Alan Ritchson's R-Rated Sci-Fi Thriller Is One Of Netflix's Best

Published Nov 9, 2026, 7:08 PM EST

Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.

Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."

Netflix has many exciting sci-fi movies and TV shows, but this one starring Alan Ritchson is easily one of the best when it comes to the popular genre on the streaming service. Ritchson has become one of the biggest names in the world. He was already popular with superhero fans, given that the actor's list of projects includes Smallville and Titans.

However, it was as Jack Reacher, the live-action take on the action hero from Lee Child's bestselling novels, in Prime Video's Reacher that Ritchson became a global star. Now, the actor has pretty much his choice of projects, with each new season of Reacher breaking records for Prime Video and Ritchson signing on for creative action movies of different tones outside his work on the thriller series.

Now take Netflix's slate of releases, which has quite a few major sci-fi projects, ranking from TV shows that have become forever linked to the streamer, such as Stranger Things and Black Mirror, and movies that dominated streaming for a time, like Sandra Bullock's Bird Box. Ritchson added to that sci-fi slate on Netflix in 2026 with one of its most action-packed releases.

The actor might have become famous for his work on Reacher on Prime Video, but Ritchson proved in 2026 that he could excel in other streamers without the built-in Jack Reacher audience. War Machine is a violent R-rated sci-fi thriller movie starring the actor, and while Netflix has released many exciting original movies over the years, it is safe to say that Ritchson's action flick is among the streamer's best.

War Machine Has Shot Its Way To Netflix Elite With Action-Packed Sci-Fi Goodness

Story-wise, War Machine is pretty straightforward, as it starts as a simple war movie, with Ritchson's 81, a US Army Staff Sergeant, in Afghanistan going through a traumatic encounter with the Taliban that leads to significant losses. However, when the movie switches genres, with a training exercise a couple of years later leading to the Reacher star's character and his new unit coming face to face with a deadly alien killing machine, the sci-fi thriller becomes one of the most intense films on Netflix's catalog. Ritchson is a mountain of a man, but even he is no match for a giant robot.

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After seeing Ritchson play such a grounded hero in Reacher, it is exciting that Netflix merged that world, with Ritchson once again as a military character, only now going up against a massive and advanced killer robot. With the actor's Titans co-star Esai Morales and fellow DC actors Jai Courtney (Suicide Squad) and Keiynan Lonsdale (The Flash), among other names like Hollywood veteran Dennis Quaid and I Play Rocky's Stephan James, the Netflix sci-fi movie ensures that many viewers will already be connected to the characters through prior experiences watching these actors, given how most of the characters themselves are defined by numbers.

That is a smart tactic. With gritty sci-fi action and a commanding performance from Ritchson as a soldier desperately fighting for survival and to try to keep those next to him alive, War Machine became a global smash hit for Netflix. The R-rated sci-fi thriller is one of Netflix's most-watched movies of all time, racking up 139.9 million views in its first 91 days of availability on the streamer, ranking 10th all-time. It is one of the only two 2026 movies to do so, with the other being Michael B. Jordan's animated fantasy film Swapped, with 144.9 million views, at 8th.

War Machine's Global Success Starts A New Era For Netflix

War Machine was so good and such a massive action hit for Netflix that it marked the start of a new era for the streamer, with the franchise set to continue with a War Machine sequel that is currently in development. Alongside his work on future seasons of Reacher, with Prime Video already renewing the action thriller series for at least another two seasons, Ritchson has also signed a first-look deal to develop and star in movies at Netflix, continuing to build on the streamer and actor's successful War Machine partnership. If they are anything like War Machine, Alan Ritchson's next Netflix movies are worth keeping an eye on.