Great Dystopian films worth your time

3/25/2016

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In the next couple of weeks I will look at the interesting genres of films, and recommend some of the best films ever made in those genres for you to watch, to make it even easier and more interesting to understand why you have to watch them and what those genres are all about.

To begin, let us visit Dystopian films to learn a thing or two about this genre and films made that are worth your time.

A quick introduction

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The term dystopia is the antonym of utopia. Whereas utopia refers to an imagined place or state where everything is perfect, dystopia refers to a state or place where everything has gone to hell.

Per their very definition, films dealing with dystopian themes are therefore at the very least speculative and almost always part of the science fiction genre. The films often deal with totalitarian societies or ones that have degraded environmentally or socially.

Dystopian movies seem to be one of the current fads in film, or at least when it comes to the teenage market. The Hunger Games proved to be a great financial success and in its wake films like Divergent and more recently The Maze Runner have managed to do great business as well.

Dystopian films might be proof that we are indeed living in a dystopian society ourselves.

Below is a list of 10 greatest dystopian films to have ever hit the screen in no particular order:

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10. Gattaca (Andrew Niccol, 1997)

Gattaca, a title comprised on the first letters of guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine, which are the four nucleobases of DNA, is a 1997 science fiction drama, which was the directorial debut of New Zealand screenwriter Andrew Niccol, who also wrote the screenplay.

Set in a dystopian future society where one’s lot in life is determined by one’s genetics instead of one’s education or talents, the world has been clearly divided in the haves, those able to afford the genetic manipulation of their offspring referred to as “valids”, and the have nots, the rest of the population “in-valids”. Vincent (Ethan Hawke) is an in-valid and is therefore excluded from the Gattaca space program, his greatest dream in life.

An intelligent, cool and ultra-stylish exploration about the ethics surrounding genetic manipulation and science, Gattaca is filled with social commentary and a stunningly designed and shot piece of psychological science fiction.

9. Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)

Perhaps best described as a dystopian satire, Brazil was the ambitious follow-up to Gilliam’s Time Bandits, the film that firmly put him on the map as a director, after having started his career as part of the Monty Python troupe.

Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a civil servant in a future society, which has become a nightmare of bureaucracy, automatisation and totalitarianism. To escape reality, Sam often day dreams about being a hero and saving the girl of his dreams in far more appealing worlds. When one day he is called to investigate the incidental death of an innocent citizen during an interrogation, who was mistaken for a terrorist, he is astonished to find out that the man’s widow Jill (Kim Greist) looks exactly like the girl from his dreams.

A visually inventive satire, Brazil can easily be imagined as 1984 on drugs with a good measure of humour thrown in. As usual with Gilliam films, the movie is bursting at the seams as every possible idea he had seems to have been thrown in and can be hard to follow as a result, especially as it’s also quite a visually overwhelming piece of work. Brazil was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Original Screenplay and Art Direction), won two BAFTA Awards (Best Production Design and Special Effects) and also managed to win Best Film, Director and Screenplay at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards.

8. Fahrenheit 451 (Francois Truffaut, 1966)

Based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian science fiction film, which would turn out to be the only American film adapted for the screen and directed by François Truffaut, starring Oskar Werner and Julie Christie.

Some time in the future, the government has placed a ban on all books in order to control public opinion and the profession of fireman now consists of enforcing the law by burning every illegal book that is found. In this world, we follow Montag (Werner), a fireman married to a woman (Christie) completely indoctrinated by the state’s views, who has started to doubt the system as well as his job.

Fahrenheit 451 has a terrifying and fantastic central premise and one that seems to become more relevant with the passing of each year. The film is a strange mixture of a very normal boring looking world and a highly stylised one with some very unique production design features. Shot in washed out colours by future director Nicholas Roeg, the film looks quite unlike anything else and it lacks any written word, as even the opening credits are spoken. The film was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

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7. Mad Max 2 (George Miller, 1981)

The second Mad Max is quite possibly one of the most kick-ass science fiction films to have ever been produced. And whilst the first film was a giant hit in its own right, this sequel upped the ante, eclipsed the original and became so popular it has almost become synonymous with the post-apocalyptic film genre and one of the greatest dystopian visions to have ever graced the screen.

The story of course, is set in a desert post-apocalyptic landscape in which gasoline has become one of the most prized commodities. The world is inhabited by a bunch of crazed barbarians whose only purpose seems to be cruising around in their modified vehicles in search of more fuel to be able to keep doing just that. Max (Mel Gibson) has been surviving as a loner ever since having lost his family in the first film but becomes the reluctant hero when he agrees to take back a man to his compound, which houses a very rare oil refinery, after an attack by scavengers.

This is also the film that made Mel Gibson an international star, for better or for worse. The film received six nominations from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, winning the award for Best International Feature, whilst it received seven nominations from the Australian Film Institute, winning five for Best Direction, Sound, Production Design, Costume Design and Editing.

6. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)

Based on the novel of the same name by P.D. James, Children of Men was director Alfonso Cuaron’s first critically acclaimed entry in the science fiction genre, before he also found commercial success last year with a very different type of sci-fi movie, Gravity.

The film tells the story of the world in 2027 when mankind has lost ability to procreate and civilisation is on the brink of collapse. The United Kingdom is the only place left in the world which still resembles some sort of functioning society but the influx of asylum seekers and general fear caused by the prospect of extinction has turned the country into a totalitarian state. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards (Best Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography and Editing) and won two BAFTA awards for Best Cinematography and Production Design.

5. Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998)

Directed and co-written by Alex Proyas, Dark City is a neo-noir-ish science fiction film which looks like something of a cross between Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and the Wachowski Brothers’ The Matrix, which this film actually pre-dates by a year.

John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens one night in a bathtub in a hotel, suffering from amnesia. In the room is also the body of a murdered woman and he receives a phone call from a Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland), who informs him he needs to escape as some men, known as “The Strangers” are after him.

Equally incorporating elements of film noir, German Expressionism, Kafka and science fiction, the film was director Proyas’ follow-up to The Crow and so far the crowning achievement of his filmography, proving that he was a highly imaginative visual storyteller. If you like your science fiction dark, dystopian, moody and visually arresting, Dark City is just what the doctor ordered.

4. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)

Adapted from the novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange is a violent dystopian science fiction satire directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Malcolm McDowell.

Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is a Beethoven loving delinquent in future London, who, together with his gang of “Droogs”, likes to get stoned at the Korova Milkbar before committing some “ultra-violence”, i.e: murder, rape and other heinous acts. When Alex is apprehended after killing a woman by smashing her skull with a giant phallus, he is sentenced to 14 years in prison. But two years into his sentence, he is able to partake in the experimental Ludovico treatment, which is designed to rehabilitate criminals by exposing them to violent imagery whilst being drugged and listening to loud renditions of Beethoven’s compositions.

As a result, Alex becomes nauseous whenever confronted with violence, sexual imagery or the music of his favourite composer. He is released but becomes a victim to the people he used to terrorise as they are out for revenge. Constantly abused by those he did wrong by and despising his life now that he can no longer enjoy Beethoven’s music, Alex tries to commit suicide, turning public opinion against the treatment that “cured” him.

Highly controversial due to its extremely violent content (the film was originally released with an X-rating in the United States), A Clockwork Orange was a critical as well as financial success upon its release.
The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, three Golden Globes and seven BAFTA Awards (all including Best Film and Director). It also won those awards at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards as well as the Pasinetti Award for Best Foreign Film at the Venice Film Festival.

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3. Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)

Akira is not just one of the best animes ever released. It’s one of the best science fiction films ever released as well. An absolute landmark in Japanese animation, which forever opened the eyes of the West to anime, its influence can not be understated and its cyberpunk vision of a dystopian future is as impressive today as when it was first released over 25 years ago.

The year is 2019 and Tokyo has been rebuild as neo-Tokyo after some cataclysmic event caused 30 years ago by someone called Akira. Tetsuo is a young member of a motorcycle gang, who greatly looks up to its leader Kaneda. One night Tetsuo is involved in an accident with a child-like being who has been sprung from a laboratory by an underground resistance group. As his gang look on, he’s taken away by the military.

Akira was adapted from a 2182 page manga and deals predominately with the first half of the comic book series. Additionally the film had a huge scope, stunning designs and a truly unique and unforgettable soundtrack. The film has a fully realised cyperpunk dystopian vision that has never been matched in any other animated work and if you only see one anime in your life, make sure it is this one.

2. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)

A highly influential German Expressionist silent science fiction film, Metropolis is directed by Frtiz Lang, who co-wrote the movie with his then wife Thea von Harbou, and is especially noteworthy for its grand design and as the first ever feature length film in its genre.

Set in the futuristic dystopian city of Metropolis, the film deals with the glaring difference between its upper classes, who live in luxury and decadence in its high towers, and the huge working class, who live in slave-like conditions in the lower parts of the city, keeping its machinery going. Freder (Gustav Froehlich) is the son of the city’s ruler, Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel), and lives in blissful ignorance about the the conditions of those below until he one day meets Maria (Brigitte Helm), a beautiful girl from the city’s lower levels, when she visits the Eternal Gardens with a group of kids to show them how the wealthy live.

Struck by her beauty and aghast by her poor appearance, he makes his way down to the lower levels and discovers the conditions there. When he later confronts his father about these, he learns to his horror that his father thinks that this is the way things ought to be.

1. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)

Based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner is a dystopian neo-noir science-fiction film and arguably, along with Alien and The Duellists, one the greatest films directed by Ridley Scott, who never again returned to such heights.

The year is 2019 and Los Angeles has turned into a sprawling dystopian megapolis filled with giant neon signs and flying vehicles. Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a retired blade runner, detectives who specialise in hunting down and taking out rebellious replicants, life-like androids with a build-in limited lifespan who are designed by the Tyrell Corporation to take on jobs which actual humans are not willing to perform in the off-world colonies.

Whilst Blade Runner wasn’t a huge success upon its initial release and divided critics, the film gained a true cult following over the years and has since been regarded as a true science fiction masterpiece. The film’s look was unlike anything that had ever come before it and its production design, special effects and the melancholic synthesiser score by Vangelis still make it a truly unique and stunning experience.

One of the most influential science fiction films ever made, Blade Runner remains a cinematic milestone and only seems to get better with age. Fans of the movie are also advised to seek out the nearly three-and-a-half hour “making of” documentary Dangerous Days: The Making of Blade Runner.

Let us know what you think of this genre in the comments section below.

Source: Taste of cinema