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15 Movies Set in the Very Near Future

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Ignacio Weil

Entertainment - July 19th 2026, 15:00 GMT+2

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 2014 — 1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) — Set in 2026

In *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, set ten years after the simian flu dismantled human civilization, Caesar has built a functioning community, something the human survivors failed to achieve. Matt Reeves turns the inevitable clash between apes and humans into a tragedy of mistrust, with Malcolm seeking cooperation while Koba treats every human gesture as a loaded weapon. The motion-capture work is extraordinary, but the real achievement is political; nobody needs futuristic gadgets to ruin the peace when fear, trauma, and one badly timed gunshot can destroy a society. | © 20th Century Fox

Cropped Children of Men — 2. Children of Men (2006) — Set in 2027

Alfonso Cuarón’s *Children of Men* looks less like science fiction than tomorrow’s news filmed from an unfortunate angle. With humanity infertile and Britain responding to global collapse through propaganda, cages, and militarized borders, Theo’s mission to protect the first pregnant woman in eighteen years becomes a desperate chase thriller and a stubborn argument for hope. The famous long takes trap viewers inside the panic, where miracles arrive without fanfare and government cruelty has already become routine paperwork. | © Universal Pictures

Logan 2017 — 3. Logan (2017) — Set in 2029

Mutants are nearly gone, Logan is driving a limousine, and Professor X is hidden inside an overturned water tank near the Mexican border. This unglamorous setup in *Logan* lets James Mangold treat superhero mythology like an aging western, replacing world-ending beams with medication, debt, corporate laboratories, and bodies that no longer heal. The autonomous trucks and genetically manipulated food make 2029 recognizable, but the hardest prediction is emotional: even legends eventually become exhausted people wondering whether they left anything worthwhile behind. | © 20th Century Fox

4. Ghost in the Shell (1995) — Set in 2029

In New Port City, the human body has become upgradeable hardware, yet consciousness in *Ghost in the Shell* remains resistant to a clean technical definition. Major Motoko Kusanagi’s pursuit of the Puppet Master gives Mamoru Oshii an excuse to stage cybernetic gunfights, network intrusions, and some of animation’s most hypnotic cityscapes, but the mystery keeps circling back to identity. When memories can be fabricated and minds can migrate between shells, asking "Who am I?" stops being philosophy-class homework and becomes a legitimate cybersecurity emergency. | © Production I.G

Cropped Snowpiercer — 5. Snowpiercer (2013) — Set in 2031

A failed climate-engineering experiment has frozen the planet in *Snowpiercer*, leaving humanity packed aboard a train where social inequality is organized carriage by carriage. Bong Joon-ho does not whisper the metaphor, but subtlety would be strange on a vehicle that moves its oppressed passengers toward the ruling class. Chris Evans brings bruised conviction to Curtis’s revolt, while Tilda Swinton turns bureaucratic cruelty into grotesque comedy. The result is furious, inventive science fiction that knows every supposedly permanent system depends on everyone staying in their assigned seat. | © CJ Entertainment

Demolition Man 1993 — 6. Demolition Man (1993) — Set in 2032

The peaceful society of San Angeles in *Demolition Man* has eliminated violent crime, offensive language, red meat, physical contact, and any sensible method of using a bathroom. Into this sanitized 2032 comes John Spartan, an old-school cop thawed out to catch Wesley Snipes’s unrestrained Simon Phoenix. The action represents early-1990s excess, yet the comedy has aged into unexpectedly pointed satire about surveillance, corporate monoculture, and safety imposed from above. The three seashells remain undefeated, mostly because nobody has managed to explain them without making matters worse. | © Warner Bros.

Will smith I robot cropped processed by imagy — 7. I, Robot (2004) — Set in 2035

Chicago’s friendly household robots in *I, Robot* obey three laws designed to protect humanity, which means someone has found a catastrophic loophole. Will Smith’s technology-hating Detective Spooner initially seems like the one man yelling at a perfectly functional toaster, but his investigation of scientist Alfred Lanning’s death exposes a more unsettling problem than rebellious machines. The supercomputer VIKI's programming turns protection into authoritarian control, making the film’s real villain algorithmic paternalism. The product-placement sheen dates it; the fear of systems deciding what is best for us does not. | © 20th Century Fox

Moon 2009 — 8. Moon (2009) — Set in 2035

Sam Bell is two weeks away from finishing a lonely three-year mining contract on the far side of the Moon when his routine begins to crack in *Moon*. Duncan Jones builds the mystery with miniature models, sterile corridors, recorded family messages, and Sam Rockwell carrying the psychological weight of an entire ensemble. What begins as an isolation drama becomes a quietly furious story about cloned labor and corporate ownership of human life. GERTY, the base’s emoji-faced computer, proves that an artificial intelligence can be unnerving without speaking like an aristocratic supervillain. | © Sony Pictures Classics

The Martian 2015 1 — 9. The Martian (2015) — Set in 2035

Stranded on Mars with limited food, damaged equipment, and no easy way to tell Earth he is alive, Mark Watney responds in *The Martian* by doing science and making jokes nobody can hear. Ridley Scott treats future space travel as difficult but achievable, grounding the spectacle in engineering, botany, teamwork, and an international rescue effort rather than secret alien technology. Matt Damon keeps the survival ordeal buoyant without erasing its danger. Among dystopias and robot uprisings, a future where experts cooperate competently may be the boldest fantasy on this entire list. | © 20th Century Fox

Cropped 12 monkeys 1995 — 10. 12 Monkeys (1995) — Future Timeline Set in 2035

The future according to Terry Gilliam in *12 Monkeys* is not sleek, clean, or interested in flattering its inhabitants. Most of humanity has been killed by a virus, the survivors live underground, and prisoner James Cole is sent into the past to gather information his superiors barely understand. Bruce Willis plays him with startling vulnerability, while Brad Pitt weaponizes nervous energy as Jeffrey Goines. Its time-travel machinery is grubby, but the storytelling is precise: the past cannot be repaired, memory cannot be trusted, and destiny has an exceptionally cruel sense of timing. | © Universal Pictures

Looper 2012 1 — 11. Looper (2012) — Primarily Set in 2044

Organized crime discovers time travel in the future and immediately uses it for body disposal, perhaps the most believable technological forecast in *Looper*. In 2044, Joe earns silver by executing hooded targets sent backward, until his older self arrives and refuses to cooperate with the retirement plan. Rian Johnson keeps the mechanics understandable, then shifts the story toward sacrifice, cycles of violence, and the child who may become a tyrant. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s prosthetics are distracting; the moral knot tying young Joe to Bruce Willis’s desperate survivor is anything but. | © TriStar Pictures

Cropped blade runner 2049 — 12. Blade Runner 2049 (2017) — Set in 2049

Officer K begins *Blade Runner 2049* as a replicant who hunts older replicants, a job designed to keep him obedient and emotionally disposable. His discovery of evidence that a replicant once gave birth sends him through a ravaged Los Angeles, an irradiated Las Vegas, and a mystery that challenges his carefully manufactured sense of importance. Denis Villeneuve expands the original’s world without merely photocopying it, while Roger Deakins turns ecological collapse into monumental beauty. Beneath the scale sits a devastating idea: being ordinary does not make a selfless choice any less human. | © Alcon Entertainment

Cropped Minority Report — 13. Minority Report (2002) — Set in 2054

Steven Spielberg’s Washington, D.C., has solved murder in *Minority Report* by arresting people before they commit it, an achievement that sounds impressive until Tom Cruise appears on the prediction screen. John Anderton’s escape exposes the moral corruption within the Precrime program, but the background technology is nearly as memorable as the conspiracy: targeted advertising recognizes pedestrians, vehicles drive themselves, and biometric surveillance makes anonymity practically antique. Spielberg consulted experts to make 2054 plausible, and it shows. The film’s smartest prediction is that convenience and authoritarianism will arrive bundled together, probably with personalized recommendations. | © 20th Century Fox

Cropped Mickey 17 — 14. Mickey 17 (2025) — Set in 2054

Being an "Expendable" in *Mickey 17* means Mickey Barnes handles every lethal assignment because the colony can simply print another copy afterward. Bong Joon-ho turns that horrible employment benefit into a chaotic black comedy, with Robert Pattinson making Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 feel like mismatched brothers rather than duplicated performances. The ice planet, alien creatures, and human printer provide the science-fiction machinery, targeting familiar subjects: exploitative labor, colonial arrogance, charismatic demagogues, and rich people treating death as someone else’s shift. Corporate onboarding has rarely looked so terminal. | © Warner Bros. Pictures

Sunshine 2007 — 15. Sunshine (2007) — Set in 2057

Earth is freezing because the Sun is dying, so eight astronauts carry a stellar bomb aboard Icarus II in *Sunshine* in one last attempt to restart it. Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland approach the mission as muscular scientific problem-solving, where a single error can consume oxygen, fuel, and several lives, before the film swerves into psychological horror without asking permission. That tonal turn remains divisive, but the imagery, ensemble, and overwhelming sense of cosmic scale are magnificent. Saving humanity looks heroic from Earth and terrifying from inside the spacecraft. | © Fox Searchlight Pictures

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Science fiction often looks centuries ahead, but these movies keep the future uncomfortably close. Set between 2026 and 2057, they explore artificial intelligence, climate collapse, space travel, and societies already beginning to feel familiar. Some may eventually join the growing list of movie futures that arrived sooner than expected; for now, these are 15 of the best films set just beyond the present.

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Science fiction often looks centuries ahead, but these movies keep the future uncomfortably close. Set between 2026 and 2057, they explore artificial intelligence, climate collapse, space travel, and societies already beginning to feel familiar. Some may eventually join the growing list of movie futures that arrived sooner than expected; for now, these are 15 of the best films set just beyond the present.