Ever since Fritz Lang‘s classic science-fiction film, Metropolis, audiences have been fascinated by the ever-evolving genre of science-fiction, which led to the industry borrowing from brilliant literary minds such as Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick. Through the years, the sci-fi genre has spawned dozens of subgenres, including cyberpunk, space opera, and apocalyptic, but one of the most popular subgenres is without a doubt hard science-fiction.
Hard science-fiction is traditionally defined as science-fiction characterized by a high concern for scientific accuracy and logic. Classic movies such as Stanley Kubrick‘s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Steven Spielberg‘s Close Encounters of the Third Kind are just a few examples of solid hard sci-fi films, but there are also notable hard sci-fi television series like Devs, The Expanse and Westworld that also rank as some of the best examples of the subgenre.
10 ‘Firefly’ (2002 – 2003)
Cast: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, and Alan Tudyk
In the year 2517, the crew of the small spacecraft, Serenity, are willing to take on any job, big or small, as long as it pays well. Owned and captained by Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), the renegades travel through the endless galaxy with the goal of survival and establishing better lives for themselves, but along with the dangers of the unknown frontier brings them, they must always be on the lookout for flesh-eating mongrels known as Reavers who live on the outskirts of space.
The space Western series, Firefly, was created by Joss Whedon, who is also known for creating the popular 90s show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With an all-star cast including Deadpool star Morena Baccarin, Ron Glass, and Christina Hendricks, Firefly is noted for its blend of the Wild West and outer space characteristics plus compelling storylines, which make it one of the best hard science-fiction series. While the show isn’t rooted in deep scientific accuracy, it does portray realistic qualities, particularly the absence of sound, since it can’t travel through space and the Serenity’s engine is based on a real system design called the Orion Engine.
Firefly
- Release Date
- September 20, 2002
- Seasons
- 1
Watch on Hulu
9 ‘Ghost in the Shell’ (2002 – 2005)
Cast: Shirô Saitô, Atsuko Tanaka, and Osamu Saka
Set in 2030 where a majority of people are cyborgs with prosthetic bodies, an elite law enforcement team known as the Public Security Section 9 is tasked with investigating cybercrimes and acts of terrorism plaguing the World Wide Web. When they look into an incident involving a highly skilled hacker, their investigation leads them to uncover deep-seated corruption and greed within the government.
Ghost in the Shell is an anime series based on the Manga comics created by Shirow Masamune and consists of two seasons, Stand Alone Complex and S.A.C.2nd GIG. Both seasons received positive reviews from critics and were praised for their stunning animation and epic musical score composed by Yoko Kanno. Even though the majority of the technology featured in the series is fictitious, Masamune does go to some extent to make it believable by incorporating the functions of modern technology such as human prosthetics, and both the negative and positive impact the advancements in technology can have on society.
Watch on Prime
8 ‘Severance’ (2022 – )
Cast: Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, and Britt Lower
Mark Scout (Adam Scott) is a former history professor who is now the head of a team of employees at a biotechnology company, Lumon Industries. After Scout agrees to a “severance” program, his memories of his work life and personal life are separated, but when a mysterious co-worker appears outside the office, Scout and his team start to unravel the truth about the program as well as their jobs.
Severance is a top-rated psychological sci-fi series created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller and Aofie McArdle. The series features an all-star cast including Christoper Walken, John Turturro, and Patricia Arquette and also earned fourteen Primetime Emmy nominations. Severance centers around the medical procedure that allows neurosurgeons to implement a microchip into a human brain. The series consulted with several professionals, including Dr. Vijay Agarwal, who told Variety that the medical community hasn’t reached the stage portrayed in the show, but it isn’t far off from achieving it in the near future, as some neuroscience centers have already been able to put microcatheters into the human brain.
Severance
Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.
- Release Date
- February 18, 2022
- Creator
- Dan Erickson
- Seasons
- 2
Watch on Apple TV
7 ‘Travelers’ (2016 – 2018)
Cast: Eric McCormack, MacKenzie Porter, and Nesta Cooper
Set hundreds of years in a post-apocalyptic future, the last surviving humans, who are known as “travelers,” discover a way to send consciousness back through time and directly into the 21st century, where they assume the lives of random people. Armed with only the knowledge of history and technology, the travelers must work together during each challenging mission and secretly try and save humanity from an unfortunate future.
Unlike other time-traveling shows, Netflix’s Travelers doesn’t involve a time machine or highly advanced system to travel back in time, but instead, the characters travel by placing their consciousness into other human beings, destroying the previous individual. The immense detail put into the concept of time traveling (similar to H.G. Wells’ novella, The Time Machine) and the advancement of Artificial Intelligence is what makes this top-notch hard sci-fi series. Overall, the show earned positive reviews, and, per Indiewire, it depicts one of the most ingenious yet disturbing concepts of time traveling ever portrayed on screen.
Travelers
- Release Date
- October 17, 2016
- Cast
- Eric McCormack , Nesta Cooper , Jared Abrahamson , Patrick Gilmore
- Seasons
- 3
Watch on Netflix
6 ‘Dark’ (2017 – 2020)
Cast: Louis Hofmann, Karoline Eichhorn, and Lisa Vicari
When children start to go missing in a small German town, the sinister past of the place is exposed, as well as the shattered lives and fractured relationships of four families in the community. As the residents relentlessly search for the kids, a web of seemingly unrelated individuals discover that they are connected to not only the town’s troubled past in some way but also supernatural forces that lead them to an intricate puzzle full of twists and turns.
Netflix’s Dark is a German science-fiction thriller series that centers around the popular concept of time travel through a wormhole and blended into a suspenseful mystery. Even though the show consists of obvious fantasy elements, Dark is still deeply rooted in complex physics and, of course, the general theory of relativity. The show is considered to be one of the best series of 2017 and in 2021, it was ranked as the 58th greatest television series of the 21st century by the BBC.
Watch on Netflix
5 ‘The Man in the High Castle’ (2015 – 2019)
Cast: Alexa Davalos, Luke Kleintank, and Rufus Sewell
Set in an alternative world where the Axis Powers won World War II, the United States has been split into three territories, one controlled by the Japanese, the other by Nazi Germany, and the other acting as a buffer between the two. As society is beaten down by oppression and discrimination, a new hope is revealed when a woman, Juliana (Alexa Davalos) discovers a series of films and becomes determined to find the creator and, hopefully, the key to freedom.
The dystopian alternate history sci-fi series, The Man in the High Castle is based on Philip K. Dick’s 1962 award-winning novel by the same name and explores what the world might have become like if Germany and Japan had been victorious in the Second World War. The series features several characters and storylines that intersect throughout the show’s four seasons, and while it may get a little confusing for some, The Man in the High Castle is a bold hard science-fiction series and accurately depicts the fate society could have faced under German-Japanese rule.
The Man in the High Castle
- Release Date
- January 15, 2015
- Main Genre
- Sci-Fi
- Seasons
- 4
Watch on Prime
4 ‘Devs’ (2020)
Cast: Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, and Jin Ha
Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno) is a software engineer who lives in San Francisco and works for Amaya, a quantum computing company, in the encryption division. When her boyfriend and co-worker, Sergei (Karl Glusman) is promoted and joins the company’s secretive team known as Devs, he fails to return home, causing Chan to report him missing and becomes completely emersed in finding him, but also who is responsible for his mysterious disappearance.
The science-fiction miniseries, Devs, is considered to be one of the best hard sci-fi shows and focuses heavily on the principle of determinism, which, according to creator, Alex Garland, is a philosophical concept that everything that happens in the world is based on cause and effect. Devs earned high praise from critics and is ranked as one of the best new series in recent years and embodies high intellectual science-fiction. Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com called Devs a “stunningly ambitious” series, which also consists of phenomenal performances by the overall cast and exceptional imagination.
Devs
A computer engineer investigates the secretive development division in her company, which she believes is behind the disappearance of her boyfriend.
- Release Date
- March 5, 2020
Watch on Hulu
3 ‘Foundation’ (2021 – )
Cast: Jared Harris, Lou Llobell, and Leah Harvey
In the year 12,067 E.I., the galaxy is ruled by the Galactic Empire, which is spread across the Milky Way and over 25 million planets inhabited by humans. As the current culture of society begins to crumble under the new Empire’s rule, a mathematician, Hari Seldon (Jared Harris), and his crew of loyal followers realize that the only way to save the Galactic Empire from utter destruction is to defy it at all costs.
The science-fiction show, Foundation, is loosely based on the book series by the same name written by Issac Asimov and was renewed for a third season in December 2023. The series essentially presents and explores the field of psychohistory, which is a blend of psychology, history, and how it relates to the social sciences and humanity. Between the brilliant performances and stunning special effects plus epic storytelling, Foundation is truly a sight to behold for any fan of hard science-fiction.
Foundation
- Release Date
- September 24, 2021
- Main Genre
- Sci-Fi
- Seasons
- 2
Watch on Apple TV
2 ‘Westworld’ (2016 – 2022)
Cast: Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, and Ed Harris
Set during the 2050s, Westworld is a one-of-a-kind amusement park with the unique quality of catering to its guests’ deepest fantasies and desires with zero consequences. The park is inhabited by hundreds of android hosts who are designed to make each guest’s visit a memorable experience, but when one of the hosts, Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) begins to malfunction and goes off her designated script, the once idyllic place begins to unravel and turn on its human creators.
The science-fiction Western series, Westworld, was created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy and is based on the 1973 movie by the same name starring Yul Brynner, and the film’s sequel, Futureworld. Westworld dives head first into the concept of utilizing advanced artificial intelligence and the dilemmas that come with it, such as androids gaining human consciousness and how humans can connect with them on an emotional and physical level. With major names such as Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, and Thandiwe Newton, Westworld was considered to be one of the best HBO series, earning a staggering number of award nominations. In 2018, Newton received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Standing Actress in a Drama Series.
Westworld
- Release Date
- October 2, 2016
- Main Genre
- Sci-Fi
- Seasons
- 4
Watch on Prime
1 ‘The Expanse’ (2015 – 2022)
Cast: Steven Strait, Dominique Tipper, and Wes Chatham
Set hundreds of years in the future, humans have colonized the solar system but as tensions grow between Earth and Mars, which is an independent military power, humanity is on the brink of war. While political friction continues to rise, a cynical detective, Joe Miller (Thomas Jane), investigates the disappearance of a young woman with vital ties and, with the help of several others, he embarks on a race through space and soon discovers potentially one of the biggest conspiracies in human history.
The Expanse is an epic science-fiction show based on the series of novels by the same name written by James S.A. Corey, which is the joint pen name of collaborators, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who are also writers and producers on the series. According to astrophysicist and professor at UC Berkley, Alex Filippenko, The Expanse is one of the most scientifically accurate sci-fi series of all time, describing it as “extreme science-fiction.” Filippenko commends the show for incorporating realistic physical barriers and limitations, which other sci-fi shows and films have typically failed to take into consideration.
The Expanse
- Release Date
- 2015-00-00
- Main Genre
- Sci-Fi
Watch on Prime
