's novel, The Mist is the scariest thing ever One of those sci-fi/horror movies. The plot revolves around a group of people trapped in a supermarket as they try to evade bloodthirsty monsters lurking outside. As scary as these creatures are, the real fear comes from humans and what people do in the most stressful situations. The movie is almost like a dark, tense social experiment. Marcia Gay Harden gives a particularly memorable performance as the religiously fanatic Mrs. Carmody. – Taylor Gates
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Runtime: 1 Hours 46 minutes | Director: Joseph Kosinski^ Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, Jurnee Smollett^ Spider-Man is a puzzling Psychedelic sci-fi film that questions morality, humanity, and freedom as it takes place in a terrifying near future where convicted felons get a chance to get their sentences shortened by becoming human lab rats in untested medical experiments. Starring Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Love and Thunder), Myers Steller (Top Gun: Maverick) and Junice Molett (Lovecraft Country), this enhanced all-star cast The enigmatic premise and captivating story of Deadpool and Zombieland authors Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, based on a short story by George Saunders. Hemsworth's performance is a pleasant departure from his more recently recognized roles, only underlining the film's strengths. – Yael Tygiel
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Spiderhead (2022)
Runtime: 2 hours 3 minutes | Director: Tommy Wirkola
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Willem Dafoe, Cassie Clare, Glenn Close
Impressive any time an actor can play identical twins , but seven different siblings? In Netflix's sci-fi thriller What Happened on Monday, Noomi Rapace plays seven sisters, each named after a day of the week. Rapace makes every character unique. filming Set in a dystopian society dealing with overpopulation. The one-child policy is strictly enforced by the government's Children's Allocation Bureau. After their older sister mysteriously disappeared on Monday, the remaining six sisters set out to find their missing sibling. Dead Snow filmmaker Tommy Wirkola adds the perfect camp to the high-concept premise. -Liam Gaughan
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What Happened to Monday (2017)
Runtime: 2 hours 2 minutes | Director: George Clooney
Cast: George Clooney, Felicity Jones, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Tiffany Boone, Demián Bichir, Kyle Chandler and Caooilinn Springall
George Clooney The director's work so far may have been mixed, but "Midnight Sky" is his first foray into the sci-fi genre as a filmmaker. This is one of his strongest films to date. Clooney notably displays a solitary sensibility in his starring performance as the scientist Augustine Lovehouse, who must remain on Earth while other humans scour the universe for habitable planets. Augustine's only companion is the young girl Iris (Caoilinn Springall), whom he raises as his daughter. A beautiful score by Alexander Desplat highlights this touching relationship. The $100 visual design earned Midnight Sky an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects. — Liam Gowan
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The Midnight Sky (2020)
Runtime: 2 hours 25 minutes | Director: Adam McKay
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill, Rob Morgan, Mark Rylance, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Timothée Chalamet, Tyler Perry^ Adam McKay's darkly humorous satire on the climate change crisis divides audiences There are two schools of thought; while some appreciate McKay's fierce writing, others find it vague and insulting. Either way, it's worth a watch just to get involved in the debate about one of the most contentious Best Picture nominees of all time. It also has a very talented cast who have the opportunity to vary from the type of performances they usually deliver. Has Leonardo DiCaprio ever played a nerd? Has Meryl Streep played a dictator? Do we ever think of Timothee Chalamet as a philosophical drug addict? — Liam Gaughan
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Runtime: 1 hour 42 minutes | Director: Julius Onah
Don’t Look Up (2021)
Cast: Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, Aksel Hennie, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O'Dowd, John Ortiz, David Oyelowo, Zhang Ziyi International Space Station into Parallel Space Station dimension while trying to solve the planet's energy crisis. As the staff at Cloverfield Station prepare to test the Shepard particle accelerator, conspiracy theorists back on Earth spin stories about how the accelerator will rip open portals in the fabric of time and unleash horrors from parallel universes. After two years of unsuccessful testing, the crew was finally able to keep the beam steady, however, as it became apparent that the conspiracy theory was not groundless, confusion ensued. When the crew tries to repair Cloverfield Station after a power surge, they discover a woman named Mina Jansen (Elizabeth Debicki) inside the station walls, welded to wires and screaming in pain. It's a perfect example of how this movie sits at the intersection of science fiction and horror, with its science-tech nonsense and nightmare-inducing monsters and body horror.
While "The Cloverfield Paradox" failed to live up to the expectations set by its predecessors and proved to be a flop, it is worth a watch for its stellar cast. Interpersonal relationships and conflict among the cast members - Ernst Schmidt (Daniel Brühl), Ava Hamilton (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), Jason Keel (David David Oyelowo), Monk Acosta (John Ortiz), Gordon Mundy (Chris O'Dowd), Sasha Volkov (Aksel Hennie) and Ling Tam (Zhang Ziyi) - make up for the uneven storytelling. It's an ambitious movie that gets lost in its own parallel universe, but for Mbatha-Raw, Oyelowo, and the little romance between Ernst Schmidt and Lin Tan ,This is worth it. – Maggie Lovitt
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Runtime: 2 hours 4 minutes | Director: Susanne Bier
The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)
Cast: Sandra Bullock, John Malkovich, Lil Rel Howery, Trevante Rhodes, BD Wong, Jacki Weaver
Be careful. Based on the novel of the same name by Josh Malerman, the sci-fi thriller Bird Box tells the chilling story of Malorie Hayes (Sandra Bullock), mother of two young children, when mysterious entities take over and drive the She seeks refuge when anyone looks at it. They see their worst fears and kill themselves. To protect her children and navigate this new life, she joins with other survivors to find refuge and answers. Clutching on to her blindfold and any semblance of hope, Malorie risks everything across the treacherous waters in order to escape this nightmare alive. — Emily Bernard
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Runtime: 2 hours 16 Minutes | Director: Sung-hee Jo
Cast: Song Joong-ki, Kim Tae-ri, Jin Sun-kyu
Bird Box (2018)
When it comes to sci-fi adventures, it's hard to think of a movie that's funnier than a glorious experience and that's Space Sweeper. It focuses on the crew of a spaceship as they scavenge through space for debris and end up embroiled in an interstellar feud like none they've ever seen. It's best to go in with as little knowledge as possible, because the heights this story reaches are best seen seeing it for the first time. All the characters and actors are excellent and they find humor and drama in every moment. The space battles are endless and there's a genuine sense of excitement in every frame, making this one of the most enjoyable sci-fi movies in recent memory. It's everything you'd want from the genre, and then some, proving to be one of the most enduringly thrilling films you'll ever be lucky enough to experience first-hand. — Chase Hutchinson
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Runtime: 1 hour, 36 minutes | Director: Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead
Cast: Anthony Mackie, Jamie Dornan, Ally Ioannides
Space Sweepers (2021)
The Endless and Spring filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead return with Synchronic for one of cinema's weirdest, scariest movie world. Synchronic is a clever connection to their previous films, furthering the wonder and horror that stems from a mysterious force that manipulates the world in ways that fluctuate over time. In Synchronic, those ripples take the form of a designer drug that leaves an inexplicable trail of death and injury, a pattern that quickly catches the attention of a pair of BFF paramedics (Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan). Synchronic builds a riveting puzzle with compelling, disturbing imagery and solves it every step of the way through surprising, sometimes shocking, and always dangerous revelations. If you haven't seen Benson and Moorhead's previous work (although you should), Synchrony works well as a stand-alone film, but I have to admit that with every new Huge genre builders are increasingly interested in the worlds they're building, and their attention to detail is evident in the design of each project. — Haleigh Foutch
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Runtime: 1 hour 41 minutes | Director: Alexandre Aja
Cast: Mélanie Laurent, Mathieu Amalric, Malik Zidi A futuristic medical pod with no memory of who she is, how she got there or how she left. She was running out of oxygen. This compact thriller from Crawl filmmaker Alexandre Aja manages to keep building up the tension with each new exposure, while simultaneously expanding the world and the stakes in Laurent's fight to survive, even while being overwhelmed. Trapped in the small space of her room. These reveals are often not as surprising as the film thinks they are, but they do make for a twisty survival film that is well-crafted enough to pull off a wild ride and fully embraces sci-fi storytelling so that it's almost entirely set in the A movie in a little box feels like a bigger adventure. — Haleigh Foutch
Synchronic (2019)
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Runtime: 2 hours | Director: Bong Joon-ho
Cast: Ahn Seo-hyun, Tilda Swinton, Steven Yeun, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Giancarlo Esposito, Lily Collins
Most notable on Netflix but bypasses traditional theatrical release One of his favorite films is Okja, Bong Joon-ho's sequel to 2013's Snowpiercer. It's a complete overturn of the modern agricultural industry and the intertwined science of genetic engineering. The story pushes science to extremes, sometimes absurdly, and makes no attempt to portray beneficial real-world achievements in equal measure. The moral of the story, however, cannot be ignored: whoever plays God quickly loses his humanity.
Oxygen (2021)
Okja follows the protagonist, a genetically engineered super animal raised naturally/organically in Korea by caretaker Mija. Since the Okja is the best farmed animal, the multinational conglomerate Mirando Corporation seeks to repossess their property and conduct an exhaustive study of it in order to recoup their investment and improve their stock, both agriculturally and financially. Mija does everything she can to bring her friend home, even though animal rights activists, hired corporate forces and even the media will complicate matters. It's a tough time at times, especially for those on the front lines of the animal welfare fight, but it Also a lesson worth repeating. — Dave Trumbore
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Runtime: 1 hour 46 minutes | Director: Liam O'Donnell
Cast: Frank Grillo, Jonny Weston, Bojana Novakovi Chi, Iko Uwais, Yajan Rousian, Antonio Fargas, Lindsay Morgan, Betty Gabriel^ Beyond Skyline is a special kind of WTF. Of all the films that spawned franchises, I would never have imagined the success of the much-mocked 2010 sci-fi flick "Skylines," let alone a follow-up that would be such a hilarious, world-traveling, action-packed adventure. Beyond Skyline is a proudly cheesy B-movie about aliens ripping their brains out of their skulls, starring Frank Grillo as a cop who marries his son ( Jonny Weston (Jonny Weston) argues when an alien attack sends them running for their lives. Once the aliens make contact, the film jumps between scenes and characters at breakneck speed, packaging the science fiction of the paperback series into a feature film, from underground tunnels to the nuclear wasteland of Los Angeles to aliens ship, all the way to Laos, where Mark works with the rebels to fight the alien threat. You let Frank Grillo play the hero With a baby in one hand and a space gun in the other, Antonio Fargas plays a Vietnam vet who calls everyone a "bitch," and Iko Uwais and Yaya Ruhain beat giant aliens and even a monstrosity worthy of the name fighting. Beyond Skyline isn't for everyone, but if you like banana B-movies, then writer-director Liam O'Donnell's debut feature hits the spot. – Haleigh Foutch
Okja (2017)
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Beyond Skyline (2017)
