Netflix is releasing a whopping 71 films in 2021, the most of any streaming provider and on par with local cinema releases. Every week, a new film will debut on the service — and in good news for genre fans, there’s plenty of sci-fi, fantasy and horror-themed goodies to go around.
The director and star lineup is packed to the brim with Hollywood and indie stars, and while some films are more intriguing than others, there’s sure to be plenty of bangers on the way.
Here’s everything genre fans should look out for from Netflix in 2021.
None are currently dated, but we can expect them to roll out over the weeks and months ahead.
Afterlife of the Party
PLOT:
A social butterfly (Justice) experiences the biggest party foul of all… dying during her birthday week. To her surprise, she’s given a second chance to right her wrongs on Earth by reconnecting with loved ones, and most importantly, prove that she’s worthy enough to get into the big VIP room in the sky.
DIRECTOR: Stephen Herek
STARRING: Victoria Justice, Midori Francis, Spencer Sutherland
Army of the Dead
PLOT: Following a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries take the ultimate gamble, venturing into the quarantine zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted.
DIRECTOR: Zack Snyder
STARRING: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana De La Reguera, Theo Rossi and more.
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Awake
PLOT: After a sudden global event wipes out all electronics and takes away humankind’s ability to sleep, chaos quickly begins to consume the world. Only Jill, an ex-soldier with a troubled past, may hold the key to a cure in the form of her own daughter. The question is, can Jill safely deliver her daughter and save the world before she herself loses her mind.
DIRECTOR: Mark Raso
STARRING: Gina Rodriguez, Ariana Greenblatt, Frances Fisher, Shamier Anderson, Finn Jones and more.
Blood Red Sky
PLOT: A woman with a mysterious illness is forced into action when a group of terrorists attempt to hijack a transatlantic overnight flight. In order to protect her son she will have to reveal a dark secret, and unleash the inner monster she has fought to hide.
DIRECTOR: Peter Thorwarth
STARRING: Peri Baumeister, Kais Setti, Alexander Scheer, Dominic Purcell
Escape from Spiderhead
PLOT: In the near future, two young convicts grapple with their pasts in a facility run by a brilliant visionary, who experiments on inmates with emotion-altering drugs.
DIRECTOR: Joseph Kosinski
STARRING: Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, Jurnee Smollett, Mark Paguio, Tess Haubrich
Fear Street Trilogy: 1994, 1978 and 1666
PLOT: In 1994, a group of teenagers discovers that the terrifying events that have haunted their town for generations may all be connected — and that they may be the next targets. Adapted from R.L. Stine’s best selling horror series, the trilogy follows the nightmare through Shadyside’s sinister history.
DIRECTOR: Leigh Janiak
CAST: Kiana Madeira, Olivia Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, Ryan Simpkins, Ashley Zukerman, Gillian Jacobs and more.
Nightbooks
PLOT: When Alex (Winslow Fegley), a boy obsessed with scary stories, is imprisoned by an evil young witch (Krysten Ritter) in her contemporary New York City apartment, he meets Yasmin (Lydia Jewett), who is also trapped there, and learns he must tell a new scary story every night in order to stay alive.
DIRECTOR: David Yarovesky
STARRING: Winslow Fegley, Lidya Jewett, Krysten Ritter
No One Gets Out Alive
PLOT: Ambar is an immigrant in search of the American dream, but when she’s forced to take a room in a boarding house, she finds herself in a nightmare she can’t escape.
DIRECTOR: Santiago Menghini
STARRING: Cristina Rodlo, Marc Menchaca
Outside the Wire
PLOT: Set in the future, Harp (Damson Idris), a drone pilot, is sent into a deadly militarised zone where he finds himself working for Leo (Anthony Mackie), an android officer, tasked to locate a doomsday device before the insurgents do.
DIRECTOR: Mikael Håfström
CAST: Anthony Mackie, Damson Idris, Emily Beecham, Michael Kelly, Pilou Asbæk
Red Notice
PLOT: An Interpol-issued Red Notice is a global alert to hunt and capture the world’s most wanted. But when a daring heist brings together the FBI’s top profiler (Johnson) and two rival criminals (Gadot, Reynolds), there’s no telling what will happen.
DIRECTOR: Rawson Marshall Thurber
STARRING: Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, Ryan Reynolds
Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie
PLOT: In Nickelodeon’s Rise of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie, the Ninja Turtles are faced with their greatest challenge yet when a mysterious stranger arrives from the future with a dire warning. Leo is forced to rise and lead his brothers, Raph, Donnie, and Mikey in a fight to save the world from a terrifying alien species…the Krang!
DIRECTORS: Ant Ward, Andy Suriano
STARRING: Ben Schwartz, Omar Benson Miller, Brandon Mychal Smith, Josh Brener, Kat Graham, Eric Bauza, Haley Joel Osment
Stowaway
PLOT: On a mission headed to Mars, an unintended stowaway (Anderson) accidentally causes severe damage to the spaceship’s life support systems. Facing dwindling resources and a potentially grim outcome, a medical researcher (Kendrick) emerges as the only dissenting voice against the clinical logic of both her commander (Collette) and the ship’s biologist (Kim).
DIRECTOR: Joe Penna
STARRING: Anna Kendrick, Toni Collette, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson
The Swarm
PLOT: Virginie lives on a farm with her children Laura (15) and Gaston (7) and raises locusts as a high-protein crop. Life is hard: money worries and practical problems are piling up, tensions with her kids and neighbors are running high. But everything changes when she discovers the locusts have a taste for blood.
DIRECTOR: Just Philippot
STARRING: Suliane Brahim, Nathalie Boyer, Sofian Khammes, Victor Bonnel, Raphael Romand, Marie Narbonne
There’s Someone Inside Your House
PLOT: Makani Young has moved from Hawaii to quiet, small-town Nebraska to live with her grandmother and finish high school, but as the countdown to graduation begins, her classmates are stalked by a killer intent on exposing their darkest secrets to the entire town, terrorising victims while wearing a life-like mask of their own face. With a mysterious past of her own, Makani and her friends must discover the killer’s identity before they become victims themselves. THERE’S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE is based on Stephanie Perkins’ New York Times best-selling novel of the same name and written for the screen by Henry Gayden (Shazam!), directed by Patrick Brice (Creep) and produced by James Wan’s Atomic Monster (The Conjuring) and Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps (Stranger Things).
DIRECTOR: Patrick Brice
STARRING: Sydney Park, Théodore Pellerin, Asjha Cooper, Dale Whibley and more.
Thunder Force
PLOT: In a world where supervillains are commonplace, two estranged childhood best friends reunite after one devises a treatment that gives them powers to protect their city.
DIRECTOR: Ben Falcone
STARRING: Melissa McCarthy, Octavia Spencer, Bobby Cannavale, Pom Klementieff, Kevin Dunn, Melissa Leo, Jason Bateman
Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans
PLOT: In Dreamworks’ Trollhhunters: Rise of the Titans, Arcadia may look like an ordinary town but it lies at the center of magical and mystical lines that makes it a nexus for many battles among otherworldly creatures including trolls, aliens and wizards. Now the heroes from the hit series Trollhunters, 3Below and Wizards, team-up in their most epic adventure yet where they must fight the Arcane Order for control over the magic that binds them all.
DIRECTORS: Johane Matte, Francisco Ruiz Velasco, Andrew L. Schmidt
STARRING: Emile Hirsch, Lexi Medrano, Charlie Saxton, Kelsey Grammer, Alfred Molina, Steven Yeun, Nick Frost, Colin O’Donoghue, Diego Luna, Tatiana Maslany, Cole Sand, Nick Offerman and more.
Wish Dragon
PLOT: In Sony Pictures Animation’s Wish Dragon, Din, a working-class college student with big dreams but small means, and Long, a cynical but all-powerful dragon capable of granting wishes, set off on a hilarious adventure through modern day Shanghai in pursuit of Din’s long-lost childhood friend, Lina. Their journey forces them to answer some of life’s biggest questions – because when you can wish for anything, you have to decide what really matters.
DIRECTOR: Chris Appelhans
STARRING: John Cho, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Jimmy Wong, Constance Wu and more.
All 71 films will roll out on Netflix over the course of 2021.
Stay tuned to Gizmodo Australia for more news as Netflix kicks off its massive year in film entertainment.