Let's see the top 10 science fiction movies featuring the future of medicine.
This is Bertalan Mesko and you are watching the channel of The Medical Futurist.
I'm a science fiction movie geek, to be honest. I think I've seen all the major and even the
minor movies from the 1920s. So I thought that I would share those 10 movies in science
fiction with you which I think give quite a good picture about what we can expect to
see in the next years, in the future of medicine. Let's start with The Fifth Element released
in 1997 by Luc Besson in which we can see 3D printing in action. In that movie, not
just organs or human tissues, but a whole human body was printed out by using the blueprint,
the DNA behind that. In the same year, another movie was released
called Gattaca that demonstrated the dark future of genomics with genetically "inferior"
people. It shows what happens if we do not prepare the society for the challenges genomics
will provide in the future. The third movie I have in mind is Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind released in 2004. What if we could erase parts from our
memories or add new ones? I'm pretty sure the makers of the movie did not have optogenetics
in mind as a method back then, but we are truly moving towards an era when these things
become possible. The 4th movie is Inception by Christopher
Nolan released in 2010 in which we can upload or download data from our minds, but the movie
is mostly about the implantation of another person's idea into someone else's subconscious
mind. The 5th movie is Prometheus. With the advancements
of robotic interventions in surgery, we can expect that we will be able to develop robots
that can perform operations themselves without even the human supervision
The 6th one is Robot & Frank released in 2012. In an aging society, it is going to be a more
and more important and challenging process to take care of the elderly population. This
movie focuses on a robot with artificial intelligence that can do this job in almost a human way.
Then here is Cloud Atlas by the Wachowski brothers. This unique film shows the use of
a real medical tricorder just like in Star Trek. A small device that can analyze, spot
and detect diseases as well as, obviously, cure them right there.
Then in 2013, a movie called Elysium was published and released. In a futuristic world where
there is no sickness mostly due to the multi-functional radiology machine that checks your body in
seconds, tells you what disease you have, or what percentage of your cells are cancerous,
and then it cures you immediately. Then there is a new movie released by Terry
Gilliam, The Zero Theorem in which the character played by Christopher Waltz is diagnosed with
several conditions by Dr. Shrink-ROM demonstrating telemedicine at its best and worst.
And the last one, but not least, Lucy released in 2014 by Luc Besson which depicts a woman
played by Scarlett Johansson who gains psychokinetic abilities from a synthetic drug called CPH4
being absorbed into her bloodstream leading to increased physical and mental capabilities
such as telepathy or mental time travel. In my new book, The Guide to the Future of
Medicine, after every chapter focusing on trends and technologies, I also share what
movies talk about these topics in details. I hope that you will share your favorite movies
in the comment section under this video or on the Facebook page of The Medical Futurist!
Thank you!