An international co-production of Canadian, French, British, and Greek companies, Crimes of the Future had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or and received a six-minute standing ovation.

[7][8] In an unspecified future, significant advances in biotechnology led to the widespread adoption of machines and analogue computers that can directly interface with and control bodily functions.

Most significant among these changes is the disappearance of physical pain and infectious disease for an overwhelming majority, allowing surgeries to be performed on conscious people in ordinary settings.

He is dependent on several specialized biomechanical devices: a bed, a machine through which Caprice performs surgery on him, and a chair that twitches and rotates as it assists him with eating.

Tenser meets with Lang, who reveals to him the agenda of the evolutionists: they have chosen to modify their digestive system to make them able to eat plastics and other synthetic chemicals.

Lang is the cell's leader; his son Brecken had been born with the ability to eat plastic, proving the inaccuracy of the government's critical stance on human evolution.

Lang eventually approaches Tenser, wanting the couple to reveal the cell's anti-government agenda through a public autopsy of Brecken that will highlight his evolved digestive system.

With Timlin, Lang, and many others watching, Tenser performs the autopsy, but it is revealed that Brecken's natural organ system has been surgically replaced.

Tenser's connection within the police unit admits that Timlin replaced Brecken's organs to keep the deviation in human evolution secret from the public.

Saddened by Brecken and Lang's deaths, Tenser informs the police that he will no longer serve them, approvingly mentioning the cell's beliefs on evolution.

In the United States and Canada, the film earned $1.1 million from 773 theaters in its opening weekend, finishing tenth at the box office.

The website's critics consensus reads, "Quintessential if not classic Cronenberg, Crimes of the Future finds the director revisiting familiar themes with typically unsettling flair".

[8] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter praised the performances of Mortensen and Seydoux but concluded that the film "offers up more mysteries than it solves.