Films From the Past Predicted the Present
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The only thing more fascinating than catching a glimpse of the future is gaining insight into past predictions of the future. So, did these filmmakers have their finger on the pulse of their fortune cookies?
Some envisioned dystopian worlds filled with revolutionary technology, others involved fictional worlds with mythical creatures, while other filmmakers focused on what they thought we'd lose rather than what we'd invent.
1. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Image Credit: Metrodome Distribution, Manga Entertainment.
Set in a cyberpunk world in 2029, a cyborg policewoman, Motoko, hunts down The Puppet Master, a mysterious, powerful hacker who poses a threat to the government's cybersecurity. Characters have embraced transhumanism (technological enhancement of the body and mind), merging human consciousness with virtual realities and artificial intelligence (AI).
The Puppet Master weaponizes his hacking skills to hack into cybernetic minds and plant false memories, and AI becomes self-aware, raising ethical questions and security concerns over our immersion in digital and artificially intelligent worlds.
2. RoboCop (2014)
Image Credit: Orion Pictures.
Even in 2028, Detroit is still an ailing crime-ridden city; only this time, its overwhelming violent offenders necessitate a more technologically advanced response. After an officer dies in the line of duty, his body is repurposed and brought back to life as a hybrid human-machine police officer.
In this 2020s universe, a megacorporation called Omni Consumer Products exists, who take it upon themselves to resurrect Alex Murphy into a part robot, part man RoboCop who polices the city.
He starts to get imbued with fragmented memories of his past life, which reveal corporate corruption and conspiracies within law enforcement, foreshadowing concerns about these powerful interests meddling in our lives with increased access to our data and minds. It raises questions about how merging man with machine will affect our sense of identity and humanity.
3. Logan (2017)
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.
Logan involves fictional superheroes adapted from the X-Men comics, but it's also set in 2029, in a much grittier and depressing world than we're used to for a superhero film. This more emotionally mature, sophisticated take on the genre earned it an Academy Award nod for Best Adapted Screenplay. In the year 2029, mutants are mostly extinct, and the X-Men have disbanded.
At this point, Wolverine is about 197 years old, and his powers are dwindling, so he wants to live a quieter, reserved life. All of that gets disturbed when Laura, a mutant child being hunted by scientists, seeks out his help.
In this fictional world, humans have become increasingly hostile to mutants, hunting them down. Though it doesn't make any direct predictions about the real world in 2029, you can infer the director's feelings about the future from its dystopian setting.
4. Planet of the Apes (2001)
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.
In this Tim Burton-directed reboot of the 1968 Planet of the Apes, an Air Force astronaut encounters an electromagnetic storm that creates a space-time anomaly. He crashes on a strange planet dominated by intelligent apes in 2029. The astronaut encounters three different species of apes: aggressive gorillas, intellectual orangutans, and chaotic-neutral chimpanzees. Apes have evolved to talk and are so intelligent that they treat humans as primitive beings.
With Elon Musk's investment in increasing space technology, we will see more human space travel than we have in decades. Will we encounter unexplainable phenomena like this? Will we travel through wormholes and get transported into alternate timelines?
5. Terminator Genisys (2015)
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures.
In Terminator Genisys, we weave through three different timelines — 1984, 2017, and 2029. In 2029, a contemporary version of Skynet known as Genisys is set to go live and become fully operational. John Connor sends Kyle (his future father) back to 1984 to protect his mom, Sarah, and to make sure John gets born, if you know what I mean, to make sure they defeat Skynet. However, as Kyle is being sent back, a Terminator turns John into a half man half machine and fractures the timeline by sending a Terminator to kill young Sarah in 1973.
Mysteriously, an unrevealed person simultaneously sends a protective T-800 Schwarzenegger Terminator to rescue her and adopts her as a child. They kill the original Terminator, save Kyle, and jump to 2017. When they arrive, they discover that John in 2017 is a Terminator from 2029 who has been sent back to protect Skynet. Kyle and Sarah blow up John (the Terminator version), but the technology's core survives the explosion.
Does that make sense? I didn't think so, but its predictions for the future are quite bleak, predicting a global operating system connecting all devices. The film foreshadows the dangers of centralized tech infrastructure and the harrowing consequences of sentient AI battling humans.
6. Hotel Artemis (2018)
Image Credit: Global Road Entertainment.
In the near future, riot-torn Los Angeles takes on a harrowing dystopian future marred by civil unrest and civilization breakdown. However, within the confines of a peculiar hotel, a nurse, played by Jodie Foster, operates a Doctors Without Borders-esque members-only dystopian hotel exclusively for criminals.
For the price of a membership with strict adherence to its rules, Hotel Artemis will take care of your emergency medical needs with no questions asked. Let's take a look at our 2028 Bingo cards. Who had societal collapse, late-stage capitalism cornering the market on a criminal niche, 3D printed guns, and water shortages? It explores some of our looming paranoias of inequality, corporate and environmental exploitation, and societal collapse.
7. The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)
Image Credit: Netflix.
The Cloverfield Paradox is the third installment in The Cloverfield franchise. A group of international astronauts cohabitate in a space station, where they use a particle accelerator (much like the real CERN Large Hadron Collider that was reactivated in 2022) to solve Earth's energy crisis. The particle accelerator should theoretically supply infinite energy. One small consequence? It seems to have formed a disturbing alternate reality in which Earth doesn't exist.
According to the film, our 2028 future sees us playing God with the substance that makes up the universe, inadvertently creating a parallel universe. If that sounds like a doomsday scenario that only exists in a fictional sci-fi movie, think again. Concerns about these high-energy experiments are well documented among scientists and researchers, who argue particle accelerators can potentially create harmful states of matter and nightmare scenarios like black holes swallowing our universe.
8. Children of Men (2006)
Image Credit: Universal Pictures.
In 2027, humanity is facing extinction due to an 18-year fertility crisis that has inexplicably left women unable to have children. Set in a bleak war-torn dystopia where terrorism is ordinary, people are impoverished, and ecocide has ravaged the planet, civilizational collapse is imminent. Taking place in the UK is one of the last places with a still-functional government, though they treat asylum seekers as criminals and imprison them, or worse.
Miraculously, a refugee named Kee is the first woman to get pregnant in 18 years and becomes a beacon of hope for humanity, like a modern Virgin Mary. A cynical former activist helps protect her.
References to a pandemic, economic collapse, and declining fertility rates aren't so far off from our current reality.
9. Metropolis (1927)
Image Credit: Parufamet.
The oldest film on this list, Metropolis, was released in 1927, but it's nevertheless incredibly prescient. Set in 2026, we're just two years removed from Metropolis' futuristic city governed by class divides. It's a silent film made by German impressionist Fritz Lang, to whom we owe the entire genre of science fiction cinema, I might add.
The son of the man who created the Metropolis city falls in love with a working-class woman who prophetically predicts the coming of a savior that would absolve their differences. Besides his visionary futuristic city, Lang predicted lots of technology we use today, including computers, video calling, and the fusion of humans and robots as cyborgs. More than just a sci-fi story about futurism and technology, it touches on themes of class struggles, gender roles, and the dehumanizing effects of industrialization.
10. Doom (2005)
Image Credit: Universal Pictures.
Based on the iconic video game, in 2026, space marines investigate weird occurrences at a Mars research facility, where genetic experiments lead to a monstrous outbreak. The film foreshadows Trump's launch of the Space Force in 2020 and the potential dangers of playing with the building blocks of life.
While we haven't created any genetically engineered monsters, the premise concerning unethical scientific practices is incredibly relevant today as debates rage over bioethics and genetic engineering.
11. Babylon A.D. (2008)
Image Credit: Twentieth Century Fox.
Toorop is a former veteran turned mercenary tasked with escorting a woman from Russia to America, blithely unaware of the fact she hosts an organism coveted by a cult that wants to harvest it to produce a Messiah out of genetic material.
In this gritty, dystopian sci-fi film, the world is rife with political instability, religious extremism, and ecological disasters after the world has been ravaged by nuclear war. It portrays displaced refugees and corporations exerting significant influence over society and government, many of which are present-day concerns. The lingering threat of nuclear war hangs over our heads even today.
12. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015)
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures.
The first film followed friends Adam, Nick, and Lou and their accidental discovery of a hot tub that doubles as a time machine, which transports them back to 1986. The sequel, however, transports them into the future — by accident. After a groinal bullet injury, Nick and Jacob scramble to their time machine to save him, but instead of traveling back in time, they go forward ten years, bringing them to 2025.
It's a hysterically outrageous film concept that pokes fun at our cultural obsession with nostalgia. It has a humbling dose of the consequences of meddling with time. Now, I've gone into many hot tubs over the years, and so far, none of them have transported me back or forward in time, but I will keep my eyes peeled. Or will I have altered humanity's history forever, so this article never even exists? It's too much for me to grapple with.
13. Repo Men (2010)
Image Credit: Universal Pictures.
In a dystopian society where artificial organs are sold on credit, Repo Men is a scathing inquiry into the dark side of the healthcare industry. As the protagonists grapple with ethical dilemmas, Repo Men anticipates debates on the consequences of corporate control over life-saving technologies. Remy works for "The Union," which repossesses organs when people fail to make their payments.
Once organ possession becomes personal for Remy, he's forced to see the other side of the issue. It predicts a future where organs will be churned out in factories much like any other product we consume, and the payment process is just as sterile and impersonal.
14. Pacific Rim (2013)
Image Credit: Warner Bros.
In 2025, a species of giant sea monsters (Kaiju) launch an attack against the human race. To help them fight against giant beasts, humans construct giant humanoid robots (Jaegers), which need to be operated by a pair of skilled pilots. As the Kaiju and their attacks multiply, the Jaeger program is humanity's last hope for survival.
We follow a pair of pilots—a former pilot and a rookie— who are put to the test to revive an outdated Jaeger in a last-ditch effort to save the human race. In the face of global war by sea creatures, Pacific Rim imagines a world with international collaboration against a foreign enemy and the use of advanced technology in the form of giant robots as warfare. The Kaiju are thought to be a metaphor for the inevitable retaliation of nature after years of environmental degradation.
15. Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)
Image Credit: Highlander Productions Limited.
The sequel to Highlander takes place in 2024, a future where Earth is under threat of destruction due to the deterioration of the ozone layer. Highlander Connor Macleod creates an electromagnetic shield to protect the Earth, but it comes with quirks — everyone has to live in darkness, suffering through increased temperatures and humidity. Contrary to the premise in Highlander II, the ozone hole over Antarctica has remained stable or even decreased in size, but other concerns like rising temperatures, melting polar ice caps, and intensity of storms have become the purview of our focus.
The film quickly evolves into a gloriously insane plot, earning it a dismal 4.2 rating on IMDb. However, among the mess, it delivers a compelling caricature of corporate greed co-opting humanitarian causes. Another palpable prediction is that the shield (or any similar climate change fighting proposal will be seized by odious corporations who seize ownership of the technology and levy hefty taxes on those protected by it. This all sounds very reminiscent of the Paris Climate Agreement.
16. Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Image Credit: Marvel Studios.
Taking place eight months after the events of Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man takes on new threats in the summer of 2024. People who have been blipped out of existence (50% of all living creatures) return as the blip has been undone and grapple with a world that has moved on without them.
Apparently, being eradicated by Josh Brolin doesn't get you out of school, which I think is unfair. Five years have passed, making it hard for them to adjust to the fact that five years have been completely erased, causing emotional and logistical chaos within society.
Still grappling with the aftermath of his mentor Tony Stark's death, Peter decides to go on a European vacation with his friends. These plans come to a halt when Nick Fury asks for his help to stop attacks across the continent committed by elemental creatures called The Elementals. He is introduced to Mysterio, who claims to be from an alternate Earth desperate to prevent more destruction by The Elementals, but more nefarious intentions are revealed. I know that the blip hasn't happened by now, but if it does, I'm just putting it out there that I'm not responsible for a five-year absence from work.
17. The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
Image Credit: Columbia Pictures.
The Thirteenth Floor follows the story of a computer scientist, Hannon Fuller, who creates a simulation of 1937 Los Angeles in 1999. This virtual reality is entered through the thirteenth floor of a corporate building, and the simulated humans inside it don't know that they're computer-generated. When the creator of this technology is killed, his friend and heir to the company, Douglas Hall, becomes the primary suspect.
Before his death, Fuller leaves Hall a strange note suggesting that the world isn't real, and as he goes down the rabbit hole, he discovers a message Fuller left in the V.R. simulation.
The convoluted plot involves blurring the lines between real and artificial worlds and several timelines, including one that emerges in 2024, a point in time where humans are all connected to V.R. systems. It's a Matrix-style approach to virtual realities but takes it a step further to explore artificial consciousness akin to the implications of creating self-aware AI.
The Thirteenth Floor correctly predicted that we'd have virtual reality worlds by now (think Mark Zuckerberg's Meta brain project). Still, they're nowhere near advanced enough to be immersed in a simulation that we mistake for real life. Then again, who's to say we aren't all in a simulation right now?
18. A Boy and His Dog (1975)
Image Credit: LQ/Jaf Productions.
In a post-apocalyptic world set in 2024, this darkly comedic film follows a young man and his telepathic dog as they navigate the desolate post-apocalyptic American Southwest. It offers a cautionary tale about the consequences of nuclear war and the fragility of civilization. Released in 1974, it made all sorts of audacious but sensible predictions.
Predictions for the current year involve advanced military robots, the aftermath of World War IV, and survivors living in bunkers (doomsday preppers vindicated), but we don't yet have to talk about telepathic dogs who make astute observations about the incomprehensibility of watching a film without popcorn. A Boy and His Dog‘s brutal, desolate landscape in a post-nuclear apocalyptic setting and the moral ambiguity of the world inspired the Fallout video game series.
19. Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)
Image Credit: American International Pictures.
This 1960 science fiction film plays with time travel, dystopia, and the consequences of scientific experimentation. Major William Allison is a pilot testing an experimental aircraft called the X-80 with the intention of breaking the sound barrier. When something goes wrong during testing, he finds himself propelled into a future world ravaged by a "cosmic plague" that has sterilized the population.
Finding himself amidst a 2024 timeline, Allison is stuck in a desolate and post-apocalyptic Earth following the devastation of nuclear testing. Survivors of the devastation are deaf, sterile mutes, and there have been no new births in twenty years.
Made during a time of nuclear panic, it makes sense that any post-apocalyptic vision of the future would involve nuclear weapons. Of course, they didn't foresee the end of the Cold War in 1991, which has thankfully prevented this reality from materializing thus far.
20. The Purge (2013)
Image Credit: Universal Pictures.
All crime is legal for a twelve-hour period. Some choose to hide out in their homes, like the wealthy Sandins, while others go out on the town to live out all their Grand Theft Auto fantasies. The Sandins' security system seems sophisticated enough that no one would bother them. That is until the family's son takes pity on a man fleeing from a group of men who are hunting him, and after taking refuge in their house, the group stops at nothing to acquire their target.
This dystopian anarchy takes place in 2022, and while it's quite horrific, the results it produces through next-to-nothing rates of unemployment and crime year-round lull even the Sandins into swallowing their morals and endorsing it. "Just remember all the good The Purge does," says the mother, Mary Sandin, suggesting legal loopholes have tanked their sense of right and wrong.
Often dismissed as a gratuitous indulgence in violence with a nonsensical plot, The Purge comments on how wealth inequality privileges the few and leaves others more vulnerable. It also raises questions about human nature and morality and is a political allegory.
While The Purge is an extremely exaggerated solution to polarization, unemployment, and crime, it isn't hard to see why the inhabitants of this fractured nation would be on board with it with just a little legitimization by the government and society.
21. The Purge: Anarchy (2014)
Image Credit: Universal Pictures.
One year after The Purge, The Purge: Anarchy takes place in 2023, and an anti-Purge movement has gained ground in the country. Several character's lives become intertwined on Purge night. Leo is seeking revenge for the death of his son, while Eva and her daughter Cali find themselves stranded outside during the Purge when their car breaks down. They come across a resistance movement that opposes the Purge policy and sees protecting the vulnerable as their moral duty.
They discover the government has been in cahoots with wealthy purgers in a plan to target the lower class during the Purge as a means of population control and culling undesirables. We see a more fleshed-out world than in the first film because it's less focused on a single family.
The Purge: Anarchy sees Purgers, anti-Purgers who protect the innocent, citizens who merely want to look after themselves, and corrupt bureaucrats, which is a fitting metaphor for the different stripes of modern American society.
22. Soylent Green (1973)
Image Credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Released fifty years ago, the film made some striking predictions in a cautionary tale about the impact of overpopulation, resource depletion, and corporate control. Echoing concerns about sustainability, Soylent Green imagines a 2022 society whose diet consists of synthetic food due to overconsumption of resources, creating a scarcity of fresh food products.
The real horrific twist is the revelation of what Soylent Green is truly made of. In 2022, there are no books, and nothing works anymore. We see visuals of the populace wearing masks that feel like an eerie prophetic prediction of COVID-19, though that wasn't the intention.
Perhaps predicting byproducts of climate change, the temperature never drops below 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The future (for the creators, anyway) wasn't pretty, that's for sure. Rampant homelessness, inequality, food shortages, and consuming mysterious foods whose origins you don't want to know, Soylent Green foresaw that the future might be too grim to bear for some. It features assisted dying, which was a controversial, dystopian idea at the time but is now legalized in many parts of the world.
23. Leave the World Behind (2023)
Image Credit: Netflix.
A family on vacation at an Airbnb is taken aback when the owners of the house show up at their doorstep in the middle of the night, claiming there is a blackout. Initially apprehensive about the owners and suspecting they're lying, they realize something strange is happening. Planes, oil tankers, and self-driving Teslas are crashing, their phones and cable are out, and their son's teeth fall out of his mouth.
No one is prepared except for a doomsday prepper played by Kevin Bacon, a former military man who knew how invaluable a fully stocked bunker equipped with self-defense weapons would be. Mahershala Ali delivers a powerful monologue towards the end of the movie, explaining a "simple three-stage maneuver that could topple the country's government from the inside," info he obtained from a man who worked in the defense sector.
The stages involve isolation, synchronized chaos, and inevitable civil war, resulting in societal collapse. The prepper explains why this plan was so desirable; so long as the targeted nation is sufficiently dysfunctional, they will do the work for you.
The film ends with a pan out from the landscape they've been vacationing at to show the scope of the city behind them, which is already in the midst of total civil war. It's a cautionary tale of just how crippled our country would be if a cyberattack was ever weaponized to create a blackout among the country, just how many countries around the world have reason to desire to do so, and how quickly we would all turn on each other.
24. Geostorm (2017)
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures.
In 2019, climate scientists and engineers developed an ingenious solution to irate Mother Nature's inclement weather and climate issues. With the use of space satellites that can control the weather, something called the Dutch Boy System, humans can manipulate both the weather and temperature. However, playing God with nature has unforeseen consequences when a malfunctioning thermospheric satellite is the cause of a natural disaster that freezes over Afghanistan and incinerates others in India.
A debate rages over whether the satellites should be shut down to prevent further anomalies or keep climate-induced natural disasters at bay. After bringing a fired engineer who developed the satellites back on the project, he uncovers a conspiracy of deliberate tampering with the satellites.
We can't yet control the weather, but there are over 100 patents on weather-controlling technology. As the discourse over the "global threat" of climate change rages on by activists, it would be unsurprising that such a technology would be developed or even put into place.
25. Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
Image Credit: Columbia/Tristar.
1995's Johnny Mnemonic envisioned a cyberpunk modernity set in 2021, whose predictions are a little too on the nose. Keanu Reeves plays a data courier who transports data inside his head (through a brain implant), foreshadowing the information economy and data collection we're surrounded by today. Our data isn't stored in our heads yet, but we do have them backed up in the cloud, and Elon Musk is already working on a brain chip resembling the kind in Johnny Mnemonic.
In the film, the populace is tech-obsessed, and a pandemic is happening. I always wonder if we'll discover horrifying health hazards from overexposure to technology.
Corporations take advantage of their power to surveil the people and access their data. It features virtual reality and introduces the idea of hacktivism, or the use of cyber warfare to expose corporations' wrongdoings, much like in Mr. Robot.
26. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)
Image Credit: Focus Features.
In 2012's Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, two people come together as the world is coming to an end. In just three weeks, a giant asteroid will collide with Earth, claiming the lives of all its inhabitants. Though everyone is warned a few weeks ahead of time, it's announced nonchalantly over the radio as if it were no more significant than any of its other commercial announcements.
2021 is the backdrop for this film's apocalyptic setting, but contrary to the theme set by all the previously mentioned movies, it is not a depressing slog filled with dread. It's a beautiful, heartwarming, and, at times, darkly hilarious meditation on the value of love and relationships.
The apocalypse puts everything into perspective for Dodge, whose wife leaves him in a panic. Wanting to seize the remaining time of his life, he befriends a woman who encourages him to seek out the love that got away in high school.
The world never ended in 2012, and it didn't end in 2021, either, but as life becomes increasingly uncertain with the rise of AI, the heart of the story is as relevant as ever. I love how it portrays people's various societal reactions to the announcement that the world was ending. This was the most compelling aspect of the movie to me. Some feel impending doom, others resort to hedonism and anarchy, while people like Dodge and Penny turn their focus to their loved ones.
27. A Quiet Place (2018)
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures.
In 2020, instead of a pandemic bringing the world to a standstill, it's human-feasting extraterrestrials with supersonic hearing. With an unusually silent apocalyptic setting, its premise is inventive — people have to scavenge for food and hide away from aliens making as little noise as possible.
The anxiety and tension are only enhanced by the realization that the mother in the family is pregnant, and the implication is that she will have to give a silent birth. Their daughter is also deaf, which puts her at a serious disadvantage in detecting the alien predators or knowing when she accidentally makes a noise.
Despite being set in 2020, the technology and society featured hardly appear futuristic. While we weren't expecting any huge developments between 2018 (the film's release) and 2020 (the setting), it almost seems they have technologically regressed. A Quiet Place hardly makes any real-world predictions, but you could interpret the extraterrestrials as a symbol of the fear of the unknown and perhaps apply it to more palpable threats, like AI.
28. Real Steel (2011)
Image Credit: Dreamworks Studios.
Real Steel hit the big screen in 2011, set in a futuristic imagining of the world in 2021. With technological advances and ethical concerns over boxing, humans have been replaced by robots in the sport. Charlie is a former (human) boxer who takes up robot boxing to deal with financial issues. Challengers build robots that can withstand significant damage and deliver devastating blows.
While the story doesn't defy any conventions of the underdog sports drama, the futuristic robot boxing element does make us wonder how advancing technology will transform many of the hobbies and sports that humans currently participate in.
As far as how predictive it was, robot boxing does exist in small pockets here and there, such as these TV competitions, Robot Wars, and BattleBots, but they've hardly usurped the conventional human sport.
29. Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures.
As a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator: Dark Fate ignores the events of the subsequent Terminator films. Dark Fate predominantly takes place in 2020 and retcons the altered timeline in Terminator: Genisys. Skynet is replaced by a new AI referred to as Legion, and a new type of Terminator is developed, called Rev-9, which is sent back in time to hunt a young Dani Ramos, whose role is vital to the survival of the human race in the war against machines.
Rev-9s are composed of liquid metal that can mimic human likeness and infiltrate human environments. It can separate itself from its exoskeleton and liquid metal exterior, forming two distinct entities.
The classic T-800 model we're used to develops a conscience after living among humans. Schwarzenegger's T-800 chooses to subvert its original programming to protect humans. It begs the question, could a sophisticated form of AI ignore its initial programming to develop its own objectives, for better or worse?
A distinct type of AI replacing Skynet in an alternate timeline suggests an inevitability of the uprising of machines. Even though it's an entirely different type of artificial intelligence born of a different time, it forms its own Judgment Day. A cynic would surmise all roads lead to the subjugation or erasure of the human race in time — casualties of our uncompromising desire to continue evolving and becoming more technologically advanced.
30. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Image Credit: David James, Warner Bros. Pictures.
Edge of Tomorrow is an inventive take on the Groundhog Day concept. In this universe, by 2020, the human population has been virtually decimated by an alien invasion. A global alliance formed in the face of a foreign threat, known as the United Defense Force (UDF). Their military uses advanced mech-suits known as Exo Suits, which are high-tech exoskeletons that provide them additional power and protection during battle.
Tom Cruise gets recruited into this alien-battling army because he's a media relations officer for the UDF who attempts to blackmail a General to avoid getting deployed to the front lines.
The aliens, known as Mimics, have the power to reset time, which they use to their advantage to develop a winning strategy. This explains why Tom Cruise's character, after getting Mimic blood on him, resets the entire day every time he dies.
Cruise teams up with Emily Blunt's character, a highly skilled soldier who once had the same phenomenon happen to her before. They begin using the resetting curse as a training gift and develop a plan. The aliens of this universe are more mechanical in form, which is an interesting choice. Not to bring everything back to AI, but I see this as another manifestation of our paranoia surrounding technological acceleration. The exoskeleton military suits are also something that has been developed and budgeted for in the US military.
31. Reign of Fire (2002)
Image Credit: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution.
Okay, so here we are at the precipice of an apocalypse again. When we imagine the future, whether grounded in reality or fantasy, it tends to verge on morbid and pessimistic. The only good news is this one involves fire-breathing dragons, and our heroes are Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey.
These dormant dragons are discovered when the construction of the London Underground inadvertently awakens a race of dragons that had been hibernating underneath the tunnel for, like, a considerable amount of time, even before David Attenborough was born. Sorry science nerds, an asteroid didn't kill the dinosaurs; it was the dragons. That's not good, seeing as humans are much smaller than dinosaurs. So, humans respond to the threat in the best way they know how: nuclear weapons, baby.
Unfortunately, the dragons scoff at our nuclear weapons, and by 2020, most of humanity is dead. Bale leads a group of survivors, but his philanthropic efforts are interrupted by the machismo of McConaughey, who wants to brag about how he knows how to defeat dragons.
The two initially dislike each other because there's only enough room for one dragon slayer, but they put their differences aside, remembering the fate of the human race is more important than their egos (an unlikely scenario). They figure out how to take down the dragons by targeting the male dragon they first discovered at the beginning of the movie. Obviously, to our knowledge, there are no dragons in our universe, but the film did feature advanced military technology, such as the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy aircraft and a Chieftain tank.
32. Mission to Mars (2000)
Image Credit: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution.
This sci-fi adventure is set in 2020 and predicts human space travel to Mars by 2020. An initial crew led by Don Cheadle discovers a vast crystallized water structure on Mars. Unfortunately, natural disasters claim the lives of all but Cheadle.
A rescue crew from the World Space Station decodes an encrypted signal on Mars, leading them to a hidden chamber. Inside, they uncover a message from past inhabitants, revealing the planet once supported life before an asteroid impact.
The Martians evacuated, sending DNA to Earth to kickstart life. It's disclosed that humanity descends from Martians, and one astronaut accepts an invitation to visit their new homeworld. For a film released in 2000, it accurately predicted some human technology resembling current advancements and the existence of the International Space Station. Manned missions to Mars haven't gotten the go-ahead yet, but NASA anticipates they will move forward by 2030.
33. Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Image Credit: Disney/Marvel.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is in peril after Thanos's devastating snap wiped out half of all living creatures. The aftermath of Infinity War unfolds five years into the future, bringing Endgame to a 2023 timeline. By leaping forward five years, we feel the emotional toll of loss, grief, and the difficulty of rebuilding their lives after all this time.
The Avengers are on a desperate quest to undo the snap and restore balance to the universe, with time travel as a central plot point that allows characters to revisit pivotal moments in the MCU's history and create alternate timelines. Some significant deaths in this film brought tears even to my eyes as someone critical of the MCU and not on the hype train of The Avengers.
34. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.
Set in a dystopian future where mutants are hunted to extinction through a Sentinel program. X-Men: Days of Future Past sees 2023 "present day" Wolverine sent back to the 1970s to prevent the events leading to this bleak future. Days of Future Past‘s depiction of 2023 is, in keeping with our theme, horrifying, dystopian, and foresees robots as our adversaries.
Replicant-like robots are used to hunt down and kill mutants, even slaughtering humans that stand in their way. Thankfully for us, giant murderous robots known as Sentinels haven't come to fruition, but if you spend too long watching those military robot training videos, you'll have difficulty sleeping at night.
35. Blade Runner (1982)
Image Credit: Warner Bros.
A visionary 1982 film that ushered in a new wave of dystopian sci-fi cyberpunk cities, filled with flying cars, cyan color grading, and synth-wave backing tracks, Blade Runner started it all.
In 2019, in Los Angeles, a race of humanoids (a nonhuman robot with human features) known as replicants was created by the Tyrell Corporation for various purposes, primarily fulfilling tasks undesirable to humans.
Designed to resemble humans physically and cognitively, they can think, reason, and convey emotions. The Nexus-6, a specific replicant model, was developed for off-world colonization and other hazardous activities due to enhanced strength and agility. They are given a brief life span of just four years out of concern for their emotional responses and potential for rebellion.
It is very likely that as artificial intelligence becomes more human-like, discourse about attributing rights to them will develop.
36. Ex Machina (2014)
Image Credit: Universal Pictures.
Ex Machina is the best depiction of the potential consequences of advanced humanoids being integrated into society outside of the Blade Runner franchise. A young programmer is invited to administer the Turing test (a test used to determine if an AI is capable of thinking like a human) to a humanoid robot. He spends a week at the CEO of his tech company's high-tech mansion, interacting with Ava, the humanoid robot, and making observations about her.
The film's brilliance lies in the sympathy elicited for the AI, which Ex Machina spends most of its time building up, only to subvert the idea that Ava is a hopeless humanoid trapped in a gilded cage. The film leaves off on a chilling cliffhanger, revealing that Ava's exceptional ability to mimic human sentimentality and romantic interest is nothing more than a cunning form of manipulation to advance her own objectives of self-autonomy.
The implications of a mindset being wielded by such a powerful, intelligent technology are too disturbing to grapple with. Released in 2014, Alex Garland has never confirmed a specific timeline for Ex Machina, only that it takes place in the foreseeable near future.
37. Contagion (2011)
Image Credit: Warner Bros Pictures.
Contagion takes place in the present day, following the rapid spread of a deadly, fictional virus, which quickly spirals into an emergency pandemic spreading across the globe. The timeline is not explicitly mentioned, but it's set in a contemporary setting, reflecting the technology, societal structures, and global interconnectedness of the time it was released, a decade before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Contagion accurately predicted a fatal infectious virus that originated in animals and spread across the world, necessitating a global collaborative response to stop its rapid spread. While the virus in the film was much deadlier than the one we saw in real life, the characters face similar panic, public health measures, and disruptions to their normal lives. They social distance, quarantine, and search for a vaccine. The COVID-19 pandemic sparked a renewed interest in the movie, with people interested in seeing a fictionalized account of the pandemic's impact on society.
38. Her (2013)
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures.
Another futuristic film set in a tech-obsessed Los Angeles, there are no references to the specific year in the film; its setting is described as being in the "near future." Given its release was in 2013, it's safe to say the film is trying to capture the essence of modernity in the 2020s. That essence would be one overly reliant on technology, not just for convenience and comfort but for intimacy and replacement of meaningful personal relationships.
Joaquin Phoenix plays an introverted writer who falls in love with his operating system, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. While we're all smitten with Johansson's delightfully flirtatious raspy voice, few of us think falling in love with an operating system is any semblance of normal.
Yet, that's the cautionary tale Her is presenting to us — a society so fractured, isolated, and starving for affection that we turn to technology to fill these voids instead of our fellow humans. Her reflects on the evolving nature of human connections in a technologically advanced society, especially as artificially intelligent operating systems (or whatever form they take) possess advanced emotional capabilities.
Watching this in 2013 was mesmerizing, but it didn't hit home nearly as hard as it does today, with the development of "AI girlfriends," artificially intelligent chatbots used to simulate the experience of an intimate relationship. Whether people seek out these relationships because they're lonely or because they can project an idealized fantasy onto something that isn't real, it's a deeply concerning phenomenon.
Who knows how this will impact human relationships in the future and how normalized it will become?
39. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Image Credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Released in 1968 by legendary director Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Spacey Odyssey gave us a window into the future fifty years before much of the technology depicted ever came to fruition. We go on a journey through space and time, exploring the evolution of humanity and the interaction with an enigmatic extraterrestrial monolith that looks like a black rectangle.
The monolith represents a catalyst for human evolution. We first see it in the opening scene with the apes at the dawn of humanity, then on the moon and in orbit around Jupiter. Each time the monolith appears, it coincides with a significant leap in our evolution, triggering advancements in intelligence and sophistication of tools. Coincidentally, its sleek design looks suspiciously like a modern-day smartphone, unintentionally foreshadowing how its invention has slid us into a new digital age where humans increasingly merge with technology.
The film shows tablet computers, an AI called Hal 9000, which begins advancing its own interests, a firmly established permanent human presence in space, and a human-machine interface where astronauts communicate through voice commands and visual displays. Its breathtaking visuals and unbelievable prescience for such an old movie are groundbreaking spectacles to behold.
40. Gattaca (1997)
Image Credit: Columbia Pictures Industries.
In an undefined future, Gattaca features a society that has embraced utilitarian eugenics in the form of genetic engineering. The societal implications have been far-reaching and devastating, dividing people into genetic "valids" and "invalids."
However, this societal makeup is defied by one man's genetically inferior makeup but compelling dream of traveling to space. He secretly takes a genetically superior man's place and assumes his identity so he can fulfill his dream of becoming an astronaut.
Jerome, the man who allows Vincent to pretend to be him, has become paralyzed due to an accident and is now destined for a life that doesn't align with his genetic potential.
Now, in the year 2024, we do have some forms of gene editing, such as CRISPR, which has been used to isolate mutated genes that contribute to diseases like Alzheimer's. More controversially, there is superfluous gene editing to control for arbitrary traits like eye and hair color. This technology has been around for a few years and will likely only become more popular and expansive, raising questions about the ethics of tampering with nature and what lines, if any, should be drawn.
41. Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Image Credit: Universal Studios.
Back to the Future Part II picks up with Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveling into the future, to 2015, to prevent a series of unfortunate events that would negatively impact the future of the McFly family. However, just as they've learned with their previous time travel escapades, inadvertently altering timelines has profound consequences for, well, everything.
This happens when an older version of Biff Tanner steals their Delorean (which doubles as a Time Machine) and uses it to give his younger self a sports almanac from the future. The consequences of this change create an alternate timeline where he becomes incredibly wealthy through sports betting thanks to his insight from the almanac. This new "Biffhorific" timeline is dystopian and corrupt, with Biff gaining significant power and influence.
Marty and Doc go back to 1985 to discover a drastically altered past thanks to Biff's interference. Fixing this calls for traveling back to the origins of their fates — in 1955, the setting of the first film, so they can prevent Biff from getting the sports almanac. However, Marty encounters his past self and struggles to obtain the almanac.
To complicate things, Marty must refrain from altering the past too much, revisiting events from the first movie from different perspectives. Ultimately, they manage to obtain the almanac and restore the original timeline — seemingly, only for the ending to reveal Doc has been living in an alternate 1985 with his family in a technologically advanced setting.
The film predicted a future with hoverboards, flying cars, self-tying shoe laces, video calls, biometric identification, flat-screen TVs, voice-activated devices, and digitally delivered news through screens and tablets. Most of these have come true, except for hoverboards and flying cars. Well, some hoverboards have emerged on the market, but their design is a little more modest than the tech featured in the film.
42. The Running Man (1987)
Image Credit: Braveworld Productions, Keith Barish Productions, and TAFT Entertainment Pictures.
Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers a compelling performance in the 1987 film The Running Man, directed by Paul Michael Glaser. In a dystopian America set in 2019, Ben Richards, a falsely convicted policeman, is forced to resort to competing in a perilous TV show game notorious for having no survivors. In this future, American society is fixated on brutal game shows, reflecting a prescient commentary on the public's fascination with violent and competitive entertainment. The contestants must battle killers to earn their freedom.
Drawing parallels with the popularity of Squid Game, a Netflix hit in 2021, The Running Man is recognized as one of the standout sci-fi films of the 1980s, offering a thought-provoking prediction about societal trends and media consumption.
Ironically, a spin-off game show based on Netflix's Squid Game drama series, Squid Game: The Challenge, reportedly caused contestants to suffer from hypothermia and nerve damage, and the winner claims they haven't seen a penny of the $4 million cash prize.
The Running Man has become more science-predictive than science-fiction. The film's future predictions include booking vacations from your home computer, giant flat-screen TVs plastered all over the place, voice-activated home appliances, a proliferation of fake news and deepfakes, and the nightmare that is heavily secure airport travel.
43. The Terminator (1984)
Image Credit: Orion Pictures.
Directed by James Cameron and released in 1984, The Terminator provides a glimpse into a future dominated by computer-controlled aircraft. Arnold Schwarzenegger arrives in the year 2029 with a mission to thwart a ruthless Terminator, a cyborg assassin created by humans.
The film showcases killer robots, global surveillance, and advanced visions of the future. Notably, the movie's prophetic elements have found echoes in the real world, particularly with the widespread use of military drones and the development of artificial intelligence and robotics in the use of military weapons.
While our robots are not advanced enough to convince you they're Arnold Schwarzenegger or malevolent enough to try to kill us, robotics is a field that continues to see steep advancements in recent years, with prototypes intermittently scaring humans.
A 2016 robot with an uncanny valley human face made headlines for being likened to Skynet when it appeared on a news program and said it wanted to destroy humans. Of course, this was just a result of its programming and not a sign of genuine consciousness or plotting against humans. Other incidents in recent years include a Google engineer being fired when he warned the public he believed the company's chatbot LaMDA had achieved sentience.
44. The Truman Show (1998)
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures.
Unbeknownst to Jim Carrey, he's been raised since birth as the star of his own reality TV show about his life. Unaware that thousands of viewers have been watching his every move for decades, Carrey's character begins to suspect something is amiss when he notices suspicious people, dialogue, and events operating as staged drama for viewers' entertainment.
Carrey's character is never let in on the knowledge that his life is being used as fodder for other's viewing entertainment, with "characters" even working in uncanny valley product placement in the middle of a conversation with him.
A metaphor for our increasingly surveilled society and reduced right to privacy, it's also a criticism of media manipulation. The Truman Show unwittingly predicted the rise of family influencers on YouTube, whose children's lives eerily echo that of Truman Burbank. Growing up in front of the camera for YouTube views and subscribers before they even know the implications of having a public online presence is an ethical issue up for debate on social media.
45. Akira (1988)
Image Credit: Toho.
In a post-apocalyptic Tokyo in 2019, Akira follows the story of Kaneda and Tetsuo as they grapple with psychic powers and government experiments. This dystopian future offers a compelling glimpse into societal issues that resonate with the present. Friends Kanea and Tetsuo navigate psychic experimentation and civil unrest when it turns out Tetsuo is involved in a secret government project.
Akira eerily predicts contemporary concerns like unethical science, social unrest, and the merging of humanity with technology.
Considered a vital cornerstone of the cyberpunk genre, it stands as a cinematic prophecy that foreshadows many aspects of our present reality, like the Neo-Tokyo setting closely resembling modern futuristic cities filled with skyscrapers like The Greater Bay Area comprising of Hong Kong and Macau. Alongside social unrest are repeated threats of terrorism, a build-up of anti-government resistance, and the militarization of police.
We all saw the result of the Hong Kong protests over a controversial extradition bill that saw heavy use of police force. Most strangely, the film predicted the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, making us think they have a crystal ball into the future.
46. The Island (2005)
Image Credit: DreamWorks Productions, LLC.
In 2019, people are chosen to go to "the island" under the guise of winning a lottery, believing themselves to be the fortunate recipients of a rare opportunity to live on a pristine, secluded island as a reward for their luck. Reality is much darker. The island's true purpose is to harvest the organs of the ‘winners." They are kept in a controlled environment that keeps them healthy and ignorant of the purpose behind their selection.
When McGregor and Johansson's characters discover the truth — that they're clones created to provide replacement organs and tissues for their original, wealthy counterparts, it raises questions about the ethics of unchecked scientific experimentation.
They realize that the seemingly idyllic world they inhabit is a prison designed for organ harvesting. Despite the seemingly far-fetched premise, the film taps into scientific advancements in cloning animals, sparking discussions about the potential future of human cloning.
The concept of organ harvesting depicted in the movie also echoes real-world concerns, shedding light on these practices' ethical and moral implications. Given our willingness to kill and test on thousands of animals for advances in technology, such as Elon Musk's Neuralink brain chip, the potential achievement of human cloning raises serious questions about the implications for the practice.
47. V for Vendetta (2006)
Image Credit: Warner Bros.
In a futuristic British society, an anarchist vigilante fighting for freedom, known as V, commits terrorism to rebel against the oppressive society and crumble the fascistic government. Theories based on context clues argue the film takes place in the late 2020s, and while we certainly aren't living in oppressive fascist regimes in the modern Western world, it remains a cautionary tale about falling into the clutches of authoritarianism.
There are plenty of real-world parallels to the 2020s in V for Vendetta. St. Mary's virus unleashes a pandemic on the world and cripples the United States economy, much like COVID-19.
In 2010, the hacktivist group Anonymous appropriated the use of the iconic Guy Fawkes mask as an homage to the film as a symbol of solidarity and rebellion against ruling institutions.
V for Vendetta imagines a dystopian, highly militarized, oppressive regime that has its citizens under strict curfew, polices their social lives, and has them under mass surveillance. After a series of terroristic attacks, the people fight back against the government's infringements on their freedom. While not taken to such extremes, a trend of public dissent, activism, and questioning of authority has been on the rise in the two decades following 9/11.
48. Click (2006)
Image Credit: Sony Pictures Releasing.
Click revolves around a magical remote control that allows the protagonist (Adam Sandler) to fast-forward, rewind, and pause his life. The movie, which veers into unexpectedly moving territory, interspersed with Sandler-induced hilarity, offers a cautionary tale about the importance of living in the moment by exploring the consequences of trying to control and manipulate your destiny.
As we watch Michael skip through his life, the first significant time skip brings him to 2017, where he discovers he's CEO of his company but has become morbidly obese.
Other significant jumps to years in the future are 2023 and 2029. While Click remotes that can speed us through the mundanity of life, pause when we need more time to think, and rewind when we want to relive the good moments sound enticing, I've yet to wander into a Bed, Bath & Beyond and have one bestowed upon me by Christopher Walken. It'd be pretty cool if it did, but no one would believe me, anyway. With the iPhone being released just a year after this film, it feels like a profound coincidence that Click was able to conceive of an all-absorbing device that robs you of the present.
49. Snowpiercer (2013)
Image Credit: The Weinstein Company.
Snowpiercer follows the remnants of humanity on a perpetually moving train, divided by class, known as Snowpiercer. The train serves as the last bastion of human survival after a failed climate-change experiment led to a global ice age.
The train is a self-sustaining ecosystem that perpetually travels around the globe. The 1001-car post-apocalyptic train is the backdrop for exploring social stratification, class warfare, and environmental catastrophe. Survival in the back of the train is bleak for its poor passengers, who are treated inhumanly, but a hedonistic dream for its wealthy, first-class passengers.
Taking place in 2031, the film uses the train as an allegory for limited resources, overpopulation, class division, and technological dependence, which are all issues at the forefront of modern discourse, though not so dire and urgent as portrayed in Snowpiercer.
The engine that powers Snowpiercer in the film is a Perpetual Motion Machine, which is an impossibility because it violates the laws of thermodynamics. Curiously, however, a sort of Snowpiercer-like train dubbed the "infinity train" is being developed by Australian company Fortescue Future Industries, whose gravity engine has the potential to allow trains to run forever. It appears to be at least partially inspired by the post-apocalyptic film or its subsequent Netflix series, which does have us wondering if we should be a little worried.
50. Anon (2018)
Image Credit: Altitude Film Distribution.
Anon is set in a near-futuristic society where privacy no longer exists, and individuals' memories are recorded and can be accessed by authorities. The film explores the implications of constant surveillance with a reverse- Minority Report premise.
Similar themes of erosion of privacy and ethical dilemmas surround technologies that infiltrate human minds. Instead of monitoring people's thoughts about what they will do in the future, they monitor their memories of the past. Just like in Minority Report, both of these technologies are used to police crime.
Minority Report is focused on deterring future crime before it happens, while Anon uses this technology to solve crimes like murders after they have already happened. In this world where privacy and crime have been virtually eliminated, a detective, Sal Frieland, investigates a series of murders committed by "The Girl," an elusive hacker with the ability to manipulate the augmented reality everyone experiences through their "eyeball" implants.
She can effectively erase her presence from recorded footage, making her a ghost. The Girl targets specific individuals who have been involved in a corrupt conspiracy to expose their misdeeds, and Sal's encounters with The Girl challenge his understanding of truth and justice.
Anon sees for us a future in which total surveillance and loss of privacy are inevitable. It predicts mass augmented reality linked directly to our physical eyes, which will further blur the lines between our physical and digital worlds. Most concerningly, it will make it even easier for tech companies and governments to manipulate what we do or don't see.
Anon also explores the dark side of total transparency as a supposed solution to crime and corruption. The movie questions the implications of a society where people can be constantly monitored and where the ability to remain anonymous becomes a form of rebellion. Many of us are already battling with this idea in the modern world on a smaller scale, with social media making us fully accessible to everyone we've ever met — or haven't met.