From Minority Report, with its multitouch surfaces, to 2001: A Space Odyssey with its homicidal computers, Hollywood has long served up future visions that tap into our tech dreams and nightmares.

Obviously there are lots of movie futures that we wish to avoid at all costs – the state-controlled euthanasia for people over 30 in 23rd Century Logan’s Run springs to mind. Likewise, we could probably do without the rations of manufactured ‘food’ in Soylent Green’s 2022. And let’s not even talk about post-Bond Sean Connery and his alarming Zardoz outfit.

While most of the futures predicted in movies are bleak as hell and some have been and gone, there are loads of superb Hollywood worlds of the future that we can’t wait to see become reality. Here are our favourites…

Oblivion

As with the majority of his films, obviously Tom Cruise does a lot of running, but what else does this post-apocalyptic flick offer apart from a tiny sprinting Scientologist? Well, it’s 2077 and Earth’s population is relocating. Jack Harper (Cruise) is one of the few humans left on Earth, living in a fancy sky apartment perched above the clouds that looks like it has been designed by Jonny Ive. We could definitely see ourselves chilling out in this beautiful example of futuristic interior design. While trying to ignore the murderous alien force that’s trying to hoover up the planet’s remaining resources and eliminate the humans, obviously.

Her

Set in the not-too-distant future of 2025, Spike Jonze’s futuristic fable Her sees mild-mannered Theodore Twombly developing a romantic relationship with an intelligent operating system (voiced by Scartlett Johansson). Shot in LA and Shanghai, the subtle advances in technology along with minimalist design and a beautiful colour palette make this a future we’d dearly like to be part of. We’ll probably stick to being just good friends with our OS though.

Back to the Future Part II

We could hardly talk about movie futures without including Back to the Future’s version of 2015. Lots of the tech featured is already here, including video calling, voice recognition, gesture control and ironic 80s themed establishments. Even the self-tying trainers from Nike are on the way. There are no sky-high cities here, just an old-fashioned town square with a few technological advances. And that’s why we like it – there are no murderous robots about, just pizza rehydrators and a healthy dose of nostalgia. We’d move to Hill Valley faster than you can say “where’s my f***ing hoverboard?!”…

You can read the rest of the article at T3.com (originally published 21 April 2015).