We’re only a few weeks into 2021, but plenty of movies have been here before. In the past, films have predicted myriad future occurrences that actually came true – like the iPad-like tablets of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the self-driving cars of Total Recall, and the reality television-obsessed culture of The Truman Show. Thus, it’s only natural to be curious about what every movie set in 2021 has to tell us about the year ahead.
2021 has been off to a rocky start in many regards. The highs and lows that may come in the next eleven and a half months remain to be seen, but the visions of the year offered by filmmakers certainly veer to a dark place. Taken collectively, these films predict apocalypse and doom, with a heavy emphasis on the impending damages of climate change and a light sprinkling of killer clones and alien invasion. There are some happy entries as well, but they are not an excessive collection when compared to less hopeful perspectives on the year to come.
After making it through the dumpster fire of 2020, it may seem hard to imagine a more dreadful year. However, these selections are both potent reminders that things can always be worse – although at least the films to be released in 2021 should provide a welcome and entertaining reprieve regardless of other outcomes.
A Quiet Place
John Krasinski’s 2018 horror hit A Quiet Place may not have predicted a global pandemic, but its vision of 2021 does center on its own version of isolation. Most of Earth’s population has been wiped out by blind creatures who kill anything that makes a sound. The few survivors are forced to wander this grim, post-apocalyptic wasteland silently, scavenging at abandoned pharmacies and blowing off steam by screaming under waterfalls. A sequel was due for release last year, but pushed back due to Covid.
Carnage
Comedian Simon Amstell’s mockumentary from 2017 imagines a future where meat-eating is banned and everyone is vegan. To explain how the world got here, the film travels backwards and forwards in time, from 1944 to 2067 and back again. Its 2021 section is brief, but prescient; television pundits extol the importance of cutting meat out of one’s diet to stop climate change, and the UK is ravaged by a deadly Super Swine Flu.
It’s All About Love
This surreal apocalyptic sci-fi romance from Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg stars Joaquin Phoenix, Sean Penn, and Claire Danes. Panned at its 2003 Sundance premiere, its Kubrickian take on 2021 is one where climate change has led to deadly frost storms and humanity lives in fear of being replaced by killer clones.
Johnny Mnemonic
This 1995 cyberpunk action thriller stars a post-Bill and Ted, pre-Matrix Keanu Reeves as a sort of human flash drive, transporting sensitive content to the mega corporations that control this futuristic society. Its 12% Rotten Tomatoes score is mostly due to retrospective reviews claiming much of its content was more successfully recycled in later films, but it still is an early-Internet film that predicted how easily our data could be compromised and controlled by major corporations. With the Keanussance in full swing, this may be worth a look for completionists.
Long Shot
Saving 2021 from total doom and gloom is the underrated Long Shot, a totally delightful comedy starring Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen that imagines an inauguration that swears in the first female President of the United States, with Rogen subbing in as the First Mister. For extra, perhaps “on-the-nose” relevance, the film also features Bob Odenkirk as a television actor turned commander-in-chief, and Andy Serkis as an international media mogul attempting to sway the election. If you like your 2021 light on apocalypse and heavy on feel-good optimism, Long Shot is the pick for you.
Moon Zero Two
Released in 1969, this Hammer science fiction film is the one on this list furthest away from 2021. Still, its vision isn’t entirely implausible. Sure, it imagines a future where we’ve successfully sent a man to Mars, but its notion of a colonized moon was revisited in last year’s Ad Astra. Interplanetary commercial flights may still be a ways off, but lunar hotspots like Moon City and Farside 5 don’t sound all that unappealing.
Resiklo
Before Pacific Rim, there was Resiklo (Recycle in English). This post-apocalyptic sci-fi action thriller from the Philippines tells the story of a rag-tag crew of survivors engaged in a massive war against locust-like aliens. Their land pillaged and their resources diminished, these scrappy rebels have to rely on scavenging the detritus and re-purposing it into weapons of war. This steam-punk approach to 2021 shows how one man’s trash is another man’s mech-suit.
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
A bittersweet romantic comedy from Hustlers writer-director Lorene Scafaria, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World stars Steve Carell and Keira Knightley as two strangers who help each other find closure before an asteroid destroys Earth. As with most apocalypse movies, there’s plenty of bunkers and riots; at one point, there’s even an orgy at a restaurant. However, it’s the unlikely bond between Steve Carell and Knightley that most reflects the current moment, as forming connections appears a wonderful way to spend the apocalypse.
Steel Rain 2: The Summit
Prescience would not seem to be the quality most attributed to a sequel to a South Korean action film, but Steel Rain 2: Summit presents a 2021 defined by a coup resulting in the kidnapping of the President of the United States, the South Korean president, and the leader of North Korea. In the film, the hostages are taken onboard a nuclear submarine, but the eerie representation of insurrection certainly strikes a chord.
The Sisterhood
This 1988 post-apocalyptic oddity takes place after the fictional “Western War.” The veterans of that conflict, a brutal army of men, imprison all women with whom they come in contact. A band of fiery “she-warriors,” dubbed The Sisterhood, fights back with paranormal powers. A definite cult film, The Sisterhood predates the sort of wasteland feminism that arose nearly 30 years later in Mad Max: Fury Road.
Weathering With You
Climate woes continue in Makoto Shinkai’s acclaimed anime film, Weathering With You, Japan’s highest-grossing film of 2019. It’s less apocalyptic than many of the other entries listed here, but perhaps more disturbing, depicting the small but permanent ways climate change will affect our everyday lives. However, while it does end with the image of a submerged Tokyo, drowning from incessant rainfall, it still offers plenty of hope in the face of catastrophe – making it perhaps the perfect message for a film set in 2021.
