The 5 finest sci-fi motion pictures to look at on Netflix in February 2023

Pleased February, Polygon readers and sci-fi followers! This month, we’ve acquired 5 (inter)stellar sci-fi motion pictures so that you can try on Netflix because the climate warms up and we head into spring.

Our February choices embody science fiction choices from South Korea, China, Australia, and the U.S. We’ve acquired a brand new animated challenge from celebrated live-action director Richard Linklater (College of Rock), a brand new live-action challenge from celebrated animation director Yeon Sang-ho (Practice to Busan), one of many highest-grossing motion pictures ever made, and many extra to dig into!

Let’s dive in.

Oblivion

Picture: Common Photos

12 months: 2013
Run time: 2h 4m
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Forged: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough

Earlier than Joseph Kosinski took Tom Cruise to the skies in High Gun: Maverick, he took him into the grim way forward for 2077 Earth in 2013’s Oblivion, which is the form of the film finest skilled with out studying something about its story first. Suffice to say that Cruise begins the story as a survivor of a planet-devastating apocalypse, left behind alongside accomplice Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) to protect a sequence of planetary power turbines. However there’s a way of ominous risk hanging over him and his interactions along with his space-dwelling boss, Sally (Melissa Leo), and earlier than lengthy, the risk pays off in new info that adjustments every part. Like Maverick, Oblivion is a shiny, tech-driven film with a blockbuster sense of pacing and loads of motion. Not like Maverick, it’s additionally a sequence of unfolding and fascinating surprises, effectively value experiencing unspoiled. —Tasha Robinson

JUNG_E

Picture: Netflix

12 months: 2023
Run time: 1h 38m
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Forged: Kang Soo-yeon, Kim Hyun-joo, Ryu Kyung-soo

The most recent film from trendy sci-fi grasp Yeon Sang-ho (Practice to Busan, Psychokinesis, Hellbound), JUNG_E is about in a local weather change-ravaged future the place warring bands of human house colonies have been preventing it out for many years. The film follows a scientist (Kang Soo-yeon) who has been tasked with cloning the proper AI soldier from the mind of her comatose mom, a legendary mercenary in her time.

An awesome instance of staging a small battle inside a bigger one, JUNG_E thrives on its intricate designs of the tech and robots on show. The mechanical whirs of the machines deliver life to the film, as does the shifting efficiency of Kang Soo-yeon within the lead position. Whereas referring to many elderly sci-fi staples round synthetic intelligence, the presence of information assortment within the film presents a brand new twist on a traditional sci-fi query. —Pete Volk

The Wandering Earth

Picture: China Movie Group

12 months: 2019
Run time: 2h 5m
Director: Frant Gwo
Forged: Wu Jing, Qu Chuxiao, Li Guangjie

A giant-budget science fiction challenge out of China, The Wandering Earth was a mega box-office hit. It’s the fifth highest-grossing Chinese language film of all time (the 4 above it have all been launched previously decade as effectively), and a sequel is at present out in theaters.

That sequel is motive sufficient to take a look at The Wandering Earth this February, however it’s an fascinating film by itself deserves.

Tailored from a brief story by Liu Cixin (finest recognized for The Three-Physique Downside), The Wandering Earth takes place within the yr 2058. With catastrophe looming within the type of an increasing solar attributable to explode quickly, the leaders of Earth determine to propel the planet distant to security.

Director Frant Gwo has mentioned 2001: A House Odyssey, Terminator 2, and Interstellar are his three favourite sci-fi motion pictures, and that they’d an enormous affect on the manufacturing of The Wandering Earth. It’s big-budget spectacle with one of many world’s greatest film stars (Wu Jing, who starred in each of the highest two highest-grossing Chinese language motion pictures of all time as effectively) — excellent for a bucket of popcorn on a February evening. —PV

I Am Mom

Picture: Netflix

12 months: 2019
Run time: 1h 53m
Director: Grant Sputore
Forged: Clara Rugaard, Rose Byrne, Hilary Swank

The place M3GAN is the goofy, audience-pleasing tackle trendy AI horror, 2019’s I Am Mom is the darker and extra private facet — it’s a film that unfolds with all of the claustrophobia and rigor of a single-set stage play, however with cinematic results and chilling visuals. An adolescent with no title however Daughter (Clara Rugaard) grows up in a shelter, raised by a robotic named Mom (Rose Byrne), and rebelling in typical teenage methods — till a wounded stranger (Hilary Swank) involves their door, begging for help and upending their tenuous relationship. It’s a taut, small, immersive thriller, heavy on character dynamics and cautious reveals, however it has all the strain of a Terminator film, because it turns into clear how robust and implacable Mom is, and the way doubtlessly cruel. —TR

Apollo 10 1/2: A House Age Childhood

Picture: Netflix

12 months: 2022
Run time: 1h 37m
Director: Richard Linklater
Forged: Milo Coy, Jack Black, Lee Eddy

Richard Linklater’s animated memoir about rising up in Texas within the Nineteen Sixties might not fully really feel like science fiction — at instances, it’s nearly extra like a documentary a couple of explicit period and space of American life, mixing the common and the extremely particular. (Linklater’s very massive household makes for lots of home-life lodging that will boggle viewers’ minds in the event that they didn’t come from related dynamics.) However Linklater’s avatar — Stanley, a fourth grader in 1969 throughout NASA’s push to place individuals on the moon — additionally indulges in fantasies that Linklater places instantly on the display screen, as NASA recruits him for a secret astronaut mission that melds his actual life, the historical past happening round him, and his wildest desires of being distinctive. It’s an odd, candy, inviting movie — and a lovely, visually pushed one, rotoscoped in a calmer model of the computerized rotoscoping Linklater utilized in A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life. The house scenes stand out, each nearly as good straight-faced comedian enjoyable, and as immersive, detail-driven journey. —TR