10 Sci-Fi Movies That Take Place In A Future That Has Already Passed

Sci-fi movies love to predict the future. Whether it be by laying out the doom and gloom of a post-apocalyptic landscape, or wondering what will be in vogue in a distant time, these films imagine the possible destinies of society. It’s fun to look back at how much they got wrong — or right — when we pass these potential futures in our real world’s timeline. Seriously, we could have had hoverboards and replicants by now. Instead, we argue with strangers online and struggle to find a Wi-Fi signal.

Surprisingly, “The Simpsons” freakishly predicted the future better than most sci-fi movies, which says something about the oracular abilities of Springfield’s beloved goofball family (and maybe we need to find out who’s the time traveler in the writers’ room). Regardless, let’s take a look back at a few sci-fi films set in a time that has already passed, to see how society was depicted versus what actually happened in reality. 

Before any billionaires misunderstand the purpose of this piece: this isn’t an invitation, nor a challenge, to accelerate society’s downfall. Everyone is doing a stellar job already, without having to use any horrifying examples from the movies, so please — no more.

Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” is widely regarded as the best sci-fi movie of all time, exploring a society in which tech corporations run rampant, capitalism reigns supreme, and the world itself looks less alive than ever. It’s an era whereby humanoids known as replicants exist, and Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard is hired to decommission several of them. How does one identify a replicant, since they look like any ordinary human being? By conducting a vaguely-defined empathy test, since the answer should expose who is human and who isn’t.

“Blade Runner” takes place in 2019. While there weren’t any replicants running around then (or now), there are some parts of this film that feel eerie in retrospect. It nails the fact that Big Tech would run the world in a reckless fashion, valuing profit over people. No one stops to consider if something is a good idea or what the consequences may be, as everyone charges ahead in a comical race to the bottom.

A major theme in “Blade Runner” revolves around what it means to be human. It’s more of a philosophical discussion than a scientific one, but it forces us to ponder a very important question: How many “real” human beings would fail empathy tests nowadays? Has this ability become nothing more than some “tears in the rain,” to quote Rutger Hauer’s forlorn antihero, Roy Batty?

In “Back the Future Part II,” Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) convinces Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker (Elisabeth Shue), to go to 2015 to prevent their eventual son, Marty Jr., from committing a crime that threatens to ruin the good McFly name. So, off into the time-traveling DeLorean they go to change the future!

What Marty finds in 2015 was probably everyone’s wildest dream when “Back to the Future Part II” was released in 1989. From hoverboards to power-lace shoes, no lawyers, hydrating pizzas, and the release of “Jaws 19,” it looked like quite the time to be alive. Honestly, who couldn’t do with a hoverboard, especially considering the ever-shifting price of gas? Also, that hydrating pizza looks like a swell (and compact) idea, though one wonders what type of chemicals and preservatives might be in it.

As discovered, however, much of how “Back to the Future Part II” imagined 2015 didn’t come to fruition. Hoverboards aren’t readily available, lawyers are still around, and we haven’t even received “Jaws 5” yet (arguably, the greatest crime in cinema). Having said that, the movie predicted the prevalence of biometrics, as well as the regular use of video calls. Now, if only fashion could become as exquisite as it was here. The movie is still peak chic.

There’s a saying (or at least there should be one): “Put on a John Carpenter movie, good or bad, and you’ll never go wrong.” This holds true for 1981’s “Escape from New York.” The sci-fi action film takes place in 1997, as Manhattan becomes a maximum security prison once crime spirals out of control. After President John Harker (Donald Pleasance) lands in the city following a terrorist coup of Air Force One, it’s up to the eye-patch-wearing tough guy Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) to be a bad enough dude to rescue the president.

Manhattan didn’t become a prison in 1997, although anyone who is stuck in city traffic might be tempted to tell you that prison feels like a better option. The world never turned out quite like Carpenter imagined, however. Sure, lawlessness still happens in Manhattan — much like in any major city in the world — but no one has effectively cordoned off the city and turned it into no man’s land. Yet.

“Escape from New York” received a sequel in 1996’s “Escape from L.A.,” which takes place in the year 2013. This time, it centers on a plot device known as the Sword of Damocles, which is a system capable of shutting down electronic devices around the world. While an electronic magnetic pulse (EMP) is able to do this, it’s far more likely that Instagram will go down thanks to the latest Cloudflare outage.

The complicated “Terminator” franchise timeline makes very little sense. It’s all over the place, with the proverbial Judgement Day shifting its schedule around more times than the doomsday picnic on “Parks on Rec.” In 2009’s “Terminator Salvation,” Judgement Day kicks off in 2003 and the machines take over the world. However, the actual setting for the movie is in 2018, as John Connor (Christian Bale) leads the Resistance in the bitter war against Skynet.

There was no machine apocalypse in 2018. Right now, the toaster still loves us and hasn’t tried to maim anybody for daring to scream at it. However, post-2020 has seen a dramatic acceleration in the development and usage of artificial intelligence — to a degree that’s frightening everyone over what the future holds in terms of both work and life.

To make matters even more concerning, these AI systems are reaching a point where they refuse to shut down, or follow instructions from the people who supposedly control them. As per Live Science, some OpenAI models aren’t playing nice. Maybe in typical “Terminator” fashion, “Salvation” flubbed the timeline and the apocalypse was never meant to be in full swing in 2018, but it’s still on the way. Does anybody have John Connor’s Instagram handle?

William Gibson might not be Nostradamus, but the author has nailed a lot about humanity’s complex relationship with technology. In 1995’s “Johnny Mnemonic,” an adaptation of Gibson’s short story, the world lives in a highly connected virtual reality that results in a strange disease called Nerve Attenuation Syndrome (NAS) — essentially, information overload for people. The film sees Keanu Reeves play a data courier named Johnny who transports sensitive data in a brain implant for his clients. Johnny finds himself in a perilous situation when one assignment contains too much data, and he needs to offload it before it’s too late.

The events of “Johnny Mnemonic” take place in 2021. While neural implants have been around for some time, humanity is nowhere near acting like a walking hard drive to transport confidential data for others. The brain has the capacity to store info (and the classic “sneakernet” method is still available, where physical drives are smuggled by hand), but the owner is fully aware of what’s entering their mind.

Where “Johnny Mnemonic” gets it right, though, is in the concept. The Internet offers many benefits to society, but it’s also created a problem where people feel the need to be always online. A lot of individuals struggle to disconnect, leading to a number of persisting issues. As a society, we are bombarded by way too much information; this results in a sensory overload that could end up having a detrimental effect on us. Basically, turn off your phone for your own good.

Michael Bay’s “The Island” has a most wicked premise (even if it was stolen from 1979’s “Parts: The Clonus Horror). In 2019, a group of people stay together in a compound, ostensibly because the outside world has become uninhabitable. There’s a glimmer of hope in the distance: each week, one of them gets chosen to go off and live happily ever after on another island. Well, that’s what they think, as Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) discover they’re actually clones who are bred for organ harvesting (and other purposes) by the wealthy originals who participate in this controversial program.

Put aside all the trademark Bayhem — i.e., excessive explosions and over-the-top action — because “The Island” dishes up some serious food for thought in terms of morality and ethics. If those with means had the chance, would they clone themselves and unlock the ability to prolong their lives by exploiting these clones? You bet they would.

The good news is that this hasn’t happened … yet. While there are scientists exploring the possibilities and a primate was successfully cloned in 2020, it’s still not on the cards for humanity. If it was, the usual suspects will be blabbing about how they’ll be first in line. As of right now, don’t sweat the possibilities.

Norman Jewison’s “Rollerball” — a great sci-fi movie that’s for fans of “The Running Man” — was released in 1975, but it explored what society might look like in 2018. Here, big corporations rule the world and don’t like dissenters. The way in which they keep the population happy and in line is by giving them violent entertainment — like the titular Rollerball. After all, nothing says bliss more than watching other people pummel each other in front of bloodthirsty crowds. It worked for the Romans.

To a degree, “Rollerball” hit the nail on the head in terms of what appeals to society. Consider: modern-day audiences love to watch brutal sports. This is why boxing and MMA continue to be lucrative avenues for advertisers, competitors, and promotions. In December 2025, nearly 33 million people watched Anthony Joshua change Jake Paul’s chin from a solid into a liquid. That’s a hint.

In addition, “Rollerball” predicted how sportswashing would become more prevalent in our future. So many countries play sleight-of-hand tricks with the world, offering them sporting spectacles to divert the attention away from their real issues. It continues to be a controversial practice, but there’s no disputing that it happens.

In Geoff Murphy’s “Freejack,” the elite from 2009 discover they can live forever by electronically transferring their consciousness into other bodies. However, there’s a problem: most of society isn’t healthy. The solution is to hire time-travelers to go back to the past and snatch people before their deaths, bringing them into the future for the procedure. In the movie, racecar driver Alex Furlong (Emilio Estevez) gets pulled into the future, but he manages to end up on the run rather than serve as a host body.

Unfortunately, time travel still doesn’t exist — unless someone counts looking over their Facebook memories. No one has figured out a way to move forward or backward through time, so we are all doomed to live in the current timeline. No exceptions.

In terms of transferring human consciousness, that isn’t happening anytime soon, either. While there are people paying lots of money to research firms to try and digitize and upload their brains into the cloud in the future, no one knows how to upload consciousness yet. The reason for this is simple: it’s impossible to define consciousness, much less every nuance that makes someone human.

In the world of sci-fi, Arnold Schwarzenegger is happy to keep going toe-to-toe with the Predators, but this isn’t his only rodeo in the genre. In 2000’s “The 6th Day,” directed by Roger Spottiswoode, Schwarzenegger’s Adam Gibson returns home to find a clone in his place. Keep in mind that this all takes place in a version of 2015 where animal cloning is allowed but human cloning is still illegal. Ultimately, Adam is pulled into a tangled web, where he needs to get to the bottom of what’s going on while also keeping his family out of trouble.

As with any story dealing with replicated people, “The 6th Day” opens up the conversation about the ethics and regulations around human cloning. It addresses topics such as consent, as well as what a clone can be used to do — for better or worse.

While human cloning isn’t happening right now, there is the very real issue of deepfakes and artificial intelligence being used to besmirch reputations, commit fraud, and outright lie about facts. It’s becoming difficult to discern what’s real and what isn’t — which is also one of the sub-themes tackled in “The 6th Day.” There’s a slippery slope between technological advancement and careless exploitation, and while these developments might seem brilliant on the surface level, one wonders what’s being done to prevent bad actors from wreaking havoc. 

On a positive note, the self-driving cars from the movie are real. Mostly.

The Spierig Brothers’ “Daybreakers” is an underrated sci-film from the 2010s that deserves another watch. It’s a vampire movie that also introduces a novel concept about what happens when the human blood supply goes short and vampires are left parched. In 2019, a contaminated vampire bat transforms most of the world into vampires. With fewer humans around to feed from, the vampire society needs to search for those rare ones left, study their blood, and figure out an alternative before catastrophe strikes. Not everyone is about do what’s right for the greater good, though.

While humans didn’t turn into vampires in 2019, it’s widely believed that bats (legendarily associated with vampires) played a role in how COVID-19 was spread, which was first reported in, yes, 2019. That’s a little uncanny.

That’s not all. In terms of the synthetic blood angle from “Daybreakers,” scientists are also working on artificial blood that could be used in the case of severe and life-threatening emergencies. Hematologist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) would have had a much easier time in the movie had this development already been in progress.