The Best Sci-Fi Movies On Netflix Right Now

Whether you're someone who just likes staying home on the couch or someone who feels compelled to stay there for reasons of public health and safety, Netflix is a great resource for entertainment. It's a treasure trove of TV series and films of every conceivable genre, from beloved modern classics to little-known low-budget fare and everything in between. You could spend weeks doing nothing but streaming titles on Netflix and never run out of things to watch. The content library is just that vast.

Of course, with that vastness also comes the problem of navigating it. Netflix is happy to throw recommendations at you, but they're not always exactly what you're looking for. You can browse according to genre, but even then you're left with the paralysis of choice. There's simply so much there that it can be difficult to know where to press play. We're here to help. If you're looking for a science fiction fix, whether it's a big-budget space opera spectacle or an intimate artificial intelligence thriller, these are the best sci-fi movies on Netflix right now.

Spike Jonze movies have always defied easy classification. From the weird world of Being John Malkovich to the metatextual zaniness of Adaptation, his films always retain a sense of raw and honest humanity even when they're branching out into outlandish territory. Of all Jonze's films, though, Her might actually be the most human — which is saying something when you consider the subject matter.

Written by Jonze himself, the film is the story of a lonely man who finds himself striking up a friendship, and later an intense romantic relationship, with a sophisticated operating system he just bought. On the surface, this might seem like a rather one-note bit of storytelling, but the way Jonze explores the various implications of the relationship — through brilliant performances from Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, and Scarlett Johansson — and the way the larger world responds to the same phenomenon. Beautifully crafted, oddly funny, and full of emotional surprise, Her is unlike any other major sci-fi film of the last decade.

Many of the best science fiction films draw us in and hold our interest because they build a world rich with lore. We get to experience not just a story, but a whole mythology. That's great not just because for its own sake, but because the right filmmaker knows how to exploit those expectations to make a different kind of sci-fi masterpiece, one that's light on answers and heavy on atmosphere.

Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin is exactly that kind of story, a dark and dread-filled journey into the life of a character we long to know and can't look away from. The film follows an unnamed woman (Scarlett Johansson in top form) as she travels through Scotland, picking up men and, somehow, consuming them for her own purposes. The sequences in which she confronts her victims are particularly effective, shifting from pedestrian to nightmarish on a dime, but perhaps what stands out most is the film's commitment to mystery. It's a film that invites you to put your own face on a faceless image, and that's sometimes the most compelling approach.

Even if they never made another movie ever again, the Wachowskis would be a part of sci-fi history thanks to their groundbreaking work on The Matrix, but one of the great joys of their careers has been watching what they've done with the clout and influence they gained through that film and its subsequent sequels. It would have been easy for them to play it safe, to make predictable films full of predictable ideas, and to simply keep churning out action blockbuster after action blockbuster. Instead, they just keep making weird stuff, and it's a delight to watch even if their films aren't your cup of tea.

Jupiter Ascending is the Wachowski version of a space opera, a sci-fi adventure that merges cool tech with a millennia-old dynastic struggle. It's got loads of palace intrigue and ornate costuming, but it's also got anti-gravity boots and weird spaceships that move like living pieces of origami. Best of all, though, is that the film just seems to ooze ambition in every single frame. It's what happens when talented filmmakers decide to really go for broke and make something so uniquely attuned to their sensibilities that a huge chunk of the audience just doesn't get it. Those who do get Jupiter Ascending, though, know that it's something very special.

In 1999, the Wachowskis released The Matrix, and science fiction cinema has never been the same since. The original film — about a young hacker who learns the world he knows is a simulation and he's been drafted as a messiah in a battle against humanity's machine overlords — offered us mindblowing wire work, groundbreaking visuals, and the kind of philosophical underpinnings that have come to define so many 21st century sci-fi blockbusters. The Matrix is an essential for sci-fi fans, for action movie fans, and for movie fans in general. And in the spring of 2020, it returned to Netflix.

But The Matrix is not alone in its return to streaming. You can also watch the two sequels — Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions — in preparation for Lana Wachowski's upcoming fourth film starring Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss. Granted, they can't quite live up to the trailblazing impact of the original film, but they're better than you remember. Reloaded still has some of the best action sequences of the entire saga, and Revolutions is a classic case of time being very kind to a film that leans more heavily into the philosophy of its story than its predecessors.

Sometimes the best sci-fi films are the ones that can take a very direct metaphor and present it in a way that's both visually compelling and intellectually surprising, and District 9 is one of those films. Director Neill Blomkamp's breakout film, helped along by the endorsement of Peter Jackson, tells the story of an alien species who came to Earth and was eventually herded into internment camps by the South African government. Beginning with that premise, the film tells the story of a single government worker who undergoes profound physical and psychological changes after coming into direct contact with the aliens and their attempts to find freedom again.

District 9 was one of the most acclaimed films of 2009, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and launching Blomkamp into a career that has since produced films like Chappie and Elysium. It remains one of the most respected and impactful sci-fi films of the 2000s, and helped spawn a new wave of thoughtful films about alien interactions with humans. It also introduced much of the world to the acting powerhouse that is Sharlto Copley.