Gattaca is a 1997 American dystopian science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol in his feature directorial debut.

It stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman with Jude Law, Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine, Gore Vidal, and Alan Arkin appearing in supporting roles.

[4] The film presents a future society driven by eugenics where children are conceived through genetic selection to ensure they possess the best hereditary traits of their parents.

[5] The film centers on Vincent Freeman, played by Hawke, who was conceived outside the eugenics program and struggles to overcome genetic discrimination to realize his dream of going into space.

Genetic discrimination is illegal, but in practice genotype profiling is used to identify valids to qualify for professional employment while in-valids are relegated to menial jobs.

He gets a chance to pose as a valid by using donated hair, skin, blood, and urine samples from former swimming star Jerome Eugene Morrow, who was paralyzed after being hit by a car.

With Jerome's genetic makeup, Vincent gains employment at Gattaca and is assigned as a navigator for an upcoming mission to Saturn's moon Titan.

As a result, the film was retitled Gattaca,[7] which takes inspiration from the letters G, A, T, and C, derived from four of the nucleobases of DNA: guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine.

[8] The exteriors (including the roof scene) and some of the interior shots of the Gattaca complex were filmed at Frank Lloyd Wright's 1960 Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California.

[13] The opening title sequence, created by Michael Riley, features closeups of body matter (fingernails and hair), which are later revealed to be from Vincent's daily bodily scourings, hitting the floor accompanied by loud sounds as the objects strike the ground.

[15] Gattaca was released in theaters on October 24, 1997, in the United States by Columbia Pictures and opened at number 5 at the box office; trailing I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Devil's Advocate, Kiss the Girls and Seven Years in Tibet.

The site's critical consensus states that "Intelligent and scientifically provocative, Gattaca is an absorbing sci-fi drama that poses important interesting ethical questions about the nature of science.

[25] In his other review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert stated, "This is one of the smartest and most provocative of science fiction films, a thriller with ideas.

"[27] Although critically acclaimed, Gattaca was not a box office success, but it is said to have crystallized the debate over the controversial topic of human genetic engineering.

[28][29] The film's dystopian depiction of "genoism" has been cited by many bioethicists and laypeople in support of their hesitancy about, or opposition to, eugenics and the societal acceptance of the genetic-determinist ideology that may frame it.

[36][37] In the 2004 democratic transhumanist book Citizen Cyborg, bioethicist James Hughes criticized the premise and influence of the film as fear-mongering, arguing: