The premise
Take any classic.Remake it today.What year is it set in?
Back to the Future sent Marty back 30 years — run that trip from today and he lands in 1996. Blade Runner looked 37 years ahead, so from here its Los Angeles is a 2063 problem. Same gap, new starting point. Pick one and see where it lands.
30 recalculated
Watch the years move.
12 Monkeys
Gilliam's survivors send Cole back from 2035 to a 1996 that had not happened yet when the film opened. Its past was the audience's next year. Made in 2026, the far end of that journey moves to 2066, and the destination moves with it.
2001: A Space Odyssey
The only work here whose title is its own arithmetic. Kubrick and Clarke set the film 33 years ahead of the year it opened, close enough that most of the first audience expected to be alive for it. Made in 2026, the same reach would put a different year on the poster: 2059.
Akira
Akira opens by destroying Tokyo on 16 July 1988 — the day the film itself opened in Japanese cinemas. The story then jumps 31 years forward, to a Neo-Tokyo rebuilt on the crater and plagued by corruption. Made in 2026, that same jump would set the city in 2057.
American Graffiti
George Lucas made his second film for about $777,000 and set it 11 years back, on a single night of cruising in a California town. It took over $140 million, invented the modern nostalgia picture, and did it from a distance short enough that most of the audience had lived through it.
Back to the Future
Robert Zemeckis's 1985 comedy sent its teenage hero 30 years into the past, to a 1955 his parents remembered as their own youth. The film's arithmetic was never about 1955 in particular. It was about the distance between a teenager and their parents' adolescence — a gap that keeps moving.
Back to the Future Part II
The sequel's future was 26 years out: a 2015 of hoverboards, self-drying jackets and a Cubs pennant. That date has been and gone, and the film is now marked against a scoreboard it never asked for — which is what happens to any future set close enough to check.
Blade Runner
Ridley Scott's 1982 film built a 2019 out of rain, sodium light and advertising, then lost money explaining it. The year it named is now 7 years behind us, and the film has outlasted its own deadline by becoming the way everyone else draws the future.
Buck Rogers
The strip was called Buck Rogers, 2429 A.D., and the year in that title moved. Its makers held the gap at exactly 500 years and let the setting advance with the calendar — this site's premise, run as editorial policy from 1929. Made in 2026, it would open in 2526.
Children of Men
Cuarón moved P. D. James's 2021 six years out, to 2027, 21 years beyond the film's own release. It is one of the shortest speculative reaches here, which is why so much of it is already checkable. Made in 2026, the same reach would land in 2047.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick set the novel 24 years ahead, in 1992. Then his publisher moved it: the 1982 film tie-in rewrote the date to 2021 so the book would sit nearer Blade Runner's, and later editions kept the change. Written in 2026, the year Dick actually chose would fall in 2050.
Escape from New York
Carpenter wrote it in 1976, after Watergate, and set it 16 years ahead, in 1997, with Manhattan walled off as the country's only maximum-security prison. Made in 2026, the same reach would put the wall up in 2042 — near enough that the first audience would expect to be around to check.
Fallout
Interplay set its wasteland 164 years out, in 2161, eighty-four years after a war the game dates precisely. The distance does something unusual: the ruins are legible, and the world they are ruins of never happened. Made in 2026, the same reach lands in 2190.
Futurama
Fry is frozen on the last night of the millennium and thaws a thousand years later, in the year 3000. Because the show premiered in 1999, this site measures the gap as 1,001 years — one year longer than the joke. Premiered in 2026, it would be set in 3027.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Rockstar built 1986 in 2002, 16 years after the fact, out of Miami Vice, Scarface and 113 licensed songs. Made in 2026, the same reach would have it recreating 2010 instead — a year now old enough to sell as a period, complete with its own radio stations.
Judge Dredd
The strip began 122 years ahead of its own first issue and has never let the gap close. A year in the world is a year in Mega-City One, so Dredd has aged from thirty-eight to his late eighties in print. This page's arithmetic is not a thought experiment here. It is editorial policy.
Mad Men
Matthew Weiner's series opened in a 1960 its 2007 audience could still half-remember: 47 years back, close enough for parents and grandparents, far enough that the ashtrays counted as costume. The show was built on that exact distance — near enough to feel personal, far enough to look like another country.
Metropolis
Fritz Lang's 1927 city was built 99 years ahead of the camera, in a 2026 of towers, shift clocks and a machine that wears a woman's face. The film never says the year out loud. The number came later, off a paperback cover, and the world has been quoting it ever since.
Midnight in Paris
Gil walks into the 1920s at midnight, 91 years behind the film that sends him there. Made in 2026, that same reach would drop him in the 1930s — a decade nobody in Paris romanticises, which is precisely the argument the film keeps making about golden ages.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Orwell finished his last book on a Scottish island, dying of tuberculosis, and set it 35 years ahead of himself. The year in the title is the most famous date in English fiction, and the novel itself is not certain it is the right one — Winston writes it down and immediately doubts it.
Outlander
Claire steps through the stones at Craigh na Dun and lands 202 years before the woman who left. This site measures 271 years, because it counts from the broadcast and not from her own bedroom. Made in 2026, she would land in 1755.
Planet of the Apes
Taylor's ship left Earth in 1972 and came down 2,010 years later, on a planet the crew spend the film failing to identify. It is the longest forward reach here. Made in 2026, the same arithmetic lands in 4036 — a year that is exact, and almost entirely meaningless.
Ready Player One
Cline reached 34 years forward and then furnished the place with the 1980s. It is the only future here whose contents are older than the book describing them — a forward reach spent almost entirely on looking back. Made in 2026, the same reach lands in 2060.
Soylent Green
Fleischer set his overcrowded New York 49 years out, in 2022, and that year has now been and gone. The film is no longer a warning about a future; it is a set of predictions with a known result. Made in 2026, the same reach would land in 2075.
Star Trek: The Original Series
Roddenberry's Enterprise is conventionally placed 300 years ahead, across 2266 to 2269 — a span rather than a single year, and a reconstruction rather than anything the series states on screen. Only one other work here is dated as a span. Made in 2026, the same reach carries it to 2326 to 2329.
Stranger Things
The Duffer brothers set their first series 33 years before it aired, in a 1983 of bicycles, walkie-talkies and basement Dungeons & Dragons. The show is an argument that a particular childhood is worth rebuilding in detail, and the detail is what people came for.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
James Cameron's 1991 sequel dated the end of the world precisely: 1997, 6 years after the film reached cinemas. That was near enough to read as a deadline rather than a fantasy. The deadline came and went, and the sequels have been quietly moving it ever since.
The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald wrote about the summer before last. The gap is 3 years — the smallest on this site by a wide margin, and small enough that the book was reporting rather than remembering. Written in 2026, the same reach would set it in 2023.
The Jetsons
Hanna-Barbera sent one American family exactly 100 years forward and changed nothing about them but the appliances. The show never says so out loud, which is its own small scandal. Made in 2026, the same round century would land the Jetsons in 2126.
The Time Machine
Wells sent his traveller 800,806 years up the calendar, to A.D. 802,701, and then thirty million years further. It is the largest gap on this site by a factor of thousands, which makes the recalculation a joke rather than a claim: shifting the window by 131 years changes the answer to 802,832 and nothing else.
The Wonder Years
The show had this site's formula written into its production rule: every season is set exactly 20 years before it aired. Six seasons from 1988 covered 1968 to 1973. Premiered in 2026, that same rule would run Kevin's adolescence from 2006 to 2011.
The whole trick
There is no second step.
recalculated = 2026 + (year depicted − year released)
Every year on the page above came out of that line. At midnight on 1 January the whole collection moves on by one, and nobody has to do anything. The longer version covers ranges, vague settings, and the works that carry more than one date.