If there’s one thing that genre fans can’t seem to get enough of, it’s dystopian movies, and Hollywood has churned out a steady stream of unsettling depictions of a future gone wrong for half a century and more. Here are ten of the best.
10. Soylent Green
This 1973 flesh-creeper stars Charlton Heston as a grizzled flatfoot in early 21st-century New York, living in a society in which overpopulation and environmental pollution have led to critical food shortages. Soylent Green impressed audiences at the time, but the casual misogyny shown by Heston’s character and the generally poor grasp of the source material, not to mention the abrupt ending and strangely tension-free atmosphere, conspire to dull the movie’s rhetorical force. However, Edward G. Robinson’s peculiar yet moving death scene, completed a mere fortnight before his own death, aged 79, in January 1973, is worth the price of admission – and the final scene delivers one of cinema’s greatest closing lines.
9. 1984
If audiences still await the definitive adaptation of George Orwell’s 1949 masterpiece, this 1984 version gets close. John Hurt does sterling work as Winston Smith, the everyman living in a totalitarian Britain in a late twentieth century in which never-ending war between three global power blocs and a system of total surveillance by the state keeps its citizens in abject terror. Suzanna Hamilton plays well as Winston’s girlfriend Julia, while Richard Burton is mesmerizing in his final film role as Winston’s would-be savior, O’Brien.
8. The Handmaid’s Tale
Before Hulu’s acclaimed adaptation hit the small screens, there was this 1990 film adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s chilling science fiction novel. Natasha Richardson stars as Offred, who in a future in which the vast majority of the population have been rendered sterile finds her fertility so prized that she is expected to bear children for the rich elite. Benefiting from a star-studded cast including Academy Award winner Robert Duvall and Faye Dunaway, the film received a mixed reception from critics.
7. Elysium
Neill Blomkamp’s 2013 action film is set in the 22nd century on an Earth which is degraded by environmental collapse; the wealthy elites have escaped to the luxurious orbital space station of the title. Matt Damon is on top form as Max, an ex-con who is given days to live unless he steals crucial information – in return, he will get the medical treatment he needs to stay alive. As a meditation on social inequality, the film is powerful stuff; Jodie Foster matches Damon point for point as the official tasked with keeping Elysium clear of the riff-raff.
6. Waterworld
Connoisseurs of badfilms love Waterworld for its perceived poorness, but don’t believe those who claim Kevin Costner’s 1995 epic is only watchable for laughs; inside the muddled “Mad Max on water” esthetics is a well-plotted adventure film fighting to get out. Costner plays the Mariner, a loner dwelling in a post-apocalyptic world in which Earth’s major landmasses have been completely submerged due to the melting of the ice caps. Jeanne Tripplehorn does excellent work as Helen, the guardian of Enola (Tina Majorino), a young girl with a tattoo showing the way to the mythical “Dryland”. Never less than watchable, Waterworld is at times genuinely moving; only the scenery-chewing antics of Dennis Hopper as the Deacon let it down.
5. High-Rise
Ben Wheatley’s 2015 take on J. G. Ballard’s 1975 sci-fi novel is played as a period piece, but is no less grim for it. The novel, which famously concerns the inhabitants of a high-rise residential block who shut themselves off from the rest of the world and turn on each other, was long considered a challenge for the big screen, but Wheatley pulls it off, aided by a panoply of talent including Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, and Sienna Miller.
4. I Am Legend
This 2007 adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel features Will Smith as Robert Neville, a virologist who survives a zombie apocalypse and ekes out an existence in New York. He guards against attacks by the infected and hopes to meet other survivors, and eventually meets one (Alice Braga). The film is not exactly faithful to the source material, but it still wowed audiences, posting over half a billion dollars of box office receipts. As of 2022, a sequel was in development.
3. Z For Zachariah
This 2015 indie took as its basis Robert C. O’Brien’s award-winning novel, and stars Margot Robbie as the survivor of a nuclear apocalypse, whose solitary existence on an isolated farm is disturbed by two other survivors (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Chris Pine). The drama underwhelmed mainstream audiences, but found favor from critics, who praised the slow-burning tension and faultless performances from the cast.
2. Blade Runner: 2049
Where Ridley Scott’s 1982 original contained at least a kernel of hopeful sentiment, Denis Villaneuve’s magisterial 2017 sequel has no such pretensions. Ryan Gosling is unmissable as K, a police officer who discovers a profoundly unsettling truth about the lives of his fellow replicants, all set against the backdrop of a California wracked by catastrophic and harrowingly depicted climate change. Sylvia Hoeks and Mackenzie Davis provide excellent support, and Harrison Ford reprises the role of Deckard with rare gusto.
1. Children of Men
Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 thriller is profoundly uncomfortable viewing, with Clive Owen starring as Theo, a jaded commuter living in a world in which children can no longer be born, and his native United Kingdom has turned into a totalitarian nightmare. Claire-Hope Ashitey is compelling as Kee, a young woman who, for reasons no-one can explain, has fallen pregnant, and needs to get to safety. Benefiting from brilliant cinematography, jaw-dropping location work, and a touchingly elegiac performance from Michael Caine, Cuarón’s masterpiece has yet to be bettered.
