The 5 best sci-fi movies to watch on Netflix in February 2023

Polygon readers! Happy February sci-fi lovers! This month, we’ve got five (inter)stellar sci-fi movies for you to check out on Netflix as the weather warms up and we head into spring.

Our February selections include science fiction offerings from South Korea, China, Australia, and the U.S. We’ve got a new animated project from celebrated live-action director Richard Linklater (School of RockThe new animated live-action film ‘() is a project of Yeon Sang-ho, the celebrated animation director.Busan to TrainYou can watch the movie here, which is one of highest grossing films ever.

Let’s dive in.

Oblivion

Universal Pictures

Year: 2013
Run time: 2h 4m
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Cast:Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman and Andrea Riseborough

Joseph Kosinski was the one who took Tom Cruise up to the sky in 1939. Maverick is the Top Gun, he took him into the grim future of 2077 Earth in 2013’s OblivionThe movie is best enjoyed without learning any story. Cruise begins the movie as an escaped survivor from a catastrophe on a distant planet. He is left behind by Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), who guards a collection of planetary energy generators. But there’s a sense of ominous threat hanging over him and his interactions with his space-dwelling boss, Sally (Melissa Leo), and before long, the threat pays off in new information that changes everything. Like Maverick, Oblivion It is an action-packed, high-tech movie that has a lot of action and a great sense of pace. This is not the case Maverick, it’s also a series of unfolding and engaging surprises, well worth experiencing unspoiled. —Tasha Robinson

JUNG_E

Image by Netflix

Year: 2023
Run time: 1h 38m
Director:Yeon Sangho
Cast: Kang Soo-yeon, Kim Hyun-joo, Ryu Kyung-soo

This is the latest film from Yeon Sangho, modern sci-fi maestro.Busan to Train, Psychokinesis, Hellbound), JUNG_E The movie is set in an era of climate change, where conflicting bands have been fighting for years. Kang Sooyeon plays a scientist whose task it is to create the ideal AI soldier out of the brain of her mother (a famous mercenary at the time).

It is an excellent example of staging small conflicts within larger ones. JUNG_E Its intricate design of robots and tech on display is what makes it a success. It is the mechanical sounds of the robots that bring the film to life, and Kang Sooyeon’s moving portrayal of the role of Kang Soo. Although the film touches upon many of the old science-fiction staples about artificial intelligence, it also features data collection which adds a unique twist to an age-old sci-fi question. —Pete Volk

Wandering Earth

China Film Group

Year: 2019
Run time: 2h 5m
Director: Frant Gwo
Cast: Wu Jing, Qu Chuxiao, Li Guangjie

China has a huge-budget project for science fiction. Wandering Earth The movie was a huge box-office success. This movie was the fifth-highest grossing Chinese film of all time. The other four were released over the last decade. A sequel is in production.

This sequel alone is enough reason to go back and check it out Wandering Earth this February, but it’s an interesting movie on its own merits.

Based on Liu Cixin’s short story (well-known for) Problem Three-Body Problem), Wandering Earth This event takes place in the 2058 year. The threat of disaster in the shape of an ever-expanding sun threatening to explode very soon causes the Earth’s leaders to decide to move the planet away from danger.

Frant Gwo is Director 2001: A Space Odyssey, Terminator 2And Interstellar Here are his 3 favorite Sci-Fi movies and how they helped to shape the creation of Wandering Earth. It’s big-budget spectacle with one of the world’s biggest movie stars (Wu Jing, who starred in both of the top two highest-grossing Chinese movies of all time as well) — perfect for a bucket of popcorn on a February night. —PV

“I Am Mother”

Image by Netflix

Year: 2019
Run time: 1h 53m
Director: Grant Sputore
Cast: Clara Rugaard, Rose Byrne, Hilary Swank

Where M3GAN is the goofy, audience-pleasing take on modern AI horror, 2019’s “I Am Mother” is the darker and more personal side — it’s a movie that unfolds with all the claustrophobia and rigor of a single-set stage play, but with cinematic effects and chilling visuals. A teenager with no name but Daughter (Clara Rugaard) grows up in a shelter, raised by a robot named Mother (Rose Byrne), and rebelling in typical teenage ways — until a wounded stranger (Hilary Swank) comes to their door, begging for assistance and upending their tenuous relationship. It’s a taut, small, immersive thriller, heavy on character dynamics and careful reveals, but it has all the tension of a Terminator movie, as it becomes clear how strong and implacable Mother is, and how potentially merciless. —TR

Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood

Image by Netflix

Year: 2022
Run time: 1h 37m
Director: Richard Linklater
Cast: Milo Coy, Jack Black, Lee Eddy

Richard Linklater’s animated memoir about growing up in Texas in the 1960s may not entirely feel like science fiction — at times, it’s almost more like a documentary about a particular eraAnd area of American life, mixing the universal and the highly specific. (Linklater’s very large family makes for a lot of home-life accommodations that may boggle viewers’ minds if they didn’t come from similar dynamics.) But Linklater’s avatar — Stanley, a fourth grader in 1969 during NASA’s push to put people on the moon — also indulges in fantasies that Linklater puts directly on the screen, as NASA recruits him for a secret astronaut mission that melds his real life, the history going on around him, and his wildest dreams of being exceptional. It’s a strange, sweet, inviting film — and a beautiful, visually driven one, rotoscoped in a calmer version of the computerized rotoscoping Linklater used in A Scanner Darkly and Living the Waking Life. These space scenes make a strong impression, as both straight-faced comedy fun and immersive detail-driven adventures. —TR