The 6 Best Sci-Fi Shows Released Since 1990, Ranked

Image via Netflix Published Aug 26, 2026, 1:11 PM EDT Sign in to your Collider account The funny thing about science-fiction television is that the expensive stuff is rarely what stays with you. Years later, you remember Spike sitting alone with his past, G’Kar realizing his politics have consequences, Sisko trying to remain a father while history keeps demanding more from him, or a Black Mirror episode making some harmless piece of technology suddenly feel sinister. Spaceships and artificial intelligence get us through the door. People are why we keep talking about the shows. That is also why this ranking gets painful near the top. Science fiction television has given us a ridiculous amount since 1990. This is the elite class. Let’s get started. 6 'Cowboy Bebop' (1998–1999) Image via Sunrise Cowboy Bebop takes place in 2071 and follows bounty hunters Spike Spiegel (Kōichi Yamadera) and Jet Black (Unshō Ishizuka) as they drift around the solar system aboard the Bebop, eventually gathering gambler Faye Valentine (Megumi Hayashibara), hacker Edward (Aoi Tada), and the absurdly intelligent corgi Ein into one beautifully dysfunctional crew. Sunrise produced 26 episodes, but describing the show through plot barely captures its personality. One week can resemble noir. Another becomes horror, comedy, Western, crime thriller, or melancholy character drama. The future is full of colonies and spaceships, yet most people still seem to be worried about rent, food, loneliness, and mistakes they cannot undo. That mixture became enormously important to anime’s international reach, particularly after Cowboy Bebop joined Adult Swim in the United States in 2001. Yoko Kanno’s jazz-heavy music is inseparable from its identity, and “Tank!” may be the easiest opening theme in television history to recognize within seconds. More important is the emotional restraint underneath all that cool. Spike carries a history he pretends he can outrun. Jet builds a new life after losing the old one. Faye struggles with a past she literally cannot remember. Their companionship feels temporary even during its happiest moments, which gives ordinary meals and arguments an unexpected ache. Cowboy Bebop looks effortless. It absolutely is not. Twenty-six sessions are enough to understand why people keep boarding the Bebop decades later. 5 'Babylon 5' (1994–1998) Image via Warner Bros. Television The five-season series turns diplomacy into long-form science fiction, following ambassadors, officers, politicians, religious leaders, and ordinary station residents while conflicts involving the Minbari, Narn, Centauri, Vorlons, Shadows, and Earth itself gradually become pieces of something much larger. The show began its regular broadcast in January 1994 and ran for five seasons. The space station at the center of Babylon 5 was built after a devastating war as neutral ground where humans and alien civilizations could negotiate instead of annihilating one another. Naturally, everybody brings their grudges with them. That’s where it begins. What makes Babylon 5 essential now is how confidently it treated television as one enormous developing story when heavily serialized genre TV was far less common. Creator J. Michael Straczynski conceived the series around a long-range plan and wrote 92 of its 110 episodes, allowing early political details and character choices to acquire meaning years later. G’Kar (Andreas Katsulas) and Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) alone could justify a rewatch. Their relationship moves through prejudice, power, humiliation, revenge, and painful changes in perspective while the political fortunes of their peoples rise and collapse around them. The effects show their age. The writing underneath them often feels years ahead of schedule. Give the first season some patience and Babylon 5 starts paying back details you may have forgotten you noticed. 4 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' (1993–1999) Image via Paramount Television Instead of sending another Federation crew across the galaxy, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine makes Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) responsible for a station near Bajor, a planet recovering from Cardassian occupation. A newly discovered wormhole suddenly makes that station one of the most strategically important locations in the region, bringing traders, religious figures, soldiers, refugees, criminals, and competing governments through the same corridors. Paramount describes the basic distinction perfectly. There is no Enterprise arriving every week to solve a problem and fly away. Sisko and his people have to remain there after the consequences begin. That stationary premise gave Star Trek room to examine ideas its optimistic future could previously escape more easily. Bajor still carries the trauma of occupation. Cardassians disagree about what their empire did. Federation principles get tested by war rather than discussed from safety. Sisko has responsibilities as a Starfleet commander, father, political figure, and religious symbol, and those identities frequently refuse to cooperate. Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor)’s history as a resistance fighter, Odo (René Auberjonois)’s search for belonging, Quark (Armin Shimerman)’s Ferengi worldview, and the arrival of Worf (Michael Dorn) create equally rich pressure around him. The Dominion War eventually turns the station into the center of one of Star Trek’s most ambitious serialized stories. Deep Space Nine respects the franchise’s ideals enough to ask what they cost when keeping them becomes genuinely difficult. Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive. 💊The Matrix 🔥Mad Max 🌧️Blade Runner 🏜️Dune 🚀Star Wars TEST YOUR SURVIVAL → 01 You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one. APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone. NEXT QUESTION → 02 In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires. AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of. AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run. NEXT QUESTION → 04 How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything. ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen. NEXT QUESTION → 05 Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are. AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are. AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of. AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another. AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot. REVEAL MY WORLD → Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In…Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for. The MatrixYou took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things. You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it. You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare. You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it. The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door. Mad MaxThe wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you. You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon. You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three. You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider. In the wasteland, that distinction is everything. Blade RunnerYou'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely. You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer. In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional. You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either. In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything. DuneArrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards. Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools. You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory. Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect. In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it. Star WarsThe galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way. You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion. You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken. You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of. In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 3 'Black Mirror' (2011– ) Image via Netflix Black Mirror can make a social-media rating, dating algorithm, memory device, virtual reality system, robot dog, or ordinary screen feel suspicious for several days after an episode ends. Charlie Brooker’s anthology changes characters, settings, and realities from story to story, giving it the freedom to treat technology as romance in one episode and psychological torture in another. The show has lasted because its real subject was never simply futuristic gadgets. It keeps asking what recognizable human impulses become capable of once technology removes one more barrier. That flexibility has produced an unusually wide emotional range. “The Entire History of You” turns perfect recall into relationship poison. “San Junipero” finds tenderness inside simulated existence. “USS Callister” uses a digital playground to examine entitlement and control, while “Nosedive” makes social approval feel physically exhausting. The technology often sounds plausible enough to create discomfort, but the behavior around it is usually familiar already. Jealousy existed before memory implants. Cruelty did not need virtual reality. Status anxiety predates star ratings. Black Mirror simply gives those weaknesses better equipment. You can watch episodes in almost any order, which makes recommending it dangerously easy. Pick the premise that bothers you most. That is probably the correct one. 2 'The Expanse' (2015–2022) Image via SYFY Two centuries into the future, The Expanse imagines humanity spread across the solar system but carrying old political habits along for the journey. Earth and Mars exist as rival powers, while people born and raised in the asteroid belt provide labor and resources without receiving equal power in return. A missing-person investigation involving detective Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane) eventually collides with the crew of the Rocinante and a discovery capable of destabilizing that already fragile balance. The series began on Syfy before continuing on Prime Video, where its sixth and final season completed the television run in 2022. Its physical approach to space travel gives the show texture before the politics even begin. Acceleration affects bodies. Air and water remain precious. Distance creates strategic problems. Belters develop their own language and identity after generations living away from Earth. None of that technical attention crowds out the people. James Holden (Steven Strait)’s instinct to expose information repeatedly collides with consequences he cannot control. Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper)’s Belter history makes political conflicts painfully personal, while Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) understands that planetary diplomacy often depends on choosing among several terrible outcomes. The series grew from the novels by James S. A. Corey into one of television’s richest space operas, and its world becomes more convincing the longer you stay inside it. Six seasons sound substantial until you reach the Rocinante and wish there were six more. 1 'Battlestar Galactica' (2004–2009) Image via NBC Human civilization is almost erased in the opening movement of Battlestar Galactica. The Cylons, machines originally created by humanity, return after decades of silence and destroy the Twelve Colonies, leaving a small civilian fleet protected by the aging warship Galactica. Commander William Adama (Edward James Olmos) has to keep that fleet alive while President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) tries to preserve some form of democratic government among people who have just watched their entire world disappear. Worse, a new generation of Cylons can look completely human. Survival therefore requires trust at exactly the moment trust has become dangerous. The weekly series followed a 2003 miniseries and ran for four seasons from 2004 to 2009. From that premise, Battlestar Galactica keeps finding harder questions. How much freedom survives martial law? What happens when elections produce dangerous outcomes? Can torture become acceptable under existential threat? What does religion mean when prophecy starts appearing alongside advanced technology? Adama and Roslin develop one of science fiction television’s richest relationships because military necessity and civilian authority keep forcing them to depend on someone whose priorities differ from their own. Kara “Starbuck” Thrace (Katee Sackhoff), Gaius Baltar (James Callis), Lee “Apollo” Adama (Jamie Bamber), Sharon “Boomer” Valerii (Grace Park), Number Six (Tricia Helfer), and the wider fleet complicate the same struggle from entirely different directions. The Peabody Awards recognized the series for pushing science fiction beyond conventional genre boundaries, which gets close to why it belongs here. Battlestar Galactica gives you battles and spaceships, then makes you care more about the arguments happening after the guns stop. That is where its greatness lives.