The best sci-fi movies to watch on Netflix this January

Greetings, Polygon readers!

This month marks a courageous new yr, with an thrilling new slate of sci-fi releases on the frontier. Dune: Half Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and Mickey 17 are all primed to be amongst 2024’s greatest releases, not to point out a brand new Alien film from Evil Lifeless director Fede Álvarez and the most recent installment within the Planet of the Apes franchise.

You received’t have to wait lengthy so as to get your speculative thrills, although. We’ve pulled collectively an inventory of the best sci-fi movies obtainable on Netflix this month, from post-apocalyptic adventures to present-day parables of scientific hubris.

Let’s dive in and see what this month has to provide!

Editor’s decide: Gravity

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Forged: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

Greater than a decade because it was first launched in theaters, Alfonso Cuarón’s survival thriller a couple of lady stranded in essentially the most inhospitable setting recognized to humanity remains to be as visually and emotionally spectacular to watch in 2023. Sandra Bullock stars as Ryan Stone, a medical engineer and mission specialist aboard the house shuttle Explorer, who is shipped tumbling into house when the ship is bombarded with a bathe of particles from a close-by satellite tv for pc. Rescued by her crewmate Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), the pair should discover a manner to reestablish contact with Earth and do the unattainable: return residence with no functioning shuttle or hope for rescue.

Impressed by Cuarón’s childhood love of house journey, Gravity was applauded by each critics and scientists for its beautiful visuals, charming lead performances, and scientific accuracy. The revolutionary “lightbox” rig know-how used to seize Bullock’s and Clooney’s performances and simulate the 360-degree zero-gravity motion of the movie’s cinematography was a breakthrough in leisure know-how akin to the motion-capture know-how in 2009’s Avatar or the “bullet time” impact in 1999’s The Matrix. Cuarón’s movie isn’t solely a charming portrait of human perseverance triumphing over adversity, however a real milestone within the historical past of filmmaking. —Toussaint Egan

Fowl Field Barcelona

Picture: Andrea Resmini/Netflix

Administrators: Álex Pastor, David Pastor
Forged: Mario Casas, Naila Schuberth, Georgina Campbell

Netflix’s Fowl Field Barcelona suffered from premiering too shut to season 1 of the narratively related The Final of Us collection, however seen with extra distance from that collection, it lands higher and hits tougher.

Set on the planet of Netflix’s hit horror film Fowl Field, however that includes totally different characters coping with the identical alien invasion, it tracks a Barcelonan man, Sebastián (Mario Casas), touring along with his daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard) by way of a post-apocalyptic world full of monsters whose visible look causes human witnesses to kill themselves. Navigating an alien-filled world whereas blindfolded is tough sufficient, however Fowl Field Barcelona places much more issues on the desk for survivors, considered one of them being Sebastián himself. It’s a film filled with shocks that builds on Fowl Field’s world with simply sufficient new info and narrative wrinkles to hold viewers guessing with out spoiling the mysteries the unique selected to depart unanswered. —Tasha Robinson

Jurassic Park

Picture: Common Photos

Director: Steven Spielberg
Forged: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum

You’ve virtually actually seen Jurassic Park. A ’90s gem, and a standby of youngsters in all places because the second it was launched in theaters, Steven Spielberg’s first dinosaur film is a fondly remembered basic. However right here’s the factor you may not know in case you haven’t watched it just lately: It’s manner higher than you keep in mind.

There are good blockbuster movies, there are nice blockbuster movies, after which there’s Jurassic Park. One of many best-paced and best-executed movies ever, Jurassic Park is a genuinely good crescendo. From the film’s elegant however exposition-heavy opening, it proves that dinosaurs are wondrous and awe-inspiring creatures, and in addition that half of them would virtually actually kill you in a heartbeat.

Spielberg’s deftness in leaping from childlike marvel to absolute terror on a dime is so seamless and slick that it’s simple to take it as a right. The sheer enjoyable of the film and the propulsiveness that it has from scene to scene means you may not discover simply what number of genres Jurassic Park manages to work into two extraordinarily entertaining hours. When individuals say that they don’t make movies like Jurassic Park anymore, they’re type of proper. However solely as a result of there actually aren’t any movies like Jurassic Park. —Austen Goslin