What 2025 Will Look Like According to Movie Predictions

When film is brought up as a medium for escapism, it is often in reference to works of science fiction that present extravagant visions of what the future would look like. Star Wars may take place in the “galaxy far, far away,” but a vast majority of sci-fi classics take a look at what Earth and human civilization would look like in the future. It’s slightly easier for a film like The Fifth Element to call its shot, as it's set in the 23rd century, but a lot of older sci-fi films are intended to line up with recent history.

Sci-fi has a history of predicting incredible moments in innovation, well before they happen in real life. The classic 1908 short film, A Trip to the Moon, imagined a fantastic voyage into outer space 61 years before the Apollo 11 moon landing, and The Truman Show captured our celebrity-obsessed culture well before Big Brother and the Kardashian empire came to prominence. Those looking to map out their 2025 need only watch these classics to get a glimpse of what's ahead.

Blade Runner Said We’ll Colonize Mars

Lots of things about Blade Runner were eerily prescient, such as the development of digital billboards, the reliance on robotic workers and the notion that the world would still be obsessed with Harrison Ford. However, Ridley Scott’s 1982 cult classic did suggest that Mars colonization would be in our future; unless Elon Musk stops trolling his X followers and puts his Space X program to good use, it doesn’t seem like this is going to pan out.

Star Trek Predicted a Unified Earth

Star Trek imagines a future in which Earth has to deal with extraterrestrial threats like the warlord Khan, the vicious Klingon Empire and the ruthless Romulan warriors. The original Star Trek series was relatively groundbreaking for its more optimistic depiction of the future; in the United Federation of Planets, humanity puts aside its differences and works to spread equality across the universe. At this point, this seems to be just as unbelievable as the teleportation devices found on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Back to the Future: Part II Knew About Hollywood’s Sequel Obsession

There are many things that Back the Future got wrong and everyone is still mad about the lack of real hoverboards; the few that were released turned out to be an expensive scam aimed at those who could fork over $10,000. That said, eagle-eyed fans will remember that Marty McFly sees a billboard for Jaws 19 when he visits 2015. Although the Jaws franchise stopped after four installments, Hollywood has continued to churn out sequels obsessively; in 2025 alone, audiences will get Jurassic World: Rebirth, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Captain America: Brave New World, Nobody 2, The Black Phone 2 and Now You See Me 3, among many others.

Minority Report Had Insight on Surveillance

Steven Spielberg's Minority Report presented a dystopian version of the future in which government surveillance allowed Tom Cruise and his legion of law enforcement officers to arrest potential criminals before their guilt was determined in a court of law. Far-fetched? Well, the film was released over a decade before Edward Snowden’s leaks about the Patriot Act inspired Americans everywhere to put a piece of tape over their laptop cameras.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence Spoke for Itself

The biggest story of 2024 was certainly the rise of artificial intelligence programs, which have begun taking over human jobs at a rapid pace. Although there have been androids in sci-fi movies since Robby the Robot in the 1956 classic Forbidden Planet, Spielberg’s underrated classic A.I. Artificial Intelligence examined the notion of synthetic beings living alongside humans. However, the robot in A.I. Artificial Intelligence is simply a kind-hearted little boy who wants to have a real family, not a software program that helps students cheat on their exams.

2001: A Space Odyssey Had No Faith in Technology

2001: A Space Odyssey predicted a future that never came in which humanity perfected interstellar travel, and its sequel 2010: The Year We Made Contact tried to show that NASA would still be an active governmental body in spite of some very public setbacks. Although it's hard to not look at these films as overly idealistic, they also predicted that a rogue robot control system would start experimenting with human life, so maybe it’s OK that this one didn’t come true.

Idiocracy Was Closer Than We Want to Admit

Dallas native Mike Judge is renowned for his work on Office Space and Beavis and Butt-Head, but his 2006 cult classic Idiocracy has steadily grown in appreciation after underperforming at the box office after its initial theatrical release. The film imagines a future in which the average intelligence of human beings has declined so rapidly that plants are soaked in Gatorade, a pro wrestler is running the White House, the entire population is illiterate and the average IQ of Luke Wilson makes him the smartest man on Earth. The most unbelievable aspect is that the film supposedly takes place in 2505, which seems way too far away based on the trajectory on which the world seems to be headed.

Starship Troopers Blurred the Line Between Propaganda and Entertainment

Starship Troopers was significantly misunderstood at the time of its release, as it was intended to be a satirical film about how easily fascist propaganda could be misconstrued as mainstream entertainment. Given the abundance of far-right “comics” who have dominated social media and given platforms by outlets like YouTube, it seems like director Paul Verhoeven was right on the money.

Children of Men Is Spooky in the Post-Pandemic Era

Children of Men imagined a future in which the low birthrate sent humanity into a spiral, leading to strong anti-immigration policies, the cutting of health resources, the rise of organized military terrorism and increased pollution. If this ends up being as predictive as it sounds, the world can at least breathe easy that Clive Owen is coming to save us in the near future.

28 Days Later Warned Us About Lockdown

Deserted streets, empty cities and warnings about making the slightest of contact with other people; is this the COVID-19 era, or the zombie invasion of 28 Days Later? It seems like the COVID crisis has mostly subsided, meaning that the world was able to avoid transforming into this nasty version of the future dominated by the undead. That being said, the new sequel 28 Years Later, scheduled for release this June, might give another warning about what to look out for.

We Probably Should Have Paid More Attention to The Terminator

It’s hard to believe that it has been four decades since the release of The Terminator, a film that rewrote the science fiction genre forever, demonstrated that James Cameron was a genius and had everyone and their mother saying “I’ll Be Back.” The Terminator warned viewers that a “Judgement Day” when machines would take over needed to be prevented; whether this has already passed in real life remains to be seen.