Streaming services like Netflix can put so many movies at your fingertips. All you have to do is raise the remote or even just tell your TV to stream the one you want. But it’s so hard to choose the one you want. It seems like you’ve either already seen all the options, or they look terrible. And sci-fi has it worse than most genres.
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This list can help. It compiles ten movies that are available for streaming on Netflix at the time of writing. And at the time of writing, these movies appear in neither the top 200 top-grossing sci-fi movies nor in the top 200 most popular sci-fi movies and shows on IMDb. But they all have something that makes them worth watching.
10 John Carter (2012)
From Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan, comes the source material for this Disney epic adventure. Cowboy John Carter gets transported to Mars where he uses his Apache-killing skills to fight savage green four-armed people. Intended to launch a new series of movies (Burroughs wrote ten novels in his Barsoom series), this 2012 movie has high adventure and epic thrills. The action is high-stakes, and the world is awesome in its scope, but the racist and sexist source material was hard to adapt. Plus, Disneyfication took its toll, and this movie became a box-office flop. Go in expecting the Disney aspects and mediocre CGI and you can have an enjoyable time watching this film.
9 The Time Machine (2002)
H. G. Wells’ novel radically transformed our notions of time and space, as well as giving us a sobering look at the nature of “progress.” George Pal’s 1960 adaptation updated the idea for the Cold War, and was strangely prescient about the growing Flower Child movement in US culture. This 2002 remake was supposed to do the same for a Post-9/11 world.
It failed to make the splash it intended, but this movie is not without value. In particular, Jeremy Irons is compelling as the leader of the Morlocks, the humans evolved to live underground and prey on the surface-dwellers.
8 Equilibrium (2002)
In 1999, nobody knew how big an event The Matrix would be, but by 2000, it seems every studio was greenlighting anything people pitched with “It’s like The Matrix . . .” So in 2002 we got this dystopian action thriller designed to look like The Matrix.
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The movie focuses on a society where emotion is outlawed. It has some interesting and occasionally original ideas about the nature of life, emotion, and society. The movie also has some exciting gunfights, but its chief draw is Christian Bale, caught almost perfectly between American Psycho and Batman Begins.
7 9 (2009)
9 is one of the most imaginative sci-fi films, which is probably part of the reason why it is so under-appreciated. The movie tells the story of 9 clockwork dolls in a post-apocalyptic world. Asking an audience to sympathize with these only partly humanoid constructs is a big risk. But for people that take the time to get into this movie, the rewards are suitably great: high action, fascinating ideas, and a truly unique world of bizarre characters. It’s like this movie was inspired by the bizarre hybrid toys from Sid’s bedroom in Toy Story, and it should be recognized as almost an equal to its inspiration.
6 Circle (2015)
Circle suffers from its common-sounding title. No, it’s not that Tom Hanks / Emma Watson Silicon Valley thriller. Nor is it the upcoming movie about that social media game show (though it shares some themes with it). Instead, it’s a story about 50 people who wake up in a huge chamber with no memory of how they got here. Then people start to die at regular intervals, and the group realizes they have the power to decide who dies. It’s like Survivor, but literally getting voted off means death. If you enjoyed Cube, this is one movie you should not let yourself miss. And at less than 90 minutes, it’s a great value for your time.
5 Small Soldiers (1998)
Small Soldiers tells the story of advanced toys designed to be advanced playthings, but exceed expectations when supplied with high-tech military processors. One group, the Gorgonites, follows their programming to learn, explore, and lose battles. The other, the Commando Elite, work to kill the Gorgons and anyone helping them, including children and their parents. The action is absurd at times but rollicking, the characters are engaging, and there are some ever-more-timely jabs at global capitalism to save the movie from being stupid.
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Plus, it’s a document of its time: a powerful capsule of late-90s nostalgia for anyone looking for a blast from the past.
4 The Endless (2017)
The Endless is an engaging little movie that punches way above its production budget. It tells the story of two brothers who escaped a cult as children but have never been able to quite get their life on track since then. So they decide to revisit the cult and find out that the otherworldly entity the cult worships might actually be real. The movie is powerfully atmospheric, creating some genuine terror using your imagination in lieu of special effects. This movie is truly Lovecraftian in the highest sense, something Color Out of Space was unable to achieve.
3 Under The Skin (2013)
After her successful portrayal of Black Widow in two Marvel films, Scarlett Johansson was in-demand for sci-fi movies. The more successful of these were the high-action Lucy and the high-drama Her (also available to stream on Netflix), but she also made Under the Skin, which often gets overlooked.
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On the surface, Under the Skin has the same plot as Species: an alien female hunts down men and uses the lure of sex to consume them. But Under the Skin is a compelling meditation on the nature of humanity, sexuality, and alienation. It’s a little slow, but it’s also engrossing, and you may come away from it changed.
2 Event Horizon (1997)
With the arguable exception of the Alien series, Event Horizon is the most frightening sci-fi horror movie ever made.
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Starring Laurence Fishburne and Sam “Dr. Grant” Neil, it tells the story of an experimental spacecraft that uses a black hole to travel through space, with horrific side effects. A solid cast and such a great premise should have been box-office gold, but this movie flopped, recouping less than half its production budget in ticket sales. In the 20+ years since its release, it’s been gaining in stature because it is such a well-done movie. But you have to be a horror-phile to enjoy it, because it is truly terrifying.
1 Moon (2009)
Moon is an engaging movie about the life of a lone prospector on the moon, accompanied only by his AI assistant, GERTY. Or is he? Soon there are disturbing signs that there might be more people around, and, worse, that GERTY might be concealing them. The mystery is compelling and surprising, making for a brisk plot. In addition, Sam Rockwell brings his inimitable charm to this early Netflix co-production, which helps to magnify it into one of the best (and most underappreciated) sci-fi movies of the 21st century.
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