Redstone insights · A century of imagining the future (1927–2026)

A hundred years of imagining the future

Exactly a century ago, cinematic science fiction was born in Germany with the release of Metropolis (1927). To mark the 100-year anniversary of this cultural milestone, we wanted to celebrate the art that inspires our industry.

At Redstone, we know that before a technology becomes a startup, it usually begins as science fiction. As a German venture capital firm, we feel a deep connection to this heritage. To map the journey from imagination to engineering, our team analysed 270 sci-fi titles across film, television, books, and games, scoring exactly how much of their fictional tech exists today.

39%
Of all the fictional technology we analysed, 39% has successfully made the leap from art to engineering.
15
Titles that served as highly accurate blueprints, scoring 75% or higher because most of their tech is now a reality.
270
Visions of the future evaluated, spanning 21 countries and five distinct creative mediums.
100%
The peak score (Pokémon GO): a rare case where the work of art and the applied engineering are the exact same thing.

Source: Redstone editorial scores per technology, averaged per title, 2026 · averages are our own calculation

By theme

Your phone already does what Star Trek promised. A starship still doesn’t.

Average score by medium

Average score by theme

Select a theme to follow it through the page.

Source: Redstone editorial scores, 2026 · categories assigned by Redstone from each title's defining idea · own calculation

The timeline

We built the communicators. Now we are figuring out the starships.

Software and surveillance have moved from fiction to reality with alarming speed. Meanwhile, physics-heavy deep tech like space exploration remains largely unbuilt.

The survivors skew the early years: the oldest works we still celebrate tend to be the ones reality caught up with (Metropolis’s video-phones in 1927, Orwell’s telescreens). It says less about the decade than about which imagination we chose to remember.

Each dot is one title, by release year

How much of their technology is real today, by release period

36–43%
average for every period since 1950
62%
before 1950, from 3 titles

Source: Redstone editorial scores, 2026 · own calculation

The catalogue

All 270 titles and a reality score

Where the gaps are

The longest leap from fiction to reality: the mind, and deep space.

    Not every dream is an opportunity. A time machine is a great plot device, but it breaks the laws of thermodynamics. However, other sci-fi staples are no longer just imagination: they are early-stage engineering. From neural interfaces to advanced space propulsion, these concepts are currently being scaled by startups we actively track and fund. As a venture firm, our job is to map the boundary between a writer’s fantasy and a founder’s blueprint.

    Building at one of these frontiers? Talk to us!

    Get in touch →

    How we scored

    For each title we list the important technologies it imagines, including the famous ones that never came true, and score each one on a seven-step scale: 100% is part of everyday life, as good as the fiction or better; 85% is real and working but not yet everywhere; 70% is real and spreading but short of the fiction; 50% works only in a narrow or lab form; 25% is early prototypes or research; 10% has some science behind it but no working path; 0% is impossible as far as we know, or a pure plot device. The title’s score is the simple average, and its band (reality from 75%, near reality from 50%, far off from 25%, fiction below that) describes the score in words. Magic and supernatural powers (the Force, the Infinity Stones) are not technologies, so we leave them out.

    The scores are the Redstone team’s considered judgements, not forecasts; these are works of imagination, and we are measuring how far reality has come to meet them.

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