Top 14 Best Movies Depicting Humanity's Future of All Time

Twelve Monkeys (also known as 12 Monkeys) is a time travel film released in 1995, set in 1997 when humanity faces a deadly viral outbreak. The virus spreads uncontrollably, forcing humans to hide underground with the threat of extinction looming. The virus is traced back to a military group known as the Twelve Monkeys, who are believed to have created and unleashed the plague. In an effort to stop them, scientists send James Cole – a prisoner volunteering to reduce his sentence – back in time to prevent the outbreak from ever happening.

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• Release Year: 1995
• Studio: Universal
• Director: Terry Gilliam
• Stars: Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Madeleine Stowe
  IMDb Rating: 8.0

Unlike the films that depict the downfall of humanity, Her is a science fiction romance with a gentler yet equally emotional storyline. Set in a future where technology has greatly advanced, humans are becoming more inward and isolated, interacting mainly with smart devices. Element Software has created an AI (artificial intelligence) that can communicate with humans, and the protagonist of the film falls in love with "her" – the AI.

In Her, we see reflections of our own lives, despite the futuristic setting. It mirrors modern life where people on the subway are glued to their screens, walking down the street while talking to someone, or even falling in love with someone online, without ever knowing their real face, name, or address. It could be said that Her is not just part of the Top 10 Best Movies About Humanity's Future because it portrays a future that is already becoming a reality today.

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• Release Year: 2013
• Studio: Warner Bros.
• Director: Spike Jonze
• Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson, Rooney Mara
• IMDb Rating: 8.0

The blockbuster film Ready Player One is also among the Top 10 Best Futuristic Movies About Humanity. In Ready Player One, the real world has deteriorated into an industrial wasteland, and humanity has accepted its fate. Instead of living in the real world, people immerse themselves in the virtual world of the OASIS, seeking fulfillment in this perfect digital environment.

The real world has become a mere place for eating and sleeping, while people live their actual lives in the virtual world – a place free of pollution, waste, and limitations, where they can do anything they wish. However, this idyllic reality has its dark side, as many poor individuals sacrifice money and even their lives for virtual items, or even risk their lives in the “debt collection centers” of IOI, the second-largest tech company after OASIS. Thus begins a battle that is both real and virtual.

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• Release Year: 2018
• Studio: Warner Bros.
• Director: Steven Spielberg
• Stars: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Mark Rylance, Ben Mendelsohn
• IMDb Rating: 7.9

Unlike other films in the Top 10 Best Futuristic Movies About Humanity, the iconic film Avatar marks the beginning of the 3D movie era and explores humanity's future beyond Earth. In this future, humans have advanced to the point where they land on the planet Pandora, engaging in a colonization effort.

On Pandora, humans seek to infiltrate the native Na'vi, discover their weaknesses, and drive them away to seize their sacred forest. Although it doesn't directly focus on humanity's future on Earth, through the lens of Pandora's story, Avatar critiques colonialism and the greed of humanity as it evolves.

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• Release Year: 2009
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• Director: James Cameron
• Stars: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Stephen Lang
• IMDb Rating: 7.8

Based on the popular book series, The Hunger Games is set in a dystopian future where North America has collapsed, weakened by war and natural disasters. The continent is divided into 12 districts, with the Capitol at its center. Once there were 13 districts, but civil war led to Capitol's domination of the remaining 12, resulting in the destruction of District 13.

The Hunger Games is a brutal contest in which each district must send one boy and one girl to fight in a televised event. It serves as both a punishment and a spectacle to distract the people from the inequality and atrocities committed by the Capitol.

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• Release Years: 2012-2015
• Studio: Lionsgate
• Directors: Gary Ross, Francis Lawrence
• Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland
• IMDb Rating: 7.5

Equilibrium takes place in a post-World War III world, where humanity has been severely devastated and can no longer afford another war. The root cause of the wars has been identified as human emotions and greed. In response, the global government creates a drug that suppresses emotions, mandating all citizens to take it regularly.

However, this solution does not bring peace, for without emotions, humanity ceases to be truly human. A rebellion begins to quietly form, setting the stage for a future conflict that could restore balance to society.

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• Release Year: 2002
• Studio: Dimension Films
• Director: Kurt Wimmer
• Stars: Christian Bale, Sean Bean, Emily Watson, William Fichtner
• IMDb Rating: 7.5

The final movie in the Top 10 Best Sci-Fi Films About the Future of Humanity list is I Am Legend. This film is set in a future world ravaged by a zombie apocalypse, caused by a virus that turns humans into zombies. Within just three years, America has become a dead zone.

Humanity has been entirely transformed into zombies, cities lie in ruins, and weeds grow among the skyscrapers. In the midst of this chaos, Robert Neville, a scientist, struggles to survive and becomes possibly the last living human in a world overrun by zombies. As a result, Neville has become a legend.

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• Release Year: 2007
• Studio: Warner Bros.
• Director: Francis Lawrence
• Stars: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Willow Smith
• IMDb Rating: 7.2

Based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige, Snowpiercer is set in 2031, after an attempt to stop global warming leads to another Ice Age. The Earth is now covered in snow, and humanity faces the brink of extinction.

The survivors live aboard the Snowpiercer, a train with a perpetual motion engine. The train is a microcosm of society, with the wealthy residing in the front cars, while the impoverished are confined to the rear.

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• Release Year: 2014
• Studio: Moho Film, Opus Pictures, Stillking Films
• Director: Bong Joon Ho
• Stars: Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Jamie Bell
• IMDb Rating: 7.0

In the future, Earth's natural resources are dwindling, pushing humanity to the brink of destruction. Food is scarce, and NASA no longer exists. Cooper, once an engineer and test pilot for NASA, now lives with his father-in-law, his son, and his 10-year-old daughter Murphy. Murphy believes that her room is haunted by a supernatural force trying to communicate with her. Together, she and Cooper discover that the force is actually an unknown intelligence sending encoded messages through gravitational waves...

A space exploration team embarks on a mission to travel through a newly discovered black hole to distant stars, seeking hope for the survival of humanity. “Interstellar” chronicles the extraordinary journey of a group of explorers who use the new understanding of black holes to break conventional limits of space travel and venture across the vastness of the galaxy...

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• Release Year: 2014
• Studio: Legendary Entertainment
• Director: Christopher Nolan
• Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Caine
• IMDb Rating: 8.6

The film is set in 2044, in a world plagued by criminal gangs, and 2074, when a time machine is invented for use by the mob. In 2044, Joe (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) works as a "Looper" for the crime syndicates of 2074. Whenever someone needs to be eliminated, they send the target back from 2074 to 2044, where the Looper's job is to shoot and kill the person, then receive silver as payment.

"Looper" was chosen to open the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. The film debuted in Australia on September 27, 2012, and in the UK and the US on September 28, 2012. It grossed $176 million against a production budget of $30 million and received critical acclaim.

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• Release Year: 2012
• Studio: DMG Entertainment
• Director: Rian Johnson
• Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt
• IMDb Rating: 7.4

The plot of "Edge of Tomorrow" reveals a near-future world where an alien species launches a bloody invasion on Earth, overwhelming every military force on the planet. Colonel Bill Cage (played by Tom Cruise), a rookie officer with no combat experience, is thrust into a suicide mission. Within minutes of battle, Cage is killed, only to find himself trapped in a time loop—reliving the same brutal battle over and over, dying and returning each time.

However, with each cycle, Cage gains a deeper understanding of the enemy and improves his combat skills. Alongside his ally, Special Forces soldier Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), they begin to get closer to unraveling the secret to defeating the alien invaders with each repeated encounter.

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• Release Year: 2014
• Studio: Village Roadshow Pictures
• Director: Doug Liman
• Stars: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton
• IMDb Rating: 7.9

At the top of the Top 10 Greatest Sci-Fi Films About Humanity's Future is the iconic The Matrix trilogy. The series includes three films: The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions, with the first film winning four Academy Awards in 1999. Set in the year 2199, the world of The Matrix portrays a future where machines have evolved to a point where they dominate humanity. With the sky covered in radioactive clouds, the machines herd humanity into a digital prison, using humans as batteries to power their systems and create a simulated reality—known as The Matrix—that deceives people into thinking they are living normal lives.

The themes explored in The Matrix are becoming more relevant in the 21st century, as technology advances, particularly with AI (artificial intelligence), which is raising concerns about the potential dangers of intelligent machines. While many fear a future where robots will turn against humanity, some wonder if our current reality is even real. These chilling questions were all sparked by the film The Matrix.

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• Release Years: 1999-2003
• Studio: Warner Bros.
• Directors: Wachowski Brothers
• Stars: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving, Carrie-Anne Moss
• IMDb Rating: 8.7

Another iconic series, on par with The Matrix, is the Blade Runner franchise. A cornerstone of futuristic sci-fi, it also laid the foundation for the cyberpunk genre—a fusion of high-tech society and low-life conditions. Released in 1982, Blade Runner takes place in the year 2019, when humanity has created bioengineered beings known as replicants to work in distant colonies that ordinary humans avoid. However, like the machines in The Matrix, these replicants rebel, and humanity hunts them down while continuously improving and creating new generations of replicants.

What sets Blade Runner apart from The Matrix is that its replicants are not purely evil—they have motivations of their own, and as the series progresses, the relationship between humans and replicants becomes increasingly complex and thought-provoking. Although Blade Runner was not a success when it first premiered, it has since become a cult classic. In 2017, the sequel Blade Runner 2049 was released, marking the return of this iconic series.

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• Release Years: 1982, 2017
• Studio: Warner Bros., Sony Pictures
• Directors: Ridley Scott, Denis Villeneuve
• Stars: Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, Sean Young, Robin Wright, Jared Leto
• IMDb Rating: 8.2

Mad Max is a film series created by George Miller, beginning in 1979 with three films through to 1985, before returning after 30 years in 2015 with the critically acclaimed Mad Max: Fury Road, which went on to win six Academy Awards. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Mad Max explores a devastated Earth where industrial collapse has drained the planet’s natural resources. Governments have fallen, and violent factions control what remains. The once fertile lands are now barren deserts, and water and oil have become highly coveted resources, fiercely fought over by competing groups. Amidst this chaos, Max is a lone survivor, haunted by the loss of his loved ones, drifting across the wasteland while facing ruthless enemies.

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• Release Years: 1979-1985, 2015
• Studio: Warner Bros.
• Director: George Miller
• Stars: Mel Gibson, Tom Hardy, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Charlize Theron
• IMDb Rating: 8.1