Must-see movies are futuristic classics that shouldn’t be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That’s why we’ve rated them 1-5 on the patented “crunchy goodness” scale.
Title: Waterworld
Date: 1995
Vitals: An eco-disaster has caused water levels to rise and turn Earth into a . . . waterworld! As food and oil run out, pirates eat spam and good guys drink their own pee. All our characters are searching for dry land, even though none of them have presumably ever seen it and it’s unclear why they would want to abandon their water-based cultures for life on rocky islands.
Famous names: Kevin Costner
Crunchy goodness: 1
Bang for your buck: One of the most expensive SF flops of all time, Waterworld racked up the expenses when the floating city was destroyed by a tropical storm and had to be entirely rebuilt.
Most painfully dated moment: The idea that Kevin Costner could be an action hero is what truly marks this as a movie that could only have been made in the 1990s.
The shit: The film is laughably bad, which means it’s one of those rarities where bad = good. Plus, the eco-disaster theme is remarkably prescient, and the boat city is actually kind of cool.
