Every Apple TV Sci-Fi Series, Ranked

Apple TV has built one of the strongest sci-fi libraries in streaming, thanks to its treatment of the genre as prestige television. The platform pours real money into big idea-driven concepts. Critics have always been happy with the outcome, giving these shows high ratings. For instance, Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus stands at an impressive 99% Tomatometer score, and Ben Stiller’s Severance scored a 97% during its first season.

That commitment shows up on the budget sheet. Severance Season 2 reportedly cost around $200 million for ten episodes, and Foundation runs roughly $10 million per episode, making both among the priciest dramas on television. Here are all of Apple TV’s sci-fi series, ranked from worst to best.

25 Amazing Stories (2020)

Apple TV revived Steven Spielberg‘s 1985 sci-fi series in 2020, even giving it the same name, Amazing Stories. While the original wasn’t a ratings hit either, the Spielberg name attracted attention to it in the later years. The revival show hoped for a similar attention, but was quickly deemed one of the worst sci-fi productions from the platform.

24 Circuit Breakers (2022)

Apple TV’s kids’ sci-fi drama follows a group of tech-savvy kids who use invented gadgets to fight back against a corporation stealing their inventions. The execution is thin, with flat performances, low-stakes conflict, and effects that look cheap even by kids’-show standards.

23 Me (2024)

This is another kids’ show that navigates a shape-shifting sci-fi premise, with added family drama and a coming-of-age story. The sci-fi hook barely matters, as the middle-schooler protagonist’s powers have no actual rules or stakes. The tone wavers between earnest family drama and half-hearted superhero plotting, satisfying neither.

22 WondLa (2024-2025)

WondLa is the animated adaptation of Tony DiTerlizzi’s novels, and it follows a girl raised underground by a robot. She emerges on an alien-populated Earth and navigates this colorful world. However, there is nothing much going on for the show except this worldbuilding.

The generic chosen-one plot, the uneven pacing, and the shallow character work don’t do justice to the source material. It reads as a solid picture book stretched past its natural length.

21 Extrapolations (2023)

Kit Harrington, Sienna Miller, Diane Lane, Meryl Streep, and Edward Norton form the absurdly stacked cast of this sci-fi anthology drama. Extrapolations spans a few decades from 2037 to 2070, showing the effects of climate change on the planet.

It should have worked, but the show buries urgent subject matter under heavy-handed messaging and disconnected visuals that never build momentum. The starry names of the show deliver clunky dialogue, making the show a challenging watch on Apple TV.

20 Hello Tomorrow! (2023)

Hello Tomorrow! is set in a retro-futuristic mid-century America, where Billy Crudup‘s Jack Billings is a silver-tongued traveling salesman who is selling timeshares on the Moon that may not actually exist. It is a story about desperation and self-delusion.

While the retro-futuristic production design is genuinely gorgeous, the audience quickly gets tired of the show’s non-committal stance. The constant tonal shifts between con-artist drama and family story wear the premise thin. The unevenly executed show was canceled after one season.

19 Calls (2021)

Calls is an experimental sci-fi flick that might work for some, while the concept doesn’t sit well with other viewers. The anthology series tells its story almost entirely through audio. They are phone conversations layered over animated waveform visuals, gradually revealing a fractured timeline connected to a global catastrophe.

The viewers are forced to construct entire scenes from voice performance alone. The voice cast, including Aubrey Plaza, Nicholas Braun, and Rosario Dawson, carries real dramatic weight without ever appearing on screen. It is a difficult and less rewatchable entry.

18 Sunny (2024)

Sunny tells the story of a grieving American woman in Japan, played by Rashida Jones. After she loses her husband and son in a plane crash, she is gifted a domestic robot companion. As she investigates her husband’s mysterious work, she discovers his connection to the robotics company that built it.

It is a mix of sci-fi, grief drama, dark comedy, and yakuza thriller elements. And it exactly poses the show’s major issue. The odd combination of genres doesn’t always cohere. Jones gives a committed performance, and Joanna Sotomura’s robot Sunny is unexpectedly unsettling in a way that serves the story’s tension.

17 Strange Planet (2023)

Nathan W. Pyle’s popular webcomic is turned into an animated anthology for Apple TV. Strange Planet belongs in the sci-fi genre as the stories follow the blue-colored aliens, who explore everyday human experiences, from parenthood to workplace anxiety. It turns the mundane moments into oddly poignant sequences, with a deadpan alien narration.

Demi Lovato, Tunde Adebimpe, and Danny Pudi voice the characters and provide identity to the otherwise visually identical aliens. It significantly lacks the world-building or dramatic stakes of Apple’s bigger sci-fi swings.

16 The Big Door Prize (2023-2024)

The Big Door Prize uses a sci-fi gimmick to explore the midlife dissatisfaction of a high school teacher, played by Chris O’Dowd. In the Apple TV comedy, a mysterious machine appears in a small-town general store, promising to reveal each resident’s true life potential for the price of a few dollars.

Out of all the entries in this list, this show is warmer and gentler. The central mystery is just an anchor for the genuine small-town character comedy. O’Dowd is reliably charming, and the ensemble cast gives the town real texture. It is a pleasant low-stakes outing that ran for two seasons.

15 See (2019-2022)

Jason Momoa’s See imagines a brutal tribal world in which sight has become a myth after a virus from centuries ago leaves humanity blind. Momoa plays Baba Voss, a warrior chieftain protecting his adopted twins, who are born with the forbidden ability to see. Being one of the platform’s earliest experimental shows, the sightless world of See had some issues.

The entire worldbuilding and Momoa’s performance have earned critical acclaim. The show’s action choreography and production design are also consistently impressive even when the writing falters. While the show had a lot of ambition, Apple TV never fully realized its sci-fi prestige TV goals with this show.

14 Dr. Brain (2021)

Dr. Brain was Apple TV’s first Korean-language original. The show follows a brilliant but emotionally detached neuroscientist, played by Lee Sun-kyun, who develops a technique to sync his brain with the memories of the dead, including that of his son. He uses this tech to uncover the truth behind a family tragedy.

The show is a clever mix of proper sci-fi and psychological thriller. Lee’s quietly grieving performance carries the show. The memory-sync sequences are visually brilliant. However, the show occasionally struggles with pacing in its effort to lean more into its sci-fi elements. This results in the show never quite reaching the emotional heights it could have.

13 Constellation (2024)

Constellation follows Noomi Rapace’s Jo Ericsson, an astronaut who survives a disaster aboard the International Space Station only to return to Earth and discover that unsettling details of her life have changed. Her memories don’t line up with everyone else’s, and more importantly, her daughter looks different.

The show is both a space survival drama and a psychological horror, blended into a brilliant concept. Rapace’s excellent performance is essential to the show’s increasingly disorienting mystery. The show is in no rush to explain Jo’s mysterious experiences, but it also brings up one of its biggest weaknesses: pacing.

12 Dark Matter (2024–Present)

Blake Crouch’s novel, Dark Matter, was turned into a sci-fi show starring Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly. Edgerton plays Jason Dessen, a physicist abducted into a multiverse-hopping machine of his own invention. He wakes up in an alternate version of his life and must fight his way back to the family he actually chose.

The sci-fi concept of parallel realities is used as a lens for regret, ambition, and the roads not taken in life. Edgerton plays multiple versions of the same man with real nuance, and Jennifer Connelly delivers an equally powerful performance in conveying the emotional stakes. It has room for improvement, which is possible with a second season premiering on August 28, 2026.

11 Invasion (2021–Present)

A Long Island mother, a Japanese astronaut, and a US soldier abroad are three of the main characters of this sci-fi show. Invasion tells the story of a global alien attack through the eyes of these characters scattered across continents. X-Men writer Simon Kinberg and David Weil created this slow-burning sci-fi thriller.

With no single lead, the show often loses focus and even leads to critics dismissing it completely. But it sharpened its premise considerably by its second and third seasons, expanding the mythology around the alien hive mind and the survivors psychically linked to it. Golshifteh Farahani gives the show’s most compelling performance as a mother protecting her children. The scale and visual effects are genuinely impressive, but the pacing may test your patience.

10 Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023-Present)

This show belongs in the Monsterverse franchise, which makes it more of a sci-fi-adjacent show. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters follows two generations of the Randa family as they uncover a secret organization studying titanic monsters. The show explores two timelines, with the present-day timeline incorporating the events from the movies.

Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt Russell playing the same character decades apart is the show’s cleverest trick. Anna Sawai, the Emmy-winning actress from Shogun, gives the show real emotional grounding. The dual-timeline structure occasionally overextends itself, but the kaiju scenes and family mystery keep it compelling.

9 Murderbot (2025 – Present)

Based on Martha Wells’s The Murderbot Diaries, this series stars Alexander Skarsgård as a security android that secretly hacks its own governor module, gaining free will it never asked for. Rather than pursue freedom or vengeance, it mostly just wants to be left alone to watch its favorite soap opera.

The premise of Murderbot is deceptively simple, but the show’s deadpan humor makes it one of the funniest things Apple TV has produced. Skarsgård’s physical performance does a lot of heavy lifting, conveying awkwardness and buried emotion through a character who insists it feels nothing. With only one season so far, the show hasn’t had room to expand its world the way higher-ranked entries have, which keeps it lower on this list.

8 The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (2022)

Samuel L. Jackson stars as Ptolemy Grey, a 93-year-old man sinking into dementia, who is offered an experimental drug that temporarily restores his memory. With a sharpened mind he hasn’t experienced in decades, he sets out on an investigation into his nephew’s death. However, there is a catch: the treatment is slowly killing him.

It is more of a drama and a devastating character study, with some sci-fi elements spread into it. Nevertheless, you find this critically acclaimed drama among the sci-fi picks on Apple TV’s platform. Jackson delivers one of the finest performances of his career, shifting convincingly between confusion and startling clarity. Its emotional precision makes it one of the most affecting sci-fi-adjacent dramas.

7 Star City (2026-Present)

This 2026 spinoff of For All Mankind presents the Soviet Union’s alternate history through the eyes of Rhys Ifans‘ Chief Designer, who is behind their successful space program. Star City follows the cosmonauts, engineers, and KGB officers inside the secretive training compound that sent the first woman toward the Moon.

The show reveals a space program built on paranoia as much as it is on ambition. There is a significant tonal shift from the original, with the spinoff moving away from its predecessor’s optimism and leaning more towards claustrophobic tension. It debuted to a phenomenal critical reception, proving this universe can sustain a spinoff.

6 Sugar (2024-Present)

Apple TV’s sleek mystery is currently in its second season run. Starring Colin Farrell, Sugar has garnered the attention of neo-noir fans by slyly subverting the genre elements. The film-loving detective’s adventures across Los Angeles drew many mystery fans to the series, but it is the first season’s midseason sci-fi twist that blew viewers’ minds.

The old-school private investigator is revealed to be an alien who is part of a small group of extraterrestrials quietly embedded in society. That twist retroactively transforms every prior episode, and it’s the show’s boldest, most confident swing. In the new season, Sugar investigates the disappearance of the troubled brother of a rising boxer, only to discover a conspiracy far bigger than he expected. It proves that the show’s strange spell endures.

5 For All Mankind (2019–Present)

For All Mankind poses an interesting alternate history question. What if the Soviet Union had reached the Moon first? From there, the space race never ends, reshaping decades of politics, technology, and personal sacrifice for the astronauts and engineers who keep pushing further. Fans who love the current run of Star City should definitely check this original show, which kickstarted the unique premise.

Ronald D. Moore’s series is one of Apple’s most ambitious originals. The performances, especially from Joel Kinnaman and Krys Marshall, ground the show’s sweeping scope in a believable human story. Its later seasons, which push into Mars colonization, are widely considered the show’s creative peak. Few other TV shows have been able to expand the stakes without losing their essence, making this show into an all-time sci-fi hit.

4 Foundation (2021-Present)

Foundation is set in a vast galactic empire on the brink of collapse, and follows a mathematician who devises a plan to preserve civilization through the coming dark age. It is adapted from Isaac Asimov’s legendary stories. Asimov inspired George Lucas, which makes this essential watching for any Star Wars fan. The show’s massive budget is evident in every frame, with stunning sets that rival anything seen in sci-fi television.

The cast delivers genuinely impressive performances across the board. What sets Foundation apart is its grand, expansive world-building, which includes entire planets, cultures, and political systems. The second season elevates everything even further, widely regarded as the show’s best season. The show’s production values, writing, and pacing all earned it a deserving spot among the best sci-fi shows on Apple TV.

3 Pluribus (2025-Present)

After Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Vince Gilligan joined forces with Apple TV to create the acclaimed sci-fi drama, Pluribus. In the show, Rhea Seehorn plays Carol Sturka, a cranky romance novelist who becomes one of the only people on Earth left unaffected after a strange phenomenon locks everyone in a hive-mind contentment.

Everyone around her is calm, kind, and eerily agreeable, an inversion of the usual apocalypse story, and she alone finds it unbearable. Seehorn is extraordinary in the lead role, carrying entire episodes on her frustration, grief, and stubborn individuality. With only one season released, it hasn’t built the scale of the shows above it, but its premiere run was strong enough to be already considered among Apple TV’s very best.

2 Silo (2023–Present)

Rebecca Ferguson‘s Silo is a rare case of a series improving with every season. It is based on Hugh Howey’s novels and is set to arrive for its third season run. Set in a massive underground structure in a dystopian world, Ferguson’s Juliette and other last remaining human beings are told that the surface world is toxic and uninhabitable.

Ferguson’s character, being an engineer, investigates a murder that uncovers the lies holding her entire society together. She leads the show with a determined performance, while the claustrophobic production design turns the silo itself into a character. Season 3, which digs into the silo’s backstory and the shadowy figures who built it, is already being praised as the show’s strongest chapter yet.

1 Severance (2022- Present)

Created by Dan Erickson and directed largely by Ben Stiller, Severance reimagines a workplace procedure, adding sci-fi elements to it. The show explored Adam Scott’s Mark S., who is an employee of the fictional corporation Lumon Industries. He separates his non-work memories from his work memories as part of a ‘Severance’ program. By the end of Season 1, several characters realize the truths about their inny and outie personalities.

Severance is Apple’s most acclaimed and most expensive drama. That investment is visible in every frame, from Lumon’s retro-futurist corridors to its meticulous sound design. Adam Scott leads a note-perfect ensemble that also includes Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, John Turturro, and Patricia Arquette. Season 2 further elevates the show by sharpening its themes of grief, identity, and corporate control.

Which of these Apple TV sci-fi shows is your favorite? Do you agree with this ranking? Let us know in the comments below!