Science fiction has forever been where we cast our greatest hopes—and darkest nightmares. Since Georges Méliès launched a rocket into the eye of the moon in 1902, the genre has allowed us to envision where we’re going and what we’ll be.
Sci-fi movies over the past two decades have become even more ambitious, delivering everything from polished futures to dark dystopias. But among all the hype and blockbuster din, one movie has been quietly standing the test of time as the genre’s greatest triumph: Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men.
Children of Men came out in 2006, but it did not immediately generate buzz at the box office. Universal Pictures was unable to sell it, and it only managed to break even on its $76 million budget, grossing $69 million worldwide.
But as is the case with most masterpieces, its true strength was discovered years later. Now, Children of Men is generally accepted as a contemporary classic, leading IndieWire’s best 21st-century science fiction film list, even ahead of masterpiece-praised films like Blade Runner 2049, Ex Machina, and Tenet.
What distinguishes Children of Men isn’t explosive effects or franchise success. It’s the crushing weight and sense of urgency. In a decaying 2027, the film is set in a future where mass infertility has brought humanity to the edge of extinction.
The government has fallen, society is broken, and London is a city terrorized by fear, militarism, and despair. In the process, Clive Owen portrays an alienated bureaucrat who is assigned to guard the first pregnant woman in almost twenty years—one tenuous icon of life in a world that has lost faith in it.
Cuarón, a director already celebrated by Y Tu Mamá También and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, added a sense of desperation to Children of Men that is more pressing than ever before. Working with him for the fifth time is cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who contributes to capturing that sense of desperation in stunning long takes that throw audiences directly into incendiary city streets and intense combat areas. The result is experiential, visceral, and unforgettable.
But aside from its technical proficiency, Children of Men is memorable due to the themes it dares to tackle—migration, collapse of the system, authoritarianism, and the gradual loss of hope. Almost two decades after the movie was released, it no longer appears as much of a dystopian fantasy but rather a bleak assessment of the world in which we now live. From refugee camps and patriotic propaganda to ecological disaster and mass surveillance, its presentation of societal breakdown is unnervingly close to home.
And yet, beneath it all, Children of Men is not a despairing story. It’s a story of resilience—of the tenuous, flickering spark of hope that exists even in darkest corners. That emotional resonance is what lifts the film above grim prophecy. It’s why the narrative continues to haunt audiences, long after the blackness closes over the final scene.
In so many respects, Children of Men is the ideal model for what science fiction can deliver at its best. For decades, the genre had been written off as escapist or cult, but movies like this demonstrate how it can engage with the most fundamental concerns of our era. It’s not about envisioning the future—it’s about making us better understand the present.
As we move through a world of chaos and uncertainty, Children of Men is more timely than ever. It’s not a movie that required a franchise or a billion-dollar budget to leave a lasting impression. All it required was a worthy tale—and the guts to tell it without apologies.