The 20 best dystopian movies of all time
Dystopia, aren’t we living in one already? Rising sea levels, rising oil prices, rising population, rising temperatures. Christ, is it all about things rising? Well, not quite, because in any dystopian landscape, there is an undoubted stark decrease in political, moral and social hopefulness and direction, and, in light of that, it’s becoming all the more clear that we are moving ever closer to times of utter desperation.
The nature and stark reality of dystopian global battlefields have been examined in some of the greatest films of all time. They deal with the rise of malicious technology, the corruption of all-too-powerful governments, the scarcity of resources, and how the good old fleshy human beings rise to the challenges that these drastic events cause.
These films needn’t be all doom and gloom, though. As with many of the most important works of art that we humans have ever created, dystopian movies can help to direct us away from what seems like the inevitable. If such films hadn’t already been enough of a warning to us of the dangerous prospects that we undoubtedly face in the future, then we implore that you check out some of the best cinematic efforts with horrific dystopia social landscapes at their core.
So, from animation to action, from Steven Spielberg to Ridley Scott, from the beginning to the end, put your hands together and let us pray for a brighter future than those posited in these films.
The 20 best dystopian movies:
20. V for Vendetta (James McTiegue, 2005)
Movies set around annual events are as common as vanilla ice cream, but for whatever reason, Guy Fawkes Night has never been seen as a marketable day of the year. However, James McTiegue thought otherwise, releasing V for Vendetta in 2005. Adapted from the graphic novel by Alan Moore, David Lloyd, and Tony Weare, the tale is set in a British dystopian society where a freedom fighter plans to overthrow the government.
Starring the likes of Natalie Portman, Stephen Fry, Hugo Weaving and John Hurt, the film is celebrated by fans across the world for its immersive storytelling, inspired, no doubt, by George Orwell’s 1984.
19. WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
As environmental and social satires go, Andrew Stanton’s animated children’s movie WALL-E is one of the very best. Perhaps the most underrated movie in Pixar’s filmography, the 2008 film tells the story of a lonely waste-collecting robot who is the last of its kind on an abandoned earth ravaged by human destruction. After finding signs of the environment repairing itself, however, the robot is taken on a cosmic adventure.
A beautiful tale that boasts some of Pixar’s finest screenwriting, Stanton’s film realises an eerie dystopia better than most big-budget Hollywood movies, with humans fleeing Earth to dominate space in cosmic cruise liners.
18. Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho, 2013)
If there’s one thing that the South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho loves, it’s a socially-charged drama. Though 2013’s Snowpiercer may not be his very best of this ilk, the movie is still a thoroughly imaginative thriller. Telling the story of a train that travels across the globe after a catastrophic environmental disaster, the film explores how class politics invade everyday life, no matter the situation.
Boasting a glorious cast that includes the likes of Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Ed Harris, John Hurt and Song Kang-ho, among others, Snowpiercer is a gripping tale that is perfectly realised with marvellous cinematic scope.
17. The Road (John Hillcoat, 2009)
Adapted from the celebrated Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, John Hillcoat’s movie version of The Road is a noble cinematic effort. Like the book, the film tells the story of a dangerous post-apocalyptic world where a father leads his son towards the sea in search of safety. Led by a gripping performance from Viggo Mortensen, the film is a heart-wrenching piece of cinema.
What makes this dystopian tale all the more chilling is the fact that the viewer never actually discovers how the apocalypse came about, with humans shuffling like ghouls across the surface of the earth without much reason for survival.
16. 12 Monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1995)
Greatly inspired by Chris Marker’s seminal 1962 sci-fi La Jetée, Terry Gilliam’s modern adaptation tells the story of a convict who is sent back in time to gather information about the virus that has wiped out much of the population in modern times. Thanks to its excellent concept, 12 Monkeys has succeeded as being a gripping film before it has even begun, with Gilliam creating a memorable 1990s genre movie.
It helps that the director was able to enlist a quality cast, with the likes of Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt and Madeleine Stowe all agreeing to be a part of the film that has gone on to become one of the most celebrated science fiction flicks in cinema history.
15. Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981)
The greatest sci-fi movies, and indeed the best dystopian ones, cannot be discussed without mentioning the influence of filmmaker John Carpenter. The director of such classics as Halloween and The Thing helmed Escape from New York in 1981, a bizarre dystopian concept that is set in 1997 Manhattan, which has been converted into a maximum security prison and follows a convicted bank robber tasked with fetching the US president from its heart.
Utterly ridiculous, it is in the melodramatic nonsense of Escape from New York that the film thrives, creating a seminal piece of 1980s cinema that is still regarded as a classic to this very day.
14. Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)
Popularly known as one of the greatest anime movies of all time, Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 film Akira was adapted from the director’s own manga series. A vibrant and bombastic tale, the story is set in neo-Tokyo, which has been endangered by a threatening secret military project. The peculiar experiment turns the member of a biker gang into a rampaging beast, forcing his friends to try and attempt to stop him and bring him back to reality.
With insane visuals and an ultra-cool art style, Akira has since become utterly iconic, worming its way into popular culture in the form of modern and TV shows like Netflix’s Stranger Things, Rian Johnson’s Looper and Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs.
13. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
From one deeply influential science fiction movie to another, Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic Metropolis would later inspire George Lucas’ Star Wars, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and Luc Besson’s Fifth Element. The German Expressionist movie is set in a futuristic city where class structures are firmly established, and the son of the impressive city falls in love with an oracle from a lower class.
Lending countless images to the history of science fiction, Lang’s film is a work of cinematic art that embraced technological advancements in the industry with both hands, refusing to wait for them to become popularised.
12. Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
We’ve already covered Terry Gilliam’s 1995 film 12 Monkeys on this list, but there’s no doubt that his 1985 movie Brazil is more impressive in size and scope, particularly as it’s based on the director’s own concept. A baffling cinematic achievement that melds remarkable special effects with nifty camerawork, the film follows a bureaucrat in a dystopian society who becomes an enemy of the government after a surreal journey.
Whilst Gilliam and his crew do a great job with the film’s visuals, the likes of Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Ian Holm, Jim Broadbent and Michael Palin create some riveting, if bizarre, back and forths.
11. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
Remakes, especially when they come over 30 years after the original film, often don’t go down too well. Such wasn’t the case with George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, however, with the director making the greatest movie in his self-made franchise that is set in the barren wastelands of post-apocalyptic Australia where a tyrannical ruler controls the masses and chairs an army of War Boys, who are obsessed with rusty cars with flamboyant designs.
Certainly one of the best action movies of all time, Miller’s movie is a mad-cap dystopian thrill ride that never takes its foot off the gas whilst it throws the audience into a bizarre world of the Australian apocalypse, all shiny and chrome.
10. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
Bringing us into the top ten best dystopian movies of all time is Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 science fiction classic Stalker. Tarkovsky directed the film as per a screenplay written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, who loosely based it on their 1972 novel Roadside Picnic. Stalker is one of the most intensely philosophical films ever made, depicting a dystopia that confounds its characters just as much as its audience.
It tells of the journey that a depressed writer void of inspiration and an academic in search of scientific truth take, led by a strange figure known as the titular ‘stalker’ through a wasteland filled with danger to an area simply known as ‘The Zone’. ‘The Zone’ is said to bring to life one’s biggest desires, and by making it the target of the film, Tarkovsky ruminates on humankind’s psychology and morality while simultaneously dragging audiences through one of the most peculiar dystopias ever conceived.
9. Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998)
Dark City is, as its title suggests, about a city that, for some mysterious reason, never gets light. Its brilliance was largely overshadowed by the release of The Matrix just a year later, and Dark City is another stroke of dystopian genius whereby its protagonist slowly discovers that the reality of the world they live in is being dictated by malevolent forces beyond the natural order.
Alex Proyas’ 1998 neo-noir science fiction movie starred Rufus Sewell as John Murdoch, a man in the throes of serious amnesia. He discovers that he has been accused of murder, and a group of pale beings called ‘the Strangers’ are causing him severe distress. Dark City portrayed a metropolitan setting whereby the natural order, even the rising of the sun, is beyond our everyday control.
8. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)
The ever-increased population of the planet has been a political issue for several decades now, and Alfonso Cuaron’s 2006 movie Children of Men, based on P. D. James’ 1992 novel of the same name, shows what might happen should things swing the other way. The film, starring Clive Owen in the lead role, begins in 2027, with two decades of human infertility leaving the planet with an ageing population, limited resources and constant political and social tension.
With humanity itself on the very brink of extinction, Owen’s character, civil servant Theo Faron, discovers that there may be hope for the future when he is tasked with escorting an immigrant woman to a safe location. Miraculously, the woman is pregnant. However, this makes her a target for capture, so she can be used as a political swaying weapon. Children of Men is a poignant reflection on the diabolic circumstances we will undoubtedly face should we continue to neglect the most pressing global matters.
7. Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002)
When it came to science fiction, there was no writer more prescient than the legendary Philip K. Dick, and it’s unsurprising to find more than one film based on his novels here on this list. One of the most impressive is Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, set in 2054. It focuses on a special police department called Precrime, which uses the foresight of three psychics to arrest criminals before they have actually managed to commit the crime.
Spielberg wonderfully portrayed the socially unequal dystopia we expect from a Dick novel, with the interior glamour of the wealthy contrasted with the dirt and decay of the streets. The tension of the film comes from the fact that Tom Cruise’s character, the head of Precrime, becomes a police target himself when the “precogs” predict that he will murder someone.
6. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015)
While many of the films on this list rely on action in some way, shape or form, Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2015 black comedy-drama The Lobster detracts from such necessity, positing instead that the true horror of the future lies within our interpersonal relationships and how the very humanity of their beauty and wonder seems to have been sucked out of the way that we form them.
The film stars Colin Farrell in one of his best-ever performances as a newly-single bachelor looking for love. However, the way people get into relationships in The Lobster is that they are awkwardly paired with prospective partners in an eerie hotel. The catch is that if they do not find love in 45 days, they will be turned into an animal of their choosing. Lanthimos’ film is an excellent commentary on internet dating and the twin desperation and loneliness of love’s longing.
5. Battle Royale (Kinji Fukusaku, 2000)
Kinji Fukusaku’s 2000 action-thriller film Battle Royale is simply one of the most shocking yet captivating cinematic creations ever devised. It tells of a Japanese totalitarian government’s malicious programme in which they force a group of high-school students to fight one another to the death on a remote island. It featured some of the most memorable scenes in Japanese cinema history and of the 21st Century so far.
The reason for the governmental programme is to respond to the growing crime rates among young people in Japan. By killing off all but one of a given class, the chance for offence is decreased. Yet, of course, this controversial choice is one of true barbarity in its own right, and the film shows that violence breeds violence. Some of the students are initially reluctant to fight, but others relish the opportunity. Simply unforgettable.
4. The Matrix (The Wachowskis, 1999)
The Matrix could arguably work its way onto just about any “best of” list ever conceived, so far-reaching is its cultural impact, not to mention the thematic and visual excellence of the film itself. Yet the most important thing about The Matrix is that it depicts a future that, however far-fetched on the surface it may seem, could easily become our own reality, especially with today’s rise of artificial intelligence.
With the 1999 first film in the original trilogy, we were introduced to some of the most iconic characters ever to grace the screen, Agent Smith, Neo and Morpheus, to name but a few. The Wachowskis created a world whereby our choices are not our own, where truth constantly lies beyond our reach, and the actual reality of the world is far more despair-inducing than we could ever imagine. The Matrix introduced layfolk to philosophical concepts like metaphysics and epistemology and featured some of the best visual effects of its time too. Special mention to 2003’s The Animatrix too.
3. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
Kicking off our top three choices for the best dystopian films of all time is Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange. Universally admired as one of the most significant works of the dystopian genre, it provides a harrowing outlook on the political and social issues of youthful delinquency as a result of boredom and a lack of moral direction, the growing gulf in economic equality, and the onslaught of psychiatric intervention.
A Clockwork Orange is driven by its protagonist Alex, whose lack of moral certainty has him live a life directed according to his hedonism. He rapes and steals and fights and commits ultra-violence, anything remotely related to his inverted outlook on right and wrong, all the while accompanied by his friends or, in their Russian-inspired parlance, ‘droogs’. Eventually, Alex’s morality is brought into line with the expected behaviour of a young man in 20th Century Britain as per a totalitarian psychiatric regime, but by that point, we’ve all seen to what extent society can go should we truly lose our way.
2. Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii, 1995)
While many will claim that 1988’s Akira is the greatest animated science fiction film of all time, our contention is that 1995’s Ghost in the Shell, directed by Mamoru Oshii, is the far stronger film. Set in Japan in 2029, Ghost in the Shell focuses on Motoko Kusunagi, a synthetic, cybernetically-augmented human who works as a cabinet-level public security agent. She is in pursuit of a mysterious hacker called the Pupper Master, a sentient artificial intelligence which has begun to question its existence.
The beauty of Oshii’s film, other than the fact that it features some of the most captivating animation ever drawn and rendered, is that it focuses on the theme of identity in a technologically advanced and obsessed world. We more than empathise with Kusunagi despite her body having been completely replaced with cybernetic enhancements, including her brain. This leads us to question just what exactly consciousness is, and if it resides beyond the limits of the human brain, then how might that affect things like our emotions and our seemingly inherent morality? Prescient, to say the least.
1. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
Our top spot just simply had to go to Ridley Scott’s 1982 film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, though. Blade Runner is a true marvel in every aspect. From the neon lights of the dirty downtown Los Angeles to the amazing score by Vangelis via some of the most iconic moments of acting in the history of science fiction – one can never forget Rutger Hauer’s improvised “tears in rain” monologue on the staircase – Blade Runner simply has it all.
Narratively the film focuses on Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard, an overworked cop who works as a ‘blade runner’, a special tracker who hunts down fugitive androids or ‘replicants’. Several replicants have recently escaped an off-world colony that they are forced to work on, seeking out their creators. Deckard is tasked with finding them and ‘retiring’ them for good.
The film poses several important questions to its audience. What might Earth look like when the natural resources run out and we seek habitation elsewhere? Can artificial intelligence ever really feel? Can human beings ever feel for AI? Blade Runner is a must-watch film and is growing in importance as we loom ever closer to the inevitable future.
