[I limited myself to 10 and a Bonus. The text and images are all from wikipedia. I will leave commentary and discussion for the comments section. Please weigh in.]
Metropolis: is a 1927 German expressionist epic science-fiction film directed by Fritz Lang. The film was written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou, and starred Brigitte Helm, Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel and Rudolf Klein-Rogge. A silent film, it was produced by Erich Pommer in the Babelsberg Studios by Universum Film A.G.. It is regarded as a pioneering work of science fiction genre in movies, being the first feature length movie of the genre.
A Clockwork Orange: is a 1971 dystopian crime film adapted, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Anthony Burgess's 1962 novella A Clockwork Orange. It employs disturbing, violent images to comment on psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian near-future Britain.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior: (also known as The Road Warrior and Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior) is a 1981 Australian post-apocalyptic action film directed by George Miller. The film is the second installment in the Mad Max film series, with Mel Gibson starring as Max Rockatansky. The film's tale of a community of settlers moved to defend themselves against a roving band of marauders follows an archetypical "Western" frontier movie motif, as does Max's role as a hardened man who rediscovers his humanity when he decides to help the settlers.[4] Filming took part in locations around Broken Hill, in the outback of New South Wales.[5]
Blade Runner: is a 1982 American neo-noir dystopian science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is a modified film adaptation of the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
Brazil: is a 1985 British film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. British National Cinema by Sarah Street describes the film as a "fantasy/satire on bureaucratic society" while John Scalzi's Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies describes it as a "dystopian satire". The film stars Jonathan Pryce and features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm.
12 Monkeys: is a 1995 American science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 short film La Jetée, and starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, with Christopher Plummer and David Morse in supporting roles. In 2013, Gilliam called it the second part of a dystopian satire trilogy begun with 1985's Brazil and concluded with 2013's The Zero Theorem.[1]
Gattaca: is a 1997 American science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol. It stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, with Jude Law, Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine, Gore Vidal, and Alan Arkin appearing in supporting roles.[1] The film presents a biopunk vision of a future society driven by eugenics where potential children are conceived through genetic manipulation to ensure they possess the best hereditary traits of their parents.[2] The film centers on Vincent Freeman, played by Hawke, who was conceived outside the eugenics program and struggles to overcome genetic discrimination to realize his dream of traveling into space.
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The Fifth Element: (French: Le Cinquième élément) is a 1997 English-language French science fiction action film directed, co-written, and based on a story by Luc Besson. The film stars Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, and Milla Jovovich. Mostly set in the twenty-third century, the film's central plot involves the survival of planet Earth, which becomes the responsibility of Korben Dallas (Willis), a taxicab driver and former special forces major, after a young woman (Jovovich) falls into his cab. Dallas joins forces with her to recover four mystical stones essential for the defence of Earth against an impending attack.
The Matrix: is a 1999 American-Australian science fiction action film written and directed by The Wachowskis, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano. It depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality called "the Matrix", created by sentient machines to subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Computer programmer "Neo" learns this truth and is drawn into a rebellion against the machines, which involves other people who have been freed from the "dream world".
WALL-E: [OK, I cheated. This one is after the millennium, BUT I HAD to put it in my list. I love PIXAR. I love WALL-E and EVE. I am scared that the movie has more truth to it than fiction. It got a 94 from MetaCritic. So there.] (stylized with an interpunct as WALL·E) is a 2008 American computer animated science fiction romantic comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. The story follows a robot named WALL-E, who is designed to clean up an abandoned, waste-covered Earth far in the future. He falls in love with another robot named EVE, who also has a programmed task, and follows her into outer space on an adventure that changes the destiny of both his kind and humanity. Both robots exhibit an appearance of free will and emotions similar to humans, which develop further as the film progresses.
And for the Bonus: The worst movie EVER because it is so averagely, hopelessly, blah. It offers promise to be cool, fun, and thought provoking, BUT it never even approaches that. It also never gets so bad that you laugh or ridicule it's badness (making it good in its own way). No, this movie is 177 minutes of my life that was just completely wasted:
The Postman: is a 1997 American epic post-apocalyptic adventure film directed, produced, and starring Kevin Costner, with the screenplay written by Eric Roth and Brian Helgeland, based on David Brin's 1985 book of the same name. The film also features Will Patton, Larenz Tate, Olivia Williams, James Russo, and Tom Petty. It's set in a post-apocalyptic and neo-Western version of the United States in the then near-future of the year 2013—all part of a fictionalized history of the United States of America—fifteen years after an unspecified apocalyptic event, which has left a huge impact on human civilization and erased most of all technology.
Metropolis: is a 1927 German expressionist epic science-fiction film directed by Fritz Lang. The film was written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou, and starred Brigitte Helm, Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel and Rudolf Klein-Rogge. A silent film, it was produced by Erich Pommer in the Babelsberg Studios by Universum Film A.G.. It is regarded as a pioneering work of science fiction genre in movies, being the first feature length movie of the genre.
Made in Germany during the Weimar Period, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia, and follows the attempts of Freder, the wealthy son of the city's ruler, and Maria, a poor worker, to overcome the vast gulf separating the classes of their city. Metropolis was filmed in 1925, at a cost of approximately five million Reichsmarks. Thus, it was the most expensive film ever released up to that point. The motion picture's futuristic style is influenced by the work of Futurist Italian architect, Antonio Sant'Elia.[2]
The film was met with a mixed response upon its initial release, with many critics praising its technical achievements and social metaphors while others derided its "simplistic and naïve" presentation. Because of its long running-time and the inclusion of footage which censors found questionable, Metropolis was cut substantially after its German premiere: large portions of the film were lost over the subsequent decades.
Numerous attempts have been made to restore the film since the 1970s-80s. Giorgio Moroder, a music producer, released a version with a soundtrack by rock artists such as Freddie Mercury, Loverboy and Adam Ant in 1984. A new reconstruction of Metropolis was shown at the Berlin Film Festival in 2001, and the film was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in the same year, the first film thus distinguished. In 2008, a damaged print of Lang’s original cut of the film was found in a museum in Argentina. After a long restoration process, the film was 95% restored and shown on large screens in Berlin and Frankfurt simultaneously on 12 February 2010.
A Clockwork Orange: is a 1971 dystopian crime film adapted, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Anthony Burgess's 1962 novella A Clockwork Orange. It employs disturbing, violent images to comment on psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian near-future Britain.
Alex (Malcolm McDowell), the main character, is a charismatic, sociopathic delinquent whose interests include classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and what is termed "ultra-violence." He leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie, and Dim), whom he calls his droogs (from the Russian друг, "friend," "buddy"). The film chronicles the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via controversial psychological conditioning. Alex narrates most of the film in Nadsat, a fractured adolescent slang composed of Slavic(especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang.
The soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange features mostly classical music selections and Moog synthesizer compositions by Wendy Carlos (then known as Walter Carlos). The artwork of the now-iconic poster of A Clockwork Orange was created by Philip Castle with the layout by designer Bill Gold.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior: (also known as The Road Warrior and Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior) is a 1981 Australian post-apocalyptic action film directed by George Miller. The film is the second installment in the Mad Max film series, with Mel Gibson starring as Max Rockatansky. The film's tale of a community of settlers moved to defend themselves against a roving band of marauders follows an archetypical "Western" frontier movie motif, as does Max's role as a hardened man who rediscovers his humanity when he decides to help the settlers.[4] Filming took part in locations around Broken Hill, in the outback of New South Wales.[5]
Mad Max 2 was released on 24 December 1981, and received ample critical acclaim. Observers praised the visuals and Gibson's role. Noteworthy elements of the film also include cinematographer Dean Semler's widescreen photography of Australia's vast desert landscapes; the sparing use of dialogue throughout the film; costume designer Norma Moriceau's punk mohawked, leather bondage gear-wearing bikers; and its fast-paced, tightly edited and violent battle and chase scenes.
The film's comic-book post-apocalyptic/punk style popularised the genre in film and fiction writing. It was also a box office success, winning the Best International Film from six nominations at the Saturn Award ceremony, including: Best Director for Miller; Best Actor for Gibson; Best Supporting Actor for Bruce Spence; Best Writing for Miller, Hayes and Hannant; Best Costumefor Norma Moriceau. Mad Max 2 became a cult film: fan clubs and "road warrior"-themed activities continue into the 21st century. The film was followed by Mad Max Beyond Thunderdomein 1985, with a fourth film in the series, Mad Max: Fury Road, slated for release on May 15, 2015.[6]
The film depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in November 2019 in which genetically engineered replicants, which are visually indistinguishable from adult humans, are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation as well as by other "mega-corporations" around the world. Their use on Earth is banned and replicants are exclusively used for dangerous, menial, or leisure work on off-world colonies. Replicants who defy the ban and return to Earth are hunted down and "retired" by special police operatives known as "Blade Runners". The plot focuses on a desperate group of recently escaped replicants hiding in Los Angeles and the burnt-out expert Blade Runner, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who reluctantly agrees to take on one more assignment to hunt them down.
Blade Runner initially polarized critics: some were displeased with the pacing, while others enjoyed its thematic complexity. The film performed poorly in North American theaters but has since become a cult film.[2] It has been hailed for its production design, depicting a "retrofitted" future,[3] and remains a leading example of the neo-noir genre.[4] It brought the work of Philip K. Dick to the attention of Hollywood and several later films were based on his work.[5] Ridley Scott regards Blade Runner as "probably" his most complete and personal film.[6][7] In 1993, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Blade Runner is now regarded as one of the best science fiction films ever made.
Seven versions of the film have been shown for various markets as a result of controversial changes made by film executives. A rushed Director's Cut was released in 1992 after a strong response to workprint screenings. This, in conjunction with its popularity as a video rental, made it one of the first films released on DVD, resulting in a basic disc with mediocre video and audio quality.[8] In 2007, Warner Bros. released The Final Cut, a 25th anniversary digitally remastered version which is the only one on which Scott had complete artistic freedom[9] and was shown in select theaters and subsequently released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc.[10]
Brazil: is a 1985 British film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. British National Cinema by Sarah Street describes the film as a "fantasy/satire on bureaucratic society" while John Scalzi's Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies describes it as a "dystopian satire". The film stars Jonathan Pryce and features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm.
The film centres on Sam Lowry, a man trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living a life in a small apartment, set in a consumer-driven dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazil 's bureaucratic, totalitarian government is reminiscent of the government depicted in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four,[1][2] except that it has a buffoonish, slapstick quality and lacks a Big Brother figure.
Jack Mathews, film critic and author of The Battle of Brazil (1987), described the film as "satirizing the bureaucratic, largely dysfunctional industrial world that had been driving Gilliam crazy all his life".[3] Though a success in Europe, the film was unsuccessful in its initial North America release. It has since become a cult film.
The film is named after the recurrent theme song, "Aquarela do Brasil", as performed by Geoff Muldaur.
After Universal Studios acquired the rights to remake La Jetée as a full-length film, David and Janet Peoples were hired to write the script. Under Terry Gilliam's direction, Universal granted the filmmakers a US$29.5 million budget, and filming lasted from February to May 1995. The film was shot mostly in Philadelphia and Baltimore, where the story was set.
The film was released to critical praise and grossed approximately US$168.8 million worldwide. Brad Pitt was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and won a Golden Globe for his performance. The film also won and was nominated for various categories at the Saturn Awards.
The movie draws on concerns over reproductive technologies which facilitate eugenics, and the possible consequences of such technological developments for society. It also explores the idea of destiny and the ways in which it can and does govern lives. Characters in Gattaca continually battle both with society and with themselves to find their place in the world and who they are destined to be according to their genes.
The film's title is based on the first letters of guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine, the four nucleobases of DNA.[3] It was a 1997 nominee for the Academy Award for Best Art Directionand the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.
The film flopped at the box office, but it received generally positive reviews.
The Fifth Element: (French: Le Cinquième élément) is a 1997 English-language French science fiction action film directed, co-written, and based on a story by Luc Besson. The film stars Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, and Milla Jovovich. Mostly set in the twenty-third century, the film's central plot involves the survival of planet Earth, which becomes the responsibility of Korben Dallas (Willis), a taxicab driver and former special forces major, after a young woman (Jovovich) falls into his cab. Dallas joins forces with her to recover four mystical stones essential for the defence of Earth against an impending attack.
Besson started writing the story that became The Fifth Element when he was 16 years old; he was 38 when the film opened in cinemas.[7] Comic book writers Jean Giraud and Jean-Claude Mézières, whose comics provided inspiration for parts of the film, were hired for production design. Costume design was by Jean-Paul Gaultier.
The Fifth Element received mainly positive reviews, although it tended to polarise critics. It has been called both the best and worst summer blockbuster of all time. The film was a financial success, earning more than $263 million at the box office on a $90 million budget. At the time of its release it was the most expensive European film ever made,[8] and it remained the highest-grossing French film at the box-office until the release of The Intouchables in 2011.[9]
The Matrix: is a 1999 American-Australian science fiction action film written and directed by The Wachowskis, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano. It depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality called "the Matrix", created by sentient machines to subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Computer programmer "Neo" learns this truth and is drawn into a rebellion against the machines, which involves other people who have been freed from the "dream world".
The Matrix is known for popularizing a visual effect known as "bullet time", in which the heightened perception of certain characters is represented by allowing the action within a shot to progress in slow-motion while the camera's viewpoint appears to move through the scene at normal speed. The film is an example of the cyberpunk science fiction genre.[3] It contains numerous references to philosophical and religious ideas, and prominently pays homage to works such as Plato's Allegory of the Cave,[4] Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation[5] and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.[6] The Wachowskis' approach to action scenes drew upon their admiration for Japanese animation[7] and martial arts films, and the film's use of fight choreographers and wire fu techniques from Hong Kong action cinema was influential upon subsequent Hollywood action film productions.
The Matrix was first released in the United States on March 31, 1999, and grossed over $460 million worldwide. It was generally well-received by critics,[8][9] and won four Academy Awardsas well as other accolades including BAFTA Awards and Saturn Awards. Reviewers praised The Matrix for its innovative visual effects, cinematography and its entertainment. The film's premise was both criticized for being derivative of earlier science fiction works, and praised for being intriguing. The action also polarized critics, some describing it as impressive, but others dismissing it as a trite distraction from an interesting premise.
Despite this, the film has since appeared in lists of the greatest science fiction films,[10][11][12] and in 2012, was added to the National Film Registry for preservation.[13] The success of the film led to the release of two feature film sequels, both written and directed by the Wachowskis, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. The Matrix franchise was further expanded through the production of comic books, video games, and animated short films in which the Wachowskis were heavily involved.WALL-E: [OK, I cheated. This one is after the millennium, BUT I HAD to put it in my list. I love PIXAR. I love WALL-E and EVE. I am scared that the movie has more truth to it than fiction. It got a 94 from MetaCritic. So there.] (stylized with an interpunct as WALL·E) is a 2008 American computer animated science fiction romantic comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. The story follows a robot named WALL-E, who is designed to clean up an abandoned, waste-covered Earth far in the future. He falls in love with another robot named EVE, who also has a programmed task, and follows her into outer space on an adventure that changes the destiny of both his kind and humanity. Both robots exhibit an appearance of free will and emotions similar to humans, which develop further as the film progresses.
After directing Finding Nemo, Stanton felt Pixar had created believable simulations of underwater physics and was willing to direct a film set largely in space. WALL-E has minimal dialogue in its early sequences; many of the characters do not have voices, but instead communicate with body language and robotic sounds, which were designed by Ben Burtt. It is also Pixar's first animated feature with segments featuring live-action characters.
Walt Disney Pictures released WALL-E in the United States and Canada on June 27, 2008. It grossed $23.2 million on its opening day, and $63.1 million during its opening weekend in 3,992 theaters, ranking number one at the box office. This ranks as the fifth highest-grossing opening weekend for a Pixar film. Following Pixar tradition, WALL-E was paired with a short film, Presto, for its theatrical release.
WALL-E was met with critical acclaim, scoring an approval rating of 96% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. It grossed $521.3 million worldwide, won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form,[3] the final Nebula Award for Best Script,[4] the Saturn Award for Best Animated Film, and the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature as well as being nominated for five other Academy Awards at the 81st Academy Awards. WALL-E ranks first in TIME 's "Best Movies of the Decade".[5]
The film is seen as a critique on larger societal issues. It addresses consumerism, nostalgia, environmental problems, waste management, the immense impact humans have on the Earth, and risks to human civilization and its home planet Earth.[6]
And for the Bonus: The worst movie EVER because it is so averagely, hopelessly, blah. It offers promise to be cool, fun, and thought provoking, BUT it never even approaches that. It also never gets so bad that you laugh or ridicule it's badness (making it good in its own way). No, this movie is 177 minutes of my life that was just completely wasted:
The film—like the book—follows the story of an unnamed nomadic drifter (played by Costner) and—after escaping from a "neo-fascist" militia—he stumbles across the uniform of an old United States Postal Service letter carrier and soon unwittingly inspires hope through an empty promise of aid from the "Restored United States of America". It was filmed in Metaline Fallsand Fidalgo Island, Washington, central Oregon, and Tucson, Arizona.
Released on Christmas Day of 1997 from Warner Bros. Pictures, The Postman was loathed by critics, an enormous box-office failure, and received five Razzie Awards, including Worst Picture, Worst Actor and Director (both for Costner), and for Worst Screenplay and Worst Original Song (for the entire song score).
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