We're more than halfway through September and the release calendar is finally starting to heat up, especially for sci-fi fans. Transformers Onethe animated prequel from director Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4), comes out this weekend along with The substancethe new body horror film starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. Not to mention MegalopolisFrancis Ford Coppola's much-talked-about sci-fi epic starring Adam Driver is set to hit theaters next week.
However, if you’re looking for the best sci-fi movie you can watch right now from the comfort of your home on Netflix, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered. This week, we’ve curated a short list of the best sci-fi movies you can stream this weekend, including a much-loved (and, as of this writing, sadly sequel-less) action thriller starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, a cult classic satire of interstellar fascism, and an animated remake of a celebrated tokusatsu icon.
Let's see what this month has in store for us!
Editor's Pick: Edge of Tomorrow
Image: Warner Home Video
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt and Bill Paxton
“Groundhog Daybut…” is almost always a great proposition for a movie, but add in Tom Cruise, aliens, and tons of sci-fi action, and you suddenly have a recipe for one of the best and most entertaining movies of the past decade: On the edge of tomorrow.
The film shows Cruise in all his glory, starting out as a smarmy army PR man who's quick with a smile and a charmer, but clearly feels himself above the sweat and toil of ordinary soldiers, and too good for a lowly life of combat. But when he's suddenly trapped in a time loop by evil aliens intent on destroying the world, it turns out that combat was his destiny all along. Of course, it takes a lot of training to go from spokesperson to soldier, which is why war heroine Rita Vrataski is here, played outstandingly by Emily Blunt.
All of this results in an incredibly fun movie, which perfectly combines huge action sequences with the inherent silliness of Groundhog DayCruise's trial-and-error format. Cruise's character tries his hardest on countless occasions, trying again and again to get even a little better, but failing far more often than he succeeds. In other words, it's a perfect metaphor for what makes Tom Cruise such a perfect movie star: you have as many takes as a scene requires to get it just right.Austen Goslin
Image: Netflix
Director: Shannon Tindle
Cast: Christopher Sean, Gedde Watanabe, Tamlyn Tomita
Ultraman: The Rise might be the best entry point yet for anyone who’s ever been curious about Tsuburaya Productions’ iconic giant superhero. Set in a separate continuity from any of the previous Ultraman series, the film centers on Kenji “Ken” Sato, a top-notch baseball player who moves back home to Japan despite being on the verge of a U.S. championship. In reality, Ken is the only son of the former Ultraman, a transforming giant superhero dedicated to preserving harmony between humanity and kaiju, and has moved to Japan to take up his father’s mantle.
Initially struggling to balance his personal life with his duties as the new Ultraman, Ken finds himself in even more trouble when he unwittingly becomes the foster father of a baby kaiju. With the help of his AI assistant Mina and eventually his own father, Ken grows up to be not only a responsible foster parent, but a hero worth believing in. The Rise of Ultraman is a reboot that takes the core principles that make Ultraman a compelling and iconic hero, builds on those foundations with a narrative that's never been tackled before in the franchise's history, and does so with a level of visual poise and creativity worthy of a full-length animated event.Toussaint Egan
Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Director: Pablo Verhoeven
Cast: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards
Starship Soldiers It takes place in the distant future where humanity has mastered interstellar travel and is using it to do what anyone would expect: colonize any and all alien species they can find.
Science fiction movies are full of evil empires spanning the stars. Yet very few of those movies firmly root us in the perspective of those empires the way they do. Starship Soldiers But what makes Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi action film truly special is that it makes no mention at all of the evils of his Earth empire. Instead, Verhoeven plays the film like state-sponsored propaganda, with characters shouting at the screen about the evils of the insect menace, all while failing to say why Earth is invading their planet in the first place. It's a masterful satire that only Verhoeven could pull off.State