Top 50 Dystopian movies of all time

[lester1/2jr]

list


I don't know that a movie like "death race 2000" shuold be described with an elegant word lke "dystopian" but there it is.

[RapscallionJones]

One of my co-workers sent me that yesterday.  I take issue with a few of them, but Death Race definitely belongs on the list. 

There's a big disconnect between post-nukes and dystopian on the list.  Where I think Mad Max is appropriate, I'm not so sure about The Road Warrior.

Also, I, Robot?

Seriously?

I realize that they compiled the list based on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB scores, though, so it really should be taken with a grain of salt.  IMDB regulars typically display a shocking lack of understanding about what makes a great movie and most of them tend to understand a good movie as being a blockbuster.  Because it does well in terms of box office dollars doesn't mean that it's a good movie.

[trekgeezer]

I have a gripe  about one of the honorable mentions. I thought The Last Man on Earth was a far better adaptation of I Am Legend than the Omega Man.

[Mr_Vindictive]

I have a gripe  about one of the honorable mentions. I thought The Last Man on Earth was a far better adaptation of I Am Legend than the Omega Man.

Amen brother!  Last Man was much much much more faithful than Omega Man.  Granted, Omega Man was a good flick, it just doesn't have the sense of loneliness and doom that Price's version had.

[Kester Pelagius]

Dystopias are typically set in either the future or a far distant planet or fantasy world.  While some movies on the list do have dysfunctional societies (A Boy and His Dog) that they are also post-apocalyptic, which by definition means society had fallen and any societies you are dealing with are insular, meaning they are tribal, kind of marks them as NOT being Dystopias.  But I suppose some could argue the point either way on a case by case basis.

However, IMHO, the movies below actually have a genre they are better fitted to.  And it isn't dystopia:

48. Starship Troopers (1997) <- BEM pseudo space opera.
44. Strange Days (1995) <- 'Futuristic' urban VR crime drama.
42. I Robot (2004) <- Did the compiler drop acid or something?
33. They Live (1988) <- More of an TZ BEM/Alien invasion.*
31. War Of the Worlds (1953) <- Alien invasion of 50s era Earth!!!*
27. On The Beach (1959) <- End of the world/apocalypse.*
16. Pleasantville (1998) <- What drugs were the compilers of this list on?*
15. Serenity (2005) <- Really? REALLY???
11. Sleeper (1973) <- Self-indulgent nonsense.  The Running Man should be slotted here.

Never heard of/seen the following so I can't comment.

49. One Point O (2004)
45. Idiocracy (2006)
36. A Scanner Darkly (2006)
32. District 13 (2004)
23. V for Vendetta (2005)
18. Battle Royale (2000)
12. The Trial (1962)
4. Wings of Desire (1987)
Code 46 (2003)

(*) Their is no futuristic dystopian society depicted in any of these.

[horseshoe crab]

There's a heap of those I would never call dystopian.

[RCMerchant]

 No ZARDOZ?...(sorry, Menard,wherever you are...)

No the TIME MACHINE? I mean...dam!
  Not a very good list...and of course,it takes most of it's picks from movies of the last 20 years or so...

We should make a BAD MOVIES List of Societies That Suck.

[dean]

However, IMHO, the movies below actually have a genre they are better fitted to.  And it isn't dystopia:

44. Strange Days (1995) <- 'Futuristic' urban VR crime drama.
16. Pleasantville (1998) <- What drugs were the compilers of this list on?*

Pleasantville is such a stupid choice it boggles the mind...

Strange Days though, I'm going to argue for.  Maybe it's because I don't know how the 90s were for other people, but there were a LOT of very dreary people in that movie to the point where most if not all seemed suppressed by their society around them.  At least the underclass were...

Never heard of/seen the following so I can't comment.
36. A Scanner Darkly (2006)
23. V for Vendetta (2005)
18. Battle Royale (2000)
4. Wings of Desire (1987)

Wings of Desire is a bit iffy for me, since from memory it isn't set in the future [but I could be way off the mark]  Still its a great film!  A Scanner Darkly will apply for me, to a fashion.  V for Vendetta very much applies, and you could put Battle Royale in there no doubt as well.

[RapscallionJones]

32. District 13 (2004)

Make it your mission in life to see this movie.

I'm serious.

It's a total rip off of Escape From New York and Assault On Precinct 13 but it also has a series of extremely exciting parkour stunts.  There has never been an action movie like it.

[Kester Pelagius]

It's not just blatantly obvious movies like Zardoz that were left off the list.  Consider that NONE of the following movies made it either. .

Judge Dredd
Demolition Man
Logan's Run
The Time Machine

These are classic 'Metropolis' themed dystopian futures.  Judge Dredd and Demolition Man more so than Logan's Run, which has no real class distinction between workers and elite/have's have-nots other than there being normal citizens and Sandmen, and the dome where the wild kids were kept.  But, c'mon, the future society of the Eloi and the Morlocks in The Time Machine are about as an in-your-face definition of Dystopian as you can get.  PLUS this is classic H. G. Wells!

I mean, c'mon. . .

dystopia
dystopia [dis‐toh‐piă], a modern term invented as the opposite of utopia, and applied to any alarmingly unpleasant imaginary world, usually of the projected future. The term is also applied to fictional works depicting such worlds. A significant form of science fiction and of modern satire, dystopian writing is exemplified in H. G. Wells's The Time Machine (1895), George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty‐Four (1949), and Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker (1980).  - source: Literary Dictionary

The Time Machine is mentioned in cyclopedia entries, but not this "Top 50 Dystopian Moves of All Time" list?!  I'm telling you the compilers of this list were either on drugs or don't have a clue what this genre is really about.

And what about these. .

Quintet <- If this is not a Dystopian future world nothing is!
Johnny Mnemonic <- How do you include Blade Runner but casually forget cyberpunk movies like this?
Tron <- This is far more classically Dystopian than Strange Days.
The Handmaid's Tale
The Running Man
The New Gladiators
Fortress
Aeon Flux (?)
Tank Girl (kind of)
Barb Wire (kind of)
The Quiet Earth (?)
&tc

Yet Pleasantville, an escapist fantasy about teens sucked into a Utopian B&W television world made the list?  I mean, HELLO, it's a UTOPIA you %&^!#@ morons!!!  Obviously the compilers of this list failed the comprehension portion of their SATs.  It's sad, really, but what can you do.

Oh, and I missed this the first time:

37. Silent Running (1972) <- A guy on a spaceship does NOT a society make, ergo this exploration of human behavior does NOT remotely qualify as a Dystopia.  If it does then we also should include The Black Hole.

If it were me I'd say the Top 12 should look something more like this (based purely on theme)...

12. Gattaca
11. Planet of the Apes (lumping all the movies together)
10. Blade Runner
9. Logan's Run
8. A Clockwork Orange
7. The Handmaid's Tale
6. Fahrenheit 451
5. THX 1138
4. Soylent Green
3. 1984
2. The Time Machine
1. Metropolis

What have I forgotten to mention?

[ulthar]

And what about these. .

The Running Man

I cannot disagree with anything you said; so, I'll point out a technical error.   

THE RUNNING MAN was on the list, at least as an Honorable Mention.

By the way, I agree your list is better, at least insofar as it is MUCH closer to the list *I* would compile.   

[RCMerchant]

  I would mention the 1965 Lemmy Caution classic ALPHAVILLE (1965) as well. 

[dean]

Kester, just so you know coming up on Number 43 is the one and only Logan's Run...

Yet Pleasantville, an escapist fantasy about teens sucked into a Utopian B&W television world made the list?  I mean, HELLO, it's a UTOPIA you %&^!#@ morons!!!  Obviously the compilers of this list failed the comprehension portion of their SATs.  It's sad, really, but what can you do.

I agree that it shouldn't be on the list, but for a different reason.  I think the point of Pleasantville is that at first glance it seems like a complete Utopia, the stereotypical 50s 'perfect society' but because the people living there are so stringently perfect, the place would no doubt feel like a complete dystopia if you even had a slightly different view.  I think I'd be totally freaked out by a town like Pleasantville, and my stockpile of dead baby jokes would fall flat on their head everytime.

A place that doesn't laugh at dead baby jokes is a place I DON'T want to live in...   

[lester1/2jr]

they were going for variety I think.  they didn't want it to be all dank, robots in control sci fi.  hence laregly innapropriate choices like pleasentville

[Kester Pelagius]

I agree that it shouldn't be on the list, but for a different reason.  I think the point of Pleasantville is that at first glance it seems like a complete Utopia, the stereotypical 50s 'perfect society' but because the people living there are so stringently perfect, the place would no doubt feel like a complete dystopia if you even had a slightly different view.  I think I'd be totally freaked out by a town like Pleasantville, and my stockpile of dead baby jokes would fall flat on their head everytime.

A place that doesn't laugh at dead baby jokes is a place I DON'T want to live in...   

I'm sorry but, for me, your argument that any society can be perceived as a Dystopia is specious.  Every culture throughout existence has viewed the culture of the "Other", the "Outsider", as being the polar opposite of their own.  By this logic every society is a Dystopia because it could be conceived from some POV as being such.  Which, I suppose, is why we've had so many wars through the course of human history.  One man's Utopia is another's Dystopia; but in this case you have to look at the movie in the context of it's presentation.

Pleasantville is a retelling of the biblical 'Fall of Man'.  The town is akin to the Garden of Eden, it exists in a perfect state, that the citizens of the Utopia aren't aware of their 'faults' is because they exist in that perfect Utopian state.  Enter Eve and the apple, which in this case is sex.  Once Adam takes a bite of the apple his eyes are open, thus he realizes that his idealistic state of existence really isn't all that ideal, thus Utopia is shattered.  Which is precisely what happens in Pleasantville.  Their eyes are opened and they receive a rude awakening, thus their Utopian existence is forever shattered.  There is no going back.