1987 saw Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role of The Running Man, based on the 1982 novel of the same name by Richard Bachman which at the time was the pseudonym of Stephen King.
The 1987 movie loosely based on the book was set in a Dystopian 2017 USA, which back then 2025 was some 30yrs away. Now in present day 2025, the movie is getting a reboot and set for release later this year, on 7th November. King was disappointed and asked to be kept out of the in the screen adaptation of what is seen as a popular Arnold classic, an action packed, entertaining slice of 80s pop culture.
The 1987 movie takes place in an oppressive United States, where the most popular TV show is The Running Man, where enemies of the state must flee for their lives, whilst being hunted by colourful stalkers. Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a cop, who is falsely convicted of slaying women & children and forced into the gameshow, and fight for his life against the stalkers hunting him.
Yes it could have been better, but we are talking 1980s, there just wasn’t the technology for special effects and cameras to really make this movie that we have today. But still this was a great movie and still today a movie well worth watching! Rotten Tomatoes gave the it…
The 2025 reboot, directed & produced by Edgar Wright and starring Glen Powell was announced by the director back in 2017 in X, known as Twitter back then, that he would be adapting the Stephen King novel and in 2021, Paramount Studios announced the movie was in development and would be based on the novel and not on the 1987 movie.
With the Edgar Wright reboot set for release later this year, if you are eager for some dystopian action adventure, then we’ve put together a list of great movies to keep you happy in the meantime…
At time of publishing, you can watch The Running Man 1990 on Channel 4.
Judge Dredd 1995
Based on the comics of the same name, this cheesy 90s sci-fi action movie starring Sylvester Stallone is full of action, one liners and 90s cheese, which is what makes it still the best the best Dredd movie to hit the big screen! The movie follows Dredd, as he tries to fight back and undo a conspiracy to wrongfully convict him for a crime he did not commit.
Judge Dredd is set in the 22nd century, where ruthless judges are judge, jury and executioner in a world where social order has fallen apart. Extreme violent law enforcement is the name of the game in this dystopian future and the perfect movie for fans of The Running Man.
For me, the cheesy one liners, and typical Stallone senseless violence makes this movie the best Dredd movie, far better than the more recent reboots.
The Hunt 2020
In a darkly ironic twist of fate, Craig Zobel’s The Hunt, which is a satire on classism and political conservatism, had its release delayed when President Donald Trump had a fit on social media after finding out about its premise (via The Guardian). The Hunt is set in the present world, where a group of working-class people are kidnapped by a group of social elites for them to hunt.
A satire on the deep political divide between the left and the right wings that has only gotten wider and more extreme now Trump is back in the White House. The Hunt’s premise of an actual war between two social classes is genius. The use of this premise to explore people’s lack of tolerance towards anyone with opposing viewpoints seems to be a direct nod to The Running Man. This isn’t surprising whatsoever, because The Hunt is loosely based on the 1924 Richard Connell short story The Most Dangerous Game, which influenced King’s novel too.
A gripping movie to keep you on the edge of your seat, you know pretty much how its going to end up, the same way as all of these movies, but the graphic killings and the fact that it got Trump in a hissy fit gets my vote and thumbs up for this movie!
Available on Netflix at time of publication.
Total Recall 1990
Unlike the 1987 The Running man, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Total Recall (1990) flys pretty close to the 1966 short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick, it’s based on.
When a man goes in to have virtual vacation memories of the planet Mars implanted in his mind, an unexpected and harrowing series of events forces him to go to the planet for real – or is he?
Douglas Quaid is haunted by a recurring dream about a journey to Mars. He hopes to find out more about this dream and buys a holiday at Rekall Inc. where they sell implanted memories. But something goes wrong with the memory implantation and he remembers being a secret agent fighting against the evil Mars administrator Cohaagen. Now the story really begins and it’s a rollercoaster ride until the massive end of the movie.
The movie was reported to cost between $48-80million and took $261.4million worldwide, making it the fifth highest movie of the year. Although at the time, the movie gained mixed reviews with some praising its themes of identity and others criticising it for its perceived as vulgar and violent. You cant please everyone right!
Since its release, Total Recall 1990 has seen much praise and become a popular movie with cult status, and seen by many as one of Schwarzenegger’s best movies.
The movie has spawned a reboot of its own, the 2012 version starring Will Farrell which was a very loose adaptation of the book, but although it had amazing special effects and a good storyline, it just wasn’t as dynamic, fun to watch or exciting as the Arnold version, failing to replicate the success of the 1990 movie.
There was also a TV adaptation called Total Recall 2070 which was cancelled after the first season.
Total Recall is the ideal choice for fans of The Running Man. Both full of cheesy violence, sleazy romance and of course don’t forget the man at the centre of both movies, Schwarzenegger himself!
Just as the media and public, for me, the 2012 reboot did not do it for me, it had all the chances of being a great movie with the advances in technology in the film industry, but you just cant beat the Arnold classic.
Available on Amazon Prime at time of publication.
Matrix
The Matrix is a fast-paced dystopian action movie with plenty of dazzling special effects!
A future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside the Matrix, a simulated reality created by intelligent machines. Believing computer hacker Neo (Keanu Reeves) to be “the One” prophesied to defeat them, Morpheus recruits him into a rebellion against the machines.
The first film was an important critical and commercial success, winning four Academy Awards, introducing popular culture symbols such as the red pill and blue pill, and influencing action filmmaking for years to come, and has been added to the National Film Registry for preservation. Its first sequel was also a commercial success, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated film in history, until it was surpassed by Deadpool in 2016. As of 2006, the franchise has generated US$3 billion in revenue.
For me, the first is the still the best, the sequels are definitely worth watching, but not my cup of tea, they just don’t capture the wow factor the first one did for me.
Available on Netflix at time of publication.
Mad Max
The originals are always best, and this is no exception, though Beyond The Thunderdome was a close second, if not equal!
In a self-destructing world, a vengeful Australian policeman sets out to stop a violent motorcycle gang.
Taking place in a dystopian Australia in the near future, Mad Max tells the story of a highway patrolman cruising the squalid back roads that have become the breeding ground of criminals foraging for gasoline and scraps. After some grisly events at the hands of a motorcycle gang, Max sets out across the barren wastelands in search of revenge.
The movie starring at the time a little known Mel Gibson who was paid a reported $9000
Some will argue the reboots such as Mad Max Fury Road released in 2015 are better, but for me, the originals can never be beaten, and as for the mega hit “We Dont Need a Hero” by the legendary Tina Turner
Available on Amazon Prime at time of publication.
Blade Runner
A blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.
In the early twenty-first century, the Tyrell Corporation, during what was called the Nexus phase, developed robots, called “replicants”, that were supposed to aid society, the replicants which looked and acted like humans. When the superhuman generation Nexus 6 replicants, used for dangerous off-Earth endeavours, began a mutiny on an off-Earth colony, replicants became illegal on Earth.
Police units, called “blade runners”, have the job of destroying – or in their parlance “retiring” – any replicant that makes its way back to or created on Earth, with anyone convicted of aiding or assisting a replicant being sentenced to death. It’s now November, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former blade runner, is called out of retirement when four known replicants, most combat models, have made their way back to Earth, with their leader being Roy Batty.
This timeless masterpiece is one of the greatest science fiction films ever made, with its towering cityscapes and nods to film noir, the movie offers a vision of a dystopian future devoid of human emotion that left me in awe when I first watched this Ridley Scott epic as a teenager, this movie was the reason the big screen was invented for!
Robocop
Robocop (1987) was a smart over the top violent satire of American culture sci-fi.
I was about 14 when I saw this movie on VHS, for you Millennials and GenZ’s out there, this was a large cassette tape that we put into a machine to play movies, which we had to go to stores like Blockbuster to rent them for 24hrs.
Robocop was one of the best action movies I watched as a kid, and today still one of my favourite movies of all time. Back then I saw it for just an action movie, today, I see it for more than that, an action packed amusing satire swipe at Western (particularly American) consumer culture and media, with memorable catchlines like “I’d buy that for a Dollar!”.
Set in Detroit, the story follows a cop named Murphy who is all but killed and taken ownership by OCP who own the cops, transforming him into a cyborg named Robocop. Its not long before Robocop remembers his past as Murphy, memories of his wife & child, and his violent near-death experience that OCP erased from his memory and realises that the corrupt OCP are in bed with a criminal gang looking to take over Detroit.
Available on Amazon Prime at time of publication.
28 Days Later
28 Days after a mysterious and incurable virus is released from a lab of contagious monkeys by a group of animal rights activists, a small group of survivors who leave London in search of sanctuary.
The survivors head to Manchester where they find a group of British soldiers hauled up in a mansion outside the city, who offer protection from the zombi-like infected.
One of my favourite zombi movies ever, filmed on a small budget of just $8million, this gritty British, docu-style movie was what was great about it, and why the sequel 28 Weeks Later with a bigger budget and Hollywood involved just took away the greatness and its authenticity.
Director Danny Boyle’s movie works for me, because of its low budget and small screen style with jumpy hand held camera action scenes mixed with bleak cold looking countryside scenes, desolate motorways and eerie deserted streets of London.
The film centres around Jim, a bicycle courier, who wakes up in a deserted London hospital from a coma after being involved in a traffic accident. Leaving the hospital, Jim sees the streets of London are as deserted as the hospital where he meets Selena and soon after come face to face with the infected. Whilst fleeing the rabid zombi-like infected, Jim notices a makeshift signal in the distance in a tower-block where they meet a father and his young daughter.
They decide to head north to where they are taken in by a surviving unit of British soldiers who have ulterior motives, which leads to the mansion they are hauled up in to fall to the infected, leaving Jim, Selena and the young girl retreating to a remote cottage in Cumbria.
With Danny Boyle, back at the helm as director in the upcoming 28 Years Later, this next chapter is looking set to be as good as the first instalment, check out the trailer below and get ready for its release 20th June 2025.
Available on Amazon Prime at time of publication.
Planet of the Apes 1968
For me, the best Planet of the Apes series of films started with this , the 1968 movie starring Charlton Heston. A crew of astronauts on a deep space expedition wake up from hyper-sleep and crash land on a planet in the 40th century where apes are the dominant species and humans are the enslaved and have lost the ability of speech.
Taylor played by Heston is one of three astronauts that survive the crash ends up prisoner of the apes, injured and unable to speak. Taylor shows intelligence above the rest of the humans and captures the eyes of two chimpanzees, Zira and Cornelius, and then he speaks.
Taylor with the help of the two chimpanzees escapes and the adventure that leads to Taylor realising that he isn’t on an alien planet, but Earth way in the future, and the adventure that sees Zira & Cornelius head back into the past, before apes become superior to humans.
The movie was released 3rd April 1968 in New York City, and was a box-office hit, earning a domestic gross of $33.3million. The groundbreaking prosthetic makeup earn’t Planet of the Apes nominations for Best Costume Design and Best Original Score at the 41st Academy Awards and winning an Honorary Academy Award for Chambers and in 2001, the movie was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
The 1968 movie’s success led to four sequels, a live action tv series, an animated series and comic books, with actor Roddy McDowall, who had a long-running relationship with the franchise, appearing in four of the five movies and the tv series.
The 2001, the franchise was rebooted with Tim Burton at the helm and again in 2011 which began with Rise of The Planet of the Apes. All good films, but none comparing to the original franchise that started off with Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall.
It would be great to see another reboot, but would need to run to the original 1968 movie and its sequels, to see these movies rebooted with 21st century film technology and special effects, I think that could have the potential to be great. Another idea for rebooting the franchise would be to stay true to the novel La Planète des singes, by French author Pierre François Marie Louis Boulle that the franchise was created from in the first place.
Available on Disney Plus at time of publication.
The Book of Eli
This dystopian post-apocalyptic movie follows Denzel Washington as Eli, a survivor of a post-apocalyptic wasteland in possession of a mysterious book that many are willing to kill for. Though the average critical response was negative, some praised The Book of Eli’s gripping plot and exciting twist on the post-apocalyptic genre.
The movie was not viewed well by critics, receiving only 47% on Rotten Tomatoes Critic’s Rating, and only a little better with 64% from the Audience Members Rating. Many felt the movie feeling that the twist at the end, revealing the book is actually the Bible written in brail didn’t make up for the rest of the movie.
However, I would say, put aside the poor reviews, especially from critics. Denzel Washington’s performance as Eli is mesmerising! The movie is visually stunning and thought provoking, all reasons to sit back and watch this movie.
Washington plays a drifter who fights his way across a ravaged, post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book that holds the secrets to humanity’s salvation.
The Postman
This under-rated Kevin Costner movie released in 1997 is set in a 2013 post-apocalyptic America follows a nameless drifter who dons a postman’s uniform and bag of mail, as he begins a quest to inspire hope to survivors of a post-apocalyptic world.
The unnamed wanderer played by Costner poses as a postman in a town, bluffing that the US Government has been reinstated, tricking the town into feeding him. However reluctantly becomes a symbol of hope to the people who begin to remember the world that once was, giving them courage to stand up to a local warlord and his army.
Is The Postman worth watching? Definitely! Back when it was released, it wasn’t fashionable to make dystopian movies that were more about people and ideas than technology, robots and machines. Today, this is a movie is definitely worth a revival. If the movie was to be made today, it would likely be a great success.
Death Race 2000
Its the year 2000, and a brutal cross country annual car race known as ‘The Infamous Annual Transcontinental Road Race’, the ultimate sporting event called Death Race where contestants score points for running people over as they race across the country in this 1975 dystopian movie set against the backdrop of political unrest, anarchy and social turmoil, a now totalitarian United Provinces of America.
The sport has crazed fans who sacrifice themselves to the drivers. A covert group is trying to bring an end to the immoral Death Race and has infiltrated one of their followers into the race as a navigator of the top driver. In the end, the lives of the competitors, the President and the Death Race itself are in peril.
Drivers score points simply by running over unsuspecting pedestrians, the national champion driver Frankenstein has to race against fast contestants such as the beautiful cowgirl killer Calamity Jane; the neo-Nazi Matilda the Hun; the Roman gladiator Nero the Hero, and, first and foremost, the Chicago thug and ambitious challenger Machine Gun Joe. Who will score the most points in the violent Death Race 2000?
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