Can’t wait for They Cloned Tyrone? Here are 4 more great trippy sci-fi movies on Netflix
More mind-bending sci-fi films to sink your teeth into
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If you like your films to be multi-hyphenated, such as action-horror-comedy-sci-fi, then you probably can’t wait forThey Cloned Tyroneto be released onNetflixon Friday, July 21.
The film, which is a homage to the Blaxploitation movies of the 1970s, mixes horror, humour, satire and action to a hugely entertaining effect in its tale of an unlikely trio battling a sinister conspiracy. It’s exactly theunusual sci-fi comedy movie that Netflix needs right now.
But there’s a still week to get through before we can devour it, so what can you watch in the meantime to fill that genre-busting gap? If you’ve exhausted thebest Netflix moviesalready, we have some more suggestions.
1. The Mitchells vs. The Machines
This CGI-action-sci-fi-comedy-adventure fromSonyPictures Animation is an absolute hoot from start to finish. It follows a dysfunctional and cranky family on a road trip that’s suddenly up-ended by an unexpected robot apocalypse. If you’re a fan of the Spider-Verse movies (whose Phil Lord and Chris Miller produced here) you’ll love this too. It’s visually spectacular, absolutely packed with gags for viewers of all ages and was clearly made with lots of love.
2. Annhilation
This time our hyphenates are sci-fi-psychological-horror.Annihilationfeatures Natalie Portman as Lena, leader of an all-woman team investigating the mysterious Area X. Spoiler: it doesn’t go well. The Horror Queers Podcast describe it as a “trippy little cosmic horror film [that] managers to awe, horrify and perplex all at the same time. A modern classic”, whileThe New Yorkersniffed that it was “numbingly ludicrous”. We’re somewhere in the middle – it’s not perfect by any means but when it’s good it’s gloriously gory and quite scary too.
3. Synchronic
This sci-fi horror features two New Orleans paramedics and best pals who are called to a serious of seriously horrible accidents. At first they blame the gruesome accidents on drugs, but it soon becomes apparent that something even more horrible and brain-bending is happening. It alternates between being seriously gloomy and oddly goofy.The Daily Telegraph, for one, was very impressed: it’s “shot with a doleful urban grittiness [that] suggests one of Philip K Dick’s narcotised mind-benders spliced with the existential gloom of Scorcese’s Bringing Out The Dead.”
4. I Am Mother
I Am Motheris a cyberpunk sci-fi thriller set after a post-extinction event and featuring Clara Rugaard as Daughter, a young woman raised by an android called Mother (voiced by Rose Byrne). This all seems fine until an unexpected visitor, Woman (Hilary Swank) turns up and makes her question everything she thought was true.
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Despite the sci-fi setting, this feels more like a stage play, focusing as it does on Daughter and Woman’s attempts to work out whether they can trust each other. There are nods to Stanley Kubrick, especially at the beginning, and there are some twists that’ll have you jumping off the sofa.
Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir,Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock bandUnquiet Mind.
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