There are a lot of factors to consider when looking for a new sci-fi movie to watch. Do you want to watch something recent, or are you down to sample some 20-year-old classics? Do you want something short you can watch without fear it’ll keep you up too late, or something so absorbing you won’t care that it’ll absorb you long past your bedtime? Do you want something scientifically accurate or more of a space opera that fudges the rules of psychics for the sake of entertainment?
The 2017 film Okja walks the middle line between all of these. It’s a manageable two hours long; it’s scientifically accurate enough to be believable without getting bogged down in too many details, and it’s the best original sci-fi movie Netflix has yet produced.
The weird sideways world of Okja
Okja: Pig in the City
Okja takes place in a world almost exactly like our own, with one difference: gene-editing therapy has advanced to the point where one company, the Mirando Corporation, can engineer gigantic “super-pigs” that yield incredibly high amounts of meat, helping alleviate world hunger and boosting profits.
Twenty-six of these super-pigs are sent out into the world, with the Mirando Corporation intending to check back on them 10 years later and crown one of them “best pig” as a way to promote the new project. One of these pigs is Okja, who grows up on a remote mountain farm in South Korea alongside a teenage girl named Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun). The two spend a ton of time together and grow incredibly close, so when the Mirando Corporation names Okja the best pig and takes her away, Mija is beside herself and gives chase.
Mija’s journey will take her from South Korea to New York City, get her mixed up with a militant animal rights organization, visit a massive slaughterhouse, and convince one of the most powerful CEOs on the planet (Tilda Swinton) to change her mind, if not for the right reasons.
Satire, sci-fi style
Capitalism is a giant genetically modified pig
Okja is the kind of movie that balances a lot of different genres and tones. It is a sci-fi film, specifically a “near-fi” sci-fi film, since the concepts aren’t very far removed from things that are already happening in our own world. Scientists have already used gene editing technology to breed cattle that yield more meat per head; they may not yet have created a creature quite so huge as Okja, but it’s not hard to imagine them getting there in our lifetimes, maybe in the very near future.
And when they do, they’ll probably encounter resistance of the kind depicted in Okja. On top of being a sci-fi film, it’s also a pointed satire with plenty of criticism to go around. Okja obviously takes aim at the livestock industry, with Mija’s visit to a processing plant sure to turn heads and stomachs. But the movie doesn’t stop there. The animal rights activists aren’t depicted as flawless heroes, but as committed idealists who can get carried away. In a dual role, Tilda Swinton plays the twin sisters behind the Mirando Corporation, one a PR-conscious flake who’s out of her depth and the other a ruthless, money-obsessed bulldozer. Neither comes out looking good, although they’re both pretty entertaining.
That’s the other secret that makes this movie work: it’s fun. Every performance is pitched just above normal, to the point where it becomes funny. The only ones grounding us in relatable reality are Mija herself, whose basic goodness acts as the movie’s compass, and Okja, the giant CGI creation. Their bond gives Okja its emotional center and ensures that the sci-fi and satirical elements aren’t just there for their own sake; they mean something because we care about the central twosome.
Okja is classic Bong Joon Ho
There’s more on Netflix where that came from
Pretty much everything I’ve mentioned is very typical of director Bong Joon Ho, who also worked on the screenplay. He specializes in making fun sci-fi films that dissect consumerism and capitalism with razor-sharp precision. He did it in 2025 with Mickey 17, an underrated movie starring Robert Pattinson as a guy who signs up to do all the dangerous grunt work on a long trip to another planet and to be cloned over and over when he inevitably dies.
Bong Joon Ho is best known for Parasite, about a poor family that insinuates itself into a rich family’s life so it can take advantage. That one isn’t sci-fi, but it is on Netflix, unlike most of his films.
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Okja is the understated sci-fi treat in Netflix’s trove
Bong Joon Ho made Okja specifically for Netflix, so it’s not going anywhere. If you’re not sold on the movie yet, would it help if I told you that heavy-hitting actors Paul Dano and Steven Yeun turn up as two of the animal rights activists, or that Jake Gyllenhaal has a role as a deranged TV zoologist who wears a lot of really loud outfits?
Okja is here to make you think, feel, and laugh. Plus, Okja herself is really well designed, looking less like a pig and more like a giant dragon-dog. And if that doesn’t sell you, nothing will.
