The best sci-fi movies to watch on Netflix in April 2024

Hello, Polygon readers!

Not a single one will be released this weekend. two a science fiction epic in the form of Dune: Part 2 and Rebel Moon Part 2: Scargiver On VOD and streaming. If you don’t like either of them, don’t worry. We’re back in the backlog of Netflix’s streaming library and he brings you three of his best sci-fi movies to watch in April.

This month’s picks include John Carpenter’s 1984 sci-fi body horror romance starring Jeff Bridges, an underrated post-apocalyptic epic in which a mobile city fortress competes for resources, and a cult classic Includes animated adaptations of classic cyberpunk comics.

Let’s take a look at this month’s contents!

Editor’s Pick: Starman

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

director: john carpenter
cast: Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen, Charles Martin Smith

Pitch “John Carpenter Version” close encounterFor fans of “, it conjures up a completely different image. Halloween Director than his 1984 film starman It turned out to be. The film begins, not far from the opening frame, with a sophisticated spaceship descending on Earth. case. There’s even a bit of physical horror. When an alien sneaks into the home of recently widowed Jenny (Karen Allen), the entity uses fragments of her late husband’s DNA to rebuild his physical self. , growing from babies to toddlers to teens to adults. Jeff Bridges in just a few seconds. I’m sick! Then Carpenter gets mushy in his most romantic movie ever.

starman This movie is a science fiction movie through and through. The alien visits our planet after intercepting Voyager 2’s golden He disk, and their arrival begins a classic Spielbergian cat-and-mouse game between the bumbling Federal Government and the cold-hearted ET. The alien takes the form of Jenny’s dead husband, and Carpenter goes deeper into the world of human death than the stories in these films. Allen, swirling through impossible situations, and Bridges, who mixes alien superintelligence with childlike wonder, have a chemistry that makes silly stories sing. Jenny knows the man in her passenger seat is not her husband, but he is her second chance. Carpenter relies on Jack Nitsche’s haunting score to mine every sap for a dreamlike setting that swells at the right moments. starman This is pure Hollywood romance, proving that shoehorning a director into one genre is the easiest way to limit greatness. —Matt Patch

mortal engine

Image: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

director: christian rivers
cast: Hella Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo Weaving

An underrated post-apocalyptic blockbuster from many of the same people who made The Lord of the Rings films. mortal engine Although it was a box office success, it should have received more recognition. Set in a future where cities are mobile and big cities hunt smaller cities, the story follows a young assassin (Hera Hilmar) who seeks to overthrow a power-hungry leader (Hugo Weaving). Along the way, she finds her companion (Ji-hye) and maybe even a little love (Robert Sheehan).

But the characters and story aren’t mortal engine‘ That’s its biggest selling point (though Weaving does his best to play the over-the-top villain with great fun). Instead, great production design and creative world-building mortal engine It feels like a breath of fresh air in the sequel/prequel/remake-heavy world of sci-fi blockbusters. Check out his one of the most unfair failures of the 2010s now that it’s new on Netflix. —Pete Bork

Blame!

Image: Polygon Pictures/Netflix

director: Hiroyuki Seshita
cast: Takahiro Sakurai, Kana Hanazawa, Sora Amemiya

Tsutomu Nihei is one of the most prolific artists associated with the subgenre of posthuman science fiction, along with the likes of HR Giger and Shinya Tsukamoto, creating stories about frightening human-machine hybrids and vast, desolate science fiction set in the distant future. It emphasizes the world.

Nihei’s 1997 manga Blame! The post-apocalyptic cyberpunk saga, which tells the story of a mysterious warrior known as Killy as he wanders the metallic wastes of an Earth overrun by a techno-organic virus, is arguably his best work. Adapted into a full-length anime by director Hiroyuki Seshita (Knights of Sidonia), Blame! The story of this manga is compiled into a single adventure: Killy’s quest to find the means to rebuild the world and reverse the virus that has endangered the last descendants of humanity.

While the film loses some of the comic’s evocative, wordless melancholy in the translation from page to screen, it lacks none of the scale and depth of its world-building and vision. The action is punishing and numbing, as Killy battles giant murderous androids and ruthless antagonists hellbent on killing as many impure humans as possible (well, everyone). Blame! is a worthy adaptation of the original work, and is worth seeing even for those who consider themselves fans of dark sci-fi animation. –Toussaint Egan