Polygon readers, welcome to the amazingly futuristic-sounding year of 2023. There are a ton of excellent sci-fi motion pictures in the months ahead, like the mystical time-travel action thriller 65 starring Adam Driver, Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Swimming pool, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Sequel, not to point out the launching of Gerard Johnstone’s M3GAN today. If you’re trying to find some brave brand-new worlds to see today, however, from the convenience of your own house, relax– we’ve got you covered.
We have actually combed through Netflix’s library this month to bring our leading choices for the best sci-fi movies currently offered to stream on the service. Let’s dive in!
The Colony
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Picture: Saban Films Year: 2021 Run time: 1h 44m Director: Tim Fehlbaum Cast: Nora Arnezeder, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Iain Glen If you’re searching for a moody and melancholic sci-fi thriller that rubs shoulders with the tone of Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men and the visual of Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion, Tim Fehlbaum’s 2021 movie is perfect for you. Additionally titled Tides, The Colony follows an expedition group from a human colony on a far-off planet referred to as Kepler-209 who return to Earth to evaluate whether the world is yet practical for human habitation. The inhabitants of Kepler-209 have become sterile since leaving the planet, and so returning to Earth now stands as humanity’s best and last hope for survival.
As Roxana Hadadi composed in her evaluation for Polygon:
In its early scenes, The Colony works as a plaintive visual exploration of what survival may appear like if we advance our ruinous climate course: continuous flooding and swirling waters, movable cities developed on rickety ships, nomadic people wrapped in clothing that secure them from the elements and enable ease of motion. Cinematographer Markus Förderer and production designer Julian R. Wagner develop a haunting world, but The Nest is in some cases too actual. Fehlbaum’s discussion of loneliness is loaded with thuddingly apparent images (Blake alone on the beach, Blake alone in a well flooding with tidewater), however its very first 20 or two minutes are a disquieting visualization of loss.
Illang: The Wolf Brigade
Photo: 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 movie changes the original’s alternate 1950s Japan setting to a reunified Korea circa 2024 while losing none of the previous’s tonal melancholy and kinetic bite. The film follows Im Joong-kyung, a member of a greatly armed police, whose nascent relationship with the sister of a suicide bomber shakes his willpower and forces him to question principles of his actions. Don’t consider Illang: The Wolf Brigade as a replacement for Jin-Roh, but rather as a buddy piece with its own take on the nuances and dehumanizing results of domestic militarism for the sake of obvious peace.– TE
Minority Report
Image: 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 adjustment of Philip K. Penis’s narrative as John Anderton, a cops captain in the year 2054 who works as the commander of an experimental new program that focuses on “Precrime”– forecasting future circumstances of criminal activity and stepping in previously said criminal offenses are committed. When John himself is implicated in a murder, he’ll need to outwit and outrun his associates in order to clear his name, all while locating the offender 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 movie’s production design has since gone on to inspire a generation of comparable real-life developments, including though not limited to customized advertising and gesture-based motion-sensing user interface technology like Microsoft’s Kinect devices.– TE
The Mist
< photo class=
“c-picture “data-cid=”site/picture _ element-1673275373_4606_7896″data-cdata=”> Image: The Weinstein Business Year: 2007 Run time: 2h 6m Director: Frank Darabont Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden Frank Darabont is one of the ruling masters of successful Stephen King adjustments, accountable for such acclaimed films as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. 2007’s The Mist, Darabont’s third take on King’s work and his last movie to date, follows the Drayton household– David, Steff, and their young child, Billy– who are forced to seek shelter in their local grocery store along with their neighbors in the wake of a strange storm that bathes their small town in a blanket of mist populated by savage creatures.
It’s not simply the creatures they have to worry about, nevertheless, as the townspeople begin to come down into idolatry and barbarism out a desperate desire to find security in the face of worry. There are a great deal of excellent aspects to The Mist, not the least of which is its ending– one that not only diverges significantly from that of the source product, but which has because 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 craving a sci-fi potboiler that’s less worried with grand thematic depth and more with explosive city warfare versus extraterrestrial ghosts and ghouls, this is exactly what you’re trying to find. Spectral follows Mark Clyne (James Badge Dale), a DARPA engineer who is designated to an unique forces unit in Moldova to examine a strange phenomenon found utilizing his innovation: a speculative line of hyperspectral imaging goggles. As it turns out, the soldiers themselves aren’t simply found by some unknown problem, however ghostlike animals who start to assault the troops for their own inscrutable reasons. This is admittedly not an especially smart or initial film, however if a four-legged robotic drone shining a gigantic flashlight cannon at a horde of shapeshifting smoke ghosts sounds cool, offer this a shot.– TE