I don’t know who at Netflix is in charge of licensing films to appear on the service, but they’re doing an incredible job this month with new sci-fi movies specifically. Netflix previously just added both Interstellar and Inception, Christopher Nolan classics, but now they also have gotten the two actual best sci-fi movies of 2024.
That would be Furiosa, the Mad Max: Fury Road prequel, and Dune Part 2, the sequel to well, Dune Part 1. You can debate which one is better, but both are absolutely excellent and they’re now both available on Netflix, currently placed inside the top 10. Furiosa, starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth, is #3, while Dune Part 2, starring Timothy Chalamet and Zendaya, is…oops, I just checked and despite being the top 10 list before, it just fell out, replaced by Despicable Me movies.
That’s a little surprising given that the two had opposite box office performances. Furiosa underperformed somewhat with $173 million on a big budget. It’s not clear if George Miller will automatically get greenlights for more Mad Max projects, which is a crying shame.
Meanwhile, Dune Part 2 is one of the highest-grossing movies of the year, bringing in $714 million globally, much more than the $407 million of Part 1, somehow, and it has secured that Denis Villeneuve will be able to make a third film, which is already in the works. He says he wants to be done after that, even though technically there are many more Dune books in the collection.
Both films reviewed excellently, a 90% critic score for Furiosa with an 88% audience score. Dune did even better with a 92% critic score and a stunning 95% audience score. Still, it’s a shame that Furiosa did not perform better and we may not get another apocalyptic classic out of George Miller. Someone make Elon Musk watch the movies and maybe he’ll self-fund a new one. I don’t know, I’m desperate for more.
Chris Hemsworth is having a heck of a time on the Netflix top 10 list right now, not just co-starring in Furiosa at #3 but also starring in the #1 film, In The Heart of the Sea, a not-terribly-good 2015 flick loosely based on Moby Dick. Hemsworth is already an existing Netflix star in the form of two different Extraction movies, rare actual hits from Netflix’s original movie arm. Extraction 3 is in fact on the way.
So, watch these movies. Both of them. I guess you might want to watch Fury Road and Dune Part 1 first, both of which are also on Netflix, but those are also great. You won’t regret it.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
