Alfonso Cuaron’s adaptation of PD James’s dystopian novel is a Christmas story of a kind. In the year 2027, 18 years since the last baby was born, disillusioned Englishman Theo (Clive Owen) becomes an unlikely champion of the human race when he is asked by his former lover (Julianne Moore) to escort a young pregnant woman out of the country as quickly as possible. Britain, in this imaginary future, has closed its borders and the apparatus of an authoritarian state is out to stop them. Yet Theo will risk everything to deliver the miracle the whole world has been waiting for.
Here’s a bold statement about a bold movie: Children of Men, like no other film this century, and perhaps no other movie ever, solves the meaning of life. (The answer? More life, of course.) Alfonso Cuarón’s staggering 2006 adaptation of PD James’ novel is that rare picture that astounds with technical marvels – long, exquisite unbroken shots; a beguiling, but subtle, development in camera technology that allows for one of the most stunning scenes ever shot inside a car. But it is also rich and vital in its emotional and philosophical depth: its sadness, its anger, its reverence and worry for humanity. Cruelly overlooked in its initial release, Children of Men has endured to become a cult favourite that should be required viewing for anyone grappling with feelings of dread about modern civilisation. Which is to say, probably everyone. In the end there is transcendent hope, found amongst Cuarón’s beautiful, bracing rubble.
Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
[Children of Men is] obviously something that should be on people’s minds after Brexit and after the rise of Donald Trump.
Francis Fukuyama
Made with palpable energy, intensity and excitement, it compellingly creates a world gone mad that is uncomfortably close to the one we live in.
Kenneth Turan, LA Times
The movie of the millennium because it’s about our millennium, with its fractured, fearful politics and random bursts of violence and terror.
Dana Stevens, Slate
Alfonso Cuarón
Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Caine, Charlie Hunnan, Clare-Hope Ashitey
USA
2006
English
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Credits
Screenwriter
Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby
Cinematography
Emmanuel Lubezki
Editor
Alfonso Cuarón, Alex Rodríguez
Original Music
John Tavener
Also in This Series
These movies speak to our times and push the boundaries of the art form — the true modern classics we’re confident will withstand the test of time.
In the Mood for Love
Wong Kar-wai's most acclaimed and popular film is a love story about two neighbours (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung) who are drawn together by the long absences of their respective spouses + a newly released short companion piece from 2001.
Paprika
A device capable of transmitting dreams falls into the wrong hands in this dazzling anime meta-movie from visionary filmmaker Satoshi Kon. The imagery here is never less than overwhelming; it's probably the greatest scifi movie of our times.
Margaret
Seventeen-year-old Lisa is rocked with guilt after a woman is killed in a traffic accident. But that’s only one thread in a teeming social tapestry this intense, passionate teen must negotiate as she comes of age in a time of contradiction and confusion.
Certain Women
Spare, incisive portraits of four Montana women (Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Lily Gladstone) brushing up against the everyday wears and tears of difficult men, their own circumstances, and the desire for something better.
Melancholia
Lars von Trier squares up to the end times with this grandly luxuriant but surprisingly punky sci-fi, set in an imposing country mansion house, where Justine (Kirsten Dunst) blows up what's supposed to be the happiest day of her life.
Moonlight
Moonlight is many things -- a portrait of a young black man coming of age in Miami in the 1980s, a film about fathers and sons, about mentorship and about the scourge of drugs -- but it is also one of the most piercing movie romances of the last decade.
Lady Bird
Greta Gerwig's first film as writer-director is a delightful, painful comedy about "Lady Bird" McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), a Sacramento teen on the point of swapping high school for college, and her hard-working mom, Marion (Laurie Metcalf).
Silence
This sober, probing examination of faith, ego, cruelty and compassion is the most underrated film from the often under-valued latter half of Martin Scorsese's brilliant career; a passion project, about Catholic missionaries in 17th Century Japan.
Synecdoche, New York
Charlie Kaufman wrote Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -- all great, all successful -- then turned director with Synecdoche, which is a masterpiece and which basically went unseen. It's overdue rediscovery.