If you enjoy an occasional dystopian story, Netflix has got you covered with their wide selection of movies. The trouble with them is that some hit too close to home, as they depict a future that is disturbingly similar to the one we are heading to.
1. Cargo
Year: 2017
Director: Ben Howling, Yolanda Ramke
Starring: Simone Landers, Martin Freeman, Marlee Jane McPherson-Dobbins
Cargo, based on a short story, is a movie about a father, played by Martin Freeman, trying to find a safe place for his baby and himself in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. He gets help from a native boy, who agrees to travel with them. As they travel across Australia, his need to shelter his daughter grows more desperate.
2. Extinction
Year: 2018
Director: Ben Young
Starring: Michael Peña, Lizzy Caplan, Amelia Crouch
Peter, played by Michael Peña, is suffering from nightmares in which his family is being hunted down by strange alien creatures. Unfortunately, it turns out that his dreams are prophetic and that they are coming true as an alien invasion on Earth begins. The story of artificial intelligence and memory loss creates a strange dystopian world.
3. The Humanity Bureau
Year: 2017
Director: Rob W. King
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Sarah Lind, Jakob Davies
The year is 2030 and all the worst prognosis of climate change have come true. The world is living in a constant state of economic crisis and the environment is growing progressively more inhospitable to humans.
The lack of food and resources has forced the government to send all unproductive members of society to a colony. Noah Kross (Nicolas Cage), a deportation caseworker, has a nagging feeling that not everything is as the government is telling them and tries to investigate.
4. The Lobster
Year: 2015
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Jessica Barden
In the future, single people are an oddity that must be corrected. They are sent to special camps to find a pair. Those who fail at that task, get their brains transferred to an animal. When faced with this decision, David (Colin Farrell) makes a strange choice. He decides that he want to live out his life as a lobster, because of their lifespan.
5. Into the Forest
Year: 2015
Director: Patricia Rozema
Starring: Ellen Page, Evan Rachel Wood, Max Minghella
The world is dependent on electricity and even short and localized power outages present real challenges. But what happens when the whole country is affected by one and the end is nowhere in sight? Father and two daughters try to survive, the task that gets immensely harder when the father dies. The apocalypse brings out the worst in people, as sisters will soon discover. Their only salvation is the forest.
