The 5 best sci-fi movies to watch on Netflix in January 2023 – Polygon
Polygon readers, welcome to the alarmingly futuristic-sounding year of 2023. There are a ton of great sci-fi movies in the months ahead, like the mysterious time-travel action thriller 65 starring Adam Driver, Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, not to mention the debut of Gerard Johnstone’s M3GAN this week. If you’re looking for some brave new worlds to watch right now, though, from the comfort of your own home, relax — we’ve got you covered.
We’ve combed through Netflix’s library this month to bring our top picks for the best sci-fi movies currently available to stream on the service. Let’s dive in!
The Colony
Photo: Saban Films
Year: 2021
Run time: 1h 44m
Director: Tim Fehlbaum
Cast: Nora Arnezeder, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Iain Glen
If you’re looking for a moody and melancholic sci-fi thriller that rubs shoulders with the tone of Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men and the aesthetic of Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion, Tim Fehlbaum’s 2021 film is perfect for you. Alternatively titled Tides, The Colony follows an expedition team from a human colony on a far-off planet known as Kepler-209 who return to Earth to test whether the planet is yet viable for human habitation. The inhabitants of Kepler-209 have become infertile since leaving the planet, and so returning to Earth now stands as humanity’s best and last hope for survival.
As Roxana Hadadi wrote in her review for Polygon:
In its early scenes, The Colony works as a plaintive visual exploration of what survival might look like if we continue on our ruinous climate path: constant flooding and swirling waters, movable cities built on rickety ships, nomadic people wrapped in outfits that protect them from the elements and allow for ease of movement. Cinematographer Markus Förderer and production designer Julian R. Wagner create a haunting world, but The Colony is sometimes too literal. Fehlbaum’s presentation of loneliness is packed with thuddingly obvious imagery (Blake alone on the beach, Blake alone in a well flooding with tidewater), but its first 20 or so minutes are a disquieting visualization of loss.