Back To The Future Day: Other films that predict the future

As Back to the Future’s predictions of 2015 come true, here’s what’s in store for the next 40 years, according to Hollywood.

A Kaiju attacks Sydney Harbour in Pacific Rim - Film movies sunday telegraph

Video technology, the rise of the Chicago Cubs, even Marty’s sneakers; all things Back to the Future predicted about life in 2015 which have come true. (See a full list here).

So how might the world look in the next 40 years, according to Hollywood?

A scene from 2013 film Snowpiercer.

There won’t be many of us left

Humankind will face the possibility of its own extinction by 2027 as women will have somehow become infertile (Children of Men, 2006). Plus, in 2031, the entire world will be frozen except for those aboard one special train, if the 2013 film Snowpiercer can predict anything.

Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys.

We’ll live underground

The plot of Twelve Monkeys (1995) agrees; our numbers will be dwindling in the future, with a lethal virus wiping out 99% of the population by 2035. But instead of a train, those who survive will have to live underground.

Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford.

We’ll have clones in a parallel universe

By 2019, we will have developed the technology to create human ‘replicants’ (Blade Runner, 1982), but they’ll be being chased down by a blade-running cop, possibly in a flying car.

A Kaiju attacks Sydney Harbour in Pacific Rim.

The sea will be our enemy

Massive human-controlled robots will be at war with monstrous sea creatures known as Kaiju in 2020 (Pacific Rim, 2013) and by 2142, the polar icecaps will have melted and the rising oceans will have drowned all the world’s coastal cities, if A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) is right.

Will Smith in a scene from I, Robot.

We’ll be friends with robots

Robot assistants will be commonplace by 2035 if I, Robot (2004) is anything to go by. And we’ll have substitute robot children, like David in AI, in the following decade. Of course, if Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator (1984, set in 2029), pops by, best not invite him in for a cup of tea.

Event Horizon, starring Laurence Fishburne.

We’ll be travelling in space

Who gets to go will depend on the quality of your genetic make-up (Gattaca, 1997, set in mid-21st century), and some of us might even go missing on a starship (Event Horizon, 1997, set in 2040).

Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell in a scene from Minority Report.

Society will be free from crime

We should have already begun cryogenically freezing criminals in the Nineties, according to Demolition Man (1993, set in 2032). The rest will be given the chance to run to freedom or meet their death on a game show in 2017 (The Running Man, 1987). But don’t fear, as by 2054 a special police unit will be able to arrest murderers before they commit their crimes (Minority Report, 2002), phew!

And there you have it — how our future could look, according to film.

What predictions have we missed? Tell us your favourites in the comments section below.