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

Polygon readers: Welcome to the futuristic and alarmingly futuristic year 2023. In the coming months, there will be many great Sci-Fi movies like this mysterious action movie about time travel. 65 starring Adam Driver, Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, Denis Villeneuve’s Part two of Dune, not to mention the debut of Gerard Johnstone’s M3GANThis week. If you’re looking for some brave new worlds to watch right now, though, from the comfort of your own home, relax — we’ve got you covered.

We’ve combed through Netflix’s library this month to bring our top picks for the best sci-fi movies currently available to stream on the service. Let’s dive in!

The Colony

Photo: Saban Films

Year: 2021
Run time: 1h 44m
Director: Tim Fehlbaum
Cast: Nora Arnezeder, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Iain Glen

If you’re looking for a moody and melancholic sci-fi thriller that rubs shoulders with the tone of Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men and the aesthetic of Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion, Tim Fehlbaum’s 2021 film is perfect for you. Alternate title Tide, The ColonyFollows an expedition group from Kepler-209, a colony of humans on a distant planet. They return to Earth in order to determine if the planet can be inhabited by human beings. The inhabitants of Kepler-209 have become infertile since leaving the planet, and so returning to Earth now stands as humanity’s best and last hope for survival.

Roxana hadadi wrote this review about Polygon

The early days of the company were a blur. The ColonyIt is a stark visual exploration of the possibilities of survival if we keep on following our disastrous climate track: continuous flooding, swirling waters and movable cities made on rickety boats, nomads covered in clothing that allows them to move freely and protects them from the elements. Cinematographer Markus Förderer and production designer Julian R. Wagner create a haunting world, but The ColonySometimes, it is too literal. Fehlbaum’s presentation of loneliness is packed with thuddingly obvious imagery (Blake alone on the beach, Blake alone in a well flooding with tidewater), but its first 20 or so minutes are a disquieting visualization of loss.

Illang: The Wolf Brigade

Photo by Cho Won Jin/Netflix

Year: 2018
Run time: 2h 19m
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Cast: Gang Dong-won, Han Hyo-joo, Jung Woo-sung

A live-action adaptation of Hiroyuki Okiura and Mamoru Oshii’s 1999 anime thriller Jin-Roh, Kim Jee-woon’s 2018 film transforms the original’s alternate 1950s Japan setting to a reunified Korea circa 2024 while losing none of the former’s tonal melancholy and kinetic bite. Im Joong-kyung is a member in a highly armed police force whose relationship with the suicide bomber’s sister shakes his resolve. This forces him to consider ethics and question his actions. Don’t think of Illang: The Wolf BrigadeIt can be used as an alternative to Jin-RohIt is intended not to be a standalone piece, but instead as a companion piece, with its own view on the nuances of domestic militarism and the dehumanizing effects it has on people seeking peace. —TE

Minority Report

Image credit: 20th Century Studios

Year: 2002
Run time: 2h 25m
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Max von Sydow

Tom Cruise stars in Steven Spielberg’s 2002 adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s short story as John Anderton, a police captain in the year 2054 who serves as the commanding officer of an experimental new program that specializes in “Precrime” — predicting future instances of criminal activity and intervening before said crimes are committed. When John himself is implicated in a murder, he’ll have to outwit and outrun his colleagues in order to clear his name, all while tracking down the culprit or culprits responsible for framing him.

A sci-fi action thriller about the perils of institutional overreach and the power of human choice over predestination, the film’s production design has since gone on to inspire a generation of similar real-life innovations, including though not limited to personalized advertising and gesture-based motion-sensing user interface technology like Microsoft’s Kinect devices. —TE

The Mist

Image: The Weinstein Company

Year: 2007
Run time: 2h 6m
Director: Frank Darabont
Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden

Frank Darabont, one of the most successful Stephen King adaptors is responsible for many acclaimed movies like Shawshank Redemption The Green Mile. 2007’s The Mist, Darabont’s third take on King’s work and his last film to date, follows the Drayton family — David, Steff, and their young son, Billy — who are forced to seek shelter in their local supermarket along with their neighbors in the wake of a mysterious storm that bathes their small town in a blanket of mist populated by bloodthirsty creatures.

It’s not just the creatures they have to worry about, however, as the townspeople begin to descend into idolatry and barbarism out a desperate desire to find security in the face of fear. You have many great things to look forward to. The Mist, not the least of which is its ending — one that not only diverges significantly from that of the source material, but which has since earned significant praise from King himself. —TE

Spectral

Image: Legendary/Netflix

Year: 2016
Run time: 1h 47m
Director: Nic Mathieu
Cast: James Badge Dale. Max Martini. Emily Mortimer

If you’re itching for a sci-fi potboiler that’s less concerned with grandiose thematic depth and more with explosive urban warfare against extraterrestrial ghosts and ghouls, this is exactly what you’re looking for. SpectralFollow Mark Clyne, a DARPA Engineer assigned to special forces units in Moldova to examine a bizarre phenomenon detected with his experimental hyperspectral imaging equipment. As it turns out, the soldiers themselves aren’t just detected by some unknown glitch, but ghostlike creatures who begin to attack the troops for their own inscrutable reasons. While this movie isn’t particularly smart or unique, you should give it a try if the idea of a quadrobot drone firing a huge flashlight at a group of ghost-like shapeshifting smoke squirting robots seems appealing. —TE