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Battlestar Galactica (2004)
8.7/10on IMDb
First aired
The benchmark. One battlestar, its commander William Adama and the sole surviving member of the civilian government, Laura Roslin, have to protect the last of humanity while Cylon androids that look human may already be aboard. That split between military command and civilian authority drives the best arguments in the show.
Start with the three-hour 2003 miniseries, then the four seasons. The final season divides people, but the first two are as tense as war television gets, and the series won a Peabody Award.
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The Expanse (2015)
8.5/10on IMDb
First aired
Earth, Mars and the Belt are one bad decision away from open war, with the United Nations and Mars exploiting the Belters for their resources. The military heart is Bobbie Draper, a Martian Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, and the main crew fly a captured Martian gunship they rename the Rocinante.
Syfy canceled it after three seasons, Amazon picked it up, and it finished on its own terms with a sixth season, 62 episodes in all. It also won three Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic Presentation. Season one is a slow-building mystery; stick with it.
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Space: Above and Beyond (1995)
7.8/10on IMDb
First aired
The purest grunt's-eye series here. The Wildcards are the 58th Squadron of the US Marine Corps Space Aviator Cavalry, flying fighters and fighting as infantry from the carrier USS Saratoga after an alien species, the Chigs, wipes out Earth's first colony beyond the solar system.
Its In Vitros, lab-grown troops born at the physical age of 18, trained only for combat and insulted by the people they defend, give it a sharp edge. Fox planned five seasons and canceled it after one, 23 episodes, so expect threads left hanging. It still picked up two Emmy nominations.
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Legend of the Galactic Heroes (1988)
9.0/10on IMDb
First aired
If you care about strategy at fleet scale, this is the one. The Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance are locked in a long war, and the story follows two rival commanders, Reinhard von Lohengramm and Yang Wen-li, as they rise on opposite sides.
The campaigns are battles of planning and nerve between two very different minds, and the politics behind each one gets equal time. It is a commitment: the anime, released between 1988 and 1997, runs 110 episodes, adapted from Yoshiki Tanaka's ten novels. The 2018 Die Neue These by Production I.G is a separate, newer adaptation if dated animation puts you off.
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Mobile Suit Gundam (1979)
7.9/10on IMDb
First aired
The 1979 original that turned giant robots into military hardware. The Principality of Zeon launches a war of independence, the One Year War, against the Earth Federation, and a 15-year-old civilian, Amuro Ray, ends up piloting the Federation's new Gundam from the warship White Base.
It is credited with introducing the Real Robot genre, where robots are weapons in a war rather than superheroes, and it treats a teenager in combat as a cost, not a fantasy. Low ratings ended it after 43 episodes, and in 1981 Yoshiyuki Tomino reworked the footage into three compilation films, which are the quicker way in.
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Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans (2015)
7.9/10on IMDb
First aired
The Gundam series that puts child soldiers front and center. On a terraformed Mars, orphaned boys hired out by a security company turn on the adults who treat them as expendable, refound it as the mercenary company Tekkadan under Orga Itsuka, and fight with an old Gundam, Barbatos, piloted by Mikazuki Augus.
It runs on its own Post Disaster calendar, so no knowledge of the 1979 original is needed, and it takes on war, slavery and child soldiers directly. Sunrise made 50 episodes over two seasons from 2015 to 2017, directed by Tatsuyuki Nagai and written by Mari Okada. The second season ends hard, so go in ready for that.
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86 EIGHTY-SIX (2021)
8.3/10on IMDb
First aired
The most pointed one here about who gets sent to die. The Republic of San Magnolia tells its citizens the war against the Empire of Giad's autonomous Legion is fought by unmanned drones. In fact the Juggernauts are piloted by the 86, a persecuted minority, directed remotely by officers called Handlers.
Major Vladilena Milizé takes over as Handler of the Spearhead Squadron, led by Shinei Nouzen, and the gap between her safe command post and their front line is the whole show. A-1 Pictures made 23 episodes, aired in two halves in 2021 and 2022.
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Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)
8.5/10on IMDb
First aired
Don't let the kids' cartoon reputation put you off. Across seven seasons, the clone troopers of the Grand Army of the Republic, Captain Rex above all, become individuals with their own loyalties, which makes the war's ending land hard.
The early seasons are uneven and episodic, so plenty of fans skip around. The payoff is the seventh and final season, released on Disney+ in 2020, which ends with the Siege of Mandalore arc running alongside the events of Revenge of the Sith. It is 133 episodes overall.
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Stargate SG-1 (1997)
8.4/10on IMDb
First aired
The friendliest way into military science fiction. SG-1 is a team run out of Stargate Command, a top-secret US Air Force base, and most of the main characters are airmen in authentic Air Force uniforms. The Air Force worked closely with the producers, and two real Chiefs of Staff appeared as themselves.
It's more mission-of-the-week than grinding war story, with humor in the briefing room, but the chain of command is always there. Ten seasons and 214 episodes means you can dip in for a long time.
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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993)
8.1/10on IMDb
First aired
The one Star Trek series that belongs here. It was the first set on a space station rather than a traveling starship, and the war between the Dominion and the Federation takes over its last two seasons, with the prototype warship Defiant giving the crew a way to fight beyond the station.
The standout for this list is "In the Pale Moonlight," where Sisko wrestles with compromising his ethics to win the war. Early seasons are slower and more station politics, so if it is the war you want, know it builds over seven seasons and 176 episodes.
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Babylon 5 (1994)
8.4/10on IMDb
First aired
A station built for peace that becomes a base for war. Ten years before the story starts, Earth barely survived a war with the technologically superior Minbari, and over five seasons the station is drawn into the Shadow War and then a civil war in which Babylon 5 leads the human colonies against Earth itself.
It was conceived as a novel for television with a pre-planned five-year arc, so the payoffs are earned, and the officers' choice between orders and conscience is the spine of it. The first season is the weakest, and the early computer effects look their age.
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Halo (2022)
7.3/10on IMDb
First aired
Pick this for Spartans in action. Pablo Schreiber plays John-117, the genetically engineered supersoldier leading Silver Team in the 26th-century war between the United Nations Space Command and the Covenant, and the show keeps asking what the UNSC did to make its soldiers.
The second season is the stronger one, building to the Covenant's invasion of Reach. Be warned that it was canceled in July 2024 after two seasons and 17 episodes, and game fans should know it is set in its own timeline, separate from the games' canon.
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Falling Skies (2011)
7.1/10on IMDb
First aired
The war on the ground, after the invasion has already been lost. Survivors form a militia they call the 2nd Mass, after the historical regiment from the Continental Army, with Noah Wyle as Tom Mason, a former history professor who becomes the third-in-command under a retired US Army colonel, Dan Weaver.
The tension between a soldier's priorities and a father's keeps it grounded, and Steven Spielberg is among its executive producers. Five seasons and 52 episodes on TNT; the later seasons get stranger and less disciplined than the first two.
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Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles (1999)
7.4/10on IMDb
First aired
The Starship Troopers adaptation that gives the Mobile Infantry their powered armor and drop pods, mixing elements of Robert Heinlein's novel with Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film, with Verhoeven as executive producer. It follows one squad, Razak's Roughnecks, through the war with the Bugs.
The early computer animation is blocky now, but the squad-level storytelling holds up, with casualties that stick. Only 36 of the 40 planned episodes were finished, so the final arc stops on a cliffhanger.
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Exosquad (1993)
8.4/10on IMDb
First aired
The 1990s cartoon that took its war seriously. In the 22nd century, with Venus and Mars colonized, the Neosapiens, an engineered race created as workers and slaves for humans, rise up under Phaeton, and Able Squad, an elite unit of pilots in armored exoframes, fights through an interplanetary war.
Many characters die in combat, and the show spends real time on what the fighting does to the people who survive it. Universal Cartoon Studios made 52 episodes over two seasons, airing in syndication from 1993 to 1994, and it ends hinting at a war with a new alien race that never got made.
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Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982)
8.4/10on IMDb
First aired
Transforming VF-1 Valkyrie fighters, a war fleet of alien giants called the Zentradi, and a pop singer. It sounds like a joke, but the 1982 to 1983 series is a sincere story about pilots fighting a war that culture as much as firepower ends: exposure to Lynn Minmay's songs makes some Zentradi want to join the humans.
If the name seems familiar, it was adapted in the US as the first saga of Robotech. The original 36 episodes are the cleaner version of the story.
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Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (2013)
8.1/10on IMDb
First aired
A single warship crew on a mission humanity cannot afford to fail. After first contact with the Gamilas turns into war and mankind faces extinction, the Yamato sets out on a long voyage, and Captain Okita, far more central here than in the original, carries the command drama.
This 26-episode remake of the 1974 series was first released in theaters in installments from 2012 and broadcast weekly from April 2013. It keeps the old-fashioned naval feel of bridge orders and damage reports with modern animation, and it is the easier starting point than the original.
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Knights of Sidonia (2014)
7.7/10on IMDb
First aired
Life on a ship where anyone capable gets drafted. Humanity survives aboard the ship Sidonia, defended by mechanized weapons called Gardes against a hostile alien species, the Gauna, and people who show the aptitude are screened and drafted as pilots at a young age.
Nagate Tanikaze, raised underground by his grandfather, becomes a Garde pilot, and the show never lets you forget that pilots don't all come back. Polygon Pictures' computer animation takes an episode to settle into. Two seasons, 24 episodes, from Tsutomu Nihei's manga, streamed by Netflix.
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