10 Most Underrated Sci-Fi Shows Streaming On Netflix

For every major, cultural phenomenon show like "Stranger Things" or "Black Mirror," there is a hidden gem on Netflix flying just under the radar. Whether you're looking for a time travel thriller or space survival story or an anime musical set on Mars, Netflix has a series for you.

Below we've compiled the 10 most underrated shows available to watch on Netflix. These shows are considered overlooked for a variety of reasons. Some have gotten mixed reviews from critics (at least in their early seasons). Others are TV shows from around the globe that got rapturous reviews, but the average U.S. viewer has never heard of them. A handful were simply canceled way too soon because not enough people were watching. You can still stream these shows on Netflix — and you may just find that you've been missing something special.

• Cast: Brian J. Smith, Bae Doona, Jamie Clayton, Tina Desai, Tuppence Middleton, Max Riemelt
• Show Creator(s): Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
• Rating: TV-MA
• Aired: 2015-2018 (2 seasons)
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%

"The Matrix" was so iconic that it immediately cemented its place in pop culture, but another revolutionary sci-fi effort from the Wachowski sisters flew completely under the radar. "Sense8" follows eight characters on different continents whose minds are all linked. They must join forces and use their special abilities to fight a sinister organization that is trying to hunt them down.

"Sense8" is groundbreaking not only in its high-concept premise and expansive scope, but also in its diverse representation. The characters come from all over the globe (as do the actors who play them) and the show features a transgender lead. The series delivers bloody action, steamy sex, and satisfying character beats in equal measure. It takes a little while to find its footing, but once it does, all the separate narrative threads come together beautifully. Most importantly, "Sense8" has an undeniable glow of optimism that is all too rare in TV series these days.

Unfortunately, Netflix chose to cancel "Sense8" after only two seasons, even though the showrunners were originally planning to make five. However, the show's loyal fan base made such an outcry that Netflix agreed to produce a two-hour special, which premiered in 2018, to give the characters of "Sense 8" the sendoff they deserved.

• Cast: Alan Tudyk, Sara Tomko, Corey Reynolds
• Show Creator: Chris Sheridan
• Rating: TV-14
• Aired: 2021-2025 (4 seasons)
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98% 

In an industry currently dominated by ambitious, big-budget streaming shows, "Resident Alien" is something of an underdog. While most post-pandemic viewers were watching shows that went straight to streaming, "Resident Alien" quietly debuted on the Syfy channel. Its style and format hearken back to a bygone era of network TV, but luckily, you can watch it on Netflix.

The show follows an alien (Alan Tudyk) sent to a small Colorado town to wipe out humanity. He disguises himself as a human doctor named Harry Vanderspeigle — but since he is terrible at acting even remotely like a human being, it's a small miracle that only a nine-year-old boy (Judah Prehn) sees through his cover. The more Harry poses as a human, the more he becomes fond of them, and he starts to think maybe he shouldn't exterminate humanity after all.

If the star of "Resident Alien" looks familiar, that's because it's Tudyk playing the kind of weird role he was born to play. Everything about this show is charming, from its colorful cast to Harry's penchant for quoting "Law and Order" (the show that taught him everything he knows about Earthlings). "Resident Alien" is lighthearted fun even as it mines the darker undertones you would expect for a show that starts with a murder. Unfortunately, creator Chris Sheridan had to announce that Season 4 would be its last even before the season had finished — which means it ended far too soon in our book.

• Cast: Louis Hofmann, Karoline Eichhorn, Lisa Vicari, Maja Schöne
• Show Creator(s): Baran bo Odar, Jantje Friese
• Rating: TV-MA
• Aired: 2017-2020 (3 seasons)
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

If you are willing to overcome the minor barrier of subtitles, there is a brilliant German-language sci-fi show on Netflix that will blow you away: the highly underrated "Dark." Not only is it one of the most overlooked series on Netflix — it's one of the streamer's best sci-fi shows, full stop.

In the town of Winden, Germany, three children mysteriously go missing. Soon a body is discovered, but it's not one of the missing children — instead, it's the body of a child who went missing 33 years ago, and yet it seems like he hasn't aged a day. At a glance this premise may sound derivative of "Stranger Things," but "Dark" is an entirely different beast, one that is darker and more labyrinthine.

"Dark" is a miraculous piece of television; everything you see happens for a reason, and if you are patient enough to wait for all the pieces to slide into place, everything will fit together like an intricate puzzle box. The intrigue only builds with every episode, giving you affairs and betrayals, murders and time paradoxes. Each mystery that is solved will leave fans with two more burning questions they want answered. And, as the show's tagline teases, the question is not "where," or "who," or "how," but "when." What really sets this show apart is its uneasy atmosphere, not to mention that its eerie opening credits may be among the best TV opening credit sequences of all time.

• Cast: Eric McCormack, Nesta Cooper, Mackenzie Porter
• Show Creator: Brad Wright
• Rating: TV-MA
• Aired: 2016-2018 (3 seasons)
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100% 

"Travelers" had the misfortune of coming out on Netflix the same year that "Stranger Things" debuted. As a result, everybody was talking about the vanishing of Will Byers, and nobody was talking about this hidden sci-fi gem that you can still binge on Netflix.

Five agents from the distant future travel back in time to the 21st century to prevent a bleak future. They cannot send their bodies back in time, so instead they send their consciousness into the body of a 21st-century host. As a result, the team members must live double lives, working on their dangerous mission while still maintaining their cover in their host bodies.

While not as groundbreaking as "Dark" or "Sense8," this show is still a good, old-fashioned thriller with plenty of twists and turns. Along the way, the show takes time to explore the lives that each character builds in their new bodies and the moral quandaries that come with them. "Travelers" wisely recognizes that the body-borrowing dilemma in the present is even more compelling than the bleak future that sends these time-travelers back. The premise is a source of both comedy (like when a character bites into a burger for the first time) and drama (when the rules of non-interference mean an agent must let someone die). "Travelers" is easily one of the best TV shows about time travel, even if it was canceled after only three seasons.

• Cast: Jess Hong, Eliza Gonzalez, Liam Cunningham, Jovan Adepo
• Show Creator(s): David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Alexander Woo
• Rating: TV-MA
• Aired: 2024-present (1 season to date)
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%

The Netflix show "3 Body Problem" is a controversial and polarizing book adaptation, and while it's far from perfect, the show is still an underrated sci-fi effort. "3 Body Problem" follows a group of scientists as they grapple with the revelation that an alien race called the San-Ti, whose planet is no longer habitable, have set their eyes on Earth as their new home.

The most common complaint against this Netflix show is that it "dumbs down" the book's fascinating scientific and philosophical concepts in its eagerness to get to the next plot revelation. This is certainly a valid complaint, since the book's hard science fiction was part of its appeal. Of course, what the TV series lacks on that front, it makes up for with character development, bringing together a talented ensemble cast.

Even critics who didn't like the series appreciated the parts focused on Ye Wenjie (played by Rosalind Chao and Zine Tseng), especially her backstory in China during the Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile, the show's visual effects are undeniably impressive, from the alien race that survives drastic climate changes by dehydrating their bodies to the oil tanker that is destroyed in a singularly gruesome way. For fans of the book, the series may be missing what made the novel so unique. But for more casual viewers, "3 Body Problem" will still provide plenty of food for thought.

• Cast: Jeannie Tirado, Brianna Knickerbocker
• Show Creator(s): Shinichiro Watanabe
• Rating: TV-MA
• Aired: 2019 (1 season)
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Any anime fan has heard of "Cowboy Bebop," the classic space Western series from Shinichiro Watanabe. However, Watanabe has a lesser-known sci-fi gem available to stream on Netflix. Technically, "Carole & Tuesday" is a musical first and a sci-fi show second, but how many musicals have you seen set on a futuristic Mars colony? The show follows Tuesday (Brianna Knickerbocker), a sheltered girl who runs away to Alba City with only her guitar, and Carole (Jeannie Tirado), a young orphan making a life for herself as a busker. In Alba City, most mainstream music is written by AI, but Carole and Tuesday want to make their own, and soon become a singing sensation.

The genre of sci-fi anime is typically associated with darker, edgier stories, so the sweet sincerity of "Carole & Tuesday" is a breath of fresh air. The girls' friendship is bound to put a smile on your face, and their songs are amazing. Despite its cosmic backdrop, the world of "Carole & Tuesday" is really not so different from ours; Alba City feels cozy and familiar. Still, sci-fi fans will appreciate the small touches (such as Carole's robotic owl alarm clock) that remind viewers that yes, "Carole & Tuesday" is indeed sci-fi.

• Cast: Toby Stephens, Molly Parker, Maxwell Jenkins, Taylor Russell, Mina Sundwall
• Show Creator(s): Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless
• Rating: TV-PG
• Aired: 2018-2021 (3 seasons)
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

When Netflix announced it rebooting the classic TV show "Lost in Space," the show faced backlash before it even came out. To be fair, the 1998 movie version is universally recognized as a piece of trash, so it's understandable why fans were skeptical. Yet surprisingly, "Lost in Space" turned out to be a good piece of television, even if it has little in common with the original aside from the basic premise.

In fact, the reboot is a totally different animal from the original show, with its clean-cut whimsy and retro special effects. Yet for sci-fi fans who want a darker tale that's still okay to share with the whole family, that might not be such a bad thing. Right from the first episode, Netflix's space survival story will have you at the edge of your seat. The characters in the Netflix show are more complex and realistic — especially the gender-swapped Dr. Smith (Parker Posey), who is downright terrifying. 

If you like your sci-fi thrilling instead of campy, then you might actually consider this reboot an improvement on the original. For all its differences, "Lost in Space" still preserves one crucial aspect of the original series: it is wholesome and ultimately optimistic, and for this reason it works.

• Cast: Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Shira Haas, Amaka Okafor, Kyle Soller, Stephen Graham
• Show Creator(s): Paul Tomalin
• Rating: TV-MA
• Aired: 2023 (1 season)
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%

Most Netflix viewers have probably heard of "Adolescence," a dramatic series starring Stephen Graham that broke viewership records when it dropped in 2025. However, not enough people have watched a hidden sci-fi gem on Netflix that also features Stephen Graham.

In "Bodies," four detectives from four different decades discover the naked body of the exact same man in the exact same location. The show then follows these characters in four different timelines (one in 1890, one in 1941, one in 2023, and one in 2053) as they try to figure out how these incidents are connected. The answer is far more complicated than they ever could have imagined. Without spoiling too much, let's say it involves time travel, a cult, and a bomb that could destroy London.

From the very first episode, 'Bodies" will reel you in with its fascinating time travel conspiracy. While the show offers plenty of mind-blowing twists — including several cliffhangers that make you want to immediately dive into the next episode — the show's real strength is its characters. In particular, Stephen Graham and Kyle Soller are the standouts in this talented ensemble. Viewers who stick around to the end of the show will be rewarded with not one but several satisfying redemption arcs.

• Cast: Sunita Mani, Wunmi Mosaku, Bob Stephenson, Alia Shawkat
• Show Creator(s): Joe Bennett, Charles Huettner
• Rating: TV-MA
• Aired: 2023 (1 season)
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

"Scavengers Reign" was originally an HBO Max series (and it's still one of the best sci-fi series streaming on HBO Max). But when the show was canceled after one season, Netflix picked up the series, so now it's also available to watch there. Unfortunately, not enough viewers tuned in to watch this underrated show, so there will likely never be a second season.

The premise: after the crash of a space freighter called the Demeter, the cast of characters find themselves stranded on a strange alien planet. Each survivor must traverse the alien wilderness to reach what's left of the Demeter, their only chance of getting home. Along the way, the castaways discover that, when it's not trying to kill them, this otherworldly planet can be quite awe-inspiring.

You've probably seen plenty of stranded-on-an-alien-planet stories, but none quite like this one. The planet Vesta is a world that is brutal yet beautiful, and its otherworldly creatures and breathtaking landscapes are evocative of Hayao Miyazaki (though with a tad more body horror). What makes the show so unique is the way it allows viewers to observe these alien creatures in their natural habitat, with all the wonder of a nature documentary. From manta-ray gas masks to a tentacled parasite that turns its victims into meat puppets, each alien species we see is like nothing on Earth — and that means viewers can never predict what will happen next.

• Cast: Brit Marling, Jason Isaacs, Scott Wilson
• Show Creator(s): Zal Batmanglij, Brit Marling
• Rating: TV-MA
• Aired: 2016-2019 (2 seasons)
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

"The OA" is a TV series that defies labels. It is simultaneously a supernatural drama, a dimension-hopping yarn, and a thriller where characters are kidnapped for horrifying experiments, though we suppose the term "sci-fi" is close enough. The series follows Prairie Johnson (Brit Marling), a missing woman who reappears after vanishing as a child — and although she was blind when she went missing, her sight has inexplicably been restored. The mystery only deepens as we discover where Prairie was during those seven years and what special abilities she discovered as a result.

The show's creator, Brit Marling, was given free reign by Netflix to capture her unique artistic vision. And whoa, what a vision. The show has an eerie, dreamlike quality and is wildly, mind-bogglingly unpredictable. Over the course of the series, viewers can witness a mysterious dance that has the power to bring the dead back to life, an alternate-dimension San Francisco, and a psychic octopus. Surreal and occasionally bonkers, "The OA" is a sci-fi show that was unlike anything else on television, before or since.

Perhaps mainstream audiences and even Netflix itself weren't quite sure what to make of this underrated show, because "The OA" was canceled after two seasons. But you can still watch both incredible seasons on Netflix.