A.li.ce (1999)
Anime/Dystopian Future/Time Travel
This was the first anime film made in CGI, an ambitious SF film involving a time travel plot and a struggle against a machine-dominated future
Dystopias
The dystopia is a term created to mean the opposite of a utopia. The term utopia was coined after the novel Utopia (1516) by Thomas More in which he sought to imagine the best possible society. By contrast, the dystopia imagines the worst possible society.
The most famous utopias in literary fiction are the world of authoritarian control in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) where people are preselected from birth to fulfil roles in society.
Dystopia are almost always seen as authoritarian, as having security forces that stamp out any form of ideological dissent. A frequent plot in a dystopian film is of a world where lovers are struggling to escape to freedom from a world where their relationship is forbidden.
Many screen dystopias are modelled on real world models such as Nazi Germany from which they borrow images of charismatic leaders and armies of stormtroopers. Equally popular are dystopias where individuality is crushed or narcotised, or where the society is run by an Artificial Intelligence. A more recent development is the dystopia of constant digital surveillance.
A dystopia is a projection of its author/creator – a world where a feared aspect of present-day society is taken to nightmare extremes. The ideology can run all the way from Aldous Huxley’s distaste of the hedonistic society in Brave New World to Ray Bradbury’s fear of the loss of imagination and literacy in Fahrenheit 451 (1953), of the youth revolution in Logan’s Run (1976), of Political Correctness taking over in Demolition Man (1993) or of American democracy supplanted by socialism in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (1957). The original Star Trek (1966-9) is known for creating straw dystopian societies of the week for Captain Kirk to demolish.
The heyday of the screen dystopia was in the 1960s and 70s. By the 1980s, the dystopia had been supplanted by the Action Movie where the ideological nightmares of earlier works were replaced by generic authoritarian societies for the action hero, a man of hard-won individualism, to struggle against. Equally the rise of Cyberpunk and assorted dark futures have seen the ideological dystopia supplanted by a more ambiguous world that is extension of the present, although there still continue to be a number of examples of dystopian works.
ABCs of Death 2 (2014)
Horror Anthology
Sequel to the hit multi-director anthology has a less high-profile line-up of directors, nor hits the astonishingly perverse heights of its predecessor. As always some entries never do much but the film finds its stride in the last few episodes
Abigail (2019)
Alternate Reality/Steampunk and Magic
Russian film that creates a fascinating alternate reality where Steampunk and magic blend in an almost familiar world
Aeon Flux (2005)
Dystopian Future/TV Series Remake
Disappointingly watered down live-action adaptation of the cult animated series. Karyn Kusama creates some interesting visuals but eventually everything lapses to Hollywood formula
Allegiant (2016)
Young Adult Dystopian Future
The Divergent series is a fundamentally implausible scenario for people that think horoscopes are a profound insight into human nature. This is the most interesting of the films and gives us an imaginative future world
Alphaville (1965)
French New Wave/Intergalactic Detective
Surrealistic cinematic joke from French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard that mashes up film noir and SF where hard-boiled detective travels to another planet represented by contemporary Paris
Altered (2025)
Genetic Dystopia
From Iron Sky director Timo Vuorensola, Tom Felton stars as a wheelchair-ridden hero battling a genetic dystopia. This emerges as a bizarre melding of Gattaca and Upgrade
Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike (2012)
Libertarian Political Fantasy/Ayn Rand Adaptation
The second film from Ayn Rand’s libertarian fantasy. This gets more into the meat of Rand’s ideas (wherein the wealthy decide to ignore an undeserving world) and is even more ridiculous than the first film
Atlas Shrugged III: Who is John Galt? (2014)
Libertarian Political Fantasy/Ayn Rand Adaptation
The third of the trilogy of films adapted from Ayn Rand’s absurd fantasy wherein the leaders of the business world decide to go on strike because they don’t feel appreciated enough
Battle Royale (2000)
Deadly Elimination Game
An entertainingly violent Japanese comic-book of a movie in which a classroom of school pupils is abandoned on an island with weapons to eliminate one another. Frequently cited as the inspiration for The Hunger Games
Battle Royale II: Requiem (2003)
Deadly Elimination Game
This was the sequel to Battle Royale and ups the scale of the conflict but somewhere loses the gleeful fun of the original and strays off to become a war film
Black River (2001)
Perfect Town Where Nobody Can Ever Leave
Modest and quite effective Dean R. Koontz adaptation in which Jay Mohr is trapped in a small town run by an A.I. that does everything it can to prevent him from leaving
The Bothersome Man (2006)
Afterlife Black Comedy
A very black Norwegian comedy in which a man who committed suicide wakes up in an afterlife very much like this world but where everyone suffers from a maddening blandness
Brave New World (1998)
Dystopian Future
TV movie adaptation that conducts a hatchet job on Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel where his vision of a conditioned class structure is turned into an allegory about a media-saturated world
Brave New World (2020)
Dystopian Future
TV mini-series adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian novel. Developed by Grant Morrison, this freely adapts the novel but does a strong and intelligent job of reimagining it in contemporary terms
Brazil (1985)
Dystopian Black Comedy
Terry Gilliam’s satire on Nineteen Eighty-Four is a darkly brilliant work – it is a madly out of control film but is filled moments of wild imagination and black-than-black humour than make it an unnerving ride
Bus (1987)
Japanese Dystopia
Obscure Japanese film set in a computer-controlled dystopia where a simple bus driver makes a defiant stand against against conformity
Children of Men (2006)
Infertile Future
Alfonso Cuaron film set in a near-future afflicted by an epidemic of infertility. Cuaron’s depiction of a dystopian world comes with a richness of casually layered detail that makes for a stark and powerful film
Code 46 (2003)
Dystopian Future
A standout Michael Winterbottom film set in a fascinatingly detailed and well conceived future dominated by genetic laws where Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton conduct an illicit affair
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
Planet of the Apes Sequel
The fourth of the original Planet of the Apes films, this cuts back on the humour and makes a stark parable for the Civil Rights movement with the apes rebelling against humanity in a revolution
Crime Zone (1989)
Dystopian Future
A low-budget SF-action film produced by Roger Corman with David Carradine as a police chief in a dystopian future who becomes wound up in the lives of two young lovers on the run
Dark Metropolis (2010)
Dystopia of Genetically Engineered Superhumans
a low-budget SF film set in an underground world ruled by a caste of genetically engineered people concerning who now face rebellion from among the lower classes
The Darkest Minds (2018)
Young Adult/Psychically Powered Kids on the Run
Adapted from a series of Young Adult books concerning a group of children with psychic powers on the run in a dystopian future, this failed to find the audience it sought
Darkside Blues (1994)
Anime/Dark Future/Mysterious Stranger
Anime where a mysterious other-dimensional stranger aids future rebels. This has a wonderfully ornate Gothic feel but an entirely confusing plot
Darwin (2016)
Dystopian Internet-Addicted Future
This imagines a future where people have become so absorbed in online communication that they live in isolated cubicles. An interesting idea that the film does zero to make believable
Dead-End Drive-In (1986)
Drive-In Theatre as a Future Prison/Satire
A remarkable little film from Australian director Brian Trenchard-Smith set in a satiric future where teens find they are trapped in a drive-theatre used as a prison for troubled youth
Dead or Alive: Final (2002)
Cyberpunk Dystopia/Androids
The third of Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive trilogy. While the previous entries are Yakuza films, this is an action film about androids set in Blade Runner-homaging Cyberpunk future
The Death Cure (2018)
Young Adult/Dystopian-Post-Holocaust Adventure
The Maze Runner was a solid Young Adult effort that built out an effective Conceptual Breakthrough story; this, the second of two sequels, feeld like a series of canned action scenes in search of a purpose
Demolition Man (1993)
Satirical Politically Correct Dystopia/Action
One of Sylvester Stallone’s better films, a satirically funny work where he plays a contemporary police officer unfrozen in a future overrun by Political Correctness to chase down criminal Wesley Snipes
Divergent (2014)
Young Adult Dystopian Future
Designed as a copycat of The Hunger Games, this Young Adult film as a modest hit. The premise is fundamentally implausible as human psychology – and when there’s no basic credibility, you cease to care about the contrived dramatics
Elysium (2013)
Future Class Divide
The second film from Neill Blomkamp. As in District 9, he starts out making a savage and biting social critique about social privilege and financial elites only to let the film descend into action moves in the third act
Equals (2015)
Dystopia
Dystopian film about a future where emotion is forbidden – this owes much to George Lucas’s THX 1138, right down to the blinding white-on-white look. The film is also hobbled by a non-acting Kristen Stewart
Equilibrium (2002)
Dystopia
While Kurt Wimmer’s film with Christian Bale as an enforcer in a dystopian future attained some acclaim when it came out, it feels like it is comprised of a collage of cliches borrowed from every other dystopian film
Escape from L.A. (1996)
Action/Los Angeles as a Future Prison
John Carpenter’s sequel to Escape from New York falls too much in the shadow of its predecessor, nevertheless has some effective moments of its own, with Carpenter in particular creating a satiric fundamentalist future
Existo (1999)
Fundamentalist Dystopia/Musical Satire
A witty musical satire set in a future USA that is under a fundamentalist dystopia concerning a revolution led by assorted leftist activists, drag performers and artists
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Book-Burning Dystopia/Ray Bradbury Adaptation
Francois Truffaut adapts Ray Bradbury’s novel about a dystopian future where books are burned. Truffaut finds different things in the story than Bradbury did but creates a beautiful film
Fahrenheit 451 (2018)
Book-Burning Dystopia/Ray Bradbury Adaptation
This had one simple job – adapt a book by one of the great SF writers. Instead, we go from a work set in a book-burning future to The Firemen on reality tv shows competing for Likes on social media
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions (2004)
Dystopia
Spanish film set in a dystopian future where physical contact between the sexes is outlawed and rebels discover forbidden broadcasts. This becomes overrun by its pretensions
Firebird 2015 AD (1980)
Car Races in a Dystopian Future
Canadian film set in a dystopian future where private use of cars has been banned and Darren McGavin is among the aging car aficionado who race custom cars in defiance of the authorities
The First Purge (2018)
The Origin of a Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
Blumhouse have handed the reigns of The Purge series to African-American filmmaker Gerard McMurray who takes the opportunity to get political and drag the series into the era of Black Lives Matter
Fortress (1993)
Future Prison
Stuart Gordon, a cult director on the basis of Re-Animator, ventures into making an SF action film set in a futuristic prison. The film has a bone-headed script that feels like it is only rehashing cliches from every SF film
Franklyn (2008)
Interwoven Stories/Religious Dystopia
A fascinating series of interwoven stories, one of which is set in a religion-dominated dystopian future. An intriguing puzzle that arrives at a surprise left field ending
Gattaca (1997)
Genetically-Engineered Dystopia
The first film from Andrew Niccol, a smart work set in a dystopian future where genetic engineering has perfected the human species and those who are born naturally are doomed to an underclass
The Giver (2014)
Young Adult Dystopia
Another adaptation of a classic Young Adult book, this merely substitutes well-worn dystopian tropes and comes out feeling like Divergent by way of Pleasantville
The Handmaid’s Tale (1990)
Fundamentalist Dystopia
The original version of the Margaret Atwood novel made way before the tv series. This aims in the general direction but is more a film that achieves a sense of disquiet rather than the true horror of its’ heroine’s situation in this world
Hardwired (2009)
Satiric Corporate Future/Advertising Brain Implants
This has the promising idea of a corporate-ruled future where people receive advertising implants but soon dissolves into the equivalent of a B-budget hacker thriller
Harmony (2015)
Anime/Disquiet Utopia
Anime set in a disquiet utopia where the populace is monitored by cyber implants. Almost completely eschewing the usual action scenes of sf anime, this tells a strong, intelligent and character-driven story
Harrison Bergeron (1995)
Future Where Everybody Must Be Average/Kurt Vonnegut Adaptation
Adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut story about a future where everyone must be average wherein Vonnegut’s farcical satire is completely misjudged and played straight
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)
Immortal Combat/Dark Future
Probably THE worst sequel ever made. The script’s treatment of continuity to the first film is utterly incoherent, while director Russell Mulcahy and most of the cast go at it with unrestrained OTT excess
The Humanity Bureau (2017)
Dystopian Future
Nicolas Cage is a lawman of the future who rebels against the system to protect a woman and child. Essentially a copy of the basics of Logan’s Run, this manages to be uninteresting in every way
The Hunger Games (2012)
Future Televised Human Hunting
A Young Adult box-office hit that does little more than competently shuffle around ideas from other SF films. Jennifer Lawrence makes an impressive showing but the film also soft-pedals the moral reality of its scenario
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
Future Televised Human Hunting/Social Revolution
The first sequel to the box-office juggernaut. The surprise is that it spends defies most of the things that made the first film, not to mention has made one of the year’s biggest box-office hits into a parable for Marxist revolution
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2014)
Future Social Revolution
The third The Hunger Games film starts in with a more brooding complexity but with the book being split in two parts, the story feels more thinly drawn and comes to an abrupt end just when it starts to get interesting
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)
Future Social Revolution
The finale of the saga comes with a tough, gritty edge that make it the best directed of the series. On the other hand, it builds well only to arrive at an ending that goes oddly sideways and throws sympathies to the wind
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)
Future Televised Human Hunting
The Hunger Games was one of the biggest franchise of the 2010s. Here a number of the key talents return to make a prequel to the events, telling a story from the early days of the Hunger Games
The Hungover Games (2014)
Parodies of Various Films
In the vein of the Scary Movies films, this offers the amusing idea of a mash-up between The Hunger Games and The Hangover where the characters are forced into a death match against characters from other media franchises
In Time (2011)
Dystopian Future
Niccol has a smartness that makes him a must-watch director. Considerable conceptual dexterity has gone into this variant on Logan’s Run set in a future in which time is regarded as a currency
Inhabited Island (2008)
Russian Science Fiction/Dystopian Planet
Russian adaptation of a classic Soviet-era SF novel from the Srugatski Brothers that plays what was originally a complex social allegory out as an effects extravaganza
Insurgent (2015)
Young Adult Dystopian Future
Divergent, the first entry in this Young Adult dystopian series, a poor man’s Hunger Games, failed the “I can’t hold any suspension of disbelief” test. This offers more of the same, plus lots of random effects sequences
The Last Chase (1981)
Car Chase in a Dystopian Future
Dystopian action film that could have only been made during the late 70s Oil Crisis where Lee Majors defies a totalitarian system where vehicles are banned by setting out in his racing car
The Last Child (1971)
Dystopian Future Where Couples Are Only Allowed to Have One Child
TV movie set in a dystopian future where law mandates that couples can only have one child, concerning a couple who go on the run after becoming pregnant a second time
The Lobster (2015)
Future Where Everyone Must Be in a Relationship/Black Comedy
Yorgos Lanthimos makes a deadpan black humour SF film set in a future where one is forced to find their perfect romantic partner or else be turned into an animal
Logan’s Run (1976)
Dystopian Future
Dystopian SF mounted on a big budget by people that don’t have a clue what they are doing. This creates one of prettiest depictions of the future of any film of this era but it is only a surface deep depiction
The Long Walk (2025)
Future Death Walk
An adaptation of Stephen King’s Richard Bachman novel set in a future where youths compete in a race where they must walk hundreds of miles without stopping or else be shot
Mars Needs Moms (2011)
Animation/Boy's Adventures on Mars
Motion-capture animated version of a popular children’s book. The title suggests a 1950s B movie and the subtext doesn’t bear close examination but the results are engagingly put together
Mayflower II (2020)
Christians Launch a Space Mission
An hilariously bad film in which Christians launch a space mission to flee a Bible-censoring dystopia on Earth
Megaville (1990)
Dystopian Future
Little-known SF film with Billy Zane in a dystopian future involving Virtual Reality tech and implanted memories. Like Total Recall rewritten as an episode of Miami Vice
Metropia (2009)
Near-Future Dystopia
Animated film set in a dystopian near-future Europe of constant surveillance where even people’s heads are monitored
Metropolis (1927)
Dystopia/Social Revolution/Mad Scientist/Android Temptress
Fritz Lang’s visionary work was something way ahead of it time and is one of the few silent films still screened today. The film’s politics are naive but Lang’s visions of the city of the future and the first screen robot are vivid.
Never Let Me Go (2010)
Organ-Harvesting Dystopia
This has a similar scenario to Michael Bay’s The Island but also at 180 degree remove – where Bay was loud and bludgeoning, this approaches the idea as a subtle British childhood pastoral
1984 (1956)
Dystopia
The first film adaptation of the classic George Orwell dystopian work. The brilliance of the book only comes through in occasional moments but mostly the film befalls the leaden hand of director Michael Anderson
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
Dystopia
Superb adaptation of the George Orwell novel that was actually shot in the months and year that the book takes place. Orwell’s future is imagined as a bleak post-War dystopia given life by a superlative cast
1984 (2023)
Dystopian Future
A new adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984. In this case, the film was shot in Russia and imagines the world as a full-on dystopian future quite unlike any of the previous film versions
No Escape (1994)
Future Prison/Action
Big-budget action film that essentially rewrites Papillon in SF terms. Martin Campbell has a good eye for widescreen action but the film is only drawn in cliches.
The Perfect Weapon (2016)
Action Film/Dystopian Future
Steven Seagal makes an SF film. Even more bizarrely, Seagal plays the villain for one of the few times in his career, namely the dictator of a dystopian future. An overweight and aging Seagal has a handful of scenes philosophising, while the bulk of the film is a super-soldier plot carried by others
Planet Earth (1974)
Post-Holocaust Women Rule Society
The second of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s unsold Genesis II pilots. While you can see the series had some potential, the plot about the venture to a society where women keep men as slaves has a giggly silliness that feels like a throwback to 50s films like Queen of Outer Space
Priest (2011)
Future World of Vampires
This spends much effort creating an imaginative future where priests battle vampires who are banished to reservations only to do nothing with it other than reach for the tropes of the Western
Punishment Park (1971)
Dystopian Future Survival Run
From Peter Watkins, a remarkably stark and brutal film set in a near-future USA where political prisoners are allowed to run for freedom through the desert while hunted by law enforcement officials
Radio Free Albemuth (2014)
Philip K. Dick Adaptation/Possible Messages from Aliens
Adaptation of an autobiographical Philip K. Dick book that he wrote in an attempt to make sense of a series of bizarre hallucinations, this long-rumoured film manages, despite a low-budget, to mainline the brain-twisting nature of Dick’s writing better than any other adaptation
Repo Men (2010)
Future Organ Repossession
SF film set in a future where agents are sent to repossess artificial organs when the owner’s fall behind on payments. Sort of Sicko by way of Logan’s Run but lacking the necessary sense of black humour to work
Rollerball (1975)
Future Ultra-Violent Sport
Classic work of dystopian SF set in a future where an ultra-violent sport has been created to pacify the masses
The Running Man (2025)
Future Televised Human Hunting
Edgar Wright conducts a remake of The Running Man and takes it more back to the original Stephen King book than the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, while adding a level of biting modern commentary
The Scorch Trials (2015)
Young Adult/Post-Holocaust Adventure
The Maze Runner was one of the better Young Adult films, creating an intriguing conceptual mystery; this sequel ignores all of that, even throws the book out and is essentially a jumble of random sf tropes that amount to no more than running, shooting and things exploding
The Secret Kingdom (1997)
Miniature World Under the Kitchen Sink
This is an appealingly strange Charles Band produced children’s film about a kid who discovers a miniature magical kingdom that is located under the kitchen sink
Sex Mission (1984)
Women-Ruled Future Comedy
A popular Polish comedy in its day about two men who awake from cryogenic suspension in a women-ruled future where men are obsolete. Some of the comedy reads as very dated watching the film today
Six: The Mark Unleashed (2004)
Biblical End Times/Antichrist Dystopia
Christian work about the Biblical End Times set in a dystopia where everyone is forced to accept the Mark of the Beast. Starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, no less!
Sleeper (1973)
Dystopian Future Comedy
An hilarious Woody Allen film in which he plays a contemporary man cryogenically unthawed in the 22nd century. This satirisises SF cliches and contains some side-slitting comedy sequences
Sleeping Dogs (1977)
New Zealand Dystopia
The cornerstone of the modern New Zealand film industry – the first film of both Sam Neill and Roger Donaldson – a vigorous dystopian action film that offers up a nightmare of sleepy parochial 1970s NZ being brutally overrun by the imagery of totalitarianism
Snowpiercer (2013)
Train Containing the Last Survivors of Humanity
One of the most original science-fiction films of recent years. Set aboard a train where the last survivors of humanity circle a frozen globe, this is less an action film than something like Runaway Train turned into a unique conceptual breakthrough story, all rent through with a fierce parable about social revolution
Solarbabies (1986)
Post-Holocaust Teen Sports Team
Embarrassingly bad Mel Brooks produced film that seems to have been conceived in terms of conducting a juvenile Mad Max film on rollerskates and throwing SF cliches about without any coherent script
Songbird (2020)
Plague-Ridden Future
Film shot during the pandemic lockdown from Michael Bay’s production company set in a future where Covid has become even more virulent
The Starving Games (2013)
The Hunger Games Parody
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, behind parody films like Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie, turn to The Hunger Games. There is all the usual inanity and celebrity mocking of their films, although they do seem to make a film that is only marginally less moronic than usual
Strange Holiday (1945)
Nazi Takeover of the US
Arch Oboler makes a film in which Claude Rains returns from a holiday to find a Nazi government has overtaken the USA
Strange New World (1975)
Cryogenic Sleepers Awake in a Post-Apocalyptic World
The third of the films based around Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s Genesis II concept where a cryogenic sleeper awakes in a post-apocalyptic world
The Stranger (1973)
Counter Earth
Essentially a tv movie version of the Gerry Anderson film Doppelganger in which an astronaut comes around to find he is on a Counter Earth. The premise, an alternate history of sorts, is nonsensical and even then the film abandons it soon in to become a variant on The Fugitive
Taxandria (1994)
Fabulism/Surreal Fantasy Dystopia
Extraordinary Belgian fabulist film, part-animated, part live-action, that takes place in a surreal alternate world
Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 (1994)
Time Travellers from a Future Where Sex is Banned
Charles Band film directed by David DeCoteau, a lame softcore comedy where two guys travel back from a future where sex is outlawed and end up in a girl’s boarding school
The Thinning (2016)
Future Education System Eliminates Failed Students
Another variant on the Young Adult dystopia a la The Hunger Games and Divergent films, concerning a future where that who fail standardised school tests are executed to keep the population down. The blandness of approach utterly feels to grapple with the ideas at play
This Was America (2020)
Near-Future Totalitarian USA
A film that offers the depiction of a totalitarian future USA where Donald Trump has refused to leave office. This was made at the end of Trump’s first term and before his second term return to power.
THX 1138 (1971)
Dystopian Future
George Lucas’s first film and always a puzzle to those who come to it after the Star Wars series where its antiseptic, dehumanised aesthetic and dystopian future seems almost the polar opposite of the Star Wars universe