20 sci-fi movies that wrongly predicted the future

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• Soylent Green (1973)
• Escape from New York (1981)
• Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
• Blade Runner (1982)
• The Terminator (1984)
• Running Man (1987)
• Back to the Future: Part II (1989)
• Demolition Man (1993)
• Double Dragon (1994)
• The Net (1995)
• Strange Days (1995)
• The Postman (1997)
• The Island (2005)
• Children of Men (2006)
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
• Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Science fiction films don’t have to be prophetic to be considered good. After all, the word fiction is right there in the name. But some of the best sci-fi films have managed to foresee events or technologies long before they came to pass. Others, on the other hand, haven’t been quite as prescient.

Just to be clear, we’re not saying that any of these movies are necessarily bad because they couldn’t predict with 100% accuracy how the future would turn out. We’re simply pointing out how our world differs from how filmmakers in the past may have imagined it.

Here are 20 classic sci-fi movies that tried to predict the future… and failed.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece, based on the Arthur C. Clarke novel, gets a lot right about the future—from voice recognition to face-calling to tablet-like “newspads” through which the astronauts are able to watch a BBC broadcast from Earth—but it also gets a few things wrong. Most notably, the film predicts that we’d be capable of long-distance space exploration by now, with Discovery One seen travelling all the way to Jupiter. In reality, NASA doesn’t expect to send astronauts to Mars until the late 2030s at the earliest.

Soylent Green (1973)

This classic 1973 sci-fi film, starring Charlton Heston, takes place in 2022, wherein the world is devastated by pollution, poverty, overpopulation, and a lack of resources. The solution? Resorting to cannibalism, of course. Fortunately, even if we were to run out of meat, we now have plant-based alternatives to keep us from eating each other.

Rollerball (1975)

“In the not too distant future, wars will no longer exist. But there will be rollerball,” reads the tagline to this film directed by Norman Jewison and starring James Caan. That “future” was 2018, and as we now know, war is still very much a thing, and the closest thing we have to rollerball is roller derby, which, though it was somewhat popular in Northern California in the 1960s and ’70s, is hardly America’s pastime today. Maybe it needs more motorcycles?

Escape from New York (1981)

In fairness to John Carpenter, New York City in the late 1970s to early ’80s did look like it was on the brink of devolving into a dystopian nightmare overrun by criminals at any moment. Fortunately, that never happened, as crime rates dropped dramatically in the city in the ’90s thanks in part to new (and controversial) “get-tough” policies put in place by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

While oil no doubt plays an important role in modern society, a sudden shortage of it isn’t likely to lead to the widespread collapse of civilization as we know it, resulting in a post-apocalyptic hellscape where motorized gangs will kill you for a quick fill-up. In fact, some experts predict that fully electric vehicles could become the norm as early as 2035, making the whole thing a non-issue.

Blade Runner (1982)

Based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Ridley Scott’s classic sci-fi film from 1982 features advertisements for companies such as RCA, Atari, Pan Am, Bell Telephone, and Koss Corp. headphones, all of which either ceased to be or were considerably downsized by the year in which the film takes place (2019). It’s almost as if the film put a curse on the brands. The makers of Blade Runner 2049 made a sly reference to the supposed “Blade Runner curse” with a quick nod to Atari.

1984 (1984)

Thank God George Orwell’s vision of an extreme totalitarian superstate, where citizens are under constant surveillance by the “Thought Police” and government officials with the “Ministry of Truth” attempt to rewrite history by spreading propaganda never came true… Okay, sure, we might have gotten a fraction of that, but the mid-1980s were hardly the dystopian nightmare augured by the English author. As North Jersey’s Jim Beckerman writes, “Where [Orwell] predicted police-state torture, mind control, and absolute conformity, we got ‘Born in the U.S.A.,’ Ronald Reagan’s second term, and Ghostbusters.”

The Terminator (1984)

Machines rising up to overthrow humanity has been a staple of the sci-fi genre for quite some time now, with The Terminator being one of the best examples. Fortunately, as The Guardian science editor Ian Sample notes, that doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon, as it’s unlikely that scientists will be able to develop human-level artificial intelligence in the next couple of decades. That said, “In the second half of the century that becomes ‘increasingly likely, but still not certain.’ A case of if, not when.”

Running Man (1987)

It may be true that TV audiences have grown increasingly desensitized to images of violence over the years, but that doesn’t mean we’ve gotten to the point where we’re willing to watch a game show where convicted felons attempt to secure their freedom by running for their lives from trained killers. Sure, we might watch a show where naked contestants are dropped into the wilderness and forced to survive, but this? Too far.

Back to the Future: Part II (1989)

When Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future: Part II came out more than three decades ago, 2015 must have seemed like a far-off world—one the writers clearly assumed would be a lot more technologically advanced than proved to be the case. The film’s biggest blunder was in assuming that we’d have flying cars by now. And then of course there are the hoverboards. The closest we’ve come to them are self-balancing scooters, which are more obnoxious than futuristic.

Demolition Man (1993)

Surprisingly, this campy Sly Stallone sci-fi gets quite a few things right about the future: self-driving electric vehicles, video calls, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s foray into politics, digital payments, etc. One thing the film predicted that, unfortunately, has yet to come to fruition is a virtually crime-free society. One can dream.

Double Dragon (1994)

Now, to be fair, there aren’t too many people who would label this film, based on the popular arcade video game from 1987, a “classic,” though it did contain some surprisingly good action sequences. Still, it’s worth noting for its comically absurd depiction of 2007 Los Angeles—or “New Angeles”—which has been crippled by an earthquake, somehow turning it into a 1980s-style punk playground.

The Net (1995)

This tech-savvy Sandra Bullock thriller accurately predicted that all of our personal information—down to our tastes in movies—would be recorded online. That said, as Wired notes, whereas in the film this was depicted as a serious issue that needed to be addressed, in today’s world, “it’s basically how Facebook works.” The film did, however, get one thing right about the future: Our ability to order pizza with the click of a button. And isn’t that what matters most?

Strange Days (1995)

Strange days, indeed. This Kathryn Bigelow-directed film envisions a future world (1999) wherein a person’s experiences can be recorded and watched back by other viewers, allowing them to experience the individual’s physical sensations. James Cameron conceived of the story in 1986. More than three decades on, the so-called “SQUID” (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) technology has yet to be invented, though we wouldn’t be surprised if someone somewhere is working on it.

The Postman (1997)

In addition to bombing at the box office and being panned by critics, Kevin Costner’s The Postman proved to be less than prophetic. Set in 2013, the film depicts a post-apocalyptic world in which civilization has been decimated by plagues and other unspecified events. But the most unrealistic part of the movie is the idea that a mail carrier could somehow inspire hope across an entire community, since most of the stuff that comes in the mail these days are bills and fast food flyers.

The Island (2005)

Set in 2019, The Island is about a seemingly utopian facility where clones are held in order to harvest their organs. Due to ethical and technological obstacles, scientists have yet to successfully clone a human. They did, however, manage to clone a sheep in 1996, but that would have made for a very different—but still watchable—movie.

Children of Men (2006)

Based on the P.D. James novel, Children of Men takes place in a not-too-distant future (2027) where mankind is at the brink of extinction after women around the world have somehow been rendered infertile. In reality, overpopulation is one of the greatest threats to humanity, resulting in excessive emissions, food and water shortages, rapid disease spread, and biodiversity loss.

2012 (2009)

This Roland Emmerich disaster flick is based on an ancient Mayan prophecy, which stated that the world would come to a violent end on December 21, 2012. Now nearly a decade past that date, we can confidently, and thankfully, say that that’s not the case. Tell you what: That’s the last time I listen to an ancient Mayan prophecy! Fool me once.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

We saw from the COVID-19 pandemic that viruses can indeed wreak havoc on the entire planet—and in short order—but a virus as contagious, adaptable, and with as many symptoms as the Simian flu? Not likely, say experts from the fields of health and science.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Look, if you’re going to make a movie about aliens invading Earth and humans fighting back with technologically advanced “mech-suits,” then you might want to set it way in the future—at least a good 50 years—and not a year after its release. Regardless, Edge of Tomorrow is one of the best sci-fi movies of the 2010s, earning a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score.