🏷 Discover The Best 2040s Movies & TV Shows To Watch Today

15 titles with this tag

Step into the captivating realm of near-future cinema with movies and TV shows set in the 2040s. As storytelling evolves, this crucial decade offers a mesmerizing lens into advanced artificial intelligence, climate shifts, and groundbreaking technology. Explore visionary narratives that blend gritty realism with speculative wonder, capturing humanity's next giant leap before it even happens.

Cast

Ryan Gosling

Harrison Ford

Ana de Armas

Dave Bautista

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

7.6 15.3K votes

Genre: Drama, Science Fiction

Country: Canada, United Kingdom

Duration: 164 min.

Audience: R

Story: Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

Style: slow burn

Plot: android, bounty hunter, artificial intelligence (a.i.), dystopia, sequel, cyberpunk, transhumanism, los angeles, ...

Time: future, 2040s

Place: las vegas

Cast

Tye Sheridan

Olivia Cooke

Ben Mendelsohn

Lena Waithe

Ready Player One (2018)

7.6 17.1K votes

Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction

Country: United States of America

Duration: 140 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: When the creator of a popular video game system dies, a virtual contest is created to compete for his fortune.

Plot: based on novel or book, video game, virtual reality, dystopia, nostalgia, love, film in film, evil corporation, ...

Time: future, 1980s, 2040s

Cast

Karl Urban

Michael Ealy

Minka Kelly

Mackenzie Crook

Almost Human (2013) TV Show

7.4 561 votes

Genre: Action, Crime, Drama

Country: United States of America

Seasons: 1

Episodes: 13

Audience: TV-14

Story: The year is 2048. By mandate, every cop must partner with a robot. Detective John Kennex returns to work after waking up from a 17-month coma. As he adjusts to working with his new partner, Dorian, a discontinued android with unexpected emotional responses, John also must learn to get along with his new colleagues.

Plot: artificial intelligence (a.i.), android, police, robot, buddy cop, grand

Time: future, 2040s

Cast

Robin Williams

Embeth Davidtz

Sam Neill

Oliver Platt

Bicentennial Man (1999)

7.3 4.0K votes

Genre: Drama, Romance, Science Fiction

Country: Germany, United States of America

Duration: 131 min.

Audience: PG

Story: Richard Martin buys a gift, a new NDR-114 robot. The product is named Andrew by the youngest of the family's children. "Bicentennial Man" follows the life and times of Andrew, a robot purchased as a household appliance programmed to perform menial tasks. As Andrew begins to experience emotions and creative thought, the Martin family soon discovers they don't have an ordinary robot.

Plot: android, based on novel or book, freedom, hologram, futuristic, robot, based on short story, journey

Time: 22nd century, 2040s, 23rd century, ...

Cast

Andy Serkis

Woody Harrelson

Karin Konoval

Terry Notary

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

7.2 9.8K votes

Genre: Drama, Science Fiction, War

Country: United States of America

Duration: 140 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: Caesar and his apes are forced into a deadly conflict with an army of humans led by a ruthless Colonel. After the apes suffer unimaginable losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts and begins his own mythic quest to avenge his kind. As the journey finally brings them face to face, Caesar and the Colonel are pitted against each other in an epic battle that will determine the fate of both their species and the future of the planet.

Plot: suicide, civil war, escape, winter, mutation, peace, solidarity, gorilla, ...

Time: 2040s

Cast

Tony Leung Chiu-wai

Gong Li

Faye Wong

Takuya Kimura

2046 (2004)

7.2 1.1K votes

Genre: Drama, Romance, Science Fiction

Country: Germany, Hong Kong

Duration: 128 min.

Audience: 12A

Story: Women enter and exit a science fiction author's life over the course of a few years after the author loses the woman he considers his one true love.

Plot: android, regret, lovesickness, jealousy, soulmates, based on novel or book, love of one's life, sexuality, ...

Time: 2040s

Place: hong kong

Cast

Lee Je-hoon

Ahn Jae-hong

Choi Woo-shik

Park Jeong-min

Time to Hunt (2020)

7.2 347 votes

Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller

Country: South Korea

Duration: 135 min.

Audience: 15

Story: Four young men want to leave their dystopian world behind and go to a distant paradise to execute a money robbery, a daring act that will have unexpected consequences.

Style: suspenseful

Plot: robbery, dystopia, male friendship, bromance, armed robbery, aggressive, manhunt, male male relationship, ...

Time: 2040s

Cast

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Bruce Willis

Emily Blunt

Paul Dano

Looper (2012)

6.9 11.0K votes

Genre: Action, Science Fiction, Thriller

Country: United States of America

Duration: 118 min.

Audience: R

Story: In the year 2044, time travel has not yet been invented but in 30 years it will have been. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target into the past where a looper, a hired gun, like Joe is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good until the day the mob decides to close the loop, sending back Joe's future self for assassination.

Style: suspenseful

Plot: suicide, assassin, dystopia, drug addiction, time travel, retirement, tragedy, murder, ...

Time: future, 2040s

Cast

Denzel Washington

Gary Oldman

Mila Kunis

Ray Stevenson

The Book of Eli (2010)

6.8 6.7K votes

Genre: Action, Science Fiction, Thriller

Country: United States of America

Duration: 118 min.

Audience: R

Story: A post-apocalyptic tale, in which a lone man fights his way across America in order to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind.

Plot: faith, chaos, dystopia, post-apocalyptic future, bible, survival, gunfight, blind, ...

Time: 2040s

Cast

Laurence Fishburne

Sam Neill

Kathleen Quinlan

Joely Richardson

Event Horizon (1997)

6.6 3.3K votes

Genre: Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction

Country: United Kingdom, United States of America

Duration: 96 min.

Audience: R

Story: In 2047, a group of astronauts are sent to investigate and salvage the starship Event Horizon which disappeared mysteriously seven years before on its maiden voyage. However, it soon becomes evident that something sinister resides in its corridors.

Plot: space marine, nightmare, insanity, delusion, hallucination, space travel, cryogenics, gore, ...

Time: 2040s

The Giver (2014)

6.6 4.7K votes

Genre: Drama, Science Fiction

Country: United States of America

Duration: 97 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.

Plot: new love, based on novel or book, dystopia, anti conformity, memory, alternative reality, color, based on young adult novel

Time: 2040s

Cast

Antonio Banderas

Melanie Griffith

Birgitte Hjort Su00f8rensen

Dylan McDermott

Automata (2014)

5.9 1.8K votes

Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller

Country: Bulgaria, Spain

Duration: 110 min.

Audience: R

Story: Jacq Vaucan, an insurance agent of ROC robotics corporation, routinely investigates the case of manipulating a robot. What he discovers will have profound consequences for the future of humanity.

Plot: artificial intelligence (a.i.), hitman, dystopia, robot, ecology, desert

Time: future, 2040s

Cast

George Clooney

Felicity Jones

David Oyelowo

Caoilinn Springall

The Midnight Sky (2020)

5.7 2.0K votes

Genre: Drama, Science Fiction

Country: United States of America

Duration: 118 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: A lone scientist in the Arctic races to contact a crew of astronauts returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe.

Plot: based on novel or book, post-apocalyptic future, nuclear radiation, space travel, arctic polar circle region, end of the world, cancer, astronaut, ...

Time: 2040s

Cast

Liev Schreiber

Elias Koteas

Romola Garai

Olivia Williams

The Last Days on Mars (2013)

5.5 928 votes

Genre: Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller

Country: Belgium, Ireland

Duration: 98 min.

Audience: R

Story: On the last day of the first manned mission to Mars, a crew member of Tantalus Base believes he has made an astounding discovery – fossilized evidence of bacterial life. Unwilling to let the relief crew claim all the glory, he disobeys orders to pack up and goes out on an unauthorized expedition to collect further samples. But a routine excavation turns to disaster when the porous ground collapses and he falls into a deep crevice. His devastated colleagues attempt to recover his body. However, when another vanishes, they start to suspect that the life-form they have discovered is not without danger.

Plot: planet mars, zombie

Time: 2040s

Doom (2005)

5.2 2.5K votes

Genre: Action, Horror, Science Fiction

Country: Czech Republic, Germany

Duration: 105 min.

Audience: R

Story: A team of space marines known as the Rapid Response Tactical Squad, led by Sarge, is sent to a science facility on Mars after somebody reports a security breach. There, they learn that the alert came after a test subject, a mass murderer purposefully injected with alien DNA, broke free and began killing people. Dr. Grimm, who is related to team member Reaper, informs them all that the chromosome can mutate humans into monsters -- and is highly infectious.

Plot: martial arts, monster, teleportation, fight, superhuman, creature, special forces, commando, ...

Time: 2040s

Why the 2040s is the Ultimate Setting for Futuristic Cinema

The 2040s represent a sweet spot for modern speculative fiction. Far enough in the future to feature jaw-dropping technological advancements, yet close enough to feel intimately plausible, movies and TV shows set in this era resonate deeply with modern audiences. Filmmakers leverage the 2040s to examine pressing real-world issues, from climate transformation to the rapid evolution of artificial consciousness.

This mid-21st-century timeline serves as a mirror to our modern world. It allows writers and directors to extrapolate contemporary technological breakthroughs—like quantum computing and autonomous systems—into immersive worlds that feel terrifyingly attainable.

Top Themes Defining Movies and TV Shows Set in the 2040s

As near-future sci-fi grows in popularity, several distinct themes dominate screenwriting. These stories go beyond mere visual spectacle to offer profound commentary on human resilience and technological integration.

Key Tropes and Sci-Fi Trends

Advanced AI Integration: Sentient artificial intelligence and synthetic humanoids navigating complex societal roles.
Climate-Conscious Futures: Dystopian and utopian narratives exploring geoengineering, shifting landscapes, and urban adaptation.
Transhumanism & Cybernetics: Brain-computer interfaces, bio-engineering, and the blur between human and machine.

Must-Watch 2040s Titles and Visions

Blade Runner 2049: Denis Villeneuve’s masterpiece depicts an atmospheric, high-tech mid-century world dealing with synthetic life and environmental shifts.
Near-Future Cyberpunk Serials: Engaging television series that explore corporate dominance, digital realities, and underground resistance movements.
Space Colonization Dramas: Gripping thrillers depicting humanity's initial steps toward establishing permanent lunar and Martian habitats.
Speculative Dystopian Thrillers: Suspense-filled narratives depicting the social friction between organic human populations and digital augmentations.

How to Stream the Best 2040s Content Today

Finding the ultimate sci-fi movies and TV shows set in the 2040s has never been easier. Premier streaming platforms offer vast libraries filled with mind-bending thrillers, futuristic mystery series, and stunning visual epics. Dive in today to curate your watchlist and experience humanity's captivating next chapter.