Soylent Green, Not So Much Fiction Anymore — Maybe!

Soylent Green is a dystopian science-fiction movie set in the year 2022, directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Charlton Heston.

The film takes place in an overcrowded, polluted future where:

• climate change and environmental collapse have devastated the planet,
• food shortages are extreme,
• most people survive on processed food wafers made by the Soylent Corporation,
• the rich still live comfortably while the poor suffer in packed city slums.

Heston plays detective Robert Thorn, who investigates the murder of a wealthy businessman connected to the Soylent Corporation. As he digs deeper, he uncovers corruption, social decay, and eventually the movie’s famous secret.

The film is most remembered for its ending revelation:

“Soylent Green is people!”

That line refers to the discovery that the newest food product, Soylent Green, is secretly made from processed human remains because natural food resources have nearly disappeared.

The movie was based loosely on the novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison, though the shocking cannibalism twist was created for the film and is not in the original book.

Why the movie became influential:

• It was one of the first major films to popularize fears about overpopulation and environmental collapse.
• Many themes — heat waves, inequality, corporate control, ecological disaster — still feel modern.
• The ending became a major pop-culture reference and meme.

Some of the strongest scenes involve Thorn’s elderly friend Sol, played by Edward G. Robinson, especially a quiet sequence reflecting on the loss of nature and civilization. It was Robinson’s final film role.