Listening to Glen Powell talk about The Truman Show’s eerily accurate predictions (more on them in a moment) on a recent episode of The Rewatchables, I started thinking about what other speculative ‘90s movies got things right—or at least made a decent go of it.
As we reach (or pass) these movies’ 30th anniversaries, it’s probably not a huge surprise that some of what people hoped for at the time—or, more likely, worried about—has come to pass. Below, we’ve listed 10 movies from that decade that, whether through good research or pure chance, predict something about the future we now live in. Read on to discover more and use the guide below to find them on AppleTV, Netflix, Prime Video and elsewhere.
1. The Truman Show (1997)
Released in 1997, basically before reality TV went mainstream, The Truman Show felt like a cautionary tale—not only about what broadcasters might be capable of, but also about the kind of everyday mundanity we would happily tune into. In the character of Cristof (played by Ed Harris), we also get a prototype for the now ubiquitous tech CEO villain.
Almost 30 years on, the movie (which was directed by Peter Weir, and if you like his other stuff, like Dead Poets or Master and Commander, be sure to check it out) was only off on a couple of details: firstly in underestimating how dominant reality TV would become, but mostly in not seeing how quickly we would all start broadcasting our own lives—and willingly.
2. Gattaca (1998)
Having failed to deliver the impossibly futuristic dreams of the 1960s (dude, where’s my flying car?), ‘90s sci-fi tended to focus more on the science than the fiction. A year after co-writing The Truman Show with Weir, Andrew Niccol wrote and directed Gattaca, a still astonishing debut feature (and if you liked Looper and Predestination, this one’s for you) that explored how society might be altered by advancements in genetic engineering.
Today, gene editing technology like CRISPR and the rise of the ancestry business (not to mention transhumanist thinking) have made a lot of what Gattaca predicted, if not quite here, then certainly feasible. Thankfully, it hasn’t quite resulted in a new, vaguely fascist social hierarchy—at least not yet.
3. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
This September, Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (based on Masamune Shirow’s Manga from the early ‘90s) turned 30-years-old, but the questions it raised feel as urgent as ever. Namely, will AI eventually surpass us and will we, at some point, have to consider whether it has rights? At the time of writing, both those situations seem closer on the horizon than I’d like to admit.
The movie is full of action and is incredibly animated (especially if you like classic anime like Akira and Evangelion), but it’s Shirow’s ideas that live on, making it the influential classic that it is today.
4. The Net (1995)
Few people who saw The Net in 1995 thought it was anything but an entertaining thriller—and if you like movies like The Fugitive or Enemy of the State, you should check it out. The Net stars Sandra Bullock as a cybersecurity analyst whose reliance on technology—or so the film warns us—makes her vulnerable to identity theft.
At the time of release, the idea that a person would live their life online in this way (willingly offering up their personal information and data just to order a pizza) seemed vaguely laughable—the kind of thing done only by your most introverted IT friend. Little did they know…
5. Strange Days (1995)
If the recently released A House of Dynamite confirmed anything, it’s that Kathryn Bigelow is still worried about our not-so-distant future. 30 years ago, the director made Strange Days, a prescient cyberpunk classic (part-Matrix, part-Videodrome) that imagined what life online (at least in terms of entertainment and pleasure seeking) might become.
It’s true, we haven’t come close to reaching the capabilities of SQUID—a device that allows users to directly experience other people’s memories and emotions—but if the advancements in VR and neurolink are anything to go by, it’s probably only a matter of time.
6. The Matrix (1999)
As many people reading this list will know, it’s probably fair to say that movies like Ghost in the Shell and Strange Days walked (or jogged really fast) so that The Matrix could run—but boy, did that movie run.
Released just before the turn of the millennium, it’s amazing how many key anxieties of the 21st century the Wachowskis’ movie tapped into: namely, the rise of the surveillance state, how we’ve given up privacy in return for interconnectivity, and, of course, our increasing reliance on AI and what that might ultimately lead to.
7. Demolition Man (1993)
Aside from predicting that Taco Bell would become the most beloved fast food chain (I’m only half joking), the 1993 movie Demolition Man (a sci-fi that fans of Total Recall and Judge Dredd will love) got more things right than it probably wanted to.
A lot of the technology (self-driving cars, touch screens, and video meetings all feature) is now with us, but the societal ideas (like a machine that fines you for swearing and a policy of no touching) are what feel the most prescient—the first of those could be read as suggesting the culture war over free speech, and the second eerily predicts both the after-effects of the COVID era and the dropping rates of physical intimacy. What’s more, the movie (which is set in 2032) jokes that Arnie becomes president, which has so far only become half true.
8. Jurassic Park (1993)
In a similar way to Gattaca, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park convinced the world that bringing back the dinosaurs wouldn’t be too difficult—at least in theory. Since the movie’s release, advancements in the fields of DNA and gene splicing have led to the successful cloning of animals. In more recent years, a company called Colossal has made plans to bring back long-extinct animals like the dire wolf and the woolly mammoth.
Of course, whether any of this is advisable is what Jurassic Park (and a bunch of other movies that came after it, like Deep Blue Sea and Splice) are ultimately about… But like, wouldn’t it be sweet to see a mammoth IRL?
9. Starship Troopers (1997)
When it comes to predicting the future, Starship Troopers is an interesting case. Paul Verhoeven adapted the movie to be a satire (and if you like Robocop and Total Recall, you’ll love it) of a genuinely right-wing book that imagined a world where, amongst other things, the only way to vote was to join the military.
Now, we’re not there yet, but the trends aren’t looking great. What it does nail, however, is the meme-ification of propaganda and the “would you like to more”-ification of our lives since the all-consuming rise of the internet.
10. T2: Judgement Day (1991)
The original judgment day in James Cameron’s Terminator movies (both of which are classics, especially for Schwarzenegger fans) happened in 1997. So, depending on how you look at it, we’ve either dodged the bullet or an AI-instigated nuclear war is long overdue.
Whatever the case, the nightmare images that Cameron imagined in 1991 continue to haunt our collective psyche—perhaps now more than ever. Gulp.
