The best science fiction movies to watch on Netflix in January

Greetings, Polygon readers!

This month marks a brave new year, with an exciting new slate of sci-fi releases on the horizon. Dune: part two, Furiosa: A Mad Max SagaAnd Mickey 17 are all set to be among the biggest releases of 2024, not to mention a new Alien movie Evil Death director Fede Álvarez and the latest installment in the Planet of the Apes franchise.

However, you don’t have to wait long before you get your speculative thrill. We’ve put together a list of the best science fiction movies available on Netflix this month, from post-apocalyptic adventures to modern-day parables of scientific hubris.

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

Editor’s Choice: Gravity

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Form: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

More than a decade after its theatrical premiere, Alfonso Cuarón’s survival thriller about a woman stranded in the most inhospitable environment known to man is still as visually and emotionally spectacular to watch in 2023. Sandra Bullock stars as Ryan Stone, a medical engineer and mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Explorer, who tumbles into space when the ship is bombarded with a shower of debris from a nearby satellite. Rescued by her crewmate Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), the pair must find a way to reestablish contact with Earth and do the impossible: return home without a functioning shuttle or hope of rescue.

Inspired by Cuarón’s childhood love of space travel, Gravity was praised by critics and scholars alike for its stunning visuals, captivating lead performances, and scientific accuracy. The innovative ‘lightbox’ rig technology used to capture Bullock and Clooney’s performances and simulate the 360-degree gravity motion of the film’s cinematography was a breakthrough in entertainment technology, on par with motion capture technology from 2009. Avatar or the “bullet time” effect in 1999 The Matrix. Cuarón’s film is not only a compelling portrait of human perseverance overcoming adversity, but a true milestone in the history of filmmaking. —Toussaint Egan

Birdhouse Barcelona

Photo: Andrea Resmini/Netflix

Directors: Alex Pastor, David Pastor
Form: Mario Casas, Naila Schuberth, Georgina Campbell

The one from Netflix Birdhouse Barcelona was bothered by the premiere being too close to Season 1 of the narratively similar film The last of us series, but seen with more distance from that series, he lands better and hits harder.

Set in the world of Netflix’s hit horror film Birdhouse, but with different characters dealing with the same alien invasion, it follows a Barcelonan man, Sebastián (Mario Casas), who travels with his daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard) through a post-apocalyptic world full of monsters whose visual appearance causes human witnesses kill themselves. Navigating an alien-filled world blindfolded is hard enough, but… Birdhouse Barcelona puts many more issues on the table for the survivors, including Sebastián himself. It is a film full of shocks that builds Birdhouse‘s world with just enough new information and narrative wrinkles to keep viewers guessing without spoiling the mysteries the original wanted to leave unanswered. —Tasja Robinson

Jurassic Park

Image: Universal images

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

You’ve almost certainly seen it Jurassic Park. A gem of the ’90s, and a standby of kids everywhere since the moment it was released in theaters, Steven Spielberg’s first dinosaur movie is a classic that we remember fondly. But here’s what you might not know if you haven’t seen it lately: It’s way better than you remember.

There are good blockbuster films, there are great blockbuster films, and then there is Jurassic Park. One of the best-acted and best-performed films ever, Jurassic Park is a truly perfect crescendo. The film’s elegant yet extended opening reveals that dinosaurs are wonderful and awe-inspiring creatures, and also that half of them would almost certainly kill you in an instant.

Spielberg’s dexterity in jumping from childlike wonder to absolute terror on the fly is so seamless and fluid that it’s easy to take it for granted. The sheer fun of the film and the momentum it has from scene to scene means you might not notice how many genres there are. Jurassic Park manages to pull off two extremely entertaining hours. When people say they don’t make movies like Jurassic Park more, they are more or less right. But only because there really aren’t any movies like it Jurassic Park. —Austen Goslin