2026 has been a big year for Grammy winner Anderson .Paak. The soulful hip-hop and R&B artist and one-half of Silk Sonic has been having a moment of late, recently appearing on the Time100 Most Influential People in the World list for 2026, showing up at the MET Gala, performing globally with his creative partner Bruno Mars on the star’s The Romantic Tour, and finally bringing his feature directorial debut K-Pops! to theaters. With Father’s Day just around the corner, Netflix is giving him even more good news. Nearly two years after debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival, his family comedy officially arrives on streaming this weekend, on May 30, just in time to celebrate the holiday with a story of a dad learning to do right by his long-lost son. Before then, Collider can exclusively share a collection of behind-the-scenes shots from the making of the silly, heartwarming, and deeply personal project.

K-Pops! is a collision of love, music, culture, and passion, something that’s reflected in each of the images from the production process. For every shot of .Paak taking notes, observing scenes, and looking at screens — all while in costume — there are more of the director/star bringing his cast and crew in to show them what they made together. It particularly highlights how much of a father-son affair the film was, with .Paak sharing laughs and scenes alike with his son, Soul Rasheed. The idea was born out of his obsession with K-pop, which, in turn, got his dad interested and became something the two could bond over. Whether they’re jamming out together or walking through elaborate sets, there’s a clear respect and excitement for the culture and the music that binds them together.

In the film, .Paak plays BJ, a washed-up Los Angeles musician seeking a fresh start to his career in South Korea. Still emotionally bruised from a past relationship, he starts his journey back to stardom as part of a house band on a K-pop competition show in Seoul. It’s there, however, that he discovers his long-lost son, Tae Young (Rasheed), is chasing his own dreams of K-pop superstardom and is on the fast track to becoming one of the industry’s next big names. Suddenly, BJ’s goal shifts from launching his solo act to mentoring Tae Young, hoping his success will also carry him back to the top. As they spend time together and begin to bond over their shared love of music, though, he fully commits to being the best dad he can be for Tae Young, embracing the culture and hobbies he loves and working to repair his relationships.

‘K-Pops!’ Was Hailed as a Loving Tribute to K-Pop and Fatherhood

Further reflecting .Paak’s commitment to South Korean culture and music, K-Pops! is packed with sounds from real K-pop artists, including the track “Keychain,” which .Paak made in collaboration with the girl group aespa. The cast, featuring the likes of Jee Young Han, Jonnie “Dumbfoundead” Park, and Yvette Nicole Brown, also includes several K-pop stars, like Kevin Woo, Vernon, G-Dragon, Seventeen, and The Rose. Both the personal and cultural elements came together in a screenplay co-written by .Paak and Khaila Amazan to make a film that critics lauded as a loving tribute to the music genre and its ability to bring people together, earning it a very strong Certified Fresh 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. Collider’s Isabella Soares gave it a 7/10 in her review, writing “This isn’t the typical tale of a parent begrudgingly setting their dreams aside for their child, but a rather optimistic outlook on how fatherhood can help a person learn from their mistakes and become a better version of themselves.”

K-Pops! takes the stage on streaming on May 30. Check out our exclusive collection of behind-the-scenes photos in the gallery above and check out .Paak’s full episode of Collider On the Record below.

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Release Date

February 27, 2026

Runtime

114 minutes

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Director

Anderson .Paak

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In a surprising turn of events, Serena Williams is reportedly preparing a monumental return to professional tennis after nearly four years away from competitive sports. 

The iconic athlete has apparently requested a tournament entry to play alongside a rising international star in an upcoming grass-court event in London.

Despite her previous public denials and statements downplaying the rumors, recent developments behind the scenes suggest the legendary champion is ready to step back onto the court.

Per recent reports, the 44-year-old tennis icon is reportedly planning to enter the doubles draw at the upcoming Queen’s Club Championships, which are scheduled to begin on June 8. 

News of her potential wildcard request broke during a broadcast of the “Served” podcast, which is hosted by her close friend and former player Andy Roddick. According to the clip posted on X, the legendary champion intends to make her competitive return by partnering with world No. 9 Victoria Mboko of Canada. 

This upcoming appearance would mark her very first competitive outing since her emotional final appearance at the 2022 U.S. Open, where her historic career seemingly concluded with a third-round defeat against Ajla Tomljanović.

The surprising tournament update directly contradicts several public statements made by the multi-time Grand Slam winner over the last several months. When reports first surfaced in December revealing that she had officially re-entered the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s anti-doping testing pool, she quickly dismissed the speculation on social media, per U.S. Weekly.

Writing to her followers on X, she stated that she was not coming back and described the mounting online rumors as an out-of-control “wildfire.”

The Tennis Legend Previously Shut Down Rumors Of Her Return 

Williams similarly maintained this identical stance during a late January appearance on the “Today” show with anchor Savannah Guthrie, where she claimed she was simply enjoying her retirement. 

The 23-time Grand Slam champion appeared completely caught off guard when host Guthrie raised the possibility of a professional comeback, per The Blast.

Rather than giving a straightforward answer about her future athletic plans, she initially laughed off the speculation and claimed she was simply having fun and seeing what happened.

As the questioning persisted, the legendary player firmly shut down further discussion regarding her official anti-doping paperwork, stating that she was simply not allowed to discuss the matter on television.

Serena Williams Credited Weight-Loss Medication For Her Peak Physical Health

Although Williams was unwilling to discuss details of her rumored return, she has been open about the effect of weight-loss medication on her health. 

According to The Blast, she noted that the treatments have completely changed her physical well-being, helping the 44-year-old athlete drop 35 pounds and lower her cholesterol numbers by an impressive 30 percent.

The health improvements have slashed the iconic champion’s lifetime risk of developing heart disease by 70 percent, leaving her feeling lighter and better than ever. The multi-time champion also confessed that she currently possesses so much physical stamina that she regularly participates in runs, long walks, and intense pilates sessions. 

She even recalled hitting balls on a tennis court just days prior to the interview and simply having fun with the sport without the immense pressure of her past career.

Serena Williams’ Post About Discipline Sparked Debates Online

Besides talking about her weight loss journey, Williams was also open about discipline in her household. The retired champion sparked an intense online debate after sharing a deeply personal parenting moment involving her daughter, Olympia.

The conversation began when Williams took to X (formerly Twitter) to share a relatable, emotionally fraught moment at home.

The tennis legend explained that she had told her eldest daughter, Olympia, to go to bed, but the child refused. As a result of her defiance, Olympia was denied permission to attend a planned sleepover, leading to tears from the young girl.

The Blast reported that Williams didn’t shy away from admitting how difficult the enforcement was for her as a mother. She revealed that the punishment took an emotional toll on her as well. However, this resulted in intense backlash from fans online who felt that it was bad parenting on her part.

The Tennis Legend Recently Expressed Regret About Her Parenting Decisions 

While her candid social media admissions about discipline sparked widespread internet debate, the 23-time Grand Slam champion continued to pull back the curtain on how she raises her children with her husband, Alexis Ohanian. 

Appearing on a special live taping of the podcast “IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson,” the tennis icon opened up about raising eight-year-old Olympia and two-year-old Adira.

Williams confessed that she initially instituted a self-imposed boundary where she refused to spend more than 24 hours away from Olympia until her daughter reached six years old, per The Blast.

While acknowledging the parenting decision might have been a little extreme, she emphasized it was her way of showing up for her children every single day.

60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi’s contract was not renewed amid a clash with the editor-in-chief of CBS News, Bari Weiss.

“It sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom,” Alfonsi, 53, told The New York Times in an interview published on Wednesday, May 27, days after her deal expired. “I think it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize accurate reporting.”

Alfonsi alleged that her agent had been inquiring with CBS News over the past several weeks and had been met with silence. She explained that she remains employed at CBS, but has no contract in place. Alfonsi alleged that she did not have an expectation of returning to 60 Minutes.

“I’m not resigning,” she said. “If they want me gone because I did my job, they’ll have to fire me.”

Alfonsi has contributed to 60 Minutes since 2015. Six months prior to her contract not being renewed, Alfonsi’s segment on torture in Salvadoran prisons was pulled off the air by Weiss, 42.

At the time, Alfonsi said in an email to colleagues that the decision was “political.” Weiss, however, denied this and said the reporting “was not ready.” Weiss claimed she had suggested a few tweaks, including that the team ask for an interview with Stephen Miller.

The segment aired one month later. At the time, there were comments from the Trump administration added to the piece.

Alfonsi appeared on 60 Minutes through the remainder of the season, which came to an end in May. While weighing in on the show’s future, Alfonsi told The New York Times that she felt it was uncertain.

“For the last 60 years it’s been the same formula: Tell the truth, hold the power accountable, don’t blink,” she said. “And it’s unclear what next season looks like.”

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She continued, “There’s a feeling that the wall has come down between editorial independence and corporate interests. The concern is we’re going to end up with a broadcast that looks like 60 Minutes but doesn’t have the courage or the character to produce 60 Minutes journalism that actually matters.”

Since Weiss joined CBS, Anderson Cooper also left the program after 20 years. In his last appearance earlier this month, Cooper shared that he hoped “60 Minutes remains 60 Minutes.”

He added, “The independence of 60 Minutes has been critical. The trust it has with viewers is critical to the success of 60 Minutes.”

Who says that action films can’t have excitement as well as emotional storytelling? Not Christopher Nolan, that’s for sure. After making a splash with Memento and Insomnia, the visionary director took on one of the most famous action vigilantes of all time. While not an obvious choice to lead a new era of Batman, Nolan was one of the pioneers of the gritty superhero genre. Christian Bale stars as the Caped Crusader in a trilogy that defied all tropes of the genre up until that point.

A far cry from the camp that Adam West delivered in the ‘60s, Batman Begins shows a realistic portrayal of Bruce Wayne’s origin and how he came to adopt the cowl. Bale epitomizes Batman’s dark burden in a star-studded cast that has become classic. Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, and Cillian Murphy all star in the first film, and this cast was just the beginning. The subsequent movies continued with an all-star cast and went on to be one of the most perfect action trilogies of all time.

‘The Dark Knight Trilogy’ Balances Action and Heart

It can always be said that Christopher Nolan knows how to make a good movie. While it may be easy to slot The Dark Knight Trilogy into just another superhero franchise, no decision in these films was made without consideration for the characters. Nolan did an impressive job of making Bruce’s decision to dress up like a bat make emotional sense, as he did with some of the more wild aspects of the franchise. Instead of a cartoonish villain, the Joker (Heath Ledger) became legitimately terrifying, as did his fixation with Batman. Bane (Tom Hardy) turns in his use of venom for a more emotionally resonant backstory.

One of the more controversial decisions for the comic fans was to strip back Batman’s moniker as The World’s Greatest Detective. In The Dark Knight Trilogy, Batman does less investigating and more chasing down nuclear bombs. However, Nolan’s approach to the subject material created an action franchise that was near-perfect in its execution. Like any movie in the director’s filmography, Batman succeeds thanks to its well-placed visuals, music, and performances.

Each film is a race against time, and an iconic villain to save Gotham from itself. This trilogy paved the way for Zack Snyder and eventually Matt Reeves, who has delivered one of the most comic-accurate portrayals of Batman. Because of Nolan, The Batman could be a truly great crime movie. At the same time, The Dark Knight Trilogy stands on its own as a rare, concise franchise that needs no outside context.

Nolan’s films are self-contained and gratifying, especially in a world where Marvel demands an excessive amount of homework to follow plotlines. The Batman films were action-packed but really needed no further explanation. It attracted Oscar-winning talent because of the strength of the writing. Nolan has released many masterpieces in their own right, but it is hard to deny the power of his Batman films.

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Release Date

July 17, 2012

Runtime

165 minutes

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Producers

Benjamin Melniker, Charles Roven, Emma Thomas, Kevin De La Noy, Michael Uslan

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Logan Paul posted a series of graphic photos after having surgery to repair a torn tricep suffered in a WWE match. 

“Tore my tricep, got surgery while wide awake, told doc I wanna feel it all,” Paul, 31, claimed via Instagram on Wednesday, May 27. “Still the Tag Team champ just FYI.”

The former YouTube star shared a carousel of pictures from pre and post-surgery, showing off a massive scar on his left arm.

Paul suffered the injury during a tag team title match against the Street Profits at WWE’s Saturday Night’s Main Event on Saturday, May 23, when the Street Profits’ Angelo Dawkins hit Paul with a flip to the outside of the ring. 

“They’re telling me 6 month recovery but I don’t believe them, I’ll be back in a couple weeks,” Paul boasted. Jokes aside, Paul is expected to be out for roughly half-a-year.

Paul also managed to have a sense of humor about his scar, reposting one fan’s suggestion that it looked like an Uncrustable sandwich. 

“Damn,” he wrote via his Instagram Story next to the side-by-side comparison. 

Paul’s comments were filled with messages from supporters, including his younger brother, Jake Paul. 

“Put some salt on it,” Jake, 29, joked. 

WWE women’s champion Rhea Ripley wrote, “That’s CRAZY lookin!”

Logan and his tag team partner, Austin Theory, still managed to win their match against the Street Profits at Saturday Night’s Main Event, retaining their tag team titles. 

Paul Heyman — who manages Logan, Theory, 28, Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed as The Vision — suggested the stable has a plan to keep Paul’s belt warm while he recovers. 

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“Logan Paul knows better than anyone else, this ain’t ballet,” Heyman, 60, told Theory Monday, May 25, on WWE Raw. “And when you and Logan Paul became the tag team champions, I put in every contract, ‘The Vision defending the tag team titles.’”

Heyman continued, “That means any member of The Vision teaming with any member of The Vision of my choice. Which means you are going to be the tag team champion with, oh, I don’t know, off the top of my head, Bron Breakker. And I expect the two of you to defend those titles with honor and dignity.”

Paul and Theory won the tag team titles after defeating the Usos in a Street Fight on March 30. It marked Paul’s second championship in WWE since making his in-ring debut in April 2022. Paul also won the United States Championship in November 2023, eventually losing it to LA Knight at SummerSlam in August 2024. 

By Robert Scucci
| Published 26 seconds ago

As I’ve said in the past, I have a strange relationship with media in the streaming era because I’ll blindly throw on a title that looks intriguing without first digging into its lore and development. While watching 1989’s Savage Beach, my first thought was, “This is a lot like Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987), but if it played more like Charlie’s Angels.” As it turns out, Savage Beach belongs to the same Triple B (Bullets, Bombs, and Babes) film series spearheaded by Andy Sidaris. Other titles in the series, outside of Hard Ticket to Hawaii, include Malibu Express (1985), Picasso Trigger (1988), Day of the Warrior (1996), and even a sequel, Return to Savage Beach (1998) 

If there’s one thing you should know before getting into Savage Beach, or any of the other above-mentioned titles, it’s that these movies are campy, cartoonishly violent, and sexually explicit in the most egregious ways possible. Savage Beach basically plays out like any low-budget action movie you’ve ever seen, but it’s led by a strong female cast that’s scantily clad and always ready for a wardrobe change before unloading countless rounds from their machine guns.

Bullets, Bombs, And Babes

When Savage Beach first introduces us to its ballsy heroines, Donna Hamilton (Dona Speir) and Taryn (Hope Marie Carlton), they’re successfully carrying out a drug bust. They find a cache of cocaine hidden inside decoy pineapples, their guns pop off in a blaze of glory, and it’s immediately established that nobody should mess with them. Then they celebrate in a hot tub with their fellow special agents.

When Donna and Taryn are summoned to deliver vaccines and supplies to the Philippines, they jump at the opportunity, but not before loading up their survival pack with enough firearms to handle any sticky situation. Though Donna and Taryn are exceptional pilots, they’re no match for the brutal storm awaiting their aircraft, prompting them to crash land on a deserted island. Before they get the full lay of the land, they immediately decide to go skinny dipping on the beach.

As luck would have it, a group of mercenaries led by Captain Andres (John Aprea) arrives on the same island in search of buried treasure lost during World War II. Captain Andres knows where to look because he has access to the most sophisticated computer and floppy disk technology that 1989 had to offer. Outnumbered by dangerous men willing to kill anybody who gets in their way, it’s up to Donna and Taryn to take out the enemy, fix their plane, and resume their mission.

Shlock And Awe At Its Finest

As insultingly simple as the plot to Savage Beach may be, Dona Speir and Hope Marie Carlton steal every single scene they’re in. The mercenary sequences are necessary to establish some semblance of a story, but it’s really the survival scenes that make this thing work. When a rightfully paranoid Donna, sleeping with a machine gun in her lap, is abruptly woken up by a twig snapping in the distance, she opens fire and accidentally decimates a rooster. She shrugs it off and flippantly suggests they need to find a new alarm clock. In the very next scene, she and Taryn are roasting the bird over a fire and eating it like nothing happened, completely unfazed by the fact that they just pumped an innocent rooster full of lead.

Through a modern lens, Savage Beach can absolutely be seen as exploitative, and it’s easy to understand why. You could call this thing Cleavage: The Movie and nobody would argue that it should have a different title. But it’s also a subversion of its era’s action movie tropes because there isn’t a single damsel in distress to be found. Every woman in Savage Beach is a certified badass, independent to a fault, and ready to dive headfirst into danger because they know they can handle anything thrown at them.

With more one-liners than you could possibly count, Savage Beach is good, not-so-clean fun, and that’s entirely the point. It’s Charlie’s Angels with an R-rating, and it’s not trying to be anything else. If that sounds like your kind of trashy action movie night, you can stream it for free on Tubi as of this writing.

Jenny McCarthy has taken to TikTok to passionately share a frustration she has about rideshares. And apparently, she’s far from the only one who’s ready for this one trend to change.

McCarthy, known for often sharing health and wellness information on social media, is tired of being “Christmas treed” in the back of an Uber or Lyft, and she’s far from alone.

In a recently shared TikTok video, McCarthy talks about this one thing that has her frustrated when she needs to hop into an Uber or Lyft.

“Hey, I’m making a public service announcement, so please feel free to share this video, in fact, please share this video wide, far and wide,” she began her plea. “I would like to get this to the President/CEO of Uber, Lyft, all of them.”

She continued by saying that she saw a podcast do an interview with an “Uber guy that owned it” about being able to request a specific thing when ordering a rideshare ride.

“You know how you can request female driver, you can request all these things, like don’t talk to me too much,” she continued. “Please make a choice to have non-fragrance cars. I think the majority of people will enjoy non fragrance, because those damn Christmas trees.”

‘Literally I Wanted To Die’

McCarthy shared that she was in a rideshare earlier in the day and there were two Christmas tree air fresheners in the car and, “literally I wanted to die.”

“I’m finding myself hanging out of cars when I’m working locations and like, jumping in an Uber and I’m seriously dying,” she continued. “It’s so toxic, if you don’t know that fragrance is so toxic, and those Christmas tree things are horrible for you.”

She then made her ultimate plea for Uber and Lyft drivers to get rid of the air fresheners. She also asked that the “president of Uber, please make that a choice.”

Netflix has just loaded up a Jack Nicholson classic. Here’s everything you need to know about it.

By Rick Gonzales
| Published 1 minute ago

Chinatown is often regarded as the peak of Hollywood’s film noir style and one of the greatest detective stories of all time. It stars Jack Nicholson at the peak of his powers, and it’s a must-see for anyone who likes, well, watching moving images of any type on a screen.

Jack Nicholson had already been around Hollywood for a number of years before he was offered Chinatown, a part that Towne wrote especially with him in mind. With an early career that consisted of appearances on many TV series, it wasn’t until the mid-‘60s that Nicholson began to see more time in feature films. One of his earliest successes came with the 1969 film Easy Rider. He then went on to Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge, and The Last Detail before Chinatown came knocking.

Jake Gittes Investigates

Jack Nicholson plays Jake Gittes in Chinatown, a private investigator operating in pre-war Southern California. Hired by a mysterious woman to investigate her husband’s alleged infidelity, Gittes becomes entangled in a web of deception and corruption far beyond what he initially anticipates. As he delves deeper into the case, he uncovers a labyrinth of personal and political scandals that culminate in a shocking revelation. 

Chinatown weaves a tale of intrigue and betrayal against the backdrop of a morally ambiguous society. Directed by Roman Polanski and written by Robert Towne, the film has left an unforgettable mark on cinematic history with its gripping narrative and stellar performances.

The Best Way To Watch Chinatown

Chinatown is available to stream on some of the usual algorithm-controlled culprits. You should avoid them entirely.

There’s only one right way to watch Chinatown, and that’s on Blu-ray. In 2024, with the format fading and being abandoned by most movie studios, Paramount stepped up and released a50th anniversary Blu-ray and 4K edition of Chinatown.

This version of the movie includes three new featurettes, including A State of Mind, where author Sam Wasson digs into the movie’s long-term influence; Chinatown Memories with producer Hawk Koch reflecting on the production; and The Trilogy That Never Was, which explores the failed plans for a third Jake Gittes movie after The Two Jakes.

The set also carries over the excellent Robert Towne and David Fincher commentary track along with the older Water and Power documentary, which remains one of the best extras ever produced for the film because it explains the real Los Angeles history behind the story. Paramount also bundled in the sequel, The Two Jakes, on its own Blu-ray disc, making the release feel more substantial than the average anniversary edition.

Making Chinatown

Robert Towne’s script, which won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay, is often considered, as well as the movie, as one of the greatest of all time. But the script wasn’t without its controversy. Initially, the script ran 180 pages, and Towne definitely had different ideas about how the movie would end.

Not wanting to give away the ending, we’ll just say that the two (Towne and Polanski) parted ways based on the fact that Polanski saw the ending differently. In fact, Polanski himself rewrote the ending a few days before he shot the final scene.

Chinatown Got A Sequel You Should Avoid

Chinatown was originally set to be a trilogy, following Jack Nicholson’s Gittes through his time as a private investigator. It took 16 years, but Towne and Nicholson did team up for the second part, The Two Jakes, though its lackluster box-office performance shut down the idea of a trilogy.

Watching movies, you’d think that the end of the world is the coolest thing that could happen to planet Earth.

From stylish techno-nightmares like The Matrix to the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Mad Max: Fury Road, sci-fi dystopia movies provide a certain kind of anti-escapist fantasy.

And we won’t lie: we’d love to wear leather dusters and fight evil computer programs.

Today, Watch With Us rounds up five of our favorite sci-fi dystopia movies, ranked from best to merely great.

Read on and see if any of your favorite movies made the cut.

5. ‘Wall-E’ (2008)

Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class, AKA WALL-E, is the lone trash-collecting robot left on a derelict Earth covered in mountains of trash. Still, WALL-E can find pockets of joy and beauty on the empty planet, while trying to tidy up as best he can. But after collecting garbage alone for 700 years (and not getting any further with it), WALL-E has become lonely — and so he develops an intense affection for a sleek, scanner bot named EVE. The lovesick WALL-E follows EVE all the way into space, where he finds humans residing on a giant spaceship.

WALL-E was an ambitious experiment for Disney and Pixar at the time: a children’s film that features no dialogue for the first 45 minutes. But WALL-E beat the odds and became another classic in Pixar’s roster of hits, a sweet and poignant exploration of the humanity found in dark times. The film does a terrific job of conveying deep emotion not just through a lack of words, but through a lack of expression. Despite its outlook on Earth’s future, WALL-E is unflinchingly optimistic and a rare feel-good dystopian film in the sub-genre.

4. ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)

In the ravaged wastelands following the collapse of civilization, loner Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) does whatever it takes to survive. When Max is captured by cronies of the tyrannical despot Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), he manages to escape and sneak onto Joe’s armored war rig set out to retrieve more oil and ammunition. But the war rig’s driver, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), has other plans: she’s going to make a daring dash to freedom, with Joe’s enslaved wives in tow. Thus begins a madcap chase across the desert as Max allies with Furiosa to free not just themselves, but all of Joe’s oppressed people.

While Mad Max: Fury Road is actually the fourth installment of a franchise that began all the way back in the ’70s, widespread feeling is that Fury Road is handily the best. The Mad Max movies started with George Miller directing Mel Gibson as Max in 1979, yet Miller seems to have only cultivated even more directorial zeal and spirit in his older age. Fury Road is a nonstop, high-octane thrill ride from start to finish, with practical car stunts that will blow your mind. But it’s not all just meathead action — Theron and Hardy sustain the film’s solid emotional crux.

3. ‘Children of Men’ (2006)

In the far-off year of (gulp) 2027, two decades of human infertility render the world on the brink of collapse. War, depression and oppressive police states plague the planet, and a disillusioned bureaucrat named Theo Faron (Clive Owen) is kidnapped by a militant group led by his estranged ex-wife Julian (Julianne Moore). Julian offers Theo money in exchange for the safe passage of a young refugee woman named Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey). When Theo discovers that the woman is pregnant, he understands he has to do whatever it takes to secure her safety and that of the human race.

Children of Men is a riveting science fiction drama, a moving portrait of faith in the face of despair and a flat-out exhilarating political thriller. Alfonso Cuarón adapts P. D. James’ novel into a tour de force of visual complexity and technical masterwork (the one-shot car ambush scene is iconic; you’ll know it when you see it). The brilliance of Cuarón’s dystopia is that it’s utterly ordinary, yet totally bereft — and still, it ends on a glimmer of hope.

2. ‘Blade Runner’ (1982)

Threatened by his old boss to go back to work, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) resumes his job as a blade runner, a person who tracks down and “kills” bioengineered humanoids known as replicants. Deckard must hunt for four replicants who have illegally escaped to Earth: Leon (Brion James), Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), Pris (Daryl Hannah) and Zhora (Joanna Cassidy). The replicants have returned to Earth in search of their creator, longing for their short life spans to be lengthened. In the meantime, Deckard finds himself falling for a beautiful replicant assistant named Rachael (Sean Young).

Blade Runner is one of those movies whose cultural cache is so strong, you’d be forgiven if you had no idea that it was a major flop upon release. Now, it is regarded widely as one of the best science fiction films ever made, resulting in the 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049. The film nimbly fuses neo-noir mystery with sci-fi action, in a world made strikingly rich due to detailed production design, immersive sound and practical sets and miniatures. Blade Runner has influenced countless sci-fi films in its wake, such as Ex Machina, The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell (1995).

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1. ‘The Matrix’ (1999)

Ordinary computer programmer Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) moonlights as a hacker named Neo and digs into a mystery surrounding the “Matrix.” His research catches the attention of a hacker named Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss), who informs Neo that a mysterious figure named Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) can answer all his questions. Neo learns the unfortunate truth — that the world he knows is a simulation, and that AI took over the real world, using artificially conceived humans to power it. Morpheus increasingly believes Neo to be humanity’s messiah, but first Neo has to prove himself, master the Matrix and defeat an evil program known as Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving).

If you’ve never seen The Matrix, one viewing is all it takes to understand why the movie has maintained such a chokehold on pop culture through the years. With an easily accessible narrative, the Wachowskis blend exciting action, a thrilling adventure atmosphere, state-of-the-art special effects and a particularly romantic love story into a film experience that is basically everything you could want out of a well-made blockbuster. The movie probed tech anxieties of the time while burdening us with a lasting question: Do we really live in the Matrix?