Netflix's Best Sci-Fi Movie Is This 90%-Fresh Thriller With 'Inglourious Basterds' Star

French director Alexandre Aja is a master of the extreme genre who gave the world a brutal remake of The Hills Have Eyes and the wild comedy horror Horns, starring Daniel Radcliffe.

In 2021, however, he made something completely different: Oxygen, a sci-fi thriller that many critics called the best movie on Netflix that year.

Mélanie Laurent, the actress who played Shoshanna in Inglourious Basterds, stars in the lead role, and her performance is one of the main reasons why you can't miss this movie.

What Is 'Oxygen' About?

A woman wrapped in wires and IVs wakes up in a cryogenic chamber. She can't remember how she ended up in the confined space or her own name.

The oxygen level is dropping inexorably, her sarcastic and far-from-accommodating voice assistant, M.I.L.O., informs her. Their dialogue sometimes devolves into the heroine's futile attempts to ask the right questions, akin to searching a search engine.

The computer stumbles, retrieving information in fragments. The woman tries to understand who she is, how she ended up in the chamber, and if she has a chance to escape before the oxygen runs out.

'Oxygen' Is an Intense, Claustrophobic Technological Thriller

Oxygen begins as a claustrophobic quest, reminiscent of Buried. The space is extremely compressed – the entire story takes place inside a cramped cryogenic chamber. The main character is left with only M.I.L.O.'s voice and her own memories for company.

The chosen method was also dictated by the circumstances of the film's production – it was shot in France between lockdowns in 2020. The pandemic invades the screen, showing not only the terrifying virus roaming the earth but also painful isolation, loneliness, and anxiety.

Today, Oxygen feels like a postscript to the pandemic, where the closest person is a voice assistant and longing for the past grows stronger.

'Oxygen' Is Worth Watching Solely for Mélanie Laurent's Solo Performance

A misstep in casting could have doomed Oxygen within the first few minutes, but Mélanie Laurent is hypnotically convincing in her solo role – she spends nearly the entire runtime alone, without any costars to distract her.

She veers from terror to determination and from tenderness to despair, every close-up of her is pushed to the limit. It is her performance that transforms this technological thriller into a story of love that refuses to give up.

Oxygen is part detective story, with chaotic leaps toward solving the mystery, part sci-fi, with a cryogenic chamber and M.I.L.O.'s edifying voice, and part horror, with screams and threatening syringes.

All of these varied elements flow remarkably smoothly and seamlessly into Oxygen's overall rhythm. Most importantly, even as the pathos intensifies, Aja carefully navigates the boundaries of his story without descending into pretentious sentimentality.

What Did Critics & Viewers Think of 'Oxygen'?

• Oxygen has 90% from critics and 74% from viewers on Rotten Tomatoes.

• On IMDb, the movie has a score of 6.5/10.

• On Letterboxd, Oxygen scored 3.1/5.0.