Top 20 Movies That Were WAY Ahead of Their Time

#20: “Night of the Living Dead” (1968)

He didn’t create zombies, but director George Romero helped to modernize the concept. He arguably retooled walkers into one of their most iconic forms. In “Night of the Living Dead,” the undead stumble around and terrorize a house of survivors. Romero is partly responsible for many of the subgenre’s key elements. A collection of diverse people stay in a location, board up the entry points, and assemble an arsenal of makeshift weapons. This plot also features plenty of thrills, building to a shocking and sobering climax. The movie spawned many sequels and sparked the imagination of several storytellers.

#19: “Enemy of the State” (1998)

This might be a thriller on the surface, but it’s also saying some prescient things about surveillance. Will Smith’s character ends up with an important tape that the NSA officials want. While trying to escape their grasp, he runs into a former agent that knows how to find a bug. The movie’s use of listening equipment and government overreach might have seemed like sci-fi at the time. Nowadays, this feels much more realistic. “Enemy of the State” came out long before Edward Snowden’s disclosures. In between the exciting chases and spycraft, the plot presents a chilling vision of what powerful people can do to ordinary citizens.

#18: “Alien” (1979)

Before this Ridley Scott project, many sci-fi horror projects were B-movies with cheesy effects. This film helped to change the perception of the entire genre. “Alien” features amazing makeup and prosthetic work, creating a villain that actually scares you. Scott’s direction helps to sell the high-production values, spooky setting, and classic storytelling. The filmmaker kickstarted a property that still freaks people out decades later, with sequels and spin-offs galore. There’s even some clever metaphors about life, birth, and death hidden beneath H.R. Giger’s designs. From the chest burst scene to the exciting finale, this iconic release set a high bar for cinematic excellence.

#17: “Sunset Boulevard” (1950)

Billy Wilder was known for hopping between genres, with this being one of his most legendary works. “Sunset Boulevard” allowed the writer/director to take a deep dive into the sinister nature of Hollywood. Both a satire and a drama, the plot brings together a wayward screenwriter and a washed-up starlet. Wilder’s story feels both real and surreal at various points. As a critique of celebrity and the entertainment business, the project could be called years ahead of its time. Norma Desmond’s ego-driven life mirrors the careers of many ill-fated performers. With a top-notch script and memorable quotes, this classic tale proved to be a genre-bending masterpiece.

#16: “King Kong” (1933)

Knowing that this came out in 1933, “King Kong” deserves even more praise for its technical aspects. The movie brings to life one of Hollywood’s most captivating monsters. It’s also filled with some imaginative visuals, utilizing stop-motion to make creatures fight and move. The adventure film blends the work of innovative technicians that breathe life into the title character. After some entertaining island scenes, the plot builds to an iconic finale at the Empire State Building. It’s here that the filmmakers outdo themselves with a set piece to end them all. Even if it seems dated now, the project continues to thrill audiences.

#15: “Some Like It Hot” (1959)

With an impeccable cast, this comedy could’ve been a classic with the ensemble alone. It also helps when your director is Billy Wilder. “Some Like It Hot” follows two musicians that need to skip town and find work. They join a traveling band, but they need to disguise themselves as women to do it. This sets up one of the more entertaining plots in film history. To top things off, the filmmakers cast Marilyn Monroe in one of her finest roles. The movie also packs in some groundbreaking jokes about sexuality and identity. In a timeless romp, Wilder adds some insights about humanity with a fantastic closing line.

#14: “Pulp Fiction” (1994)

Mixing together various crime movie cliches, Quentin Tarantino made a film that still feels fresh today. His followup to “Reservoir Dogs” features an incredible deconstruction of a typical plot. Shifting perspective and messing with timelines, “Pulp Fiction” might be the most influential screenplay of the 1990s. Tarantino also helped to redefine the nature of cinematic dialogue, pop culture commentary, and awesome needle drops. He established himself as a successful brand that many people try to imitate to this day. With so many artists influenced by this work, it still stands as a major reference point.

#13: “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (1988)

Director Robert Zemeckis and a talented animation team came together for this classic adventure. “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” includes plenty of funny jokes and references to old Hollywood, but it’s also a technological marvel. The filmmakers seamlessly blended live-action characters and cartoons into one project. Their ideas helped combine both mediums, creating a tribute to animated history in the process. Actor Bob Hoskins and his toon counterparts feel like they’re actually interacting with each other. An extensive post-production period allowed Roger Rabbit and his co-stars to be believable. With some hard work, this came together thanks to skilled artists and a little cinematic magic.

#12: “Network” (1976)

When a news anchor loses it on air, he becomes the unlikely star of a media empire. “Network” was written as a satire and now feels like reality. Howard Beale’s rants seem like they foreshadowed cable and internet news, while his speeches sound like any number of populist candidates. Writer Paddy Chayefsky had a hunch about the darker side of journalism and entertainment. In this film, the corporate overlords also struggle to maintain their grip on Beale’s madcap broadcasts. The movie’s theories about capitalism, global business, and the future of media have largely come to fruition.

#11: “The Matrix” (1999)

When you think about slow-motion action, you probably imagine a scene from “The Matrix.” The trippy plot also hypnotizes viewers to this very day. On a visual level, the production made something like “bullet time” iconic. The movie also blended influences from cinematic history into one pristine package. With thrilling camera work and special effects, this sci-fi plot leaps off the screen. The Wachowskis utilized a group of talented people to redefine the genre and Hollywood filmmaking. You could argue that along with its technological leaps, the film also pushed artists to create bolder and more complex stories.

#10: “The Truman Show” (1998)

What if your life was a TV show? “The Truman Show” follows this premise to its most extreme conclusion, depicting a man raised from birth within a carefully constructed gigantic set, with his whole life manipulated by producers, and spent interacting with actors. While reality TV shows were around when the film came out, they had yet to take over the airwaves to quite the degree they have today. “The Truman Show” also does a great job of illustrating our current paranoia over surveillance of our every move, albeit in a charming, whimsical manner.

#9: “Tron” (1982)

“Tron” follows a computer programmer after he is whisked inside a computer filled with sentient programs, and his attempts to escape and free the programs from the oppressive leadership they face. “Tron” was groundbreaking in terms of its visual effects, as it was one of the first films to utilize computer animated visuals. The subject matter, namely someone within a virtual reality fighting against a dictatorial regime, is also decades ahead of similar films, such as “The Matrix”. “Tron” went largely unappreciated at the time, though it has developed a cult following – and eventually earned two sequels – since its release.

#8: “A Clockwork Orange” (1971)

In a near-future dystopia, a young man named Alex leads his gang of troublemakers on a series of “ultraviolent” crimes, before being caught and brutally reconditioned. “A Clockwork Orange” set a new standard for how much violence could be shown in films, to the point where it sparked protests in response to how graphic it was. In addition, the movie also influenced future films with its stylistic choices, such as contrasting violence with unfitting music. No one could look at “Singin’ in the Rain” the same way after this, to say nothing of ol' Ludwig van.

#7: “Blade Runner” (1982)

Set in the once far off year of 2019, “Blade Runner” follows Harrison Ford as a grizzled cross between detective and hunter in his pursuit of a rogue group of artificial humans known as replicants. Though divisive and a poor performer at the box office when it came out initially, “Blade Runner” is now regarded as a landmark film, whose iconic, stunning visuals and retro-futuristic aesthetic have influenced everything from anime to the sci-fi and neo-noir genres to film in general. “Blade Runner” also helped bring the question of what being human will mean in the future, and in the present, into the public consciousness.

#6: “Psycho” (1960)

The story of Norman Bates, a hotel owner with a complicated maternal relationship, “Psycho” broke ground in a lot of ways. Looking back, some are less obvious – like daring to show an unmarried couple sharing a bed, showing a toilet flushing, or to include a shot of an actress in a bra. Others are easier to understand, such as new standards for how violence could be shown on screen, how much of the female body could be exposed, and putting concepts like gender dysphoria in the forefront – with Hitchcock fighting the censors all the way. Plus, it basically invented the slash genre.

#5: “Star Wars: Episode VI - A New Hope” (1977)

Besides its groundbreaking special effects that blew minds at the time, “Star Wars” also revolutionized the sci-fi genre by introducing elements of fantasy, which helped make it more accessible for casual audiences than the heady or depressing fare that preceded it. It also changed the science fiction aesthetic, opting for a more broken-in, previously used world rather than a gleaming, shiny, chrome plated high-tech future, and drew more from westerns than popcorn sci-fi. In addition, “Star Wars” helped set trends in merchandising and franchise building that have become staples of the film industry.

#4: “The Wizard of Oz” (1939)

A Technicolor musical about a young girl’s journey to return home from a strange land and the adventures she gets into along the way, “The Wizard of Oz” is a timeless classic. Its colorful, creative sets helped codify the look of musical films and its effects were also revolutionary for the time. Its focus on a female protagonist was also an uncommon move in the 1930s. Decades later, “The Wizard of Oz” is among the most popular and beloved films of all time and everything about it – from no place like home, to ruby red slippers – has seeped into our collective cultural consciousness.

#3: “Citizen Kane” (1941)

Often cited as the greatest film ever made, Orson Welles' masterpiece follows the rise and fall of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, as a reporter tries to discover the meaning behind his last word. From a pure filmmaking standpoint, “Citizen Kane” practically wrote the book, inventing and improving upon many techniques that are now industry standards – including use of deep focus, and low shooting angles, and overlapping dialogue. Story wise, Kane used a non-linear, flashback based approach, and used multiple – and often unreliable narrators – to deliver the story. In short, it's loaded with technique and style that's still groundbreaking today.

#2: “Metropolis” (1927)

Arguably one of the finest pieces of German cinema, and certainly among the finest examples of silent German expressionism, “Metropolis” follows a young man and woman from different social classes as they fight to bring about equality in a futuristic, dystopian cityscape. Along with being one of the first sci-fi movies, its plot would not be out of place among today's crop of young adult films. “Metropolis” is also one of the first movies to feature a robot, and one that imitates a person at that, and done with a style and grace that was long absent in the years that followed.

#1: “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968)

A film that depicts everything from humankind’s early beginnings to its exploration of space, “2001: A Space Odyssey” was unlike anything that came before it. Not only were its effects groundbreaking, they were also very realistic … for the most part, while many of the technological advances it suggested were fairly accurate. “2001” also deals with a multitude of concepts that have since become customary to storytelling, such as AI turning on its creators. The film’s minimal dialogue and musical score help create a lasting emotional connection in ways few others have been able to replicate.

Did we forget another groundbreaking film worth mentioning? Let us know in the comments below.