The best sci-fi movies to watch on Netflix this January
2025 is well underway, and there’s a whole lot of exciting new sci-fi releases on the horizon to look forward to. Star Trek: Section 31, The Gorge, and Mickey 17 are slated to hit streaming and theaters within the next couple of months, to say nothing of all the other films slated for release in the latter half of the year. If you’re looking for the best sci-fi to watch from the comfort of your home right now, though, you’ve come to the right place.
This month, we’ve got a two-part modern epic of a sci-fi masterpiece, a much-maligned (but fascinating) star vehicle set in a post-apocalyptic future, and an American-produced adaptation of a French graphic novel by one of the greatest Korean directors of our time.
Let’s take a look at what this month has to offer!
Editor’s pick: Dune and Dune: Part Two
Image: Warner Bros.
Director: Denis VilleneuveCast: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson
Denis Villeneuve’s two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic is a masterpiece for our time. The story of Paul Atreides, the scion of a powerful noble family in a spacefaring far future, is both far-fetched and elemental: a fantastical depiction of the perils of seeking revenge, the ennobling power of love, and the perils of faith co-opted by the agenda of imperialism. The film’s rendition of the desert planet of Arrakis, the native Fremen, and the colossal sandworms are spectacular, as is nearly every performance on screen, though especially Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya. If you haven’t witnessed Dune yet, consider this your sign to do so — and if you’ve seen Dune already, consider this your opportunity to experience it again. —Toussaint Egan
Image: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Director: Kevin ReynoldsCast: Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, Jeanne Tripplehorn
Continuing this post’s theme of environmental extremes, the wrongly maligned 1995 epic Waterworld is more or less about what it sounds like: The polar ice caps have melted, sea levels have risen, and the world is almost entirely covered in water.
The film’s action follows Kevin Costner as a man simply known as “The Mariner” who sails the world aimlessly. Now, if you’re thinking that this kind of sounds like a Mad Max rip-off with water instead of sand, you’re technically correct, at least on paper. But in practice, Waterworld is so much more fascinating, and its world is uniquely bizarre and beautifully rendered — a fact that led the production to go astronomically and infamously over budget. And Costner turns out to make for a perfect post-apocalyptic cipher. Removed from its reputation as one of recent Hollywood’s most infamous disasters and an ill-fated attempt to start a franchise, Waterworld remains a pretty incredible adventure movie in the vein that rarely if ever gets made anymore — which admittedly is due at least in part to Waterworld itself. —Austen Goslin
Image: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Director: Bong Joon-hoCast: Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Tilda Swinton
Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi action movie about the remnants of humanity surviving aboard a massive post-apocalyptic train is just as excellent today as it was back in 2013. The film follows Curtis (Chris Evans), who leads the poor passengers at the back of the train on a rebellion to take control of humanity’s locomotive arc, in hopes of creating a better, more equitable place for all the passengers aboard.
Curtis’ band of fighters making their way from the back of the train to the front plays like a horizontal version of The Raid, with all kinds of bizarre and ridiculous characters dotting their path to the leading car. While the class metaphor may not be quite as intricate here as it is in director Bong’s Best Picture winner Parasite from a few years later, the lack of subtlety allows him to wield the concept like a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel, creating one of the angriest and most interesting hidden gems of the 2010s. —AG
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