The Best Sci-Fi Movies And TV Of 2026 So Far

We’re not colonizing the moon (yet), but with artificial intelligence taking over the tech sector and large-scale commercial space travel only a few years away, in 2026 the science-fiction genre seems closer than ever to our lived reality. So perhaps it’s appropriate that the films and TV series featured on Inverse’s list of the best sci-fi of the year so far are as engaged with the world we live in today as they are with the possibilities of life in the future.

Conspiracy theories, class conflict, fears of an AI apocalypse — these aren’t just trending topics, but vital themes in some of the most prescient and entertaining sci-fi storytelling of today. You’ll get all of this, plus nostalgia trips, revenge plots, interstellar friendship, and a rainbow of multicolored goo, on our list of the best the genre has to offer in 2026 so far.

10. Paradise Season 2

Paradise established itself in Season 1 with a shocking pilot revealing a presidential murder mystery in a postapocalyptic bunker. Now, in Season 2, we finally got to see how the rest of the world survived on the surface — and it’s not a pretty sight. This series may be helmed by This Is Us’ Dan Fogleman, but it’s top-to-bottom classic sci-fi, involving a stand-alone episode in a postapocalyptic Graceland, a big AI plot twist, and something possibly involving changing time itself. If Season 1 established that this show is more than a murder mystery, Season 2 revealed it’s about much more than the apocalypse. — Dais Johnston

9. Redux Redux

Multiverses have been trending since Everything Everywhere All at Once, but Redux Redux puts a fresh spin on the concept by transporting it to the dusty American Southwest and setting it on fire. Like Christopher Nolan’s Memento, this is a revenge thriller built around the concept of memory. Unlike Memento, it spins the concept out into explicit sci-fi territory as Irene (Michaela McManus) tracks down and assassinates her daughter’s murderer, over and over again, in infinite parallel universes. As one might expect, this has some psychological consequences, and the story spins out from there in the McManus’ Brothers’ indie festival hit. — Katie Rife

8. For All Mankind Season 5

Since 2019, For All Mankind has easily proved itself to be one of the best science-fiction shows of the 21st century, and perhaps one of the best space shows of all time. Season 5 was, perhaps, the most challenging so far, if only because at this point in the show’s alternate timeline, nearly all of the characters from the earlier seasons are gone. However, For All Mankind gave its younger generation plenty to do, partly by depicting a full-blown revolution on Mars and, at the same time, pushing the series to the outer planets, specifically Kelly Baldwin’s mission to Titan. The sixth season will be the swan song for the series, and when that happens, fans will mourn the intricacies and intelligence of this intergenerational epic. — Ryan Britt

7. The Boroughs

The Duffer Bros. followed up Stranger Things by producing The Boroughs, a supernatural mystery show set in a retirement community. The series quickly gained a reputation for being “Stranger Things for old people,” but the result was so much more: The Boroughs is a star-studded, thrilling ride through aging and memory. Despite the huge fan reaction and a creative premise involving a lot of different-colored goo, Netflix canceled the series after a single season. Even if we don’t see what happens next, it’s bound to go down in history as Netflix’s best one-season wonder. — Dais Johnston

6. X-Men ’97 Season 2

It’s somewhat incredible that within the pantheon of the X-Men comics, the basic premise — mutants who have incredible powers — sometimes takes a back seat to wacky time-travel paradoxes. While adapting various comic storylines at once, X-Men ’97 Season 2 has made time-travel paradoxes one of its most central themes. The notion that effect can precede cause is a classic sci-fi notion, and oddly, nobody does it better than the most enduring Marvel super-team. This may not be the best representation of time travel in Marvel, but right now, X-Men ’97 easily beats the 2014 big-screen version of Days of Future Past. — Ryan Britt

5. Disclosure Day

Spielbergian wonder takes on a new cast in Disclosure Day, a movie that doesn’t ask if aliens are real, but rather: What do they want? What is their purpose for us? The iconic director of E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind explores these questions through the unlikely medium of a conspiracy thriller, starring Josh O’Connor and Emily Blunt as strangers united by uncanny circumstances and a shared purpose that they’re just beginning to understand. The road to this awe-inspiring revelation is full of masterfully executed sci-fi thrills — a chase scene aboard a moving locomotive is especially exciting — on the way to a finale that adds an unexpected new element to this paranoid mix: hope. — Katie Rife

4. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie

On the surface, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie appears to be yet another slacker comedy about middle-aged boys who refuse to grow up. But that’s only part of what Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol are up to in this wildly resourceful and oddly wistful big-screen adaptation of their long-running web series. It’s also a singular take on time travel, as Matt’s Back to the Future riff spins out of control and accidentally launches the boys back to 2008. There they confront not only their past selves but also their shared future — not to mention a whole lot of problematic media. — Katie Rife

3. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die

If good science fiction can help serve as a mirror to modern anxieties, then the film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die represents our need to laugh in the face of certain doom. Calling this film a comedy may not be entirely accurate, but Gore Verbinski’s film — with a script from Matthew Robinson — will make you grin even when it’s presenting several worst-case scenarios for the human race. Will AI destroy us all? Can we travel back in time and make ourselves clear, or get something right? These tropes are familiar to many sci-fi fans, but Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die makes them seem brand-new. — Ryan Britt

2. I Love Boosters

Boots Riley pictures are never about solely one thing, which is a great part of what makes his projects so deliriously fun. I Love Boosters is no different — in fact, it might be his zaniest, most colorful, and most hilarious movie so far. What begins as a revenge-fueled heist spirals into an all-out class war between Bay Area designer Christie Smith (Demi Moore), the women boosting her department stores all over town (Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Poppy Liu, and Taylour Paige), and a labor factory in China. That’s just the foundation for an adventure involving an overpowered transmutation device, a lonely lothario with supernatural powers (LaKeith Stanfield), and literal skinwalkers, but Riley juggles it all with washes of vibrant color, masterful practical effects, and a sense of humor bold enough to blow to the top of his entire operation. — Lyvie Scott

1. Project Hail Mary

The feel-good sci-fi epic of 2026 is one of the few hit films in recent memory that truly deserves the title of “instant classic.” Adapted from the 2021 novel of the same name by Andy Weir — famous for The Martian —Project Hail Mary is a sci-fi masterpiece for the masses. While the film retains the science-as-solution plotting of The Martian, the larger aims of the film are broader and more humanistic. Rarely have plausible sci-fi films felt so simple and direct, and thanks to a last-minute revelation, Ryan Gosling’s Ryland Grace becomes the kind of hero we can actually, truly understand. — Ryan Britt