50 top dystopian movies of all time

Magical Realist

Magical Realist

Valued Senior Member
Many you HAVE seen. And some you haven't. All in all a wellrounded sampling of dystopian cinema at its dreariest and pessimistic best:

"Massive dehumanization, totalitarian government, rampant disease, post-apocalyptic terrains, cyber-genetic technologies, societal chaos and widespread urban violence are some of the common themes in dystopian films which bravely examine the ominous shadow cast by future.

A dystopia is a fictional society that is the antithesis or complete opposite of a utopia, an ideal world with a perfect social, political and technological infrastructure. A world without chaos, strife or hunger. A world where the individual potential and freedom is celebrated and brought to the forefront.

In contrast, the dystopian world is undesirable with poverty and unequal domination by specific individuals over others. Dystopian films often construct a fictional universe and set it in a background which features scenarios such as dehumanizing technological advancements, man-made disasters or class-based revolutions.

Ranking the List

We thought it would be interesting if we could coagulate the most commonly cited dystopian movies and rank them not to preference, but to an average score made up of both Rotten Tomatoes (RT) and IMDB ratings."

The List:

http://snarkerati.com/movie-news/the-top-50-dystopian-movies-of-all-time/
 
Ever wonder why theres no such thing as a UTOPIAN film?

Its because all plots require something to resolve.
 
Carcano said:
Ever wonder why theres no such thing as a UTOPIAN film?

Its because all plots require something to resolve.
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Ever see the movie Lost Horizon (1937 film)? It was all about a utopian society. Very well done too, I enjoyed it and it is still worthwhile today to see. It is in B/W so keep that in mind if you want to view it, I think you'd enjoy seeing it and it doesn't leave anything to be "resolved".

Lost Horizon is a 1937 American drama-fantasy film directed by Frank Capra. The screenplay by Robert Riskin is based on the 1933 novel of the same title by James Hilton.

Before returning to England to become the new Foreign Secretary, writer, soldier and diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) has one last task in 1935 China: to rescue 90 Westerners in the city of Baskul. He flies out with the last few evacuees, just ahead of armed revolutionaries.

Unbeknownst to the passengers, the pilot has been replaced and their aircraft hijacked. It eventually runs out of fuel and crashes deep in the Himalayan Mountains, killing their abductor. The group is rescued by Chang (H.B. Warner) and his men and taken to Shangri-La, an idyllic valley sheltered from the bitter cold. The contented inhabitants are led by the mysterious High Lama (Sam Jaffe).

Initially anxious to return to civilization, most of the newcomers grow to love Shangri-La, including paleontologist Alexander Lovett (Edward Everett Horton), swindler Henry Barnard (Thomas Mitchell) and bitter, terminally ill Gloria Stone (Isabel Jewell), who miraculously seems to be recovering. Conway is particularly enchanted, especially when he meets Sondra (Jane Wyatt), who has grown up in Shangri-La. However, Conway's younger brother George (John Howard), and Maria (Margo), another beautiful young woman they find there, are determined to leave.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...jYGQBQ&usg=AFQjCNGICetnglHE9XQ1pMJamXcaVlfjrQ
 
Buddha12 said:
Ever see the movie Lost Horizon (1937 film)? It was all about a utopian society. Very well done too, I enjoyed it and it is still worthwhile today to see. It is in B/W so keep that in mind if you want to view it, I think you'd enjoy seeing it and it doesn't leave anything to be "resolved".
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Ok, but Shanghai-La is a utopian temple in the mountains, not a utopian society.

A society is mentioned briefly in the book, but its never described...if I recall correctly.
 
Carcano said:
Ok, but Shanghai-La is a utopian temple in the mountains, not a utopian society.

A society is mentioned briefly in the book, but its never described...if I recall correctly.
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But that place in the mountains was full of people who had been living in their society for thousands of years. How do you think it wasn't a society if there were many people living there so long together? I guess you might think that the number of people would be at a certain amount to be called a society or what then?
 
I can't really agree with the idea that utopia and dystopia are antonyms. A utopia would be something that could exist only in theory, and everyone's version of it would be different. It would be impossible to imagine a world that's the exact opposite to "perfect", it would mean "the worst world possible", which would be unimaginable and unfilmable. Also, life in many of the movies is often significantly better than what we have now... people generally tend to be fed for one thing.

So IMO it's not the "complete opposite" of a utopia at all, it's just an original future that the vast majority of people now would see as really undesirable (but plausible). If not then none of these movies are really dystopian. And if you have time to obtain, watch and appraise more than 50 movies on one subject, maybe you live in some sort of dystopia yourself!
 
Buddha12 said:
@ Magical Realist

Do you think that Dark City was based on a dystopian way?
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Yes. I found Dark City very profound and disturbing. That whole idea that we might be living in a simulation created by sinister alien beings. The dystopian theme rests on the premise that reality in the future will suck enough to have to be covered over by a collectively shared simulation of normality. This movie came out btw about the same time as the Matrix. In some ways it is an even deeper exploration of this whole simulation theme. Very well done imo..
 
Magical Realist said:
Yes. I found Dark City very profound and disturbing. That whole idea that we might be living in a simulation created by sinister alien beings. The dystopian theme rests on the premise that reality in the future will suck enough to have to be covered over by a collectively shared simulation of normality. This movie came out btw about the same time as the Matrix. In some ways it is an even deeper exploration of this whole simulation theme. Very well done imo..
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Yes, I agree it was a very well done movie and has some interesting effects and good plot. Kept me interested in the whole thing to see where it would end. Kind of similar to the rich controlling the rest of us today. Also that the movie kept you in suspense until the end not knowing or guessing its outcome.
 
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All are good movies but i like "Idiocracy" the most because of Luke Wilson my favorite of all. I never miss to watch any movie of Luke Wilson.
 
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