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Best Futuristic Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of futuristic cinema — measured across 1,045 indexed frames from 12 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Futuristic films over-index on tactical jacket, control panel and skyscraper — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

    Steven S. DeKnightDP Dan MindelIMDb 5.6TMDB 6.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    It is 2035, ten years after the Battle of the Breach, in which the inter-dimensional portal created by the Precursors (through which they sent marauding Kaiju) was closed. Former Jaeger pilot Jake Pentecost - son of Battle of the Breach hero Stacker Pentecost - makes a living by stealing and selling Jaeger parts on the black market in the Los Angeles area. After he tracks part of a disabled Jaeger's power core to the secret workshop of fifteen year-old Jaeger enthusiast Amara Namani, both are arrested by the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps (PPDC) after an altercation between Amara's small, single-pilot Jaeger Scrapper and the Police Jaeger November Ajax. A holographic transmission of Jake's adoptive sister and PPDC Secretary General Mako Mori persuades him to return to PPDC as an instructor, with Amara as his recruit..

  2. 2

    Ghosts of Mars (2001)

    John CarpenterDP Gary B. KibbeIMDb 4.9TMDB 5.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    In 2176, a Martian police unit is sent to pick up a highly dangerous criminal at a remote mining post. Upon arrival, the cops find the post deserted and something far more dangerous than any criminal — the original inhabitants of Mars, hellbent on getting their planet back.

  3. 3

    Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

    J.J. AbramsDP Dan MindelIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    When the USS Enterprise crew is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction. As our space heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

  4. 4

    Dredd (2012)

    Pete TravisDP Anthony Dod MantleIMDb 7.1TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    The future America is an irradiated waste land. On its East Coast, running from Boston to Washington DC, lies Mega City One - a vast, violent metropolis where criminals rule the chaotic streets. The only force of order lies with the urban cops called "Judges" who possess the combined powers of judge, jury and instant executioner. Known and feared throughout the city, Dredd is the ultimate Judge, challenged with ridding the city of its latest scourge - a dangerous drug epidemic that has users of "Slo-Mo" experiencing reality at a fraction of its normal speed. During a routine day on the job, Dredd is assigned to train and evaluate Cassandra Anderson, a rookie with powerful psychic abilities thanks to a genetic mutation. A heinous crime calls them to a neighborhood where fellow Judges rarely dare to venture - a 200 storey vertical slum controlled by prostitute turned drug lord Ma-Ma and her ruthless clan. When they capture one of the clan's inner circle, Ma-Ma overtakes the compound's control center and wages a dirty, vicious war against the Judges that proves she will stop at nothing to protect her empire. With the body count climbing and no way out, Dredd and Anderson must confront the odds and engage in the relentless battle for their survival.

  5. 5

    Blade Runner (1982)

    Ridley ScottDP Jordan CronenwethIMDb 8.1TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    In the early twenty-first century, the Tyrell Corporation, during what was called the Nexus phase, developed robots, called "replicants", that were supposed to aid society, the replicants which looked and acted like humans. When the superhuman generation Nexus 6 replicants, used for dangerous off-Earth endeavors, began a mutiny on an off-Earth colony, replicants became illegal on Earth. Police units, called "blade runners", have the job of destroying - or in their parlance "retiring" - any replicant that makes its way back to or created on Earth, with anyone convicted of aiding or assisting a replicant being sentenced to death. It's now November, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. Rick Deckard, a former blade runner, is called out of retirement when four known replicants, most combat models, have made their way back to Earth, with their leader being Roy Batty. One, Leon Kowalski, tried to infiltrate his way into the Tyrell Corporation as an employee, but has since been able to escape. Beyond following Leon's trail in hopes of finding and retiring them all, Deckard believes part of what will help him is figuring out what the replicants wanted with the Tyrell Corporation in trying to infiltrate it. The answer may lie with Tyrell's fail-safe backup mechanism. Beyond tracking the four, Deckard faces a possible dilemma in encountering a fifth replicant: Rachael, who works as Tyrell's assistant. The issue is that Dr. Elden Tyrell is experimenting with her, to provide her with fake memories so as to be able to better control her. With those memories, Rachael has no idea that she is not human. The problem is not only Rachael's assistance to Deckard, but that he is beginning to develop feelings for her.

  6. 6

    Doomsday (2008)

    Neil MarshallDP Sam McCurdyIMDb 5.9TMDB 5.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    A lethal virus spreads throughout Scotland, infecting millions and killing hundreds of thousands. To contain the threat, acting authorities brutally quarantine the country as it succumbs to fear and chaos. The quarantine is successful. Three decades later, the Reaper virus violently resurfaces in London. An elite group of specialists, including Eden Sinclair, is urgently dispatched into Scotland to retrieve a cure by any means necessary. Shut off from the rest of the world, the unit must battle through a landscape that has become a waking nightmare.

  7. 7

    Lucy (2014)

    Luc BessonDP Thierry ArbogastIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    It was supposed to be a simple job. All Lucy had to do was deliver a mysterious briefcase to Mr. Jang. But immediately Lucy is caught up in a nightmarish deal where she is captured and turned into a drug mule for a new and powerful synthetic drug. When the bag she is carrying inside of her stomach leaks, Lucy's body undergoes unimaginable changes that begins to unlock her mind's full potential. With her new-found powers, Lucy turns into a merciless warrior intent on getting back at her captors. She receives invaluable help from Professor Norman, the leading authority on the human mind, and French police captain Pierre Del Rio.

  8. 8

    Total Recall (1990)

    Paul VerhoevenDP Jost VacanoIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Douglas Quaid is haunted by a recurring dream about a journey to Mars. He hopes to find out more about this dream and buys a holiday at Rekall Inc. where they sell implanted memories. But something goes wrong with the memory implantation and he remembers being a secret agent fighting against the evil Mars administrator Cohaagen. Now the story really begins and it's a rollercoaster ride until the massive end of the movie.

What futuristic films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a futuristic frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — tactical jacket is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • tactical jacket28.8×
  • control panel13.3×
  • skyscraper9.1×
  • uniform8.4×
  • tactical vest6.3×
  • helmet6.1×
  • debris3.7×
  • handgun3.3×

How futuristic films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate futuristic from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 11%low anglevs 5% baseline
  • 22%naturalvs 43% baseline
  • 26%dayvs 42% baseline
  • 11%interior indeterminatevs 7% baseline
  • 58%low keyvs 40% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Minority Report is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,045 frames from 12 films carrying the futuristic label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/futuristic

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These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used