The Best Sci-Fi Movies to Watch on Netflix This August

July is over, and with it the dog days of summer. We still have a few weeks to enjoy the sun, but there’s nothing quite like sitting outside after a warm day to watch a good film. If you’re looking for a thrilling sci-fi movie to watch on Netflix this weekend, you’re in luck: we’ve once again rounded up the streamer’s best picks to watch this month. Whether it’s a neo-noir drama that explores the intersection of nostalgia and grief, grandiose space opera epics, or a transformative sequel from one of the genre’s modern living masters, there’s plenty to choose from and enjoy this August.

Let’s see what this month has to offer!

Director: Lisa Joy
Form: Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandiwe Newton

Memory is not what I would call a “great” movie. So why do I recommend Memory? Simple: While I don’t think it’s perfect, I do find it interesting. What I find most interesting about it is its unashamed willingness to look the future in the eye and not waver, unlike so many other modern science fiction films that conspicuously avoid grappling with, let alone acknowledging, one of the most pressing existential concerns of our lives, in favor of it over audience-pleasing nostalgia fare.

Director Lisa Joy’s sci-fi neo-noir explores the relationship between nostalgia and trauma, following the story of Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman), a man searching for his missing lover Mae (Rebecca Ferguson) with the help of a machine that can transform memories into 3D projections. Imagine if someone had cut out the Esper machine scene from Blade Runnerin which Deckard uses a voice-activated computer to examine the contents of a Polaroid using generative technology, and builds an entire film around it.

Memory is set in a future where climate change has reached its natural tipping point, causing Miami’s coastline to flood and the city’s population to adapt to their new reality. The opening scene, with its flood-drenched skyscrapers and Venetian nightlife, is a bolder, more exhilaratingly honest vision of the future than I’ve seen in any other modern science fiction film in recent memory. It’s a world where global powers are too busy fighting over scarce resources to care about or protect their own citizens, leaving them at the mercy of the private security forces of land barons who rule the remaining “dry lands” with impunity.

In a world like this it is no wonder that people retreat into a world of their own memories of a past in which a semblance of a different, better future still seemed possible. And what is left more More fascinating than this is how this world building doesn’t even call attention to itself, and remains more or less on the periphery of Nick’s personal journey. For those reasons alone, Memory is worth seeing, even if only once. —Toussaint Egan

Director: Zack Snijder
Form: Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Skrein

Rebel Moon is the kind of sci-fi movie that really shouldn’t exist anymore. It’s a perfect crossover point between Warhammer, Star Wars and Seven Samurai which combines all three into something completely unique and interesting.

The plot of the film is an almost exact copy of Seven Samuraiwith a disgraced warrior who gathers a small band of bandits and tries to protect a small farm planet from the military might of the Empire. But what makes the film great is director Zack Snyder’s vision for this universe. Despite the fact that we don’t spend much time in any corner of it, Rebel MoonThe world of feels both carefully crafted and thoroughly lived in. Bars are filled with strange tentacle aliens that can somehow control people’s minds, an order of warrior priests collects the teeth of fallen enemies for a sort of religious practice, and ships travel faster than the speed of light thanks to the tears of a giant machine god.

This all looks absolutely incredible, and if huge, unique space operas are your thing, then Rebel Moon should be at the top of your watchlist. Something worth noting here is that almost none of what Rebel Moon awesome is present in the original versions of the film. They gloss over almost everything that makes Snyder’s world cool and horrifying in favor of a sanitized PG-13 dullness. Even if you’ve already seen those awful versions, the director’s cuts are still worth your time. —Austen Goslin

Director: James Cameron
Form: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick

There are few action movies that have ever been or will be as good as Terminator-2Director James Cameron had already proven with Aliens that he could turn a monster movie into an action film with just the right sequel, but in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (or T2) he takes it one step further by merging the two genres, creating a fantastic fusion that has never been matched before.

The story takes place several years after the original film, T2 follows John Connors (Edward Furlong) as a child, when Skynet sends a new, more advanced model of Terminator after him. To protect him, the Resistance sends back a reprogrammed Terminator of their own (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who just so happens to look like the one who tried to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) in the original film.

This is perhaps Cameron’s most brilliant idea in the film. On the one hand, it brings back the fantastic Schwarzenegger as the hero this time around, but it also shows us all the ways in which Sarah has been forever changed by her experience in the first film. It’s a more careful look at survivor’s trauma than almost any monster movie sequel since, and it plays out largely in the background of this excellent action film. —AG