Science fiction does its best at predicting the future. Sometimes it is so far off one cannot help but laugh in hindsight, while other times one wonders if the filmmakers were clairvoyants based on how close they were to emulating the actual future. The following list will show both sides of the coin.
Of course, a few older films which grossly miscalculated the present day still got a few things right, and the ones whose predictions came true maybe presented the idea in a different way. At the end of the day, most of the movies here are great, and their stories say something true about human nature, regardless of how realistic the worlds are.
Hilariously Wrong: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
To its credit, subtler innovations like tablets and video communication were predicted correctly in Stanley Kubrick's opus. However, most of these are overshadowed by the idea of humans achieving convenient commercial space travel by the year 2001. We wonder how Kubrick must have felt by the end of his life when he saw no plans for civilian space shuttles or Lunar colonization.
Eerily Accurate: Darkman (1990)
Sam Raimi's classic Darkman showcased a 3D printer decades before they became reality. In it, the hero uses one to make a face for himself.
The movie was ahead of its time in more ways than one just by virtue of being a successful and beloved super hero movie in the early '90s.
Hilariously Wrong: Running Man (1987)
Modern society still adores violence on television, but we haven't gotten to the point where we force convicts to fight each other to the death for our entertainment.
Society is only at a point where the masses enjoy watching movies about reality shows based on such grizzly games.
Eerily Accurate: Minority Report (2002)
Precogs may be a little far fetched, but Minority Report's world came true in other ways. The personalized ads people encounter, for example, are much like the Facebook ads people see today. Phones listen to our conversations and present products based on what they heard.
Hilariously Wrong: Planet Of The Apes (1968)
It is a good thing this one did not come true. Not that apes don't deserve their own chance at global domination, but we'd hate to see humanity wiped out by a virus.
If it were to start happening slowly, there'd already be intelligent apes in secret laboratories. While it may not be true, it still made for one of the best and most influential science fiction film series of all time.
Eerily Accurate: Lawnmower Man (1992)
Lawnmower Man's near future aesthetic helps keep it grounded. The movie predicted virtual reality technology with some surprising accuracy. The headsets depicted in the film look a lot like modern day VR platforms.
It cannot be used for accelerated learning and making hyper intelligent humans, however.
Hilariously Wrong: Terminator (1984)
Hollywood loves post-apocalypses. Thankfully, they never come true. While artificial intelligence is getting smarter with each passing year, it is unlikely the technology will ever try to overthrow humanity, nor will we ever travel through time like in this franchise.
Eerily Accurate: Woman In The Moon (1929)
Plenty of silent movies predicted space travel, but none of them did it with the same accuracy as Fritz Lang's Woman In The Moon. Mainly, a rocket is used to get the crew onto the Lunar surface.
A few key differences to reality prevent it from getting too creepy, like the rocket being in water and the moon having an atmosphere habitable for humans, but these are forgivable errors considering it came out so long before real space travel.
Hilariously Wrong: Escape From New York (1981)
To be fair, anybody who looked at New York City in the '70s and '80s wouldn't be irrational to predict the entire place going into ruin within the next decade or two.
The city has since cleaned up significantly, however, and while a few rough spots exist, the city is certainly not a prison colony.
Hilariously Wrong: Back To The Future Part II (1989)
Back to the Future Part II's 2015 was a decent effort, but missed the mark on several levels. Hover boards don't exist and self-drying clothing is not commonplace. Additionally, we don't have seventeen Jaws movies or holographic movie billboards.
Hilariously Wrong: Demolition Man (1993)
In the world of Demolition Man, all crime is extinguished and the world is completely rid of violence and profanity. This causes a problem when a violent criminal escapes his cryogenic freeze to unleash havoc upon the softened future. Additionally, a devastating earthquake merges Los Angeles and San Francisco. While most people want less crime, few want to live in a world as childish as this one.
Eerily Accurate: Things To Come (1936)
Everything after the intro is speculation because World War II didn't destroy civilization, but the simple fact that Things to Come predicts a second world war in the mid-30s gets it on the list.
The movie is based off of an H.G. Wells novel from 1933, and the Arthur always had his his finger on the world's pulse, so he could have seen a second global conflict stirring years before it came. Things to Come also stands as an all time classic, somehow managing to fully depict the fall of modern society and the rise of a new one within a one hundred minute run time.
Hilariously Wrong: Soylent Green (1973)
Soylent Green's dystopia is classic '70s science fiction fare. The titular substance used to solve the overpopulation crisis is ultimately revealed to be people. Fortunately, such a shocking thing has never happened on such a scale. To be fair to the movie, though, one can never be sure what type of food people are putting into their bodies when they ingest a hamburger or hot dog.
Hilariously Wrong: Blade Runner (1982)
It is hard to say what is funnier to think about; flying cars, androids, and space colonies existing by 2019 or RCA and Atari still being giant companies with billboards taking up space in major cities. While Blade Runner, based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, stands as one of the best films ever made, and its sequel is equally as fascinating, its vision of 2019 was way off base.
Hilariously Wrong: Akira (1988)
Fortunately, World War III never came and decimated the world as predicted in the Japanese animated classic. Additionally, no secret government organization has experimented on children with special powers. As incredible as Akira is, the world is lucky its vision of the future was not prophetic.