The 12 Best Dystopian Movies

Every generation at some point thinks that they’re at the bleeding edge of society turning into a bleak dystopia, but the truth is most sci-fi cinema is made up of exaggerated looks at the contemporary. With this week’s Wolverine movie Logan showing us a near-future that feels more like a right-now, with cybernetically-enhanced bad guys chasing illegal mutant immigrants across the border, it seemed like as good a time as any to look back at some of the other bleak futures from our recent past. Check out our list of The 12 Best Dystopian Movies in the gallery below!

You can read our two Logan reviews HERE and HERE!

Set in the near future, the film follows a weary Logan (Hugh Jackman) as he cares for an ailing Professor X (Sir Patrick Stewart) in a hideout on the Mexican border. But Logan’s attempts to hide from the world and his legacy are up-ended when a young mutant arrives, being pursued by dark forces.

Also starring Dafne Keen, Eriq La Salle, Stephen Merchant, Elise Neal and Elizabeth Rodriguez, Logan is coming to theaters on March 3, 2017. Directed by James Mangold (Walk the Line, The Wolverine) and scripted by David James Kelly, the new film will mark the ninth (and said to be final) time that Jackman has played the Marvel Comics character on the big screen.

WALL·E (2008)

Pixar, of all places, made one of the bleakest looks at our future yet, with the Earth literally uninhabitable due to garbage and pollution, and the human race turned into a bunch of overweight blobs who can't even walk.

Children of Men (2006)

With a refugee crisis around the world and innocent people and families being put in cages, Children of Men is looking more and more like a documentary now than ever. Of course, we haven't poisoned ourselves enough to cease our ability to have children... at least, not yet.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Steven Spielberg's version of an unproduced Stanley Kubrick script envisions a future where sentient robots (often mistaken as aliens by audiences) are all that's left of man's legacy on the earth. What's most cynical about the film's ending is it dares to wonder if the machines may not be better suited for the planet than we were.

Delicatessen (1991)

For Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie, Alien: Resurrection) and Marc Caro's debut film, they envision a post-apocalyptic France in microcosm. The inhabitants of a building live under the thumb of a butcher who feeds them human meat, all while keeping up appearances of living as if nothing bad is happening in the world.

Brazil (1985)

It's unfortunate that Terry Gilliam's satire about a world obsessed with terrorist bombings and torturing people for information already seems like a period piece. Indeed, its title card indicating it took place "Somewhere in the 20th Century" shows that many of the things we find abhorrent today were already old hat back then. Gilliam himself jokingly threatened to sue the George W. Bush administration for their "unauthorized remake of Brazil."

Blade Runner (1982)

The smog-choked, neon-drenched megalopolis Ridley Scott created isn't far from a New York or Beijing skyline now. A near-empty cityscape with people ready to go off-world is something we can only hope corporate America can get a handle on before our world becomes uninhabitable.

The Road Warrior (1981)

George Miller changed the action movie landscape with this high-octane Mad Max sequel set in an irradiated, barren landscape ripe with homicidal scavengers ready to kill-or-be-killed. The fact that heroes like Mel Gibson's Max can still exist in a world like this is one reason to remain hopeful.

Logan's Run (1976)

The youthful exuberance of a future population that lives in an underground luxury mall-like world hides a dark secret. In order to maintain this wonderful lifestyle, the government is killing people when they reach the age of 30, and like the dummies young people are, they don't know that they can actually live past that!

THX 1138 (1971)

Before he changed the sci-fi paradigm with the fun of Star Wars, George Lucas gave us a grim brave new world in which sexual activity is monitored and everyone is on anti-depressants to control their emotions as they toil away at their monotonous jobs in front of computer screens and... hey! That's just like now! But with less robots and car chases.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

The first film in the series was a Trojan Horse in that it presented itself as an interplanetary adventure on a new world full of human-like apes. That is, until they reveal at the end that it's a post nuclear-disaster Earth!

The 10th Victim (1965)

This Italian satire predated such films as The Running Man, Battle Royale, The Purge and Hunger Games by envisioning a future where murder has been legalized as part of a volunteer game called The Big Hunt. In this game there are hunters, victims, fame and big cash prizes for all who participate. Oh, and Ursula Andress has a brassiere that shoots bullets (pre-Austin Powers).

Metropolis (1927)

The grandaddy of all cinematic dystopias is Fritz Lang's visual epic about a futuristic society where wealthy oligarchs control the automaton-like working class. Includes a very C-3PO-like robot.

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The 12 Best Dystopian Movies