Best Dystopian Movies on Netflix Right Now to Stream
Best Dystopian Movies on Netflix to Watch Now
Dystopian movies are great when you’re in the mood for something to watch interesting. There are lots of Dystopian movies available, But here is the list of best Dystopian movies on Netflix right now to stream.
That dystopian movies have become a genre all their own speaks to our fears of the future. Believe it or not, Dystopian themed movies have been popular for some time now. In Dystopian movies, stories are set in a future time period.
To compile a list of the best dystopian films of all time, you might want to check out some other films with heavy dystopian themes. The list of best Dystopian Movies on Netflix to stream now.
Best Dystopian Films on Netflix to Stream
1. Ender’s Game
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Year: 2013 Director: Gavin Hood Starring: Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi Runtime: 114 minutes |
Based on Orson Scott Card’s 1985 novel of the same name, Ender’s Game follows stars Asa Butterfield as Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, an unusually gifted child who is sent to an advanced military academy in space to prepare for a future alien invasion. It offers a commendable number of well-acted, solidly written sci-fi thrills.
2. The First Purge
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Year: 2018 Director: Gerard McMurray Starring: Y’lan Noel, Lex Scott Davis, Joivan Wade Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 97 minutes |
It is the fourth installment in The Purge franchise. The film is a prequel depicting the origins of the annual “Purge”, a 12-hour span once a year in which all crime in America, including murder, rape, and arson, is legal; it originates as an experiment confined to Staten Island with the promise that those who stay on the island for its duration will be paid a large sum of money, but a new political party, the New Founding Fathers, is determined to get the results they want by any means necessary.
3. Automata
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Year: 2014 Director: Gabe Ibáñez Starring: Dylan McDermott, Melanie Griffith, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 110 minutes |
A dystopic mess Automata short-circuits its handful of intriguing ideas with an overload of sci-fi cliches. In the film, During a routine investigation involving robot manipulation, an insurance agent (Antonio Banderas) at a robotics company makes a discovery that has profound consequences for the human race.
4. The Hunger Games
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Year: 2012 Director: Gary Ross Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 142 minutes |
Thrilling and superbly acted, The Hunger Games captures the dramatic violence, raw emotion, and ambitious scope of its source novel. Set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future in the nation of Panem, where a boy and a girl from each of the nation’s 12 Districts are chosen annually as “tributes” and forced to compete in The Hunger Games, an elaborate televised fight to the death. Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) volunteers to take her younger sister’s place when her sister was initially selected as tribute. With her district’s male tribute, Peeta Mellark (Hutcherson), Katniss travels to the Capitol to train and compete in the hunger games.
5. Elysium
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Year: 2013 Director: Neill Blomkamp Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley Audio: English, Spanish, French Subtitles: English, Spanish, French Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi Runtime: 109 minutes |
After the heady sci-fi thrills of District 9, Elysium is a bit of a comedown for director Neill Blomkamp, but on its own terms, it delivers just often enough to satisfy. The film takes place on both a ravaged Earth and a luxurious artificial world (Stanford torus design, one of the proposed NASA designs) called Elysium. The film itself offers deliberate social commentary that explores political and sociological themes such as immigration, overpopulation, transhumanism, health care, worker exploitation, the justice system, and social class issues.
6. What Happened to Monday
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Year: 2017 Director: Tommy Wirkola Starring: Noomi Rapace, Willem Dafoe, Glenn Close Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Crime, Fantasy, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 123 minutes |
It follows a family of identical septuplets (seven genetically identical girls) who live in a world where due to overpopulation each household is allowed only one child. When one of the sisters goes missing, the others must find her while remaining unknown to the outside world.
7. Mad Max: Fury Road
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Year: 2015 Director: George Miller Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 120 minutes |
With exhilarating action and a surprising amount of narrative heft, Mad Max: Fury Road brings George Miller’s post-apocalyptic desert wasteland where gasoline and water are scarce commodities, Fury Road follows Max Rockatansky, who joins forces with Imperator Furiosa to flee from cult leader Immortan Joe and his army in an armoured tanker truck, leading to a lengthy road battle.
8. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
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Year: 2003 Director: Jonathan Mostow Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Sci-Fi Runtime: 109 minutes |
A decade has passed since John Connor prevented Judgment Day and saved mankind. Now 25, Connor lives “off the grid” — no home, no job, no cell phone, no credit cards. No way to be traced by SkyNet, the network of machines that tried to kill him and to wage war on humanity. Until… …out of the future steps the T-X, SkyNet’s most sophisticated cyborg killing machine ever. Sent back through time to complete the job left unfinished by her predecessor, the T-1000, this machine is as relentless as her human guise is beautiful. Now, Connor needs the help of the Terminator, the machine sent to assassinate him, to defeat the technologically superior T-X … or face the apocalypse and the end of human civilization.
9. V for Vendetta
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Year: 2005 Director: James McTeigue Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 132 minutes |
Visually stunning and thought-provoking, V For Vendetta’s set in an alternative future where a fascist totalitarian regime has subjugated the United Kingdom. It centres on V (portrayed by Hugo Weaving), an anarchist and masked freedom fighter who attempts to ignite a revolution through elaborate terrorist acts, and Evey Hammond (portrayed by Natalie Portman) a young woman caught up in V’s mission.
10. Mortal Engines
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Year: 2018 Director: Christian Rivers Starring: Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo Weaving Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 128 minutes |
Set in a post-apocalyptic world where entire cities have been mounted on wheels and motorised, and practice municipal Darwinism; its movie universe is different from that of the books. The website’s critical consensus reads, “Mortal Engines has no shortage of eye-catching special effects, but lacks enough high-octane narrative fuel to give this futuristic fantasy sufficient cinematic combustion.”
Best Netflix Dystopian Movies to Watch
11. Cloud Atlas
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Year: 2012 Director: Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Lilly Wachowski Starring: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi Runtime: 172 minutes |
Based on the 2004 novel “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell, the film has multiple plots occurring during six different eras in time, with the cast members performing multiple roles. Its sprawling, ambitious blend of thought-provoking narrative and eye-catching visuals will prove too unwieldy for some, but the sheer size and scope of Cloud Atlas are all but impossible to ignore.
12. Transcendence
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Year: 2014 Director: Wally Pfister Starring: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Morgan Freeman Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 119 minutes |
Follows a group of scientists who race to finish an artificial intelligence project while being targeted by a radical anti-technology organization. In the film, Dr. Will Caster is the foremost researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence, working to create a sentient machine that combines the collective intelligence of everything ever known with the full range of human emotions. His controversial experiments have made him famous, but they have also made him the prime target of anti-technology extremists who will do whatever it takes to stop him. However, in their attempt to destroy Will, they inadvertently become the catalyst for him to succeed.
13. The Purge
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Year: 2013 Director: James DeMonaco Starring: Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 85 minutes |
Half social allegory, half home-invasion thriller, The Purge attempts to make an intelligent point but ultimately devolves into numbing violence and tired clichés. It follows a wealthy family who finds themselves endangered by a gang of murderers during the annual Purge, a night during which all crime, including murder, is temporarily legal.
14. Chappie
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Year: 2015 Director: Neill Blomkamp Starring: Sharlto Copley, Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Crime, Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 120 minutes |
Chappie boasts more of the big ideas and visual panache that director Neill Blomkamp has become known for — and, sadly, more of the narrative shortcomings. The film, set and shot in Johannesburg, is about an artificial general intelligence law enforcement robot captured and taught by gangsters, who nickname it Chappie.
15. Divergent
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Year: 2014 Director: Neil Burger Starring: Shailene Woodley, Miles Teller, Ashley Judd Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi Runtime: 140 minutes |
Barely diverting— Divergent takes place in a dystopian and post-apocalyptic Chicago, where people are divided into distinct factions based on human virtues. Beatrice Prior is warned that she is Divergent and thus will never fit into any one of the factions. She soon learns that a sinister plot is brewing in the seemingly perfect society.
16. Total Recall
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Year: 2012 Director: Len Wiseman Starring: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 118 minutes |
Based on the 1990 film of the same name, which was inspired by the 1966 short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick. The film blends American and Asian influences, notably in the settings and dominant populations of the two nation-states in the story: the United Federation of Britain (Western Europe) and the Colony (Australia).
17. The Lego Movie
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Year: 2014 Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller Starring: Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy Runtime: 100 minutes |
Based on the Lego line of construction toys, its story focuses on Emmet, an ordinary Lego minifigure who helps a resistance movement stop a tyrannical businessman from gluing everything in the Lego world into his vision of perfection.
18. Blade Runner 2049
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Year: 2017 Director: Denis Villeneuve Starring: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 163 minutes |
Thirty years after the events of the1982’s Blade Runner, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
19. The Book of Eli
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Year: 2010 Director: The Hughes Brothers Starring: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Thriller Runtime: 117 minutes |
The story revolves around Eli, a nomad in a post-apocalyptic world, who is told by a voice to deliver his copy of a mysterious book to a safe location on the West Coast of the United States. The history of the post-war world is explained along the way, as is the importance of Eli’s task. The site’s consensus reads that “It’s certainly uneven, and many viewers will find that its reach exceeds its grasp, but The Book of Eli finds the Hughes brothers injecting some fresh stylish fun into the kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland filmgoers have seen more than enough of lately.”
20. The Divergent Series: Allegiant – Part 1
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Year: 2016 Director: Robert Schwentke Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Naomi Watts Audio: English Subtitles: English Genre: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller Runtime: 121 minutes |
In this exciting penultimate film in The Divergent Series, Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) lead a team of rebels in a daring escape over the city wall–into a strange new world where they face a threat more dangerous than they ever imagined. Together, Tris and Four wage a furious battle for survival, fighting not only for their factions and loved ones, but for the future of an entire city in this dynamic, action-packed adventure.
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