Dystopian cinema operates on two levels: it shows us what a broken future looks like, and how it feels to live in it. The collective imagination is marked by grandiose spectacles: cities in ruin, large-scale rebellions, and futuristic technologies that dominate the screen. But the genre’s strength also lies in exploring the silent anguish of daily life under the yoke of oppressive control, be it corporate, bureaucratic, or philosophical.
This guide is a journey through our collective anxieties, a path that traces the evolution of our fears. It starts with the terror of the totalitarian state and Cold War paranoia, then moves through the nightmares generated by media saturation, bureaucratic absurdity, and the fusion of flesh and machine. Finally, it arrives at our most contemporary obsessions: the fragmentation of identity in the digital age, the commodification of the self, and the ethical abyss of uncontrolled technology.
It is a path that unites the most celebrated masterpieces with more radical indie cinema. These are not just warnings for the future; they are ruthless and vital diagnoses of our present.
🏙️ The Future is a Warning: New Dystopian Movies
Dune: Part Two (2024)
As the Great Houses conspire for control of the spice on Arrakis, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) unites with the Fremen to avenge his family. But his rise as the prophesied messiah, the “Muad’Dib,” ignites a holy war threatening to burn the entire known universe. In Dune: Part Two, the dystopia is not technological but theocratic: we see how faith and fanaticism are politically manipulated to turn a free people into an army of zealots, while the desert planet’s ecology becomes the only true deity.
Denis Villeneuve completes his monumental fresco with a film that is already cinema history. Darker and more complex than the first chapter, it explores the dark side of the “chosen one” archetype. It is not a classic liberation story, but a Greek tragedy on a galactic scale where the hero, to win, must become the monster he fought against. A total sensory experience reflecting on colonialism and the danger of charismatic leaders.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
Snatched from the “Green Place of Many Mothers,” young Furiosa falls into the hands of a great biker horde led by Warlord Dementus. Crossing the Wasteland, they encounter the Citadel manned by Immortan Joe. While the two tyrants fight for dominance, in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the protagonist must survive many trials to find her way home and plan her vengeance, transforming into the warrior imperator we know.
George Miller expands the Fury Road universe with an epic and brutal prequel. If the previous film was a three-day race, this is an odyssey spanning 15 years. The dystopia here is physical and mechanical: a world where bodies are commodities (for milk, blood, or breeding) and hope is a dangerous luxury. Anya Taylor-Joy picks up Charlize Theron’s mantle with a fierce and silent performance.
The Kitchen (2024)
London, 2044. The gap between rich and poor has become unbridgeable: all social housing has been eliminated, and the disadvantaged classes live in illegal vertical slums, constantly under siege by police drones. Izi, a solitary man working at an ecological funeral home, tries to escape “The Kitchen,” but finds himself having to care for Benji, an orphan who might be his son. In The Kitchen, the struggle for housing becomes a cultural resistance against an armed gentrification wanting to erase the community.
Actor Daniel Kaluuya’s (Get Out) directorial debut is an urban and realistic dystopia reminiscent of Children of Men. There are no lasers or aliens, but a plausible and distressing vision of the future of our metropolises. The film shines for its “dirty” Afro-futurist aesthetic and for how it tells of solidarity among the downtrodden as the only weapon against a system that wants you only as a consumer or a corpse to compost.
Uglies (2024)
In a future where appearance is everything, society imposes mandatory surgery at 16 to make everyone “Pretty,” eliminating physical flaws and differences to ensure social peace. Tally Youngblood can’t wait to transform, until her friend Shay runs away to join a resistance of “Uglies” living in the woods. In Uglies, Tally discovers perfection comes at a terrible price: the operation changes not just the face but lobotomizes the brain to make citizens docile and happy.
Based on Scott Westerfeld’s YA novel, the film updates themes of aesthetic dictatorship in the age of Instagram and TikTok filters. Although following teen dystopian genre tropes, it touches a raw nerve of contemporary society: homogenization as a form of control. A pop and colorful parable hiding an unsettling heart about the loss of individual identity in favor of an unattainable standard.
A vision curated by a filmmaker, not an algorithm
In this video I explain our vision
Kalki 2898 AD (2024)
Year 2898. The city of Kasi is the last bastion of a civilization oppressed by Supreme Yaskin, a tyrant hoarding resources in a gigantic inverted pyramid called “The Complex.” While people starve, a prophecy announces the arrival of Kalki, the tenth and final avatar of the god Vishnu, destined to end the age of darkness (Kali Yuga). In Kalki 2898 AD, a selfish bounty hunter (Prabhas) and an immortal warrior from the Mahabharata (Amitabh Bachchan) clash to protect the mother of the future savior.
Indian cinema powerfully enters dystopian sci-fi with the most expensive film ever produced in Tollywood. It is a mad and visually stunning mix of Mad Max, Star Wars, and Hindu mythology. The dystopia blends futuristic technology and ancient mysticism, creating a unique world where lasers coexist with mantras. A maximalist work showing how the dystopian genre is evolving by embracing non-Western cultures and legends.
1984
Drama, science fiction, by Michael Anderson, United Kingdom, 1956.
Orwell's most controversial film adaptation of 1984, which prompted questions in the British Parliament about its alleged subversive nature.
The planet is divided into 3 states: Oceania, Eurasia and Estasia, which have always been in conflict. In London, the dictator of the state of Oceania is Big Brother, which controls the population through a policy of violent repression and video cameras located everywhere. Winston and Julia fall in love, but love is strictly forbidden and punished with death. Dark environments that perfectly render the despair of this famous dystopian work.
Food for thought
Those who exercise political power in a tyrannical way have a profound inferiority complex. Many politicians suffer from this inferiority complex and need psychological treatment. They are seriously ill and because of these sick people the whole world has suffered a lot. There is no end to the disease of those seeking power over others, there are always new people to subdue.
LANGUAGE: English
SUBTITLES: Italian
👁️ The Tomorrow We (Don’t) Want
Dystopia is not mere fantasy: it is a distorted mirror of our present. It amplifies our fears about surveillance, loss of freedom, and social inequality. But if you want to see how cinema has imagined other futures, or how humanity reacts when the system collapses entirely, here are our essential guides to related genres.
Independent Films of Sci-Fi & Dystopia
The scariest dystopias are those that look terribly like our daily lives. Independent cinema, without the need for grandiose special effects, tells of social and psychological oppression with a realism that hurts. Discover the hidden gems of the genre.
👉 BROWSE THE CATALOG: Stream Sci-Fi & Dystopian Movies
Sci-Fi Movies
Dystopia is the child of science fiction. If you want to broaden your gaze beyond totalitarian regimes and discover futures where technology leads to space exploration, time travel, or alien encounters, this is the list to start with.
👉 GO TO THE LIST: Sci-Fi Movies
Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic Movies
There is a fine line between dystopia and the end of the world. Dystopia is a society that functions badly; the apocalypse is a society that functions no more. Discover what happens when the established order crumbles and the fight for pure survival in the wastelands begins.
👉 GO TO THE LIST: Apocalyptic Movies
Artificial Intelligence Movies
Often “Big Brother” is not a human dictator, but an algorithm. If you are fascinated by the theme of technological control, mass surveillance, and the rebellion of machines against their creators, here you will find the beating heart of modern technophobia.
👉 GO TO THE LIST: AI Movies
Cult Movies
From Metropolis to A Clockwork Orange, through Brazil. These are the films that wrote the rules of the social nightmare, creating icons and visions that have become part of our cultural language. The classics every rebel must know.
👉 GO TO THE LIST: Cult Movies
👁️ Nightmare Regimes: Classic Dystopian Cinema
Dystopia is not a modern invention. It was born alongside the fear of masses, machines, and dictators. Throughout the 20th century, cinema built worlds that were perfect only in appearance, where order is maintained with blood and freedom is a disease to be cured. From the crushing architecture of Metropolis to the insane bureaucracy of Brazil, up to the aesthetic violence of A Clockwork Orange. Here are the masterpieces that warned us against totalitarianisms of all kinds, showing us how easy it is to lose our humanity in exchange for a little security.
Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922)
In the chaotic and decadent Berlin of the post-WWI era, Dr. Mabuse is a psychoanalyst by day and a criminal genius by night. Thanks to his hypnotic powers and ability to change faces, he manipulates the stock market and destroys the lives of his opponents in gambling. Divided into two epic parts (“The Great Gambler” and “Inferno”), in Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, we witness the manhunt led by prosecutor von Wenk, the only one capable of resisting the criminal’s iron will, in a progressive descent into madness.
Fritz Lang directs a monumental masterpiece of silent cinema that is much more than a simple thriller: it is a distorting mirror of the anxieties of the Weimar Republic. Mabuse is the first true “supervillain” in cinema history, an archetype that would influence everything from James Bond villains to Nolan’s Joker. With its innovative direction and psychedelic imagery, the film is an investigation into absolute power and mass manipulation, themes that still resonate with disturbing timeliness today.
Metropolis (1927)
In 2026, a gigantic city-state is vertically divided into two castes: wealthy intellectuals live in the glittering hanging gardens of the skyscrapers, while workers are enslaved in the bowels of the earth by the machines powering the city. The balance breaks when Freder, the son of the city’s despot, discovers the inhumane conditions underground and falls in love with Maria, a peaceful spiritual guide. But in Metropolis, to quell the revolt, a robot bearing Maria’s likeness is created, unleashing a social apocalypse threatening to destroy both classes.
Considered the mother of all cinematic science fiction, Fritz Lang’s film is an expressionist vision of unheard-of power. From the imposing architecture to the famous robot transformation, every frame defined the aesthetic of the future for the coming century (directly inspiring works like Blade Runner and Star Wars). Beyond its visual spectacularity, it remains a humanist parable on the need for a “Heart” to act as a mediator between the “Brain” (those who rule) and the “Hand” (those who work).
Ballad of Hypochondria
Short movie, by Antonello Matarazzo, Italy, 2016.
A path for music and images suspended between narration and experimentation, technology and tribalism. “Ballad of hypochondria (or Vibrio in love)” primarily focuses on symbolic work on the color scheme, materialize in the form of photographic masks or "video cells" observed on a small monitor in this surreal laboratory by the dazzling scenery and vaguely kubrickian, with white-aseptic suits, including ampoules, microscopes and other improbable medical equipment, it tries to isolate the love virus which has irreparably infected the musician (much to personally assume the likeness of vibrio) and could expand infecting the whole of humanity. "
LANGUAGE: italian
SUBTITLES: english
La Jetée (1962)
In a post-apocalyptic Paris destroyed by World War III, the few survivors live huddled underground under the control of ruthless scientists. A prisoner is selected for a time travel experiment thanks to a vivid memory from his childhood: the face of a woman and a man dying on the pier of Orly airport. In La Jetée, the protagonist travels to the past to meet the woman and to the future to seek help, finally discovering that the image haunting him as a child was the vision of his own future death.
Chris Marker creates a unique masterpiece in cinema history: a 28-minute “photo-novel” composed almost entirely of black-and-white still images, with a narrator guiding the story. It is a philosophical essay on memory and the inescapability of fate. The static nature of the images forces the viewer to reflect on the nature of time, not as a continuous flow but as a collection of frozen moments. It directly inspired 12 Monkeys and is considered one of the pinnacles of auteur cinema for its poetic and evocative power.
The Trial (1962)
Josef K. (Anthony Perkins), a seemingly normal bank clerk, is woken up one morning by two agents who declare him under arrest without explaining why. Thus begins his ordeal through a labyrinthine, absurd, and omnipresent judicial system. In The Trial, Josef desperately tries to discover what he is accused of and defend himself, but he clashes with a nightmare bureaucracy, useless lawyers, and invisible judges, until he realizes that his sentence is already written and that guilt is inherent in his very existence.
Orson Welles adapts Franz Kafka’s novel, transforming it into an expressionist and baroque nightmare. Filmed in grandiose locations (such as the abandoned Gare d’Orsay), the film visually crushes the protagonist in spaces that are too large or too narrow, reflecting his psychological condition. It is a fierce satire on justice and power, where the law serves not to establish the truth but to perpetuate itself. Welles considered it his best film: a claustrophobic work anticipating modern bureaucratic dystopias.
The 10th Victim (1965)
![The 10th Victim (1965) Original Trailer [FHD]](https://blog.indiecinema.co/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Ftp8wRHNmniQ%2F0.jpg)
In a not-too-distant future, wars have been abolished and human aggression is vented through “The Big Hunt,” a legalized game broadcast on TV where participants alternate roles of Hunter and Victim. Whoever survives ten rounds wins fame and wealth. In The 10th Victim, American Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress) must kill her tenth victim, Italian Marcello Poletti (Marcello Mastroianni), live worldwide from the Colosseum. But a complicity arises between the two that risks violating the rules of the game.
Elio Petri directs an Italian pop sci-fi cult classic, colorful and satirical. The film mixes 60s design, futuristic fashion, and social critique, anticipating the themes of deadly reality shows (like The Hunger Games or The Running Man). It is not just action: it is a cynical comedy on the society of the spectacle, consumerism, and the war of the sexes, where murder has become a routine act sponsored by advertising.
Alphaville (1965)
Secret agent Lemmy Caution arrives in the futuristic city of Alphaville under the cover of a journalist. The metropolis is governed by the supercomputer Alpha 60, which has banned every form of emotion, poetry, and illogical behavior to create a perfectly rational society. In Alphaville, Caution must find and kill the computer’s creator, Professor von Braun, and save his daughter Natacha, who does not know the meaning of the word “love” because it has been erased from the dictionary.
Jean-Luc Godard creates a unique sci-fi film, shot without special effects in the nighttime Paris of the era, using modernist architecture to evoke an alienating future. It is a hybrid between noir and philosophical dystopia reflecting on technological dehumanization. Alpha 60, with its croaking voice, represents the dictatorship of logic. The film is a Nouvelle Vague manifesto celebrating art and feeling as the only weapons of resistance against technocratic totalitarianism.
Corona days
Drama, by Fabio Del Greco, Italy, 2020.
A man remains alone at home due to the Corona virus emergency measures. Solitude, time, and space become his adversaries, while imagination, memories, and the yearning for freedom become his allies. Director Fabio Del Greco intimately and personally documents the days of Corona virus isolation, filming outdoor scenes exclusively with a smartphone. The chronicle of these peculiar days serves as a catalyst for reflection on the relativity of time and space, and how freedom is something that can transcend reality to find its place within our souls.
In the times of the Corona virus, a genuine and instinctive filmmaker like Del Greco has reaped the fruits of his eccentric "cinediary" crafted during the quarantine weeks. He captured his own solitude up close, and from a safe distance, that of his friends and relatives. Above all, he seized the limited "hours of air" granted by authorities to film in a world emptied of humanity and subjected to rigorous police checks. All seen through the lens of an author who, as usual, is playful, disillusioned, and subtly ironic, even when he steps in as an actor. As he continues to explore reality, amidst melancholic insights and flashes of irony, Fabio Del Greco transcends this initial intent and transforms his feature film into a set of Russian nesting dolls, where diverse audiovisual contributions converge. These contributions may be chronologically disparate, yet they are all profoundly stimulating and laden with meaning. The interplay between present and past, expertly orchestrated even in the editing, creates a short-circuit where the past isn't merely an almanac of memories but another escape into the realm of imagination. As a socio-political critique surfaces, albeit legitimate, the narrative gradually shifts toward a broader existential framework.
LANGUAGE: italian
SUBTITLES: english, french, german, portuguese, spanish
Silent Running (1972)
In a future where vegetation no longer exists on Earth, the last forests and animal species are preserved in giant geodesic domes attached to spaceships orbiting near Saturn. When the order comes to destroy the domes to save costs and return the ships to commercial use, botanist Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) rebels. In Silent Running, Lowell kills his colleagues to save the last forest and hijacks the spaceship into deep space, remaining alone with three small service robots he reprograms as companions.
Directed by special effects genius Douglas Trumbull (who worked on 2001 and Blade Runner), it is a pioneering environmentalist film, moving and melancholic. It is famous for the three drones (Huey, Dewey, and Louie) who, despite not speaking, show surprising personality and humanity, anticipating R2-D2. The film is a reflection on loneliness and the moral price of one’s convictions: Is Lowell a hero or a murderous madman? A cult classic placing nature at the center of science fiction.
Idaho Transfer (1973)
A group of young scientists works on a matter teleportation project at a desert base. They discover that the machine allows travel into the future, but what they see is terrifying: an ecological crisis has wiped out civilization. They decide to use the technology to transfer a new generation of young people into that desolate future to repopulate the Earth, believing they can avoid the mistakes of the past. In Idaho Transfer, the idealistic plan clashes with a brutal reality: the future is not a place to colonize, but a hostile environment that will change them forever.
The only film directed by actor Peter Fonda is a minimalist and pessimistic sci-fi work, almost forgotten. With a cast of non-professionals and a slow pace, the film avoids action to focus on alienation and the failure of the hippie utopia. It is a raw ecological dystopia suggesting that humanity, to survive in a world it has destroyed, will have to evolve into something that is no longer human.
Zardoz (1974)
In the year 2293, Earth is divided into two castes: the “Eternals,” immortal intellectuals living in the luxury of the Vortex, and the “Brutals,” slaves living in the wastelands worshipping a flying stone head called Zardoz. Zed (Sean Connery), a Brutal exterminator, hides inside the stone head and penetrates the Vortex. In Zardoz, the presence of the virile and mortal barbarian disrupts the balance of the Eternals’ society, who secretly desire death to escape the endless boredom of their perfect existence.
John Boorman signs one of the most eccentric and visionary films of the 70s. Famous for Sean Connery’s costume (a red “diaper”), the film is actually a complex and psychedelic satire on social classes, religion, and cultural stagnation. It is a baroque work mixing philosophy, kitsch, and surreal imagery. Despite its excesses, it remains a fascinating experiment on what would happen if man realized the dream of immortality, only to discover it is a curse.
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
Thomas Jerome Newton (David Bowie) is a humanoid alien who arrived on Earth from the dying planet Anthea to seek water to bring back to his family. Thanks to his advanced technological knowledge, he founds an industrial empire and becomes incredibly rich in a short time. But in The Man Who Fell to Earth, the rescue plan is derailed by his gradual corruption: Newton becomes a victim of alcohol, television, and government bureaucracy, remaining trapped on a planet that fascinates and slowly destroys him.
Nicolas Roeg directs an atypical sci-fi film, which is more of an allegory on loneliness and addiction than a story about aliens. David Bowie, in his first leading role, is perfect: fragile, androgynous, and distant. The film uses non-linear editing and dreamlike images to tell the tragedy of a superior being who ends up absorbing humanity’s vices instead of saving it. A visually hypnotic and deeply sad cult classic.
Lockdown trilogy of mine - Stage II: Claustrophobia or Everbody is herodoc
Short film, by Rachele Studer, Italy, 2021.
A quarantined writer (who can no longer write) seems to accept the government measures, even if they deprive him of his freedom, privacy, strenght, joy and, most of all, his job. So it happens that at some point he can't breathe anymore. Strange sensations perceived during the quarantine. We're all the same one person, behind a mask. The short-movie has been interely realized at distance, all the people in the places where they were spending the quarantine period...
Food for thought
The media and the external environment fill our minds with negative things, objects and stimuli. Fears of the mind are fears of the future, of what might happen. But if you stay in the present, in the here and now, the mind and all its fears disappear.
LANGUAGE: english
Stalker (1979)
![Andrej Tarkovskij | Stalker trailer [HD] 1979](https://blog.indiecinema.co/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2F0wAd3crUuTw%2F0.jpg)
In an unspecified future, there is a forbidden area called “The Zone,” fenced off by the military, where the laws of physics mutated following a meteorite crash. It is said that at the center of the Zone lies a Room that grants the deepest and most secret desires of those who enter. A “Stalker,” an illegal guide, accompanies two clients, a cynical Writer and a rational Professor, on a dangerous journey to the Room. In Stalker, the physical path through industrial ruins becomes a spiritual pilgrimage laying bare the protagonists’ fears and faith.
Andrei Tarkovsky creates the absolute masterpiece of metaphysical science fiction. There are no monsters or flashy special effects, but an atmosphere of constant tension and sacred mystery. The Zone is a mirror of the soul, a place reacting to the psyche of those traversing it. Visually unforgettable, with its shift from the sepia of the real world to the colors of the Zone, the film is a slow and profound meditation on the search for happiness and the human need to believe in something, even in a ruined world.
Escape from New York (1981)
In 1997, the island of Manhattan has been transformed into a giant open-air maximum-security prison, surrounded by walls and mines, where criminals are left to fend for themselves in an anarchic society. When the U.S. President’s plane crashes inside the island, the government offers a deal to Snake Plissken, a former war hero turned criminal: retrieve the President and a top-secret tape in exchange for freedom. In Escape from New York, Plissken has less than 24 hours to complete the mission before a micro-bomb injected into his neck explodes.
John Carpenter invents the definitive anti-hero with Kurt Russell: cynical, eyepatch-wearing, and distrustful of authority. It is a dark and atmospheric dystopian action film, with an iconic synth soundtrack composed by the director himself. The ruined New York is one of cinema’s most memorable sets. The film is a critique of the American political system and the police state, masquerading as an adrenaline-fueled thriller.
Scanners (1981)
![Scanners (1981) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p]](https://blog.indiecinema.co/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FUveLSA7Hoj8%2F0.jpg)
“Scanners” are individuals gifted with devastating telepathic and telekinetic powers, born as a side effect of an experimental drug administered to pregnant women years earlier. A private security firm, ConSec, tries to recruit them but clashes with Darryl Revok, a powerful and insane Scanner who wants to create an army of his kind to dominate the world. In Scanners, Cameron Vale, a telepathic drifter, is trained by ConSec to infiltrate Revok’s organization and stop him.
David Cronenberg mixes thriller, espionage, and body horror in a film that became legendary for the exploding head scene. Beyond the visual shock, the film explores themes dear to the director such as body mutation and the mind as a weapon. It is a metaphor for the 60s counterculture turning monstrous or corporate. A cold and clinical work that redefined the concept of “mental power” in cinema.
Blade Runner (1982)
In the rainy and overcrowded Los Angeles of 2019, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is an agent of the Blade Runner unit, tasked with “retiring” (killing) replicants: organic androids created for heavy labor in off-world colonies who have returned illegally to Earth to find their creator and extend their short four-year lifespan. In Blade Runner, the hunt for the four fugitives, led by the charismatic Roy Batty, forces Deckard to confront his own conscience and fall in love with Rachael, a replicant who doesn’t know she is one.
Ridley Scott signs the film that invented the cyberpunk aesthetic. Based on a Philip K. Dick novel, it is a visually stunning futuristic noir posing the fundamental question: what makes us human? Memories? Emotions? Fear of death? The replicants, paradoxically, demonstrate more attachment to life than the humans themselves. Rutger Hauer’s final monologue is pure cinematic poetry, a requiem for a synthetic soul who saw things we humans cannot imagine.
Mystery of an Employee
Drama, thriller, by Fabio Del Greco, Italy, 2019.
Someone wants to control the life of the employee Giuseppe Russo: the products he buys, his political and religious faith, his private life, even his dreams. But he will do anything to escape control and find his true self. Giuseppe is a man of around 45, married, with a stable job and a home of his own. His life flows seemingly peacefully when he meets a mysterious tramp who gives him some old VHS video cassettes. Giuseppe begins to see video tapes in which he is filmed in some moments of his life since he was a child, then as a teenager and as a young man. Who shot those videos that he remembers nothing about? Giuseppe has the strange sensation of being constantly observed and begins to investigate what is happening. Through his investigation of him, he begins to rediscover his true identity and become aware of who he truly is.
Employee's Mystery is a film that highlights the danger of social control and shows a society where everyone is constantly monitored and conditioned in their deepest selves. The film is also an analysis of human nature and identity. Fabio Del Greco, who plays Giuseppe, gives an engaging performance. Equally good is Chiara Pavoni, in the role of Giada Rubin and Roberto Pensa in the role of the tramp. Employee's Mystery is a film that addresses important themes in an original way, a psychological thriller that keeps the viewer glued to the screen until the end: a metaphor for contemporary society, in which people are increasingly monitored and conditioned by the media and technologies . It is a courageous and provocative work, which addresses important themes in an original way.
LANGUAGE: Italian
SUBTITLES: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese
Videodrome (1983)
Max Renn (James Woods), owner of a small cable TV station specializing in pornography and violence, picks up a pirate signal called “Videodrome,” broadcasting real torture and murder in a red room. Searching for the signal’s origin, he discovers that Videodrome is not just a program, but a bio-technological weapon causing a brain tumor capable of altering the perception of reality. In Videodrome, Max’s body begins to mutate, opening into VCR-like slits, while his mind no longer distinguishes between hallucination and truth.
David Cronenberg realizes the definitive film on the impact of media on flesh and psyche. It is a prophetic and disturbing horror: “Television is reality, and reality is less than television.” The film explores the fusion of man and technology in a visceral and sexual way. It is a hallucinated journey into the “New Flesh,” where the screen is no longer a window on the world, but an organ reprogramming us biologically.
Brazil (1985)
In a retro dystopian future, governed by an inefficient and totalitarian bureaucracy, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a dreaming clerk working at the Ministry of Information. A printing error caused by a squashed fly leads to the arrest and death of an innocent man mistaken for the terrorist Tuttle. In Brazil, Sam tries to correct the bureaucratic error and bumps into Jill, the woman of his dreams, ending up becoming an enemy of the State himself, persecuted by a grotesque system stifling all humanity under mountains of paperwork.
Terry Gilliam directs a visionary and delirious Orwellian satire. It is 1984 rewritten by Monty Python: scary and ridiculous at the same time. The set designs, a mix of pipes, concrete, and 40s technology, create a suffocating and unforgettable world. The film is a fierce critique of the control society and the banality of bureaucratic evil. The tragic and dreamlike ending is an anthem to the freedom of the mind as the only possible refuge against the tyranny of reality.
Dead Man’s Letters (1986)
After a nuclear holocaust caused by a computer error, the world is reduced to radioactive rubble and survivors live in the basement of a museum, establishing a new social order. An elderly scientist, Nobel Prize winner Larsen, tries to make sense of the catastrophe by writing mental letters to his son, whom he believes is still alive (but is likely dead). In Dead Man’s Letters (Quell’ultimo giorno – Lettere di un uomo morto), while humanity prepares to retreat into a final central bunker, Larsen decides to stay on the surface with a group of mute orphans, trying to transmit spiritual hope to them.
Directed by Konstantin Lopushansky, Tarkovsky’s former assistant, it is a Soviet post-apocalyptic film of rare visual power. Shot in a sepia and yellow tint evoking sickness and dust, it is an anguishing and philosophical work. There is no action, only the despair of a civilization that has killed itself. However, in the end, a note of transcendent hope emerges, suggesting that life will continue, perhaps in a new and purer form, even after the end of history.
They Live (1988)
John Nada (Roddy Piper), an unemployed worker wandering Los Angeles looking for a job, accidentally finds a box full of sunglasses. Putting them on, the world changes appearance: billboards reveal subliminal orders like “OBEY,” “CONSUME,” “MARRY AND REPRODUCE,” and many rich and powerful people appear as they really are: skeletal aliens who have colonized us. In They Live, Nada joins the resistance to destroy the antenna broadcasting the signal hiding the truth, starting an urban war with a shotgun.
John Carpenter signs one of the most effective and funny political satires of the 80s (and beyond). The dystopia here is the unbridled capitalism of the Reagan era: aliens are yuppies exploiting the earth like a business. The film is famous for the long fistfight between Nada and his friend Frank (who refuses to put on the glasses, a metaphor for the difficulty of making people see the truth who don’t want to see it). An absolute cult classic inviting us to look beyond the surface of consumerism.
Occidente
Drama film, by Jorge Acebo Canedo, 2019, Spain.
Torino Underground Cinefest 2020, Ponferrada International Film Festival 2019. A fugitive director in exile named H returns to the industrial city he fled from long ago, in an unknown time and place. Gloria, the worker he left behind and whom she loved, struggles to survive the monotony. But H, unable to comply, convinces her to flee beyond civilization, a place no one remembers.
Food for thought
Progress and the industrial revolution were supposed to bring a greater degree of civilization, but did that really happen? The idea of being a civilized and evolved society is dangerous because it prevents us from really becoming one. Politicians are only able to take into account gross domestic product and economic growth. The whole world is moving in the direction of an "alleged" civilization. But if one cannot see the disease of incivility then it is impossible to begin the healing process.
LANGUAGE: Spanish
SUBTITLES: Italian, English, French, German, Portuguese
Akira (1988)
In 2019, the metropolis of Neo-Tokyo is a powder keg of corruption, gang violence, and social unrest, built on the ashes of the old Tokyo destroyed by a mysterious explosion. During a clash, Tetsuo, a member of a biker gang, acquires devastating telekinetic powers after an accident. His growing instability threatens to awaken “Akira,” the entity that has already destroyed the world once.
A masterpiece of cyberpunk animation, Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira is an epic of staggering visual and thematic power. The film explores social collapse, youth rebellion, and post-human transcendence with rare complexity. Neo-Tokyo is not just a backdrop but a living character, a decaying urban organism that reflects the moral decadence of its inhabitants. Tetsuo’s transformation from a frustrated teenager to a destructive deity is a terrifying metaphor for uncontrolled power and alienation in a society on the brink of collapse. Akira defined the aesthetic of an entire genre and remains an unsurpassed benchmark.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
A “metal fetishist” deliberately injures himself by inserting scrap metal into his body. After being hit by a salaryman, the latter begins to undergo a terrifying metamorphosis: his flesh transforms into a tangle of wires, pipes, and rusted metal. His transformation leads him to an inevitable confrontation with the fetishist, in an industrial nightmare that fuses man and machine.
Shinya Tsukamoto unleashes a sensory assault with this cult film, a work of industrial body horror shot in a grainy and feverish black and white. Tetsuo is the literal representation of the individual’s absorption into urban and technological chaos. The dystopia here is not social or political, but biological and psychological. It is the nightmare of an industrial Tokyo that does not just surround its inhabitants but invades, contaminates, and transforms them into monstrous appendages of itself. An extreme, frantic, and unforgettable cinematic experience that explores the loss of humanity through the mutation of the flesh.
Delicatessen (1991)
In a dilapidated apartment building in post-apocalyptic France, food is so scarce that corn kernels are used as currency. The landlord, who is also the butcher of the ground-floor shop, has an ingenious way to supply his tenants with delicious meat: he hires unsuspecting handymen and then… butchers them. The arrival of a former clown looking for work, who falls in love with the butcher’s daughter, threatens to upset this precarious balance.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro create a black comedy as macabre as it is delightful. Delicatessen is a surreal fable that finds humor and poetry in the horror of survival. The claustrophobic setting of the apartment building becomes a microcosm of a society that has lost its moral compass, where cannibalism is accepted as a sad necessity. With its retro aesthetic, eccentric characters, and slapstick humor, the film transforms a chilling premise into a visually enchanting and bizarrely romantic tale about hope and human resilience.
Cube (1997)
Six strangers awaken in a cubic room with no memory of how they got there. Each face of the cube has a door leading to an identical room, but some are equipped with deadly traps. As they search for a way out, the group’s different skills and personalities clash, revealing that the real danger may not be the structure, but human nature itself.
Made on an incredibly low budget, Cube is a brilliant psychological thriller that turns its production limitation into its greatest strength. The single, claustrophobic setting becomes a powerful metaphor for bureaucracy, society, and existence itself: an incomprehensible and seemingly purposeless system, created by an unknown entity, that traps individuals and pits them against each other. The film is an exercise in pure tension, an existential nightmare that explores paranoia, desperation, and the fragility of human alliances in the face of an abstract and inescapable oppression.
Tao
Short film, sci-fi, by Edo Tagliavini, Italy.
In the near future, Europe and USA are united in a "Democratic Federation": the only way to become a member of this federation is to attend the TV show "Tao" and to fight against other competitors for the green card.
Food for thought
Tao means "the way", but not in reference to a goal. There is nothing to achieve, you just have to be here and now, and celebrate life. Life has no purpose or goal. The Tao refers to universal laws, not those made by man. The Tao is the only true law, the principle that holds existence together. It is a Cosmos that holds together an immense intrinsic order, the harmony of the Whole. The most suitable synonym for the word Tao is Nature with a capital N.
LANGUAGE: English
SUBTITLES: Italian
Gattaca (1997)
In the near future, society is divided between “Valids,” conceived through genetic engineering, and “In-Valids,” born naturally and considered genetically inferior. Vincent Freeman, an “In-Valid” with a serious heart defect, dreams of space travel, a privilege reserved only for Valids. To do so, he assumes the identity of a paralyzed Valid, entering a dangerous game of deception to escape genetic determinism.
Gattaca presents one of the most elegant and unsettling dystopias in cinema. It is not a world of overt violence and oppression, but of silent and scientifically ratified discrimination. Tyranny here is inscribed in DNA. Andrew Niccol’s film is a powerful reflection on human nature, free will, and the resilience of the spirit. In a world that believes genetics is destiny, Vincent’s struggle to overcome his imposed limits becomes an anthem to the strength of will and the conviction that we are not simply the sum of our genes.
Dark City (1998)
John Murdoch wakes up in a bathtub with no memory, in a city perpetually shrouded in night. Suspected of a series of murders, he discovers that the city is controlled by the “Strangers,” mysterious beings who stop time every night to alter reality and the inhabitants’ memories. Murdoch, immune to their power, begins a desperate search for the truth about his identity and the nature of the world around him.
Released a year before The Matrix, Alex Proyas’ film explores similar themes with a film noir aesthetic and an expressionist nightmare atmosphere. Dark City is a philosophical thriller investigating the nature of reality, memory, and the human soul. The city itself is a mental labyrinth, a prison built with artificial memories. Murdoch’s struggle is not just for survival, but for self-determination, to prove that identity is something more than a simple collection of implanted experiences. It is a visionary work that laid the groundwork for much of the science fiction of the following decade.
eXistenZ (1999)
In the near future, video games have become organic: consoles (“pods”) are made of flesh and connect directly to the nervous system via a “bioport” installed in the spine. Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the world’s greatest game designer, escapes an assassination attempt during the presentation of her new game, eXistenZ, and flees with security guard Ted Pikul (Jude Law). In eXistenZ, to verify if the game has been damaged, the two must connect and play it, entering a world where reality and fiction become indistinguishable.
David Cronenberg returns to the themes of Videodrome, updating them for the virtual reality era. It is a slimy and ironic psychological thriller, full of grotesque inventions (like the gun made of bones and teeth shooting human teeth). The film is a puzzle box disorienting the viewer, questioning the concept of free will: are we players or played characters? A profound work on our addiction to escaping into artificial worlds.
Battle Royale (2000)
In a totalitarian Japan of the future, the government passes a law to combat juvenile delinquency: each year, a high school class is randomly chosen, taken to a deserted island, and forced to kill each other until only one remains. Armed with random objects, the students must face their friends and classmates in a deadly game of survival.
Before The Hunger Games, there was Battle Royale. Kinji Fukasaku’s controversial masterpiece is a ruthless social critique and a brutal satire on authority, generational conflict, and media violence. Unlike its Hollywood successors, the film does not soften its premise. It is a visceral and psychologically devastating work that explores how social structures and friendship disintegrate under extreme pressure. Battle Royale is the uncelebrated progenitor of an entire genre, a film that had the courage to show the violence of its premise without filters, making it a powerful allegory of youth alienation.
The last man on earth
Horror, sci-fi, by Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow, United States / Italy, 1964.
Unnoticed at the time of its release and considered today a masterpiece, it is the first and best film adaptation of Richard Matheson's book of the same name, released in 1954. Shot back in 1964, in Rome, with an Italian-American co-production, this film is the progenitor of the zombie film genre, and precedes the following and more famous "Night of the Living Dead". Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is a scientist, the sole survivor of a global pandemic that has exterminated all of humanity. He is alone in the world and has seen all his loved ones die, including his wife and daughter. But the virus doesn't just kill: it transmorms undead vampires. At night, zombies come out of their shelters and roam the city in search of human flesh.
LANGUAGE: english
SUBTITLES: italian, spanish, german, portuguese
Donnie Darko (2001)
Donnie Darko is a troubled teenager who suffers from sleepwalking and visions of a man in a disturbing rabbit costume named Frank. Frank saves him from a bizarre accident when a jet engine crashes into his bedroom and reveals that the world will end in 28 days. Guided by Frank, Donnie commits a series of acts that disrupt his quiet suburban town.
Donnie Darko transforms the American suburbs into a psychological dystopia. Richard Kelly’s film is a labyrinth of philosophy, quantum physics, and adolescent angst that explores the themes of destiny and free will. The oppressive normality of suburban life, with its hypocritical rules and authority figures, becomes the backdrop for a cosmic existential crisis. It is an enigmatic and melancholic cult work that questions sanity, sacrifice, and the possibility of finding meaning in a seemingly chaotic universe.
Time of the Wolf (Le temps du loup) (2003)
Following an unspecified disaster that has caused civilization to collapse, a family seeks refuge in their country house, only to find it occupied by strangers. After a violent tragedy, the mother and her two children are forced to wander through a lawless world, where survival has erased all traces of humanity and compassion, searching for a glimmer of hope in an abandoned train station.
Michael Haneke offers a post-apocalyptic vision stripped of all romanticism or spectacle. Time of the Wolf is a dystopia of silence and indifference. The director never explains the cause of the disaster, focusing instead on the raw and realistic disintegration of social bonds. Without government, without rules, without information, human beings regress to a primordial state, governed by fear and the instinct for survival. It is a chilling and uncompromising analysis of the fragility of our civilization.
Primer (2004)
Two engineers, working on a startup project in their garage, accidentally discover a way to travel in time. Initially, they use their invention to profit on the stock market, but they soon realize that altering the past has complex and dangerous consequences. Their collaboration fractures under the weight of paranoia, distrust, and the paradoxes their own creation has unleashed.
Made on a budget of only $7,000, Primer is a triumph of independent cinema and one of the most realistic and intellectually rigorous depictions of time travel. Its strength lies not in special effects, but in its complex narrative structure and its dense, technical dialogue. Shane Carruth’s film shows how budget constraints can stimulate incredible innovation. The dystopia here is intimate and intellectual: it is not the world that is corrupt, but the human capacity to manage a power it cannot comprehend, leading to the disintegration of relationships and identity.
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
In a near-future California, America has lost the war on drugs. An undercover cop, Bob Arctor, infiltrates a community of addicts to investigate the spread of a powerful new substance called “Substance D.” Becoming an addict himself, his identity begins to fragment to the point that, as agent “Fred,” he is ordered to spy on… himself.
Richard Linklater adapts Philip K. Dick’s novel using the rotoscoping technique, where animation is drawn over live-action footage. This stylistic choice is not a mere whim but a perfect visual metaphor for the paranoia, surveillance, and loss of identity that permeate the film. The world of A Scanner Darkly is a hallucinatory dystopia, where reality is constantly mediated and distorted by technology and drugs. The animation creates a surreal patina that makes it impossible to distinguish between what is real and what is perceived, dragging the viewer into the same spiral of confusion as the protagonist.
The Lost Poet
Drama, by Fabio Del Greco, Italy, 2024.
Dante Mezzadri wants to see an old friend, nicknamed the Iguana, whom he has lost sight of for many years, and who has managed to turn their shared youthful passion for poetry into a job, becoming a famous writer and poet. The man escapes from his bourgeois life and his wife to live homeless on the Roman coast, printing and trying to sell his poetry collections. At night he sleeps in a park of old carnival floats, inside a papier-mâché tank, and waits for the opportunity to meet his old friend, who however never shows up for appointments in the places they frequented when they were young, now in ruins. Dante's poetry books do not interest anyone and to support himself he is forced to "change product": he starts selling the infamous "cannibal pill" on behalf of young drug dealers, a new drug that sells like hot cakes and causes sensory and consumerist ecstasy. However, he realizes that this powerful drug is very dangerous for those who take it, he comes into conflict with his ethical conscience and throws all the pills into the sea. However, the dealers want to collect their money.
Shot over a period of 2 years, the film is a reflection on the cultural and artistic rubble of the society in which the protagonist lives, in an increasingly mechanized, consumerist and arid world. Dante Mezzadri is yet another human being who has renounced his inspiration and his creativity, but unlike many he is not willing to give his life to a system that distances him from his true identity. The physical world around him, however, seems constructed in such a way that it seems impossible to escape from this "invisible cage". The enthusiasm of the people he meets is ignited only by sensory gratification, by unreal visions of personal affirmation and success, by "metaverses" that offer an escape into an illusory and destructive reality. The poet's house on the coast, where he met with his friends as a young man, is just a pile of abandoned rubble. What happened to all those who wanted to become poets and ended up becoming something else? Are there internal forces with which that house can be "rebuilt"?
LANGUAGE: Italian
SUBTITLES: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese
Children of Men (2006)
In 2027, the world has plunged into chaos after nearly two decades of human infertility. Humanity is on the brink of extinction. In a Great Britain that has become a police state hunting down refugees, a disillusioned bureaucrat is tasked with protecting a miraculously pregnant young woman and escorting her to safety, becoming the unlikely guardian of the last hope for the future.
Alfonso Cuarón directs a work of staggering power and urgency. Children of Men is a dystopia of the present, a film that uses its science fiction premise as a heartbreaking metaphor for the loss of hope and the refugee crisis. Shot in an almost documentary style, with long and virtuosic tracking shots that immerse the viewer in the chaos, the film is a visceral experience. Its depiction of a world without a future is a powerful warning about the fragility of our civilization and the need to protect hope, even when it seems lost.
District 9 (2009)
When an alien spaceship stalls over Johannesburg, humans discover a population of malnourished extraterrestrials on board. Confined to a ghetto called District 9, the aliens, nicknamed “prawns,” are treated with contempt and exploited. A bureaucrat in charge of their relocation is accidentally exposed to an alien substance and begins to transform, becoming the most wanted man and the only one able to understand their situation.
Produced by Peter Jackson, Neill Blomkamp’s film is a powerful and original allegory of apartheid and xenophobia. Using a mockumentary style and reportage-like realism, District 9 flawlessly blends action and social commentary. The dystopia here is rooted in the real history of segregation, and the suffering of the aliens reflects that of countless oppressed populations. It is an intelligent and spectacular film that uses science fiction to talk about our world, forcing us to confront our prejudices and the inhumanity of which we are capable.
Monsters (2010)
Six years after a NASA probe crashed in Mexico, half the country has been quarantined as an “Infected Zone” due to the appearance of giant alien creatures. An American photojournalist agrees to escort his boss’s daughter through the dangerous zone to bring her safely back to the United States. Their journey transforms into an odyssey through a landscape as beautiful as it is lethal.
Gareth Edwards demonstrates that with a minimal budget, one can create cinema of great emotional and visual impact. Monsters is another example of how production constraints can generate creativity. Instead of focusing on the spectacle of the monsters, the film prioritizes the relationship between the two protagonists. The creatures remain in the background, a constant but often unseen presence, serving as a powerful allegory for borders, immigration, and the fear of the “other.” The real “monster” of the title is not the alien creature, but the wall that divides two worlds.
Never Let Me Go (2010)
Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth grow up together in an idyllic English boarding school, Hailsham. Their life is protected and seemingly normal, but they soon discover a chilling truth: they are clones, created for the sole purpose of donating their organs once they reach young adulthood. As they face their destiny, their bond of friendship and love is put to the test.
Based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go is a dystopia of heartbreaking sadness and delicacy. The horror is not in physical violence, but in the silent resignation to a cruel fate. The film explores deep themes such as identity, the soul, and the meaning of a life lived knowing it is destined to be short and instrumental. It is a powerful critique of a utilitarian society that commodifies existence itself, and a moving reflection on the fragility of human bonds in the face of the inevitable.
The Sands
Science fiction, by Noah Paganotto, Argentina, 2022.
In an undetermined location on planet Earth, in an unknown time, Zoilo lives with his family in a wasteland surrounded by ruins. They live uprooted, without mothers, knowing that pregnancy for women is synonymous with death. For them there is only one collective routine; keep the fire alive. Only Zoilo escapes this logic, observing, intrigued, details that others do not see and therefore do not appreciate. Zoilo's personal search for answers will increase the differences with his relatives, increasingly revealing an empty world of interiority.
Avant-garde film that burns slowly in the first part and then reveals in the second the profound conflicts of a family prisoner of archaic beliefs. It is a dystopian and visionary work, with wonderful photography and images of rare power that allow us to grasp the depth of the story and its poetic potential. The faces of the actors, especially the protagonist boy, are perfect. The Sands metaphorically represents the world we live in: an alienated society, where what keeps us alive is demonized and blamed for death. In opposition to the fast pace of the typical mainstream film, The Sands is a meditative journey into the depths of images. The film was shot in natural environments in the city of Necochea, Buenos Aires province, Argentina.
LANGUAGE: Spanish
SUBTITLES: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese
Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
In 1983, inside the mysterious Arboria Institute, a young woman with psychic powers, Elena, is held captive by the sinister Dr. Barry Nyle. Subjected to therapy sessions that are actually sadistic experiments, Elena tries to escape this psychedelic prison, while the dark past of Nyle and the institute slowly comes to light, revealing a nightmare of mind control and failed transcendence.
Panos Cosmatos’s debut is a hypnotic and terrifying visual experience, a tribute to the science fiction and horror cinema of the ’70s and ’80s. Beyond the Black Rainbow is a retro-futuristic dystopia, a psychedelic trip that immerses the viewer in a dreamlike and oppressive atmosphere. With its color-saturated aesthetic, slow and contemplative pace, and synth soundtrack, the film creates a unique and unsettling world. It is an exploration of control, consciousness, and the dangers of a spiritual quest that turns into tyranny.
Antiviral (2012)
In a future obsessed with fame, a clinic sells fans the diseases of their favorite celebrities. Syd March is an employee who, to make extra money, smuggles these viruses in his own body to sell on the black market. When he injects himself with the virus that has just killed superstar Hannah Geist, he finds himself with a deadly illness and becomes the target of collectors and fanatics, forced to unravel the mystery of Hannah’s death to save himself.
Brandon Cronenberg, son of a master, directs a work that is a worthy heir to his father’s cinema. Antiviral is a glacial and disturbing satire on celebrity culture and the commodification of the body. In this dystopia, the cult of image becomes a literal pathology. The body is no longer private but a product whose very biology—its viruses, its cells—can be bought and consumed. It is a ruthless analysis of a society where the desire for connection transforms into a form of biological cannibalism.
Snowpiercer (2013)
In 2031, a failed experiment to stop global warming has plunged the world into a new ice age. The only survivors travel aboard the Snowpiercer, a perpetually moving train that circles the globe. Inside, a rigid social hierarchy sees the poor crammed into inhumane conditions at the tail, while the elite live in luxury at the front. A revolt is inevitable.
South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) creates a powerful and visually spectacular class allegory. The linear and claustrophobic space of the train becomes a microcosm of capitalist society, with each car representing a different social stratum. The struggle to advance towards the front of the train is a literal representation of class struggle. Snowpiercer is an intelligent and brutal action film that combines a compelling narrative with sharp social criticism, questioning the nature of power, control, and revolution.
Under the Skin (2013)
An alien entity takes the form of an attractive woman and drives through the streets of Scotland in a van, luring lonely men. Her victims are taken to a surreal and dark place, where they are consumed. However, through her interactions with humans, the alien begins to experience fragments of empathy and to question her own nature and mission.
Jonathan Glazer directs an enigmatic and visually stunning work of science fiction. Under the Skin adopts an alien gaze to examine humanity from an external and ruthless perspective. Shot partly with hidden cameras and non-professional actors, the film captures the banality, cruelty, and vulnerability of our species. It is a profound meditation on identity, loneliness, and the nature of empathy, a sensory cinematic experience that gets under the skin and leaves the viewer questioning what it truly means to be human.
Coherence (2013)
During a dinner party among friends, the passing of a comet causes a blackout and a series of inexplicable events. When they discover that the only other lit house in the neighborhood is an exact copy of theirs, with alternate versions of themselves inside, the evening turns into a nightmare of paranoia and distrust. Relationships shatter as the characters confront the infinite possibilities of quantum physics.
Coherence is a micro-budget science fiction masterpiece that demonstrates how a great idea and a brilliant script can overcome any production limitation. Shot almost entirely in a single location and based on the actors’ improvisation, the film transforms a normal dinner party into a labyrinth of parallel realities. It is a tense and intelligent psychological thriller that explores themes of identity, choices, and the fragile nature of reality, showing that the most terrifying dystopia can arise from the cracks in our familiar world.
The Lobster (2015)
In a dystopian society, being single is illegal. Single people are arrested and transferred to a hotel where they have 45 days to find a partner. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choice. A man, abandoned by his wife, tries to survive in this absurd system, first by trying to conform and then by fleeing to join a group of rebellious loners in the woods, where the opposite rule applies: love is forbidden.
Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos creates a surreal and razor-sharp satire on social conventions and the pressure to conform. The genius of The Lobster lies in presenting two opposing but equally tyrannical dystopias: that of forced coupling and that of forced solitude. With its deadpan style and black humor, the film criticizes not a single ideology, but the very nature of rigid social systems that stifle individuality and the complexity of human emotions. It is a brilliant and bizarre reflection on love, loneliness, and the absurdity of the rules that govern our lives.
Possessor (2020)
Tasya Vos is an assassin working for a secret organization that uses brain-implant technology to “possess” the bodies of other people and use them to commit murders. However, each mission distances her further from her true identity. When a routine assignment goes wrong, she finds herself trapped in the mind of a man who begins to fight back to regain control of his own body.
Brandon Cronenberg continues his father’s legacy with a sci-fi thriller that is the terrifying evolution of contemporary anxieties about corporate surveillance and the loss of identity. Possessor represents the endpoint of dystopian control: the body is no longer just monitored or commodified, but becomes mere hardware, a vehicle that can be hijacked. The horror here is the total annihilation of the self by a corporate entity. With its visceral violence and cold, sterile cinematography, the film is a chilling analysis of dehumanization in the age of invasive technology.
Vesper (2022)
In a post-apocalyptic future, Earth’s ecosystem has collapsed. Humanity survives in fortified citadels, while the few remaining outside struggle for survival in a hostile world. Vesper, a 13-year-old girl with extraordinary bio-hacking skills, cares for her paralyzed father. An encounter with a mysterious woman from a citadel offers her the chance for a different future but drags her into a dangerous intrigue.
Vesper is a visually stunning and thematically rich work of “bio-punk” science fiction. Unlike many post-apocalyptic dystopias, the film does not focus on desolation, but on a world where nature, though toxic and strange, is lush and full of a new, bizarre life. It is an ecological fable that explores class inequality and the power of scientific knowledge as a tool of rebellion. The film’s organic and fairy-tale aesthetic makes it one of the most original and fascinating visions in recent science fiction.
The New Fears of a Dystopian World
It is no mystery that dystopia has returned to the attention of the world today. The novel George Orwell’s 1984 is again one of the most widely read bestsellers in Western countries. The main cause of these new negative perceptions and fears is probably the great technological and digital transformation we are experiencing and the emergence of political leaders who are unable to avoid crises of all kinds, which occur rapidly.
To these changes was added the covid 19 pandemic that created in the streets of the world those scenarios that we used to see only in science fiction films such as The Last Man on Earth. Deserted streets and home isolation for the entire world population, curfew, social distancing and fear of the other, alienation and fear of disease.
The Birth of Dystopian Cinema
There are countless films that have used settings of this type, starting for example with dystopian horror interpretations such as George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Or the more recent Contagion, which deals more directly with the theme of the virus. To confirm the interest and fascination of filmmakers for a dystopian and negative world is the large amount of short films and independent films made in the last two years on the subject during the global lockdown.
The Man Against Society
Unlike the theater which focuses more on the interpersonal conflict between the characters, unlike literature and the novel capable of deep inner investigations, cinema gives its best when man fights against external perhaps. Obviously this is not always true.
There are many filmmakers who have made films that are completely focused on inner or interpersonal conflict. A good script encompasses all three levels of conflict in its development. But it remains evident that the external conflict, the protagonist who fights against the external world and society, is the one most suited to the cinematographic work.
Many great directors, starting with Fritz Lang, have carved their testimonies into films that recount their experiences in twentieth-century dictatorships. Horrors and dystopian societies that now belong to the past and to history. But the dystopian world in movies and novels is always something that has yet to manifest itself, a bad omen that belongs to the future.
1984, George Orwell’s Novel
The most famous dystopian work of art with which the very concept of dystopia is often identified and 1984 by George Orwell. Big Brother has become famous all over the world and never ceases to be impressively topical. Perhaps because Orwell has centered in this novel one of the fundamental knots of human existence: the instinct of overwhelming the dark powers towards citizens. A phenomenon that we can observe globally at all latitudes.
Fortunately, it is a phenomenon that also has a positive function: that of increasing people’s rebellion and awareness of those who want to dominate and exploit them. The more the dystopian and violent world, the more it generates a better world. In literary and cinematographic works, however, the happy ending is not so frequent.
In 1984 Winston Smith surrenders to the brainwashing of the totalitarian Big Brother regime. In many films the protagonist does not survive the monstrosity of dystopia. But fortunately, reality confirms that the opposite is true. Attempts to eliminate the dignity and freedom of the individual fail and help create a better world, even if the price is high.
Recovering the Inner Power
If freedom and well-being were not already in our power now, we should always hope for someone willing to grant them to us. And even if things went well, we would still live in fear of losing wealth and freedom due to an unfavorable change in those in power. This is the life that leads to slavery and the psycho-penitentiary: the hope of having something better and the fear of losing what you think you already have. But handing over freedom and wealth into the hands of the outside world already constitutes a state of slavery in itself.
A vision curated by a filmmaker, not an algorithm
In this video I explain our vision
