Movies offer a break from the stress of everyday life, which is why so many people enjoy watching them, and it helps that they usually have interesting stories with compelling and relatable characters. Most movies take place in the present or in the past, and tackle current and historical events, but there are also quite a few movies that take place in the future. Often, the future is almost never as ideal as most people hope it to be.

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When a movie features a dystopian future, it always presents a society that is undesirable or at times frightening, but just because these films are set in a bleak world, doesn't mean that they are not entertaining in some way. Some of these dystopian futures also feature a lawless subculture known as cyberpunk, which typically showcases an oppressive society that is dominated by technology.

10 The Matrix

The Matrix may have been released over 20 years ago, but it's still an amazing cyberpunk sci-fi film that takes place in a world where the majority of the human race is plugged into a shared, simulated reality called The Matrix. This happened because humanity lost a war against intelligent machines-who now power themselves by consuming human bioelectric power.

Keanu Reeves plays the titular character, Neo, who is arguably the best character he has ever played, and he does a great job of portraying someone who is trying to fulfill his destiny. The movie explores dark themes and difficult subject matter, but it also contains great action scenes, and the sequels are pretty good too.

9 Alita: Battle Angel

It may have had a poor marketing campaign, but Alita: Battle Angel still managed to perform well at the box office. The movie takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where many humans have augmented their bodies with cybernetic implants.

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The movie follows Alita, a cyborg who is rescued from a scrapyard by a cyberphysician, and over the course of the film, she slowly uncovers fragments of her forgotten past. There are plenty of action scenes in this movie, and Alita turns out to be a very interesting and likeable character.

8 Dredd

Dredd was released in 2012, and although it failed to turn a profit at the box office, it is now considered a cult classic. The movie takes place in a future where much of the United States is now an irradiated wasteland, but there is still one major city on the east coast where more than 10,000 violent crimes occur daily.

Dredd is one of many Judges who maintain order in this city, and the movie has him training a new Judge while dealing with a powerful drug lord. It features a lot of gunplay and action as well, which is another reason why the film is a prime candidate for a video game adaptation.

7 RoboCop (1987)

The original RoboCop was released in 1987, and it tells the story of Alex Murphy, a police officer from Detroit who was gunned down by a gang of criminals. Following this incident, Murphy's corpse is converted into RoboCop, a heavily-armored cyborg who must protect the innocent and uphold the law in a dystopic Detroit which is on the verge of societal and financial collapse.

The movie may have a cyberpunk superhero, but it tackles serious issues like greed, corruption, transhumanism, authoritarianism, and human nature. There are plenty of hit movies with sequels that flopped, but this didn't happen to RoboCop, and it now has a prequel series in development.

6 Total Recall (1990)

In 1990, Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in Total Recall, where he played a construction worker who gets caught up in a tale of espionage on Mars. Thanks to implants provided by the Rekall company, people are able to implant false memories into their brains.

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Schwarzenegger's character asks for a memory in which he is a secret agent traveling to Mars, which is what he is actually doing, and this causes problems that force Rekall to just wipe his memory clean. This doesn't stop him from uncovering his past though, and he uses that information to activate an alien artifact that creates a breathable atmosphere on Mars.

5 Minority Report

In the year 2054, there is a specialized police department that uses a group of psychics called "precogs" to apprehend criminals before they commit the actual crime. Tom Cruise is the star of the movie, and he plays a chief in the PreCrime unit who is forced to go on the run when the precogs predict that he will kill a man he doesn't know.

The movie proves that free will does exist, even in a society where outcomes seem pre-determined. It also deals with privacy rights and the idea of self-perception, but it also gives audiences a glimpse of the legal and political systems that a high technologically-advanced society might have in the near future.

4 Planet Of The Apes (1968)

The original Planet of the Apes saw a trio of astronauts who crash on an unknown planet, and when they wake from their hibernation, they learn that they have been asleep for over 2,000 years. As they explore the planet, they come across primitive, mute humans, and they are all soon attacked by armed gorillas who bring them to a city inhabited by intelligent apes.

By the end of the movie, astronaut George Taylor discovers the remains of the Statue of Liberty, which causes him to realize that he had been on Earth the whole time and that humanity destroyed itself through nuclear war.

3 Children Of Men

2006 saw the release of Children of Men, a sci-fi thriller that took place in the UK in the year 2027. The world is on the brink of collapse because the human race faces extinction due to everyone on Earth being infertile. In fact, it had been 18 years since the last child was born.

The movie stars Clive Owen, who plays a former activist who agrees to help a young female asylum seeker who turns out to be pregnant. Overall, Children of Men tells an amazing story about hope and faith, and how those two things can do wonders in a world where justice, society, and compassion barely exist.

2 Ghost In The Shell (1995)

To this day, the original Ghost in the Shell is considered to be one of the greatest anime movies of all time, and Cyberpunk 2077 fans will absolutely love it. It takes place in the year 2029, and follows Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg public-security agent who is trying to track down a hacker named Puppet Master.

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The movie has received a great deal of praise because of how it deals with philosophical issues like self-identity in a world where mechanical replication has replaced biological reproduction, and it helps that the entire story revolves around a strong female character.

1 Blade Runner

If any sci-fi movie deserves a video game adaptation, it is Blade Runner. Many consider Blade Runner to be one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made, as the set design, music, and special effects truly bring dystopic Los Angeles to life.

The movie focuses on Rick Deckard, a former blade runner who is tasked with finding and retiring a group of bioengineered humanoids called replicants. What makes this movie so special is the fact that it makes the audience question what it truly means to be human, and this lesson is taught by Roy Batty, a replicant who ultimately had more humanity and compassion than any of the humans in the movie.

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