The Top 10 Futuristic Movies

-David Warner in "Star Trek VI"

The future is always on our minds to the point where it seems impossible to stay in the present. Our hopes and dreams as well as our fears are based on what we will think will happen in a time far from now. That's what seems to make futuristic movies all the more fascinating. The best ones are entertaining as hell, and they mirror the current zeitgeist of culture in contrast to the technological advances that will greet us sooner than we think. They also become greedy fodder for other filmmakers to make exploitative trash which (while sometimes an absolute gas to watch) offers no redeeming qualities or production values except for one or two decent action scenes can keep certain films somewhat watchable ("Cyborg" with Jean Claude Van Damme is barely worth citing as an example).

Still, these movies are typically difficult to make because people in general have different ideas of what our world will be like years from now, and they usually remind you of films already made and praised extensively. The trick for filmmakers is to design something that is unique to what came before it, and if done right, it will stay in your conscious mind long after you have seen it. Some futuristic movies do this almost immediately upon their release while others end up bewildering the mainstream oriented audiences will later discover them through cable and DVD.

It took some time, but I managed to whittle down this list to include what I feel are the top 10 futuristic movies of all time. In many ways, 10 is not enough, and there are many I still seriously dig after first watching them as a kid. So my hope is to not feel too guilty about the ones I end up leaving off of here, for I know there will be a frustrating few.

Blade Runner

Ridley Scott's science fiction epic, and still his very best film, was based on a short story by Philip K. Dick called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" It was a box office bomb when first released in 1982. But like John Carpenter's "The Thing" which was released that same year, it has found an enormous cult following which recognizes it for the brilliant movie it always was. The title refers to police officers who specialize in "retiring" (the polite way of saying kill) escaped replicants on Earth. In the Los Angeles of November 2019, there are flying cars in the skies, towering buildings, and a lot of products which ironically no longer in existence (TDK anyone?). Deckard is called back into active duty to hunt down some of the most dangerous replicants ever created, among them Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), a combat model looking for more life beyond his upcoming expiration date which isn't that far away. Along the way, Deckard ends up falling for a replicant named Rachael (Sean Young) who is programmed with past memories that help make her perhaps more human than anyone else in this movie.

"Blade Runner" is a fantastic triumph of story, direction, and acting, and it's hard to think of another movie that you could easily compare it to. Ridley Scott has said that this is his most personal film he has ever made, and that is why he has continued presenting different versions of it over the years ("Blade Runner: The Final Cut" came out in 2007). It also looks what happens when scientists create something that is even better than the real thing. It also calls into question our responsibility of looking after our creations, and there is a "Frankenstein" motif at work as we see the replicants fighting back at their creators. The replicants prove to be more human than the humans, and telling them apart requires a skillful touch that only a few people like Deckard have.

Moreover, what happens when your creation gets out of your control and wants more than you can give it? This reminds me of that line from the movie "D.A.R.Y.L.":

"A machine becomes human when you can't tell the difference anymore."

Harrison Ford is great here in one of his most underrated performances, and he is aided by a great cast of supporting actors like Edward James Olmos who seems to create a language all his own here, and M. Emmet Walsh among others. Sean Young makes one of her earliest appearances on film, and she is still intoxicatingly beautiful throughout the movie's running time. But the movie is all but stolen by Rutger Hauer who plays Roy Batty, a replicant as passionate as he is deadly. Hauer still thinks of his role in "Blade Runner" as his most favorite (can you blame him?).

Click here to read a review of "Blade Runner - The Final Cut"

Escape From New York

One of my all time favorite John Carpenter movies, "Escape From New York," stars Kurt Russell in one of his most entertaining performances as Snake Plissken, a decorated war hero who has since turned rogue and cares about nothing more than staying alive. Snake is about to be sent off to the maximum security penitentiary of Manhattan Island for robbing the National Reserve. But he is quickly summoned by United States Police Force Commissioner Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) upon his arrival to take on a mission of rescuing the President of the United States (Donald Pleasance) who is trapped in the city after ejecting from Air Force One after it was hijacked. If Snake rescues the President, he will receive a full pardon for his crimes. Being the iconic antihero that he is, Snake uses the opportunity to escape, but Hauk is always one step ahead of him and won't let him come back alive without the President.

Made back in 1981, "Escape From New York" takes place in 1997 when the crime rate in America has risen 400%. Granted, when 1997 finally came around, things weren't that lawless, but it reflected how New York was out of control with crime back then. The idea of walling off Manhattan Island and turning it into a maximum security prison has some plausibility to it as all you need to do is just put up a couple of walls and get a security force, and the rest will take care of itself. I'm surprised we haven't seen any one of our states turned into a prison for it would certainly save us the trouble of building all these new ones (god forbid it becomes a for profit business). What I love about this movie is that Snake Plissken truly is a bad guy who couldn't care less about you, and yet we still cheer him on. Unlike all those around him, good and bad, Snake gets the job done even if it's in the benefit of his own self-interest. "Escape From New York" also makes incredibly impressive use of its $7 million dollar budget to create the prison state of New York through different effects, and they make the film look like it cost 4 times as much. It also effectively taps into the deep cynicism our country was still in due to Richard Nixon resigning the Presidency over endless corruption charges, and of the bungled response to the hostage situation in Iran while Jimmy Carter was in the White House.

For the record, I also really liked "Escape From LA," and that's even if people see it as the same exact movie.

Click here to read what John Carpenter said about Escape From New York & LA

Minority Report

Here's another futuristic movie based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, and this one comes from director Steven Spielberg. "Minority Report" marked his first collaboration with Tom Cruise who stars as John Anderton, a cop who works in the specialized police department known as Precrime. With the aid of 3 psychics, these cops are able to stop crimes before they happen. However, one day while he is at work and orchestrating the visuals of the next crime the psychics see, he ends up finding out that he is the next suspect to commit a murder. Anderton then spends the rest of the movie on the run from the police and just about everyone else as he tries to avert what the psychics see as his inevitable destiny. The movie is a sci-fi murder mystery that questions how much control we should have with technology, and if everyone has an ironclad destiny that robs each human of free will? Does being able to stop crimes before they happen give us a God-like complex? Is there a limit to how we can use this? What happens when the thing you believe in and support turns against you?

Spielberg consulted many of the Global Business Network experts to do research of what kind of technology would be available in the not too distant future. A lot of that technology featured here is now available, so it adds to "Minority Report's" genuinely brilliant premise. We don't find ourselves questioning what's going in this film too much because it seems logical that we could have access to the kinds of things on display here. As is usually the case, Spielberg does a brilliant job directing this movie, and by his own admission, it is the ugliest looking movie that he has made to date. As it heads to the moment where Anderton has to make a choice, you cannot be sure how it's going to turn out. "Minortiy Report" succeeds in being both incredibly entertaining and thought provoking. Truth be told, it would be great to have the power to stop crimes before they happen, but at what price will that come?

After all these years, Spielberg still has the power to amaze us with his films.

A Clockwork Orange

One of Stanley Kubrick's true masterpieces of cinema, "A Clockwork Orange" is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess. The future envisioned in this film is one filled with ultra-violence in a place where the crime rate continues to rise exponentially. We follow the ruthless exploits of gang leader Alex DeLarge who is played by Malcolm McDowell in what still may be his greatest performance. With Alex, McDowell gives us a man who is as charismatic as he is repugnant, and we come to quickly despise him for the crimes he commits. This is especially the case when he ends up raping a woman while gleefully singing "Singing In The Rain." But he ends up getting sent to prison after murdering a woman, and he receives a 17 year sentence. However, Alex is able to get out of prison much earlier when he participates in a process called the Ludovico technique, an experimental therapy used to rehabilitate criminals. What it consists of is visual shock therapy that fills him with feelings of revulsion towards violence against others and of his favorite Beethoven music. After submitting himself to it, he becomes a free man but no longer has free will. It soon becomes clear that Alex will go through much more torture from those who feel he has not fully paid for his crimes yet.

Much has been said about the controversial elements of "A Clockwork Orange," and even Kubrick had it banned in England for years and years because of the violence it supposedly inspired there. But the movie is not out to simply shock you with its images, but make you look at and question the morality of what is happening to Alex. The experimental therapy appears to have worked, but what does it say about us that we choose to rob him of his free will? As the priest he befriends says, everything on the outside has been changed, but it's what's on the inside that needs to be addressed. Alex is not really made into a good person because of this, and he still has the urge to do violent things which he would most likely commit had he not been treated as a guinea pig for a new kind of rehabilitation. Kubrick also shows how this rehabilitation ends up bringing out the worst in Alex's victims as they reap their revenge on him with no mercy. This is one of the very few times I found myself despising a character and then later feeling sorry for him, and that was no easy feat for anyone to pull off, let alone Kubrick or McDowell.

Futures like the one portrayed in "A Clockwork Orange" are symbolic of the times they were created. Crime was on the rise as well as unemployment (sound familiar?), and fear of danger was always prevalent in the air, filling us with endless anxiety. Kubrick tapped into that fear and created this movie that will stay with you long after you have seen it.

WALL-E

The best Pixar movie to date, "WALL-E" tells the story of a lonely robot stuck on Earth which has been decimated by uncontrollable pollution which has long since made it uninhabitable for humans. His job is to collect trash and form it into cubes for easy removal, but those cubes keep piling up and up into the sky. Then he meets and develops a huge crush on EVE, a more advanced robot who lands on Earth to survey if there are any living elements left on this waste of a planet. Their love affair takes them all through the cluttered remains of a once livable planet to the outreaches of space where they encounter what's left of the human race.

The setting may be bleak for a Pixar movie, but "WALL-E" is presenting us with a future that could eventually greet us whether we like it or not. With global warming, over consumption, and of us running out of places to store our trash, things are bound to get worse unless we change a number of things. Still, as bleak as the setting may be, "WALL-E" is quite light hearted for most of its running time, and it does offer a message of hope for the planet. My mom was telling me of how you could do a thesis on this film, and I couldn't agree more as there is so much to take in. Not just about Earth mind you, but also of what happens when you relegate yourself to a life of utter laziness.

Click here to read a review of "WALL-E"

Children of Men

Alfonso Cuaron, director of "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (the first truly great movie of the series), made this grim film of a future where the human race is now officially an endangered species. The movie takes place in 2027 where humanity has become infertile, and there has not been a baby born to anyone in over 20 years. Everyone is under the belief that their collective extinction is getting closer and closer. But when Theo Faron (Clive Owen) comes across a young black woman named Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) who is miraculously pregnant, he works to get her through the military state that Britain has now become. For in the wrong hands, her baby could be used as a bargaining chip or ransom since life holds less and less value. But Theo puts his life on the line to help Kee for this baby represents a strong hope for humanity, and a realization that life may not be coming to an end as we know it.

Compared to other futuristic movies, "Children of Men" does not feel all that removed from our present day existence. The events displayed here are set happen in about 17 years from now, whereas other films of this type take place hundreds of years past our individual expiration dates. As bleak as this movie seems, there is a strong sense of hope that permeates the desolate landscape these characters occupy. Plus, Cuaron gets some truly amazing sequences that look like they were all done in one shot. One shot has Theo and Kee going through a building while the army fights to suppress the rising rebellion to protect what soon looks to be an overthrown government, and you really feel like you are walking alongside the two of them. Plus you have Clive Owen who is one of the coolest actors working today, and he is surrounded by other great actors here including Julianne Moore and Sir Michael Caine.

The Road Warrior

Director George Miller's sequel to "Mad Max" takes place in the post apocalyptic wasteland that Australia has become after a nuclear holocaust. Gasoline has become such a precious commodity that people end up killing each other over it (some things never change). Mel Gibson, in the role that made him a superstar, plays Max as a burned out shell of man who has lost his wife and child after they were murdered by thugs. It seems like he will never get past that in his lifetime, but Max ends up helping a band of survivors to protect their small oil refinery that the film's viciously sadistic antagonists want to get their hands on. The enemy comes barely dressed in leather as if they just came from some S&M party, and some wear hockey masks that put Jason Voorhees to shame. But despite having lost everything truly valuable to him, Max proves to this innocent lot of survivors that he is the best chance they got.

"The Road Warrior" turned out to be one of those sequels that turned out to be better than the original, and the list for that keeps growing and growing as time moves on. Miller created one of the most original looking apocalyptic futures with this film, and so many other films ("Cyborg" with Jean Claude Van Damme is yet again a perfect example) have tried to copy this style much to their own deserved detriment. While critiquing the society of the day in terms of political struggles and over consumption, this movie proves to be one of the most intensely exhausting cinema experiences that you could ever hope to see. Mel Gibson, back when he was well respected, gives one of his most memorable performances as a man who, despite having lost everything, still has enough of a soul to help others.

The Matrix

There's no way I can leave this film from the Wachoski brothers off of this list. This one proved to be the "Star Wars" for the new generation; a film that created a universe unlike any other we have seen before, and populates it with characters that forever were burned into our consciousness. Keanu Reeves plays Neo, whom Morpheus (the great Laurence Fishburne) believes will be "the one" to help humanity win the war against the machines. It turns out that humanity has been lulled to sleep by an alien race that uses them like we use batteries to power our remote controllers. But Neo wakes up from the reality that has been programmed to appear before our eyes and joins in the fight to conquer that which controls almost effortlessly. I would love to have the ability to download kung fu and helicopter flying lessons the way the characters do in this film. It would certainly save me a lot of time and money!

It has now been a good ten years since "The Matrix" was first released, and it remains one of the coolest futuristic movies ever made. By combining different elements such as martial arts, mythology, and fantasy with a little of "Alice In Wonderland" thrown in for good measure, the Wachoski brothers gave us a movie that stood out from the average formulaic movie going experience, and it woke us up to what movies can and should be able to do. It served to influence many other futuristic movies that came out after it, and they all tried to emulate the sleek look that this one had, but none of them could touch the phenomenon that this one became.

Brazil

With this film which was perhaps better known for the battles fought over it before it was finally released, Terry Gilliam gave us one of the most oppressive looking futures that has ever been captured on celluloid. Many saw "Brazil" as Gilliam trying to emulate George Orwell's novel "1984" as though he wrote it. Truth be told, Gilliam never read it before he making this film.

Jonathan Pryce plays Sam Lowry, a lowly office worker or cubicle slave who spends a good portion of his time daydreaming of himself as this winged warrior who was constantly on a journey to get to his true love who only seems like a short distance away. But when Sam ends up encountering a woman who looks almost exactly like her, he begins to rebel against a society that suppresses all the desires we could ever hope to have in our lifetime. Pryce is given strong support by a very talented cast, and I especially loved Robert DeNiro in what at the time was one of his rare comic performances as Harry Tuttle, heating engineer at your service.

Gilliam's vision of the future that was almost totally oppressive was almost too much for me to take when I first saw "Brazil" back when I was in college. What unfolded on the big screen made me feel very claustrophobic, but maybe that was the point. Terry Gilliam wants us to fight or rebel against a government who works to suppress its people to total compliance, for the human spirit cannot flourish in that kind of state. As dark as the movie can be, it still has some truly funny moments especially from DeNiro's character who makes it clear that he got into the heating business for the action, not the paperwork.

The Empire Strikes Back

Including a "Star Wars" movie on this list was at first because they all start with the same phrase:

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..."

That "a long time ago" part made me think that this happened before we all came into existence. But even if that's the case, their past involves a lot of cool spaceships than our future does.

This was actually the first "Star Wars" movie that I ever saw, and it scared me half to death at the age of 5 or 6. When that Wampa monster comes out at Luke Skywalker, I immediately put my hands to my ears because the sound became a bit too much to bear. Anyway, this is the most fully realized of all the movies in George Lucas' outer space saga (haven't seen "The Clone Wars" movie, so I'm not counting that one). The characters are remarkably complex, the love story between Han Solo and Princess Lea is very genuine in its emotions, Mark Hamill does some of his best work here as Luke Skywalker, and the movie is completely untouched by George Lucas' cringe-inducing dialogue.

It took me a long long time to appreciate the fact that this is the best of all the "Star Wars" movies as it is very dark, and there are no happy endings here. All that we have is our heroes' collective struggle to survive the mighty empire which seeks to bring them down to their fascist level. Seriously, of all the "Star Wars" movies, this is the one can be seen as truly great and without an abundance of forgivable flaws.

So, here's to our future which we await patiently, and here's hoping that it turns out nothing like the ones we witnessed in these films listed here.