You probably won’t be leaving Earth’s atmosphere anytime soon unless you’re an astronaut or you have a few hundred thousand dollars to spare.
Yet, that doesn’t exclude you from paying at least a fictitious visit. We’ve gathered some of the best space movies on Netflix for anyone who gets shivers at the sight of a starry night sky, from timeless classics like Total Recall to the vibrant new world of Over the Moon.
Check out our lists of the greatest alien movies on Netflix and the best sci-fi movies to escape reality if you’d like to stay in space.
In this article, we will give you a complete list of the top 10 space movies on Netflix.
Top 10 Space Movies on Netflix!
1. Doom
In Doom, you essentially get what you expect: a popcorn-eating testosterone storm filled with firearms, gore, and lines like, “Let’s see if we can find the body that goes with that arm.” It’s a fitting tribute to the video game franchise on which it’s largely based and is, in essence, very goofy, very dirty fun.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is tasked with guiding a group of Marines via a portal to a Martian research facility that has reportedly been overrun by evil forces. Stay for the fantastic POV sequence that pays a direct tribute to the movie’s first-person shooter roots towards the conclusion; come for the tension and the jumps. Sam Haysom, deputy editor for the UK
2. Jupiter Rising
Jupiter Ascending, a spectacular space opera written and produced by the Wachowskis, follows an ordinary housecleaner (Mila Kunis) who learns she is the heir to an intergalactic dynasty and that, as such, the fate of the universe rests in her hands.
What comes next is an unconstrained dream that combines thrilling action and swooning romance with the pure WTFery of, for example, Channing Tatum as a wolf-man warrior on space rollerblades or a swarm of bees that have the ability to recognize nobility.
3. Orbiter 9
You can’t discuss too much about the movie Orbiter 9 without giving the plot away. The slow-burning sci-fi/drama by Hatem Khraiche centers on Helena, a lone astronaut who falls in love with an engineer while traveling aboard a spacecraft headed for a far-off colony.
Any additional story details would be considered spoilers, so suffice it to say that the film is equally a futuristic mystery and a philosophical reflection on the ethics and future of humanity. Just keep in mind that this is not the type of space movie where there will be frantic laser shootouts. — S.H.
4. The Moon Song
Space need not be terrifying. Glen Keane and John Kahrs‘ animated musical might be the perfect vessel to embark on if you’re more in the mood for vividly colored, extravagantly costumed adventure than you are for high-octane jeopardy.
Young Fei Fei is battling loss and a shifting family dynamic in the movie Over the Moon. How did she get away? Constructing her own rocket to get to the moon to support an ancient myth about a goddess named Change
Bring on the cute characters, the innovative tales, and the music that will stay in your brain long after the credits have finished. — the deputy UK editor Sam Haysom
5. Potential
In futuristic space movies, humans are frequently depicted in two polarised states: either they live in bustling cities with the most advanced, polished technology, or they struggle to survive on hostile planets with outdated technology and few neighbors who are nice.
Prospect, a gripping low-budget sci-fi survival thriller with all the hallmarks of a western (bargaining under duress, looking for fabled wealth, narrow escapes), from Zeek Earl and Chris Caldwell, depicts the latter. Nevertheless, this isn’t a simple, enjoyable journey into the sunset.
6. Space Sweepers
In the not-too-distant future of 2092 depicted in Space Sweepers, Earth has degenerated into a polluted wasteland, and the richest and most influential people reside on a utopian, corporate-owned orbital space station.
The movie centers on a group of space sweepers, Earthlings who eke out a living by collecting and selling space debris. One day, while sorting through the rubbish, they come upon a little girl named Dorothy (Park Ye-rin), who they later discover may actually be an android with a powerful bomb, shattering their hard but tranquil existence.
7. Stowaway
Imagine burning up too much oxygen as you launched out of Earth’s atmosphere and finding an extra passenger on your three-person ship. It would already be terrifying enough to send yourself off to Mars for a couple of years.
Such is the nightmare situation of Joe Penna’s dramatic drama Stowaway, which is equal parts thriller and moral quandary. The film’s small (but big) cast includes Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson, and Toni Collette, and it combines soul-searching with heart-stopping photography. — S.H.
8. Overall Recall
We’re talking about the original here, not the 2012 remake. In Paul Verhoeven’s film Total Recall, which takes loose inspiration from Philip K. Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a regular construction worker, buys a memory implant of a secret agent on a mission to Mars and learns along the way that he actually is a secret agent on a mission to Mars.
9. The Nomadic Earth
It’s not exactly a new cliche in space movies for humanity to move to another region of the galaxy, but it doesn’t happen very frequently that they take the entire planet with them.
The Wandering Earth, a film by Frant Gwo based on a book by Liu Cixin, depicts people trying to move the earth to a new (and less immediately lethal) region of space.
10. Zathura
Jumanji, the 1995 Robin Williams film about the board game that is way too interactive for its own good, is a name that almost everyone is familiar with. Yet, fewer people will be familiar with the sequel.
Zathura, a 2005 film directed by Jon Favreau and based on a children’s story by Chris Van Allsburg, creator of Jumanji, is about two kids who, you guessed it, find a rusty old board game with some very intense gameplay components.
Instead of the jungle this time, the entire home of the kids is transferred into the center of a whirling galaxy populated by robots and aliens.