Alfonso Cuaron: Ranking His Movies From Worst To Best

2. Children of Men (2006)

In 2006, Cuaron directed dystopian film Children of Men, starring Clive Owen in his peak, and the ever brilliant Michael Caine, as well as the highly talented Julianne Moore and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Cuaron's depiction of the dystopian future is incredibly grim, as Owen wonderfully portrays an incredibly cynical civil servant called Theo. The film is set in the year 2027, and the entire world has crumbled, with England remaining one of the few "stable countries", with England adopting strong anti-immigrant policies. The grim future sees England becoming a police state, with refugees caged in the streets and cramped into run down cities, and early in the movie it is shown that the entire world is infertile. England, despite being depicted as stable is far from it, as a sort of civil war rages between the government and a terrorist organisation calling themselves "The Fishes", lead by Theo's estranged American wife Julian Taylor. Through Julian, Theo gets roped into helping protect Kee, a Western African refugee who is pregnant. The film sees Theo and Key as they try to escape the police and the Fishes and get themselves to safety. The films portrayal of not only the dystopian future, but also topics such as refugee rights, hope and the role of the government and government intervention make up large themes in the film, especially with regards to refugee rights and government intervention, with the movie strongly comparing the anti-immigration rhetoric and the Holocaust, with the large proportion of imagery similar between the concentration camps and the refugee camps, as well as the overall depiction of refugees as not being human. Cuaron's gritty action film isn't filled with the cliched suspense moments, and Clive Owen portrays no usual action hero, instead using shocking moments and incredibly realistic scenes of violence and horror instead of over the top action and explosions. The result is a gripping movie which is fast paced and never seems to slow down, and a movie in which you never know who to trust. As the film progresses and more of the story is unfolded the more confusing and hazy it seems to be, but rather then it being detrimental the slow reveal in the film works to it's advantage, keeping the audience guessing at what could happen next. This continues into the ambiguity of the ending, in which you don't actually know what happens, but Cuaron encourages the audience to guess what they believe happens.