MOVIES THAT FORETOLD THE FUTURE WITH CREEPY ACCURACY

MINORITY REPORT (2002)

In 2014 when the FBI announced the completion of its new

facial-recognition technology the world moved one step closer

to Steven Spielberg’s vision of 2054 (through his film Minority

Report), but that wasn’t the only thing this film predicted;

personalized advertising was another thing that has come

true, since personalized retargeting makes up most of

the Internet ads you see today.

TOTAL RECALL (1990)

Total Recall with Arnie predicted a few things that failed to come

true in the real world but it got one thing right: driverless cars.

METROPOLIS (1927)

In case you thought The Terminator was the first movie to predict

androids, we’re sorry to burst that bubble. Metropolis

predicted them back in the twenties.

WOMAN IN THE MOON (1929)

Okay, space travel might sound like a joke to most of us since

we achieved that goal back in the sixties but keep in mind that

when Woman in the Moon predicted this (back in 1929), ninety

percent of the human population didn’t even have a car

(let alone a space rocket).

BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (1989)

When Marty McFly was sent thirty years into the future as part of

the plot in Back to the Future Part II, he arrived in a time when there

were hover boards zipping around, people wore self-lacing shoes

and flying cars were the norm. The date? October 21, 2015. Sure,

there was a lot the film got wrong about 2015, but some things

it got right, like flat-screen TVs and Skype-like communication.

SHORT CIRCUIT (1986)

Short Circuit wasn’t a great film by any means but it’s silly

plot predicted the future with more accuracy than many great

sci-fi films of its time. If you’ve seen the film you probably

remember robot Number 5 is part of a group of experimental

military robots. An electrical accident suddenly gives Number 5

intelligence, and he (not “it”) escapes the lab. In this fashion,

the movie predicted military robots, even though the ones

floating around today are remote controlled and crude

compared to the movie.

NETWORK (1976)

If you’ve ever seen the movie Network, you probably remember the

epic scene in which TV news anchor Howard Beale (portrayed by

Peter Finch) has a mental breakdown while on air, in one of the

greatest soliloquies of American cinema. But more to the point,

Network predicted a number of things about modern media in

the twenty-first century, most important, the current state of

tabloid TV and yellow journalism.

WARGAMES (1983)

Do you remember this awesome eighties film that gave us a young,

fresh-looking Matthew Broderick? Well, this silly, low-budget

flick predicted hacking and cyber warfare during a time when the

Internet as we know it didn’t even exist. Quite impressive if you

think about it: Matthew Broderick as the first hacker in

pop culture, no?