Dystopian Movie Timeline
I thought it would be fun to put together a dystopian movie timeline so that you can see, decade by decade, what stories are being told. This helps to give an idea of the social and political background of the day, and I’m hoping it will highlight any kind of progression of themes that arise over the years. It provides a little historical perspective: the movie is a relatively new medium of expression, but already we’ve notched up roughly a century of storytelling on the big screen, and it’s good to see where we’ve come from.
| 1920s | 1927 | |
| 1930s | 1936 |
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| 1940s | ||
| 1950s | 1951 |
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| 1953 |
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| 1959 |
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| 1960s | 1960 |
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| 1962 |
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| 1963 |
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| 1964 |
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| 1965 |
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| 1968 |
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| 1970s | 1970 |
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| 1971 |
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| 1972 |
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| 1973 |
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| 1974 |
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| 1975 |
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| 1976 |
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| 1977 |
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| 1979 |
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| 1980s | 1981 |
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| 1983 |
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| 1984 |
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| 1985 |
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| 1986 |
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| 1987 |
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| 1988 |
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| 1990s | 1990 |
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| 1991 |
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| 1995 |
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| 1997 |
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| 1998 |
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| 1999 |
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| 2000s | 2000 |
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| 2002 |
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| 2003 |
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| 2004 |
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| 2005 |
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| 2006 |
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| 2009 |
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| 2010s | 2010 |
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I’ve included all the significant titles I can think of right now, possibly there will be a few more. But I’ve bound to have forgotten something, so if you notice that I’ve made a drastic omission then let me know about it in the comments. We’re up to ninety-something, and it would give me a nice warm feeling to get it up to one hundred!
Random Dystopia Quotes
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Julie Christie as Clarisse in Fahrenheit 451: "Is it true that a long time ago, firemen used to put out fires and not burn books?"
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Matt Doran as Mouse in The Matrix: "To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human."
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Lee Evans as Fog in The Fifth Element: "We're sending somebody in to negotiate!"
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Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises: "I do fear death. I fear dying in here while my city burns."
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Gustav Frohlich as Freder in Metropolis: "I wanted to look into the faces of the people whose little children are my brothers, my sisters... Your magnificent city, Father - and you the brain of this city - and all of us in the city's light... And where are the people, father, whose hands built your city ---?"
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Yaphet Kotto as Parker in Alien: "It's a robot! Ash is a goddamned robot!"
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Paul Farrell as Tramp in A Clockwork Orange: "Well, go on, do me in you bastard cowards! I don't want to live anyway, not in a stinking world like this!"
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Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake in The Dark Knight Rises: "Not a lot of people know what it feels like to be angry, in your bones. I mean, they understand, foster parents, everybody understands, for a while. Then they want the angry little kid to do something he knows he can't do, move on. So after a while they stop understanding. They send the angry kid to a boys home. I figured it out too late. You gotta learn to hide the anger, practice smiling in the mirror. It's like putting on a mask."
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Alan Arkin as Detective Hugo in Gattaca: "Hello everyone, nice to see you, I am your detective for the evening. Please don't leave the premises. I said please don't leave the premises. Am I speaking in some kind of strange foreign language?"
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