Hidden Sci-Fi gems to stream on Netflix

Netflix has more shows available than you finish watching in a lifetime. So, it is better to follow a list than endlessly scroll through to find your next good watch. Science fiction is one of the most popular genres on Netflix, and Black Mirror directors refuse to release a new season as they think the world of Covid-19 is not ready for a new season of the show. So here are a few hidden sci-fi gems you should stream as you continue to stay home and stay safe.

Love, Death & Robots (2019)

This anthology of animated series stays true to its name and features individual short stories about love, death, and a lot of robots in a dystopia. Each episode's story stands on its own as it is an anthology and runs for a very short time with the shortest running time being 6 minutes only. The shortest story is about a scientist yoghurt that becomes an efficient governing system for the world. The characters are goofy, at times very lonely and the stories have their comedic breaks even if the plot is set in a grim dystopia where mankind has faced its doom.

Snowpiercer (2013)

Director Bong Joon-Ho has worked on multiple masterpieces before winning 4 Oscars for Parasite, and co-directing Snowpiercer is one of them. The movie is set in a post-apocalyptic Earth covered completely in the snow where all of the humankind exists on a running train. The train is a high-speed biodome with two sections and is called Snowpiercer. The rich live in the front section while the poor live in the back. While the conflict of class warfare of the movie is predictable, the storytelling and cinematography are astonishingly good, and the cast includes Hollywood A-listers like Chris Evans, Octavia Spencer, and Tilda Swinton. There is also a 2020 show by the same name featuring the same story spanning over 10 episodes.

I Am Mother (2019)

The movie is about a girl being raised in a protected bunker by a humanoid robot with artificial intelligence in a world where humanity is extinct. The relationship between the girl and the robot with a stereotypically feminine voice, a common feature of present-day artificial intelligence, mimics the helicopter parenting style of many parents in the present age who are just trying to keep their children safe. Their relationship and the daughter's impression of the mother are tested when an unexpected guest arrives in their bunker and the main story unfolds from there.  Parental insecurity is a common theme of dystopian science fiction stories, and I Am Mother takes it to a new level by having an artificially intelligent robot take the place of the human mother. The story itself is an emotional thriller, but the cinematography and plot points have enough elements of the sci-fi genre to keep your nerd mind interested.

Advantageous (2015)

The movie is about a mother trying to secure a better future for her daughter and must make hard employment choices as economic hardships grow. The hard choice is that she has to undergo a procedure to transfer her consciousness into a new body, as that will be the only way for her to continue employment. The movie is set in a future where the threats are not robots, viruses, or alien invasions, but the people themselves creating a society that is not comfortable or safe for its inhabitants. The director Jennifer Phang is known for projecting idealistic stories in realistic depictions of the world, and the dilemma the protagonist of the movie, the mother, faces is no different than that.