Best sci-fi movies to watch on Netflix this December

We’re more than halfway through December, which means 2025 is right around the corner with a whole new slate of new movies to look forward to. Before that, though, there are still plenty of decent sci-fi films to watch on Netflix this month to tide you over until the new year!

This month, we’ve got a Michael Bay action thriller about transforming robots that sparked an entire cinematic franchise, a rough and rowdy cyberpunk thriller starring Logan Marshall-Green, and a cult-classic pulp adventure set in an alternate 1930s universe filled with giant flying robots!

Let’s take a look at what this month has to offer!

Editor’s pick: Transformers

Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel

Despite the fact that it came out just one year before Iron Man and The Dark Knight, Michael Bay’s Transformers feels completely disconnected from nearly every CGI-heavy blockbuster that came after it. Where superhero movies tended to be more ironic and sarcastic, Transformers is a shockingly sincere movie, with overwhelming heart and nearly no cynicism — despite being a movie based on a toy brand. 

I’m not here to tell you Transformers is good — it absolutely is good, but you should know that already. What I’m here to do instead is tell you to rewatch Transformers for a brief glimpse into what the blockbuster movies of the 2010s could have looked like. I’m not really sure if that’s better or worse than what we got, but it’s fascinating to rewatch this movie now that it looks totally unlike anything that came after it — excluding its own sequels, of course. —Austen Goslin

Upgrade

Director: Leigh Whannell
Cast: Logan Marshall-Green, Betty Gabriel, Harrison Gilbertson

Upgrade might be the best cyberpunk movie of the last decade. The story follows a man who becomes paralyzed after a horrible car accident, which was orchestrated to assassinate his wife. In order to get revenge for her death, he accepts a computer chip that takes control of his body, giving him incredible strength, speed, and agility. 

It’s a recognizable enough concept, but Upgrade manages to make it feel fresh and original, thanks in large part to its extremely funny script and an excellent performance from Logan Marshall-Green, who plays some of the movie’s funniest moments like a hapless passenger to the violence and mayhem that his body is perpetrating. —AG

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Director: Kerry Conran
Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Giovanni Ribisi

Kerry Conran’s 2004 pulp adventure is a labor of love. Conceived with his brother, production designer Kevin Conran, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow stars Jude Law as Joseph Sullivan, a mercenary fighter pilot who goes by the callsign “Sky Captain,” who teams up with his journalist ex-flame Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) to stop a mad scientist from terrorizing the world with his army of giant flying robots.

The film is a unabashed homage to the adventure serials of the 1930s, with dieselpunk designs and towering skyscrapers flanked by floodlight beacons and floating zeppelins. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow’s usage of “virtual backlot” technology would become a major influence, inspiring the look and production of films like 300 and Sin City. Conran hasn’t directed a movie since, but if this is the only film he ever makes, it would be a fine legacy for him to leave behind. —Toussaint Egan