This year’s early Oscar favorites for Best Director include names like Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Babel’s Alejandro González Iñárritu and Dreamgirls’ Bill Condon, but of all the pictures I saw in 2006, it’s difficult for me to come up with a film that has been better directed than Children of Men. It is a fully realized vision of a not-so-futuristic world that is both shiny and dark, brimming with action sequences that are simply extraordinary, made up of long, terrifying shots that are so well choreographed and steadicammed that their outcome is often in doubt.

Though set 20 years from now, this film is very contemporary: Its fascist state contains all too familiar oppressive facets—illegal immigrant roundups, refugee camps, detainee centers, and urban war zones in which humanity is seen only in fleeting glimpses.

Children of Men takes place 20 years in the future, about 19 years after every woman on the planet suddenly became infertile. The method of handling this premise is what makes Children so clever. Cuaron isn’t that interested in exploring why the world is the way it is—his film is about surviving in it. Most of the planet has devolved into chaos, but England has kept a stiff upper lip and maintained its society, a society in which fertility testing is mandatory, suicide kits are readily available (“so you can decide when”), and illegal immigrants, who have descended on the island in search of a better life, are forced into cages, ghettos, and refugee camps.

It’s this England, grimy and in disrepair that holds Theodore Faron (Clive Owen), an office drone with a nihilistic sense of humor, muddling his way through his life. He still goes to work, occasionally gets high with his old friend Jasper (Michael Caine), and like the rest of the population, waits to die.

That is, until the day Julian (Julianne Moore), his ex and a radical militant, has him kidnapped. Her organization needs to help Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), a young illegal alien, get to the coast and out of England, and they need Theo’s help to secure the proper paperwork. But it isn’t long before Theo finds himself as Kee’s protector, and also discovers her secret—she’s pregnant. The how and the why don’t really matter, but there is no shortage of people who want to spin Kee and her unborn baby to their political advantage. In a world where there are no new humans to be found, everyone has an angle that is ultimately even more dehumanizing, and Theo finds himself in a situation where he must decide what is truly important to him: saving his own skin, or trying to do right by the greater good.

Children of Men takes place in the future, sure, but is more a film with imaginative elements than a full-on sci-fi film. There are no laser guns or flying cars, and the lack of global procreation creates a situation which can be compared to any number of issues we face today—global warming, illegal immigration, avian flu, urban warfare, terrorism, or just the current fearful quagmire of our society. We are just a sci-fi degree or two of separation from Children of Men and what it has to say about our little species. But to its credit, it isn’t preachy. Cuarón, who made Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and the terrific Y tu mamá también, ties together a very human story with a spectacular look and feel.

Clive Owen is a regular guy forced into irregular circumstances, bringing a degree of humor to what could have become a humorless exercise in style. Michael Caine steals every one of his scenes as an aging hippie who has spent a lot of time questioning authority. Also (and always) impressive is Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays Luke, one of the militant leaders whose priorities are askew. But Cuarón is the guy who ties it all together into a great post-Christmas package, a dramatic action-thriller that, reminds us of the power of a baby’s cry, especially when we feel we may be running short on hope.

CHILDREN OF MEN ( * * * * )

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón • Starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Michael Caine. • R, 109 min. • At the Monterey Cinemas Del Monte Center.