Our ideas about the future are becoming outdated all the time. That’s why some of the bold inventions and scientific predictions from the past today only evoke a nostalgic smile. However, this did not prevent them from getting a second life on movie and TV screens. So here is a selection of films and TV series in the retrofuturism genre: from dystopia «Brazil» to post-apocalyptic series «Fallout».
Retrofuturism in cinema and its main subgenres
The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century gave rise to a belief in scientific progress that would certainly show humanity the way to a happy tomorrow. This gave birth to futurism, an idealized vision of the future with flying cars, monorails, robots bringing breakfast to bed, and commonplace tourist trips to other planets.Some of these bold fantasies of speed, comfort, and unheard-of entertainment have become a reality today. But most of them have remained unrealized dreams, making us feel nostalgic, which eventually transformed into retrofuturism — a fantasy genre about the future as seen from the past or based on the use of technologies that are outdated nowadays. The diversity of these technologies has led to the emergence of a number of retrofuturism subgenres with their own atmosphere and surroundings.
Steampunk was inspired by the Victorian era and depicts an alternative future in which steam technology has advanced to a much greater extent, leading to the emergence of steam robots and mechanical computers.
Dieselpunk recreates worlds based on technologies «diesel era» 1920s-1940s. These are not only internal combustion engines, but also the noir aesthetics of those years with jazz, airships and cool detectives on the one hand and the rise of totalitarian regimes and economic turmoil on the other.
Atompunk — nuclear technology, tube computers, dreams of space exploration, and the struggle between superpowers. It is also the euphoria of the 1960s, when it seemed that everything was possible, apple trees were about to blossom on Mars, and engineers would build photon starships on which humanity would colonize planets around the most distant stars.
Atompunk created the Raygun Gothic style with visual motifs of silver missiles, teardrop-shaped cars and high-rise towers, and found a vivid embodiment in the Fallout games, which feature not only nuclear cars and planes, but even compact nuclear batteries to power streetlights, robots, and some weapons.
Cyberpunk differs from other «punk» genres in its pessimism. And the development of cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality in the works of this genre takes place against the backdrop of decline, poverty, total control, and corporate domination. This feature is aptly described by the English expression High Tech, Low Life (high technology, but low living standards).
It’s worth noting that retrofuturistic films can be divided into two types. Some deliberately depict a future based on a bizarre combination of technologies, such as «Death Machines», based on the novel by British science fiction writer Philip Reeve, where progress has taken a different path after a planetary catastrophe.
Others, such as the cult «2001: A Space Odyssey», are among the top films in the retrofuturism genre due to the impact of inexorable time. The fact is that different technologies, especially computers, age at different rates. That’s why tube monitors on board starships and artificial intelligence with microfilm storage devices now look like nostalgic examples of bold predictions that will never come true.
«Mortal Engines»
Year of release: 2018
IMDb rating: 6.1
«Wild Wild West»
Year of release: 1999
IMDb rating: 4.9
1869, USA. President Grant sends two of his best agents to solve the mystery of the disappearance of famous scientists. It turns out that they have been kidnapped by the villain Arlis Lovelace, who is making plans to kill the president and divide the country into separate parts.
Lovelace hopes to achieve this goal with the help of his inventions: a steam tank and a giant mechanical spider armed with cannons, Gatling guns, and flamethrowers. But nineteenth-century James Bonds are not without their own devices: they have many useful spy gadgets in store to punish the evil genius and restore justice.
The steampunk comedy «Wild Wild West» received as many as 5 anti-awards «Golden Raspberry». But if we take it as a witty parody of well-known westerns, the film is definitely worth watching. Especially since the various steam technologies in it are reproduced in a really inventive way.
Year of release: 2003
IMDb rating: 5.8
1899, Great Britain. Unknown men brazenly rob a state bank using the latest invention — the tank. Soon after, the same robbers kidnap a German developer of zeppelins. With the world on the brink of war due to mutual accusations between European powers, Her Royal Majesty calls in the help of members of a secret organization that includes famous literary heroes with extraordinary powers: Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, the vampire Wilhelmina Harker, Dr. Henry Jekyll and others.
This premise makes it possible not only to recreate the ideas of Jules Verne and other retrofuturist classics on screen, but also explains why all these inventions are not known to the general public. Otherwise, the plot resembles «Wild, Wild West»: a supervillain also kidnaps scientists to create extremely powerful weapons and take over the world, but heroes with the latest technology and their own superpowers stand in his way.
«Iron sky»
Year of release: 2012
IMDb rating: 5.9
Was the technological level of Nazi Germany sufficient to build a settlement on the Moon? Some would probably say no. But supporters of the conspiracy theory about a secret SS base under the Antarctic ice will confidently answer «yes». The authors of «Iron Sky» decided to play along and explore what a Nazi base on the Moon might look like.
According to the story, at the end of the war, German scientists achieved a breakthrough in the study of antigravity and managed to launch several flying saucers built on its basis towards our natural satellite. There, the Nazi scum gathered forces for a decisive strike on Earth until the United States sent a mission to the Moon in 2018.
It is interesting that the German colonists somehow managed to create a giant space cruiser «Death of the Gods», but in terms of computer development, they were stuck at the level of the late 1940s. Therefore, they decided to use the computing power of an ordinary smartphone, which was confiscated from one of the American astronauts, to control their most powerful ship.
«Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow»
Year of release: 2004
IMDb rating: 6.1
You’ll laugh, but this is the third retrofuturist film in which famous scientists mysteriously disappear at the beginning. But it doesn’t stop there. Just imagine: flocks of unidentified drones hover over the United States in the late 1930s. And radio-controlled robots as tall as a five-story building are walking down the streets of New York City to the deafening roar of sirens.
It turns out that they were sent by the former Nobel Prize winner, now a man-hater and villain Totenkopf. In the gorges of the Tibetan Mountains, hidden from the world, he has established a secret base where he is building his own version of a cosmic Noah’s Ark and hatches plans to improve the world by killing all the people on the planet.
Dieselpunk «grandfather» Iron Man — sky captain Joe Sullivan undertakes to save humanity. Interestingly, he seems to have inherited his main assistant, journalist Polly Perkins, from Robert Downey Jr.’s character: both Polly and Stark’s wife Virginia Potts are played by the charming Gwyneth Paltrow.
Sullivan, of course, doesn’t have a high-tech suit, but he does have a fighter jet that can do some pretty… um… weird things that even the latest F-47s can’t do. For example, it can dive into the water and keep moving like a real submarine. The movie has other parallels with the Marvel universe. First of all, the character of Angelina Jolie, who, like Nick Fury from «Avengers», also has a flying aircraft carrier and has lost one eye.
«Mad Max: Fury Road»
Year of release: 2015
IMDb rating: 8.1
The idea of dieselpunk, centered on heavy and noisy engines that drive powerful mechanisms, was perfectly embodied in the post-apocalyptic franchise about the lone hero Max Rockatansky, who is trying to survive in the cruel Australian deserts.
The story in the world of «Mad Max» took an alternative path when, after several energy crises, Australia was completely cut off from fuel supplies. As a result, riots broke out everywhere, the government was destroyed, and wild gangs traveling on motorcycles or homemade vehicles seized power.
«Tomorrowland»
Year of release: 2015
IMDb rating: 6.4
«When I was a child, I imagined the future to be completely different»says George Clooney’s character in the first minutes of the movie. What is this if not the main leitmotif of retrofuturism? According to the plot, at the end of the nineteenth century, prominent inventors and dreamers Jules Verne, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison and others founded a secret organization called «Plus Ultra».
Combining their scientific achievements, they decided to realize the dream of a better world without the shortcomings of modern society and built a fantastic city of the future in another dimension with robots, antigravity, interstellar portals, and spiky skyscrapers that looked like they came from the pages of 1960s science fiction magazines.
In 1964, a big fan of these magazines, a boy named Frank Walker, arrives at the World’s Fair in New York to present a rocket pack of his own design. However, through a series of stunning events, he finds himself in a parallel world of innovation, creativity and progress from his dreams.
«Brazil»
Year of release: 2018
IMDb rating: 7.8
The surreal mix of dystopia and black comedy tells the story of a humble bureaucrat living under the constant surveillance of an authoritarian state who, in order to escape the monotony of his meaningless job, dreams of becoming a hero in white, selflessly protecting beauties in distress.
One day, he accidentally joins the search for another «terrorist» and mysteriously meets the same woman he saves from villains in his dreams every night. The retrofuturism of the film is evident in its style, which is dominated by machines, people are surrounded by oppressive concrete anthills, and computers are a wild mix of 1980s technical ideas on a 1950s elemental base.
«Fifth element»
Year of release: 1997
IMDb rating: 7.6
Problems fall on New York taxi driver Corben Dallas out of the blue in the form of a half-naked girl, Lila, who has successfully landed on his flying car and is babbling in an unknown language. It turns out that the alien holds the key to protect the Earth from universal evil. But she can’t save the human race alone, so Bruce Willis’ hero will have to leave everything behind to go to the other side of the galaxy and fight the Mangalorean race of space mercenaries.
It should be noted that Luc Besson’s sci-fi action film takes place in the XXIII century, with its vivid outlines and thousands of cars flying between skyscrapers inspired by American science fiction of the 60s and French comics of the same period, such as «Valerian and Laureline», which became the basis for another work by the director — the sci-fi blockbuster «Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets».
The technology in «Fifth Element» is, on the one hand, fantastic and almost alien when it allows for rapid travel to distant stars. On the other hand — primitive push-button computers, pneumatic mail, and lamp monitors are everywhere, hinting at a view through the prism of graphic novels from the past.
«Fallout»
Year of release: 2024 — …
IMDb rating: 8.3
The Amazon Prime Video sci-fi series is based on the game series of the same name and takes us to an alternate version of the United States, where a global nuclear conflict took place in 2077. The plot takes place 219 years later, when Lucy, a resident of «Vault 33» Lucy, is forced to go to the radiation-contaminated surface to find her father, who was kidnapped by raiders.
According to all the canons of atompunk, microcircuits have never been invented in the world «Fallout». That’s why electronics are quite primitive and bulky. Instead, nuclear technology, which has become available in everyday life, and robotics, which has allowed the creation of dozens of robot models from kitchen helpers and security guards to the Institute’s sons, which are almost indistinguishable from humans, have developed explosively.
«Blade Runner»
Year of release: 1982
IMDb rating: 8.1
A cornerstone of retrofuturism in cinema, the cyberpunk film «Blade Runner» by Ridley Scott is based on the novel «Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?» by the American writer and great visionary Philip K. Dick. It tells the story of bounty hunter Rick Deckard and his mission to capture four synthetic outcast humans called «replicants».
The movie’s reception was rather lukewarm. With a budget of $26 million, it grossed $27 million at the box office, half of which went to theaters. But, as is the case with true classics, Blade Runner» got a second life in home distribution. Now it is called the best science fiction movie in history and the words «outstanding» and «iconic» are used.
More than 40 years after its premiere, Scott’s film still impresses with its cyberpunk aesthetic, which combines the rapid development of robotics and artificial intelligence with the poverty of poisoned urban suburbs. At the same time, the high technologies of 2019 have retained the retrofuturist imprint of ideas about the future as seen in the 1980s: «bubbly» cathode ray tube monitors, huge neon advertisements, and paper newspapers, from which Ford’s character is forced to learn about the news due to the lack of smartphones.
What other films in the «retrofuturism» genre are worth paying attention to?
In addition to the above subjective top, there are a number of great films that fans of the genre should check out. P.S. If you have your own options, please write to us in the comments, but please justify what features of retrofuturism, in your opinion, a particular film contains.
- «Electric state» (2025)
- «Tales from the Ring» (2020)
- «Elysium» (2013)
- «Immortals: War of the Worlds» (2004)
- «Gattaca» (1997)
- «Dark City» (1997)
- «Mars is attacking!» (1996)
- «Judge Dredd» (1995)
- «Rocket scientist» (1991)
- «Robocop» (1987)
- «Escape from New York» (1981)
- «Space Odyssey 2001» (1968)
- «Logan’s Run» (1976)
- «Star Trek: The Original TV Series» (1966-1969)
- «Metropolis» (1927)
