Summary

• Netflix remains a top spot for sci-fi fans, offering a mix of classics and original content.
• Major actors star in Netflix's sci-fi movies, adding depth to the genre with diverse stories.
• Sci-fi on Netflix is not just entertaining but also thought-provoking, exploring complex themes.

Over the years, Netflix expanded into a variety of genres with original content, but they never let go of being a go-to place for some of the best movies Hollywood has to offer - and that includes some of the best sci-fi movies on Netflix. As the streaming wars continue and services like Disney+ and Apple TV+ continue to gain traction, Netflix is becoming less of the dominant go-to content hub that it used to be. Regardless, Netflix's library remains jam-packed with movies and TV shows, both theatrical/network releases and original content. One genre Netflix seems to consistently excel in is science fiction.

Netflix broke out as a leader in the genre thanks to the original sci-fi series Stranger Things and that opened the floodgates to countless movies and streaming series for fans to enjoy. Much of its library consists of titles released in the past couple of decades, but there are a few classics on the streaming service for people who love all flavors of sci-fi. From big-budget action movies to more cerebral films about the dangers of technology, there is something on the service for everyone. For anyone looking for the best in sci-fi movies, Netflix remains a one-stop shop.

28 Spiderhead (2022)

Inmates Participate In A Drug Trial That Controls Emotions

Netflix released the original sci-fi movie Spiderhead in 2022, and it featured one of the biggest actors in the world today. Chris Hemsworth stars as a scientist who offers prisoners a chance to reduce their sentence time if they undergo experiments involving drug trials. These involve "love drugs" and other drugs that induce fear and psychological pain.

The protagonist in the movie is Jeff (Miles Teller), a man who feels intense inner turmoil over killing his friend in a drinking and driving accident. However, he soon finds the scientist conducting the experiments is corrupt and unconcerned with the safety of the prisoners. The movie takes on some interesting sci-fi ideas and has a great cast, even if critics remarked the story didn't hold up to the themes.

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27 65 (2023)

A Pilot From Another World Crashlands On Earth When It Was Ruled By Dinosaurs

65 stars Adam Driver as a man piloting a spacecraft that crash-lands on an alien planet where monsters attack. However, what makes this movie different is that the alien planet is Earth and this took place 65 million years ago and the monsters are dinosaurs. He and a young girl are the only survivors, and they have to find a way off the planet before an asteroid hits the Earth, ending the dinosaur age.

While 65 was a box office bomb and received lackluster reviews, it is also fun to see dinosaurs return to the screen to wreak havoc while also combining them with the fun sci-fi premise.

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26 Advantageous (2015)

A Woman Undergoes A Procedure To Change Her Body

Advantageous takes place in the near future where living conditions are tough, and when comsetics saleswoman Gwen (Jacqueline Kim) loses her job before she can get her daughter into an elite school, she agrees to undergo a medical procedure that will transfer her consciousness into a younger, racially ambiguous body to keep her job. However, the transfer does not go as expected. The sci-fi movie on Netflix delivered a thought-provoking approach in how it dealt with gender roles and family dynamics in a wholly unique setup.

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25 Mute (2018)

A Mute Man Investigates A Noir Mystery In The Future

After making his name with theatrical sci-fi releases Moon, Source Code, and Warcraft, Duncan Jones signed on to make the Netflix-exclusive movie Mute. The film had a great cast, with comedy star Paul Rudd and Alexander Skarsgard in the lead roles. Skarsgard plays Leo, a man who became mute after an accident and when his mother refused to allow him to have surgery to help him.

As an adult, he works as a bartender and falls in love with a waitress who works with him, and this leads to him crossing an organized crime organization. The Netflix sci-fi movie has amazing visuals and solid performances from the cast, but it was unfavorably compared to another great Earth-based sci-fi movie, Blade Runner 2049.

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24 The Midnight Sky (2020)

A Man Attempts To Warn A Spaceship In The Cosmos Not To Return To Earth

George Clooney went to Netflix to direct the sci-fi movie The Midnight Sky. Based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lili Brooks-Dalton, the movie takes place in a future where a global catastrophe is starting at the same time that an interplanetary spacecraft is on its way back to the planet.

Clooney also stars in the movie as an academic who lives in the Arctic Circle and remains behind when others leave for safety to warn the spacecraft not to come back to Earth. The sci-fi movie on Netflix is an exploration of loneliness and regret, and George Clooney is on top form, both behind and in front of the camera.

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23 Synchronic (2020)

A New Drug Causes Users To Time Travel

Synchronic had a tough time when it was released, as it hit theaters during the pandemic and failed to make a dent in the limited theaters that remained open. Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead released the critically acclaimed movies Resolution and The Endless before this and kept their focus on the sci-fi genre once again.

Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan star as two paramedics during a time when a new designer drug has started ruining people's lives. It also has a side effect of time travel, and one of the men uses it to find a missing person. The storyline is smart and creative and delivers something fresh to the time-travel subgenre of sci-fi.

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22 Ready Player One

A Hero Explores A Pop Culture-Filled Virtual Reality World

Steven Spielberg is a director who has defined the sci-fi movie genre with some of his entries. While Ready Player One is perhaps not the best of his sci-fi movies, it is still fun to see the master filmmaker playing in the CGI world of modern blockbusters. Ready Player One is based on the novel by Ernest Cline and takes place in a future in which society escapes into a virtual reality world called The Oasis.

The movie is a sci-fi riff on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as it follows a young hero on his quest to find an Easter egg left behind by the eccentric creator of the Oasis. The world is also populated by nostalgic and beloved pop-culture items with the characters racing in the DeLorean from Back to the Future and visiting the Overlook Hotel from The Shining.

The original novel contained many references to Spielberg movies which the filmmaker largely removed from the movie.

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21 Project Power (2020)

People Achieve Temporary Superpowers From A New Drug

There are a lot of superhero movies in the world today, and one of the best sci-fi movies on Netflix is an original not based on any comic book. Project Power stars Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a movie about a world where a pill exists that can give someone superpowers for five minutes.

These pills are highly illegal and Foxx plays one of the first test subjects who can shoot heat waves while Gordon-Levitt is a detective with bulletproof skin. The movie is a fun action thriller that makes good use of the temporary powers of the characters, winning two honors from the Visual Effect Society Awards.

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20 Pacific Rim (2013)

Giant Robots Battle Giant Monsters For The Fate Of The World

Guillermo del Toro is an Oscar-winning filmmaker who has shown a true talent for leaping between genres effortlessly. With Pacific Rim, he entered the big and bold world of blockbusters and embraced the chaos wholeheartedly with this story of humanity's last stand against an invading army of kaiju by battling them with giant robots. While the story and its characters are not as deep as is expected in other del Toro movies, the big action set pieces are wonderfully over-the-top and make it a thrilling action ride.

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19 Level 16 (2018)

Level 16 is a Canadian sci-fi movie on Netflix and shares a similarity with the critically acclaimed movie Never Let Me Go. In both stories, a group of kids is kept in a secluded school of sorts and there is something wrong going on behind the scenes of the institution.

In Level 16, a group of girls live in the school and are educated on how to be perfect young women for families that will one day adopt them. However, there the girls begin to doubt that the adoptions ever happened and when they set out to find the truth, they discover the horrors within the school.

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18 Elysium (2013)

A Lower-Class Man Seeks A Life-Saving Medical Procedure On The Elite Space Station

Neill Blomkamp impressed the film world with his debut movie District 9, and he followed that up with a very ambitious sci-fi movie called Elysium. This movie showed a ravaged, dying Earth where the downtrodden work hard to keep it running while the rich and wealthy have moved onto a space station called Elysium.

Matt Damon stars as a man on Earth who wants more than anything to get onto Elysium and finds a way thanks to a hacker named Spider. Jodie Foster stars as the security on Elysium. The movie had a nice box office total, but reviews were down with critics comparing it to District 9. Blomkamp still holds out hopes for an Elysium sequel.

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17 They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

A Trio Of Unlikely Allies Investigate A Conspiracy

It is always interesting to see sci-fi movies that are able to blend in comedic elements while still maintaining the genre story. They Cloned Tyrone succeeds in balancing a lot of different flavors, mixing pulpy mystery with blaxploitation along with some wacky characters and a lot of laughs.

The movie follows an unexpected trio of allies who come together to uncover a mystery that hints at a secret cloning operation under their noses. John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx make for a great and hilarious team in the They Cloned Tyrone cast, while the Netflix sci-fi movie embraces the fun of its genre-bending yet still manages to tell a captivating story.

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16 The Suicide Squad (2021)

A Team Of Supervillains Are Sent On A Deadly Mission

While Suicide Squad was a disappointing attempt to bring the DC's supervillain team to the big screen, the second attempt made for one of the best DCEU movies. Not only that, but The Suicide Squad helped lead to James Gunn taking over the DCU and steering things in an exciting new direction. The movie follows a band of super-convicts who are forced on a dangerous mission by Amanda Waller.

The movie leans into the sci-fi elements a lot more than the first movie which was more of a dark fantasy comic book movie. When Starro is revealed in the third act to be the main threat, the movie really becomes a full-blown sci-fi adventure. It is also a refreshingly R-rated ride with Gunn's irreverent humor allowing room for some surprisingly touching moments. Watch on Netflix

15 The Adam Project (2022)

A Soldier From The Future Goes Into The Past And Seeks Help From His Younger Self

The Adam Project brought Ryan Reynolds back to Netflix for this original sci-fi movie about a man from a dystopian future who travels back in time to save his wife, only to crash-land in 2022. It is here that Adam meets his younger self and the two of them have to work together by traveling back to their dead father to prevent the terrible future from happening.

As with most time travel movies, things here get a little strange at times, but Reynolds and young actor Walker Scobell have great chemistry and the film was a hit with critics and audiences. Like many of Reynolds' movies, The Adam Project attempts to strike a chord of nostalgia with this movie going for a cross between Back to the Future and Big.

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14 I Am Mother (2019)

A Young Girl Is Raised By A Robot

The Netflix original film I Am Mother is one of the streaming service's more successful attempts at original science fiction. The film follows a young girl named Daughter who is raised by a robot named Mother in an underground, post-apocalyptic world. However, when a survivor (Hilary Swank) finds them, the relationship between the human child and the robot mother is threatened. The film is definitely ambitious and aims high, which has sunk sci-fi films in the past. However, the end result is smart, thrilling, and satisfying, and should be high on any sci-fi fan's list.

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13 Dredd (2012)

A Futuristic Lawman Uses His Brutal Tactics In Taking Down A Drug Lord

The first attempt to bring Judge Dredd to the big screen was in the 1990s with the Razzie-nominated Sylvester Stallone effort. However, the 2012 version received better reception from critics and fans of the property. Karl Urban took on the role of the judge from the dystopian future, sent out to serve justice in very violent ways.

The movie sees Dredd and his new partner (Olivia Thirlby) sent to bring order to a 200-story high-rise block of apartments and bring down the drug kingpin (Lena Headey) ruling over the building. While it ended up with a disappointing box office take, it has since become a cult classic.

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12 Don't Look Up (2021)

Two Scientists Attempt To Warn The World About An Impending Disaster

In 2021, Adam McKay directed the political satire Don't Look Up and Netflix released it during awards season, hoping for the best. What resulted was a lot of awards nominations, including four at the Oscars, including Best Picture. The movie was about two astronomers who learn a comet is heading toward Earth and when it hits, it will destroy human civilization. A sci-fi movie that could have been like Armageddon or Deep Impact ended up as a dark comedy about a world that was too busy paying attention to celebrity news and political controversy.

Don't Look Up scored a Best Picture Oscar nomination.

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11 Okja (2017)

A Young Girl Attempts To Save Her Superpig Pet

Years before he won an Oscar for directing Parasite, Bong Joon-ho directed the sci-fi fantasy movie Okja. The movie takes place in a world where a company has been breeding super pigs, and 26 of them were sent to farmers around the world to raise. Ten years later, one would be named the best pig, but they would all end up butchered. When a young girl in South Korea developed a close relationship with her dad's super pig, she does everything she can to save his life. The movie premiered at Cannes and was in competition for the Palme d'Or.

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10 Oxygen (2021)

A Woman's Cryo-Chamber Begins Running Out Of Oxygen

The Netflix original sci-fi movie Oxygen can be seen as a similar achievement to Gravity as it focuses almost solely on one character and their plight in space. In 2021's Oxygen movie, Liz (Melanie Laurent) wakes up and finds herself in a medical cryogenic unit where she learns that the oxygen levels are falling.

She tries to escape but needs a code to get out. She is able to contact the AI running the unit and also is able to dial out and try to find help. However, she soon learns her plight is more dire than just dropping oxygen levels. Melanie Laurent is in the lead with Alexandre Aja as the director and they created a minor masterpiece.

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9 The Discovery (2017)

A Revelation About The Afterlife Causes Turmoil On Earth

In 2017, Robert Redford starred in the British-American sci-fi movie The Discovery. Redford stars as Thomas Harbor, a man who scientifically proved the existence of the afterlife. However, an unexpected side effect of the discovery was mass suicides across the world. It also causes strife between Harbor and his son Will, who partially blames his father for the new state of the world. Discovery is an exploration of what the world would look like if people believed there was something better after they died, and what that meant to the people left behind.

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