3 star-studded Netflix sci-fi movies to watch this weekend (October 9-11)

Published Oct 8, 2026, 6:00 PM EDT Derek Malcolm has been covering the worlds of tech and entertainment for more than two decades. Before coming to How-To Geek in 2025, Derek was a contributing editor and writer for the A/V and Home Theater section at Digital Trends, where he wrangled and wrote everything from what to watch on Netflix to reviews, explainers, and guides on the latest Bluetooth speakers, turntables, projectors, and other A/V gear. Based in Toronto, Derek graduated from Humber College's Journalism program in 1999, after which he started covering the worlds of music, movies, TV, and celebrity for publications such as TV Guide, Hello! magazine, and Inside Entertainment. He then got the bug for covering tech and gadgets in 2006, when he served as editor-in-chief of Canadian tech magazine Connected for more than a decade. An avid skier, when all the snow's gone Derek can be found at home spinning vinyl with his daughter or cheering on his favorite F1 team, McLaren. Netflix's U.S. top five is predominantly earthbound at the moment, which is no real surprise. Jacob Tremblay plays a young Ted Kaczynski while Shailen Woodley gives chase in Unabomber, Tyler Perry's Doing Life keeps his chart streak alive, and the true-crime doc The Widower: 'Til Death Do Us Part is mesmerizing nonfiction (more on it in my weekly documentary roundup). That's all fine and dandy, but don't overlook Netflix as a place to find good sci-fi movies, with this weekend's picks including a deep-space mission flick starring Brad Pitt, an underrated genre-blending gem with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, and a dark robot thriller with Hilary Swank. 3 Ad Astra Brad Pitt searches the stars for his lost father and answers Writer-director James Gray's (The Lost City of Z) psychological sci-fi film Ad Astra has a lot in common with other slow-burning, atmospheric space movies of the time, such as Robert Pattinson's death-row-inmates-sent-to-a-black-hole flick High Life, and even Christopher Nolan's earlier father-daughter mind-bender Interstellar. While they all feature hard sci-fi space exploration aesthetics, they also have similar "sadstronaut" isolation themes. BratdPitt stars as astronaut Roy McBride, who learns that the power surges that are wreaking havoc on Earth could be coming from the last known location of his father, Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), who vanished with his team 16 years earlier during a mission to Neptune. So naturally, they send Roy to the Moon, then to Mars, to try to contact his father. With help from Cliff's aging colleague Colonel Pruitt (Donald Sutherland) and the daughter of one of Cliff's team members, Roy takes the journey further into deep space to learn the truth. While Ad Astra is not the interdimensional brain melter that Interstellar is, it's still a visual feast that also earned an Oscar nod for sound mixing. It maintains an impressive 83% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes and is well worth the two-hour runtime. Ad Astra Release Date September 20, 2019 Runtime 123 minutes Cast Tommy Lee Jones H. Clifford McBride Director James Gray Writers Ethan Gross, James Gray Producers Anthony Katagas, Arnon Milchan, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, James Gray, Jeremy Kleiner, Rodrigo Teixeira Main Genre Sci-Fi Budget $87.5 million Studio(s) 20th Century Distributor(s) 20th Century, Disney Executive Producer(s) Anthony Mosawi, Jeffrey Chan Wing-Hung, Lourenço Sant'Anna, Marc Butan, Michael Schaefer, Paul Conway, Sophie Mas, Yariv Milchan, Yu Dong 2 Cowboys & Aliens Close encounters in the Wild West MCU godfather and current Star Wars Universe bigwig Jon Favreau had just directed two Iron Man movies back-to-back before jumping behind the camera in this fun genre-smashing 2011 sci-fi film. And even more fun, the director pulled together James Bond and Indiana Jones to do it. Cowboys & Aliens may not have wowed critics (or investors), but the film, adapted from Scott Mitchell Rosenberg's 2006 graphic novel, has found modest success on streaming and earned cult status. I, for one, think it's just an enjoyable and quirky popcorn movie you can throw on with your teens that entertains the thought that aliens have been visiting American humans long before Roswell and Area 51. It's the 1870s in the American Southwest, and outlaw Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) wakes up in the desert with amnesia and a weird metal gadget wrapped around his wrist. When flying saucers descend from the sky and start abducting folks, Jake must team up with his enemy Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), and the feisty Ella Swanson (Olivia Wilde) to fight for their lives. Cowboys & Aliens Release Date July 29, 2011 Runtime 119 minutes Cast Daniel Craig Jake Lonergan Harrison Ford Woodrow Dolarhyde Olivia Wilde Ella Swenson Director Jon Favreau Writers Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci, Hawk Ostby Producers Alex Kurtzman, Bobby Cohen, Brian Grazer, Denis L. Stewart, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Ryan Kavanaugh Main Genre Sci-Fi 1 I Am Mother When the robots take over, can they be trusted? If you're into post-apocalyptic and AI sci-fi like Ex Machina and even Apple TV's excellent series Silo, then I think 2019's I Am Mother will be worth your time this week. This Australian thriller, which Netflix snapped up after its Sundance premiere, explores themes of social isolation, nature vs. nurture, and "greater-good" ethics. After an extinction-level event wipes out humanity, a droid called Mother (voiced by Bridesmaids' great Rose Byrne) raises a girl known only as Daughter (Black Mirror's Clara Rugaard) in isolation within a sealed bunker that also houses tens of thousands of human embryos to repopulate the planet. Daughter loves the nurturing android—created by the wizards at Weta Workshop (The Lord of the Rings) using a full-body suit—but her world is flipped upside down when a wounded stranger (Hilary Swank) arrives and tells Daughter a different story about the outside world than Mother has led her to believe, and that robots cannot be trusted. With an impressive 89% score on Rotten Tomatoes, I Am Mother is a creeping psychological sci-fi film that builds into some exciting action as a standoff brews, and we learn the clinical nature of humanity's supposed saviors. I Am Mother Release Date July 7, 2019 Runtime 113 Minutes Director Grant Sputore Houston, we have a movie night Fine, only one of this weekend's movies leaves the planet, but they're all pretty—wait for it—out of this world. I'll let myself out. But before I do, I want to remind you to check out How-To Geek's deep well of movie and TV show recommendations that we pump out each week and weekend. Subscription with ads Yes, $8/month Simultaneous streams Two or four Live TV No Price Starting at $8/month Stream licensed and original programming with a monthly Netflix subscription.