Science fiction is an incredibly flexible and encompassing field that allows writers, filmmakers, and actors to show off their creativity without being hampered by the confines of other genres. All sci-fi films can have elements of action, drama, romance, adventure, and mystery (with the best ones having a mixture of sub-genres), so it’s a genre that offers something for everyone. With that in mind, we’ve gone through and rounded up the best sci-fi movies on Netflix.
For more recommendations, check out our list of the best movies on Netflix, the best sci-fi shows on the platform, for the best sci-fi movies on Hulu or Prime Video.
Editor’s note: This article was updated Februrary 2025 to include Dune: Part Two.
Disclaimer: These movies are available on US Netflix.
‘Dune: Part Two’ (2024)
Rotten Tomatoes: 92% | IMDb: 8.5/10
10/10Release DateFebruary 27, 2024Runtime167 minutesDirectorDenis VilleneuveWritersDenis VilleneuveProducersHerb Gains, John Harrison, Mary Parent, Patrick McCormick, Richard P. Rubinstein, Cale Boyter, Thomas Tull, Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt, Kim Herbert, Joshua Grode, Tanya Lapointe
One of the 10 nominees for 2025’s Academy Awards Best Picture prize, Dune: Part Two follows up on the hugely successful first adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel. This second installment sees Timothee Chalamet’s Paul Atreides seek revenge for those who wreaked havoc on his family, with his ability to see the future leaving him in a difficult battle between head and heart. A stunning tale full of epic visuals and intricate storytelling, Dune: Part Two is arguably better than Denis Villeneuve’s first installment. Featuring a stellar cast and an immersive central story, the hype around Dune: Part Two is worth every penny… or spice. – Jake Hodges
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‘They Cloned Tyrone’ (2023)
Rotten Tomatoes: 95% | IMDb: 6.6/10
As the feature film directorial debut of Juel Taylor (Creed II), They Cloned Tyrone is a love letter to the pulpy Blaxploitation of the 70s that perfectly captures the campy vibe of old-school sci-fi. Starring Jamie Foxx (Day Shift), John Boyega (Attack the Block), and Teyonah Parris (Candyman) as a hustler, a pimp, and a sex worker who stumble on a vast government conspiracy right underneath their hood, the story is bursting with sharp satire and wildly absurd humor that feels tailor-made for this trio. Taylor brings a fresh eye to an old genre and creates a wonderfully stylized aesthetic that manages to feel both retro and futuristic. – Tauri Miller
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‘See You Yesterday’ (2019)
Rotten Tomatoes: 93% | IMDb: 5.3/10
Director Stefon Bristol takes the short he created with Fredrica Bailey and expands it into a socially relevant feature-length time travel film about the endless cycle of Black pain at the hands of the cops. After her brother is killed by a racist officer, C.J. Walker (Eden Duncan-Smith) and her best friend Sebastian Thomas (Dante Crichlow) figure out the secret to time travel so they can go back and save his life. The film introduces the real issue of police brutality and fatalities of people in Black communities into a sci-fi environment where it cleverly mirrors how the frequent police shootings of unarmed Black men can feel like its own time loop that we have yet to escape. – Tauri Miller
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‘Spectral’ (2016)
Rotten Tomatoes: 78% | IMDb: 6.3/10
Spectral is a military action thriller about a troop of US Army soldiers in Moldova who encounter a mysterious condensate entity that instantly kills everyone it touches. Unable to see the apparitions with the naked eye and their weapons being useless against them, the troop is forced to find a solution before they’re all wiped out. The most captivating part of this film is the design of the apparitions and the way they utterly decimate the US special-ops forces in an instant. Emily Mortimer (Mary Poppins Returns) and Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek) sell the menace of a force you need a spectrometer to fight with great stand-out performances.
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‘I Am Mother’ (2019)
Rotten Tomatoes: 89% | IMDb: 6.7/10
Danish actress Clara Rugaard stars in the intriguing science fiction film I Am Mother, about a lone girl who is raised by an android she calls Mother. Voiced by the multifaceted Rose Byrne (Physical), Mother has convinced her ward that they are the sole survivors of a vicious plague. But when a stranger arrives, played by Oscar winner Hilary Swank, everything Mother has said is called into question. The I Am Mother screenplay by Michael Lloyd Green, based on the story written by director Grant Sputore, broaches provocative philosophical points to be investigated in strikingly sterile sceneries, allowing these talented actresses to discuss and kick ass at the same time. – Yael Tygiel
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‘Don’t Look Up’ (2021)
Rotten Tomatoes: 56% | IMDb: 7.2/10
Adam McKay’s darkly humorous satire of the climate change crisis divided audiences down the middle; while there are those that appreciated McKay’s fiery text, others found it to be vague and insulting. Either way, Don’t Look Up is well worth watching just to engage in the debate about one of the most divisive Best Picture nominees ever. It also has an insanely talented cast, who get the chance to change things up from the type of performances they usually deliver. Has Leonardo DiCaprio ever played a nerd? Has Meryl Streep ever played a dictator? Have we ever seen Timothee Chalamet as a philosophical stoner? — Liam Gaughan
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‘Bird Box’ (2018)
Rotten Tomatoes: 64% | IMDb: 6.6/10
Watch out. 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), a mother of two young children who seeks refuge when mysterious entities take over and drive anyone that looks at them to see their worst fears and die by suicide. In an attempt to protect her children and navigate this new life, she bands together with fellow survivors and searches for sanctuary and answers. Clinging to her blindfold and any semblance of hope, Malorie risks it all and travels through treacherous waters in order to get out of this nightmare alive. — Emily Bernar
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‘Space Sweepers’ (2021)
Rotten Tomatoes: 70% | IMDb: 6.5/10
It is hard to think of a film that you could have more fun with when it comes to science fiction adventure than the glorious experience that is Space Sweepers. It focuses on a crew of a spaceship, that quite literally sweeps up debris in space, who end up getting swept up in an intergalactic dispute that is beyond anything they have ever seen. It is best to go in with as little knowledge as possible as the heights this story reaches is best experienced for the first time in seeing it. All the characters and the cast are routinely outstanding, finding humor as well as drama in every moment they can. There are big space battles galore and a real sense of excitement overflowing from every frame that makes it one of the most enjoyable science fiction films of recent memory. It is everything you could ever want from the genre and then some, proving to be one of the most enduringly thrilling films you could be lucky enough to get to experience for yourself. — Chase Hutchinson
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‘Oxygen’ (2021)
Rotten Tomatoes: 90% | IMDb: 6.5/10
Mélanie Laurent gives one of the most commanding and technically impressive acting performances of her career in Oxygen, the clever Netflix sci-fi thriller about a woman who wakes up in a futuristic medical pod with no memory of who she is, how she got there, or how to get out. And she’s running out of oxygen. Directed by Crawl filmmaker Alexandre Aja, the tightly contained thriller manages to consistently ramp up the tension with each new reveal while expanding the world and the stakes of Laurent’s fight to survive, even while trapped within the tiny confines of her chamber. The reveals usually aren’t quite as surprising as the movie seems to think they are, but they do make for a twisty-turny survival movie that’s tightly crafted enough to pull off the wild ride, and a full embrace of sci-fi storytelling that allows a movie that’s almost entirely set in a small box to feel like a much bigger adventure. — Haleigh Foutch
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‘Okja’ (2017)
Rotten Tomatoes: 87% | IMDb: 7.3/10
One of the highest-profile movies to hit Netflix but bypass a traditional theatrical rollout was Okja, Bong Joon Ho‘s follow up to 2013’s Snowpiercer. It’s an eviscerating takedown of both the modern agricultural industry and the intertwined science of genetic engineering. The story takes the science to extreme and, at times, ridiculous proportions and makes no attempt to portray beneficial real-world achievements in an equal light. However, the moral of the story is hard to miss: Humans who play God soon lose their very humanity.
Okja follows the title character, a genetically engineered super-animal raised naturally/organically in South Korea by caretaker Mija. Since Okja is the choicest of the bred animals, multinational conglomerate Mirando Corporation seeks to take back their property and study it exhaustively in order to recoup their investment and improve their stock, both agriculturally and financially. Mija does everything in her power to bring her friend back home, though animal rights activists, hired corporate muscle, and even the media will complicate matters. It’s a tough watch at times, especially for those on the front lines of the fight for animal welfare, but it’s a lesson worth repeating just the same. — Dave Trumbore
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‘Beyond Skyline’ (2017)
Rotten Tomatoes: 70% | IMDb: 5.3/10
Beyond Skyline is a special kind of WTF. Of all the movies to spawn a franchise, I never would have guessed the much-derided 2010 sci-fi pic Skyline could pull it off, much less that the follow-up film would be such a gleeful, globe-trotting action-packed adventure. A proud, pulpy B-movie featuring aliens that rip the brain right out of your skull, Beyond Skyline stars Frank Grillo as a cop at odds with his son (Jonny Weston) when an alien attack sends them scrambling for their lives. Once the aliens make contact, the film ricochets through settings and characters at a breakneck pace, packing in a paperback book series worth of sci-fi lunacy into a single feature film that travels from subterranean tunnels to the nuclear wasteland of Los Angeles to an alien ship, and all the way to Laos, where Mark teams with rebels to battle the alien threat. You’ve got Frank Grillo playing hero with a baby in one hand and a space-blaster on the other, Antonio Fargas as a Vietnam vet who calls everybody “bitch”, Iko Uwais and Yaya Ruhain beating the shit out of giant aliens, and there’s even an honest-to-god Kaiju battle. Beyond Skyline won’t be for everyone, but if you love a bananas B-movie, the feature debut from writer-director Liam O’Donnell ticks all the right boxes. – Haleigh Foutch
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‘Stowaway’ (2021)
Rotten Tomatoes: 76% | IMDb: 5.7/10
If you’re looking for space battles, robots, or intergalactic wars, you’re gonna want to take a look at the other sci-fi movies on Netflix, but if you’re looking for an intense, understated dramatic thriller about a space mission gone wrong, Stowaway is a pretty interesting one… as long as you don’t mind your science fiction slow-burn and bleak. Anna Kendrick, Toni Collette, and Daniel Dae Kim star as a trio of space travelers for an independent company, who discovers there’s somehow an extra person aboard their spacecraft. But he’s not a villain, there are no deadly plots at play, he’s just a company employee who somehow got stuck in there during takeoff, which means it’s a whole lot more difficult to make the choices they need to when his arrival compromises their life support system. It’s a very slow, sad movie (if you like watching A-listers cry in space, oh boy, you are in luck), but the performers give it their all and there’s something refreshing about the simplicity in the moral conundrums that threaten to throw this space mission entirely off the rails. — Haleigh Foutch
