5 great Netflix sci-fi movies to watch this weekend (September 25-27)

Published Sep 24, 2026, 6:30 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. Sign in to your How-To Geek account Netflix's U.S. movie chart seems like it's gone into full recruitment mode, with Guy Ritchie's WWII caper flick The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare perched atop the pile at No. 1 and Top Gun: Maverick on loan from Paramount sitting pretty in the third spot. That's a lot of firepower right there, so to balance things out a little, you might be craving something with less testosterone and more ghosts, apocalyptic threats, humanity-ending machines, and (my top pick) a CEO accused of being an alien. Here are five fantastic sci-fi flicks on Netflix for you. Choose and perish. 5 Ghostbusters If busting makes you feel good, you've come to the right place Quick, before Halloween gets here, watch this legendary 1984 sci-fi comedy before Ray Parker Jr.'s iconic theme song is played on repeat everywhere from dentist offices to every Spirit Halloween across the country. Ivan Reitman, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis's institution-launching classic Ghostbusters is a treat to watch any time of year, but this 95%-rated movie feels so right as the fall rolls in. You know the story—when parapsychologists Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Aykroyd), and Egon Spengler (Ramis) lose their university research funding, they set up shop in an abandoned fire station and style themselves as the Ghostbusters, a sort of extermination service for New York's ghouls and specters. Business is booming until Gozer the Gozerian, an ancient Sumerian god, shows up and wants to end civilization. Who ya gonna call? Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis also star as Gozer's possessed minions. Ghostbusters Release Date June 8, 1984 Cast Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts, William Atherton, Ernie Hudson, Slavitza Jovan, David Margulies, Steven Tash, Jennifer Runyon, Michael Ensign, Alice Drummond, Jordan Charney, Timothy Carhart, John Rothman, Tom McDermott, Roger Grimsby, Larry King, Joe Franklin, Casey Kasem, John Ring, Norman Matlock, Joe Cirillo Runtime 107 minutes Director Ivan Reitman Writers Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis Producers Bill Damaschke, Ivan Reitman Sequel(s) Ghostbusters 2, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Main Genre Fantasy Budget $25-30 Million Distributor(s) Columbia Pictures Executive Producer(s) Bernie Brillstein 4 Nope Something hungry is hiding in the California clouds Jordan Peele has had one of the most impressive career reinventions in Hollywood, jumping from peak sketch comedy (Key & Peele) to genre-defining horror auteur. Following his genius psychological horror-thrillers Get Out and Us, Peele took things a little more sci-fi with Nope, a sprawling Western-tinged creeper. Siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) run a failing horse ranch that supplies animals to Hollywood's film industry. But when a strange otherworldly entity hiding in the clouds above the ranch starts preying on their horses and people, they devise a scheme to film it and sell the footage, with the help of electronics store nerd, Angel (Brandon Perea). Bad idea. Nope Release Date July 22, 2022 Cast Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, Daniel Kaluuya, Brandon Perea, Keke Palmer, Barbie Ferreira Runtime 131 minutes Director Jordan Peele Writers Jordan Peele Budget 68million Studio(s) Universal Pictures Distributor(s) Universal Pictures 3 Don't Look Up The world is ending, and nobody cares Just in the way that Mike Judge's ridiculous future-fi film Idiocracy has turned spot-on prophetic, I'm loath to say that Adam McKay's end-of-the-world satire Don't Look Up has just as good a chance of coming to fruition if we don't smarten up. The 2021 film divided critics, but landed the streamer four Oscar nods, including Best Picture. With an ensemble cast of huge names, the film stars Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio as Grad student Kate Dibiasky and her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy, who discover that a planet-killing comet is hurtling towards Earth and that we'll all be toast in six months if something isn't done. What the pair run into is staggeringly self-absorbed indifference—the president (Meryl Streep) is more worried about the midterms, and tech bro billionaire Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance) convinces her to call off the only thing that can save them all so he can mine the comet for precious metals. Don't Look Up Release Date December 10, 2021 Cast Meryl Streep, Tyler Perry, Himesh Patel, Cate Blanchett, Timothée Chalamet, Tomer Sisley, Jonah Hill, Leonardo DiCaprio, Scott Mescudi, Jennifer Lawrence, Mark Rylance, Rob Morgan, Melanie Lynskey, Ron Perlman, Michael Chiklis, Ariana Grande Runtime 145 minutes Director Adam McKay Writers Adam McKay, David Sirota Budget 75 million Studio(s) Netflix Distributor(s) Netflix 2 The Mitchells vs. the Machines A family road trip turned battle against a robotic uprising This 97%-rated, Oscar-nominated Netflix animated gem still holds up after half a decade because it looks fantastic, has some top-drawer voice talent, and an apocalyptic sci-fi story that's probably more relevant today than it was when it came out. The Mitchells vs. the Machines combines a touching coming-of-age and empty-nest story with a plot about a robot uprising out to end humanity. It all goes down when teenager Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobson) is about to leave for film school across the country, and her dad Rick (Danny McBride) decides the family—including Linda (Maya Rudolph) and little brother Aaron—should drive so they can all reconnect before Katie is gone. But when the Siri-like AI virtual assistant PAL (Olivia Colman) is replaced by a new gen of slick helper robots, it goes rogue and hijacks the robots and uses them to start launching humans into space. Of course, it's up to the dysfunctional Mitchells to save the world. Cast Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Mike Rianda, Eric Andre, Olivia Colman, Fred Armisen, Beck Bennett, Chrissy Teigen, John Legend, Charlyne Yi, Blake Griffin, Conan O'Brien, Doug the Pug, Melissa Sturm, Doug Nicholas, Madeleine McGraw, Ellen Wightman, Sasheer Zamata, Elle Mills, Alex Hirsch, Jay Pharoah, Natalie Canizares, Jeff Rowe, Zeno Robinson Runtime 110 minutes Director Mike Rianda Writers Jeff Rowe, Mike Rianda Producers Christopher Miller, Kurt Albrecht, Phil Lord Main Genre Animation Budget $75 million Studio(s) Netflix Distributor(s) Netflix Executive Producer(s) Louis Koo 1 Bugonia Emma Stone may or may not be an alien My top pick this weekend is also one of my favorite films of last year, and also one of, if not the best, films of writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone's near-decade-long collaboration that has netted them a combined 25 Oscar nominations and five wins between them. Bugonia has Lanthimos' (The Lobster, Poor Things) strange coolness all over it. Here, Stone plays Michelle Fuller, the stone-cold CEO of a giant pharmaceutical company. Convinced that Michelle is an alien sent to Earth, unhinged conspiracy theorist Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and his gentle, autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap her, shave her head (to prevent her from using her hair to communicate with the mothership presumably stationed in orbit), and tie her up in their basement. Teddy wants Michelle to literally take him to her leaders, so the cunning CEO must use her wits to get out of the basement alive. Don't miss this one; it has one of the greatest endings ever. Bugonia Release Date November 7, 2025 Cast Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, Alicia Silverstone, J. Carmen Galindez Barrera, Marc T. Lewis, Vanessa Eng, Cedric Dumornay, Charita Momma Cherri Jones, Fredricka Whitfield, Rafael Lopez Bravo, Yaisa, Teneise Mitchell Ellis, Roger Carvalho, Atsushi Nishijima, Janlyn Bales, Andy Blackburn, Stella Bizirtsaki, Diana Duah, Adam Esufali, Jerskin Fendrix, Aiecia Harper, Sally Kennington, Paul Mansell, Harith Mohammed, Zawadi Phillimore, Parvinder Shergill Runtime 119 minutes Director Yorgos Lanthimos Writers Will Tracy Producers Andrew Lowe, Ari Aster, Ed Guiney, Emma Stone, Jerry Kyoungboum Ko, Lars Knudsen, Miky Lee, Yorgos Lanthimos, Kasia Malipan, Will Greenfield Main Genre Comedy Executive Producer(s) Christian Vesper, Jang Joon-hwan, Khan Kwon, Mark Byrne, Rhee Han-dae, Seb Shorr, Yoon Sang-hyun, Ellie Nayoung Park, Shawn Goehl More than just crime thrillers and documentaries If you're a fan of Netflix for its never-ending roster of thrillers and documentaries, we do weekly roundups of the best that those genres have to offer. But we're also big fans of sci-fi movies, and Netflix quietly has a pretty impressive offering of those, too. But if you'd prefer digging for Netflix gold yourself, I recommend using the service's many secret search codes. 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.