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These films saw the future coming before anyone else! Join us as we count down our picks for the movies that were way ahead of their time. From groundbreaking special effects to revolutionary storytelling techniques, these cinematic pioneers changed filmmaking forever and predicted technological and social trends decades before they happened!
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most cutting-edge movies
00:12in terms of subject matter, storytelling techniques, and or technology.
00:22Number 20, Night of the Living Dead.
00:24He didn't create zombies, but director George Romero helped to modernize the concept.
00:30He arguably retooled walkers into one of their most iconic forms.
00:41In Night of the Living Dead, the undead stumble around and terrorize a house of survivors.
00:46Romero is partly responsible for many of the sub-genre's key elements.
00:50A collection of diverse people stay in a location, board up the entry points, and assemble an arsenal of makeshift weapons.
01:00This plot also features plenty of thrills, building to a shocking and sobering climax.
01:10The movie spawned many sequels and sparked the imagination of several storytellers.
01:15Number 19, Enemy of the State.
01:18This might be a thriller on the surface, but it's also saying some prescient things about surveillance.
01:22Will Smith's character ends up with an important tape that the NSA officials want.
01:27We have reason to believe that Mr. Zavitz may have passed sensitive materials to you.
01:32What kind of materials?
01:34Well, sensitive, sir. We were hoping that you could tell us that.
01:36While trying to escape their grasp, he runs into a former agent that knows how to find a bug.
01:41The movie's use of listening equipment and government overreach might have seemed like sci-fi at the time.
01:46Nowadays, this feels much more realistic.
01:48Well, this looks bad.
01:50I'm with the federal government.
01:52Well, the federal government made a video tape.
01:54You guys ought to get in there.
01:55Wait a minute, wait a minute. Listen.
01:58Now, we can go get a warrant, come back with the FBI, take anything we want, arrest anybody that we want.
02:02Just give the man the video tape.
02:04Enemy of the State came out long before Edward Snowden's disclosures.
02:08In between the exciting chases and spycraft, the plot presents a chilling vision of what powerful people can do to ordinary citizens.
02:15Number 18, Alien.
02:16Before this Ridley Scott project, many sci-fi horror projects were B-movies with cheesy effects.
02:23This film helped to change the perception of the entire genre.
02:35Alien features amazing makeup and prosthetic work, creating a villain that actually scares you.
02:41Scott's direction helps to sell the high production values, spooky setting, and classic storytelling.
02:46The filmmaker kick-started a property that still freaks people out decades later, with sequels and spin-offs galore.
02:52There are even some clever metaphors about life, birth, and death hidden beneath H.R. Giger's designs.
03:06From the chestburst scene to the exciting finale, this iconic release set a high bar for cinematic excellence.
03:12Number 17, Sunset Boulevard.
03:15Billy Wilder was known for hopping between genres, with this being one of his most legendary works.
03:20Are you hungry?
03:21Hungry.
03:23After 12 years in the Burmese jungle, I'm starving, Lady Agatha.
03:27Starving for a white shoulder.
03:29Sunset Boulevard allowed the writer-director to take a deep dive into the sinister nature of Hollywood.
03:34Both a satire and a drama, the plot brings together a wayward screenwriter and a washed-up starlet.
03:40Wilder's story feels both real and surreal at various points.
03:43As a critique of celebrity and the entertainment business, the project could be called years ahead of its time.
03:59Norma Desmond's ego-driven life mirrors the careers of many ill-fated performers.
04:03With a top-notch script and memorable quotes, this classic tale proved to be a Jara-bending masterpiece.
04:18Number 16, King Kong.
04:20Knowing that this came out in 1933, King Kong deserves even more praise for its technical aspects.
04:26Come on!
04:27The movie brings to life one of Hollywood's most captivating monsters.
04:39It's also filled with some imaginative visuals, utilizing stop-motion to make creatures fight and move.
04:45The adventure film blends the work of innovative technicians that breathe life into the title character.
05:01After some entertaining island scenes, the plot builds to an iconic finale at the Empire State Building.
05:06It's here that the filmmakers outdo themselves with a set-piece to end them all.
05:19Even if it seems dated now, the project continues to thrill audiences.
05:24Number 15, Some Like It Hot.
05:26With an impeccable cast, this comedy could have been a classic with the ensemble alone.
05:31It also helps when your director is Billy Wilder.
05:34You promised me, Joe, that the minute we hit Florida, we were going to beat it.
05:38How can we? We're broke.
05:39Well, we could find another band, a male band.
05:42Some Like It Hot follows two musicians that need to skip town and find work.
05:46They join a traveling band, but they need to disguise themselves as women to do it.
05:51This sets up one of the more entertaining plots in film history.
05:54To top things off, the filmmakers cast Marilyn Monroe in one of her finest roles.
05:58Go on, tell me all about him.
06:01Well, he's young and he's handsome. He's a bachelor.
06:04He's a real gentleman. You know, not one of these grabbers.
06:08The movie also packs in some groundbreaking jokes about sexuality and identity.
06:12In a timeless romp, Wilder adds some insights about humanity with a fantastic closing line.
06:18Well, nobody's perfect.
06:20Number 14, Pulp Fiction.
06:22Mixing together various crime movie cliches, Quentin Tarantino made a film that still feels fresh today.
06:28I don't know what you call that.
06:33Drinks. Music.
06:36His follow-up to Reservoir Dogs features an incredible deconstruction of a typical plot.
06:40Shifting perspective and messing with timelines,
06:43Pulp Fiction might be the most influential screenplay of the 1990s.
06:47Tarantino also helped to redefine the nature of cinematic dialogue,
06:51pop culture commentary, and awesome needle drops.
06:54He established himself as a successful brand that many people try to imitate to this day.
07:09With so many artists influenced by his work,
07:11it still stands as a major reference point.
07:14Number 13, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
07:17Director Robert Zemeckis and a talented animation team came together for this classic adventure.
07:21Who Framed Roger Rabbit includes plenty of funny jokes and references to old Hollywood,
07:36but it's also a technological marvel.
07:38The filmmakers seamlessly blend live-action characters and cartoons into one project.
07:43Their ideas helped combine both mediums,
07:45creating a tribute to animated history in the process.
07:48Actor Bob Hoskins and his Toon counterparts feel like they're actually interacting with each other.
07:54An extensive post-production period allowed Roger Rabbit and his co-stars to be believable.
07:58With some hard work, this came together thanks to skilled artists and a little cinematic magic.
08:04My hero.
08:06Oh, honey bunny.
08:08Oh, love cap.
08:11Number 12, Network.
08:13When a news anchor loses it on air,
08:15he becomes the unlikely star of a media empire.
08:18Network was written as a satire, and now feels like reality.
08:32Howard Beale's rants seem like they foreshadowed cable and internet news,
08:36while his speeches sound like any number of populist candidates.
08:39Writer Patty Chayefsky had a hunch about the darker side of journalism and entertainment.
08:43In this film, the corporate overlords also struggle to maintain their grip on Beale's madcap broadcasts.
08:50The movie's theories about capitalism, global business, and the future of media have largely come to fruition.
08:56I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.
09:01All I know is that first, you've got to get mad.
09:04You've got to say, I'm a human being.
09:06God damn it!
09:07My life has value!
09:08Number 11, The Matrix.
09:10When you think about slow motion action, you probably imagine a scene from The Matrix.
09:22The trippy plot also hypnotizes viewers to this very day.
09:26On a visual level, the production made something like Bullet Time iconic.
09:31The movie also blended influences from cinematic history into one pristine package.
09:35With thrilling camerawork and special effects, this sci-fi plot leaps off the screen.
09:40The Wachowskis utilized a group of talented people to redefine the genre and Hollywood filmmaking.
09:45You could argue that along with its technological leaps, the film also pushed artists to create bolder and more complex stories.
10:02Number 10, The Truman Show.
10:05What if your life were a TV show?
10:14The Truman Show follows this premise to its most extreme conclusion,
10:18depicting a man raised from birth within a carefully constructed gigantic set,
10:22with his whole life manipulated by producers and spent interacting with actors.
10:26While the world he inhabits is, in some respects, counterfeit, there's nothing fake about Truman himself.
10:35While reality TV shows were around when the film came out,
10:39they had yet to take over the airwaves to quite the degree they have today.
10:42The Truman Show also does a great job of illustrating our current paranoia over surveillance of our every move,
10:48albeit in a charming, whimsical manner.
10:50Oh, and in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
10:53Number 9, Tron.
10:55I'm going to have to put you on the game grid.
10:57Games? You want games? I'll give you games.
10:59Tron follows a computer programmer after he's whisked inside of a computer filled with sentient programs,
11:06and his attempts to escape and free the programs from the oppressive leadership they face.
11:10He pushed me in the real world.
11:13Somebody pushes me, I pushed back, so I brought him down here.
11:17Tron was groundbreaking in terms of its visual effects,
11:20as it was one of the first films to utilize computer animated visuals.
11:28This is Blue Leader to Blue Bikes. Run these guys into your jet balls.
11:32Copy Blue Leader.
11:33The subject matter, namely someone within a virtual reality fighting against a dictatorial regime,
11:38is also decades ahead of similar films like The Matrix.
11:41Tron went largely unappreciated at the time,
11:44though it has developed a cult following and eventually earned two sequels since its release.
11:50Number 8, A Clockwork Orange.
11:52You're a big, strong chilevick like us all.
11:55We're not little children, are we, Georgie boy?
11:58In a near-future dystopia, a young man named Alex leads his gang of troublemakers on a series of ultra-violent crimes
12:05before being caught and brutally reconditioned.
12:08A Clockwork Orange set a new standard for how much violence could be shown in films,
12:12to the point where it sparked protests in response to how graphic it was.
12:16In addition, the movie also influenced future films with its stylistic choices,
12:20such as contrasting violence with unfitting music.
12:23Just singing in the rain.
12:25No one could look at singing in the rain the same way after this.
12:34To say nothing of old Ludwig van.
12:41Number 7, Blade Runner.
12:42Set in the once-far-off year of 2019,
12:46Blade Runner follows Harrison Ford as a grizzled cross between Detective and Hunter
12:50in his pursuit of a rogue group of artificial humans known as replicants.
12:54Though divisive and a poor performer at the box office when it came out initially,
12:58Blade Runner is now regarded as a landmark film,
13:01whose iconic stunning visuals and retro-futuristic aesthetic
13:04have influenced everything from anime to the sci-fi and neo-noir genres to film in general.
13:09Wake up, time to die.
13:12Blade Runner also helped bring the question of what being human will mean in the future,
13:16and in the present, into the public consciousness.
13:19Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell.
13:22More human than human is our motto.
13:24Number 6, Psycho.
13:25She just goes a little mad sometimes.
13:31We all go a little mad sometimes.
13:33The story of Norman Bates, a hotel owner with a complicated maternal relationship,
13:37Psycho broke ground in a lot of ways.
13:40Looking back, some are less obvious,
13:42like daring to show an unmarried couple sharing a bed,
13:44showing a toilet flushing,
13:46or to include a shot of an actress in a bra.
13:48Oh, we can see each other.
13:50We can even have dinner.
13:52Others are easier to understand,
13:53such as new standards for how violence could be shown on screen,
13:56how much of the female body could be exposed,
13:59and putting concepts like gender dysphoria at the forefront,
14:01with Alfred Hitchcock fighting the censors all the way.
14:04Plus, it basically invented the slasher genre.
14:10Number 5, Star Wars Episode 4, A New Hope.
14:14Illusioned at a blacker shield.
14:15Both draft yourselves in, I'm going to make a jump to light speed.
14:17Besides its groundbreaking special effects that blew minds at the time,
14:21Star Wars also revolutionized the sci-fi genre
14:23by introducing elements of fantasy,
14:26which helped make it more accessible for casual audiences
14:28than the heady or depressing fare that preceded it.
14:31What a desolate place this is.
14:37Where do you think you're going?
14:39It also changed the science fiction aesthetic,
14:41opting for a more broken-in, previously-used world
14:44rather than a gleaming, shiny, chrome-plated high-tech feature,
14:47and drew more from westerns than popcorn sci-fi.
14:50I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan.
14:53We meet again at last.
14:55In addition, Star Wars helped set trends in merchandising
14:58and franchise building
14:59that have become staples of the film industry.
15:02Number 4, The Wizard of Oz.
15:04A technicolor musical about a young girl's journey
15:06to return home from a strange land
15:08and the adventures she gets into along the way,
15:10The Wizard of Oz is a timeless classic.
15:13Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.
15:17Its colorful, creative sets helped codify the look of musical films,
15:21and its effects were also revolutionary for the time.
15:24Its focus on a female protagonist was an uncommon move in the 1930s.
15:28Behind the moon, beyond the rain,
15:32Somewhere over the rainbow...
15:40Decades later, The Wizard of Oz is among the most popular and beloved films of all time,
15:44and everything about it, from No Place Like Home to Ruby Red Slippers,
15:49has seeped into our collective cultural consciousness.
15:51And think to yourself,
15:54There's no place like home.
15:57There's no place like home.
16:00Number 3, Citizen Kane.
16:02Every independent poll shows that I'll be elected.
16:07Often cited as the greatest film ever made,
16:10Orson Welles' masterpiece follows the rise and fall of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane,
16:14as a reporter tries to discover the meaning behind his last word.
16:18Rockspot.
16:21From a pure filmmaking standpoint,
16:23Citizen Kane practically wrote the book,
16:25Inventing and improving upon many techniques that are now industry standards,
16:29Including the use of deep focus and low shooting angles,
16:32And overlapping dialogue.
16:34Legendary was the Xanadu where Kubla Khan decreed his stately pleasure dome.
16:40Today, almost as legendary as Florida Xanadu,
16:44World's largest private pleasure ground.
16:46Story-wise, Kane used a non-linear flashback-based approach,
16:50And used multiple and often unreliable narrators to deliver the story.
16:54In short, it's loaded with technique and style that's still groundbreaking today.
16:59There's only one man who can rid the politics of this state of the evil domination of boss Jim Geddes.
17:04Hooray!
17:04I am speaking of Charles Foster Kane,
17:07The fighting liberal,
17:08The friend of the working man.
17:10Number 2, Metropolis.
17:12Arguably one of the finest pieces of German cinema,
17:15And certainly among the finest examples of silent German expressionism,
17:19Metropolis follows a young man and woman from different social classes,
17:22As they fight to bring about equality in a futuristic dystopian cityscape.
17:26Along with being one of the first sci-fi movies,
17:33Its plot would not be out of place among today's crop of young adult films.
17:46Metropolis is also one of the first movies to feature a robot,
17:49And one that imitates a person at that,
17:51And done with a style and grace that was long absent in the years that followed.
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18:11Number 1, 2001, A Space Odyssey.
18:14A film that depicts everything from humankind's early beginnings to its exploration of space,
18:252001, A Space Odyssey was unlike anything that came before it.
18:29Not only were its effects groundbreaking,
18:31They were also very realistic, for the most part.
18:34While many of the technological advances it suggested were fairly accurate,
18:382001 also deals with a multitude of concepts that have since become customary to storytelling,
18:43Such as A.I. turning on its creators.
18:46Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
18:49I'm sorry, Dave.
18:51I'm afraid I can't do that.
18:53The film's minimal dialogue and musical score,
18:55Help create a lasting emotional connection in ways few others have been able to replicate.
19:00Did we forget another groundbreaking film worth mentioning?
19:14Let us know in the comments below.
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