Revolutionary advancement that dramatically improves our lives? Scourge of humanity that kills jobs, decimates the environment and impedes creativity? The meteoric rise of artificial intelligence doesn’t lend itself to soft opinions. The cinema has been skeptical since 1927’s Metropolis, when a nefarious robot took on the guise of a seductive woman to deceive the working class.
Fear and suspicion of AI was reflected in successive decades that saw evil-doing robots and malevolent computers. Blade Runner and The Terminator were more nuanced takes that catapulted into weightier questions of what defines a human being. Films like Her in 2013 and Ex Machina two years later would have been unfathomable in the 1960s, back when the HAL-9000 of 2001: A Space Odyssey was refusing to open the pod bay doors for his flesh-and-blood colleagues.
These are the 10 best, according to me.
10. Westworld (1973, dir. Michael Crichton)
This science-fiction outing introduces evil robots terrorizing amusement parks—and it’s way worse than Disney World’s Hall of Presidents. Writer-director Michael Crichton may be unsure whether this is a comedy, satire or thriller, but he makes the most of his concept. James Brolin and Richard Benjamin are city-slicker pals visiting Westworld, an adult-themed amusement park where guests indulge Old West fantasies. There are sheriffs, rogue gunslingers and even ladies in bordellos, all astonishingly realistic robots meant to enhance the Western experience. But machines malfunction, and the denizens of Westworld, Medieval World and the like turn deadly. Shootouts and swordfights are no longer vacation-friendly. Yul Brynner is appropriately menacing as the gunfighter who would later inspire James Cameron’s Terminator. Westworld is cheesy, sure, but it’s the tasty kind.
9. Companion (2025, dir. Drew Hancock)
The feature debut of Drew Hancock wanders into some familiar territory with its robot-as-companion concept, but the comic thriller brings a fresh take and some unexpected turns. Set in the near-future, Companion stars Sophie Thatcher as Iris and Jack Quaid as Josh, a young couple off for a weekend getaway with friends in the country. The relationship contains some troubling power dynamics that come to the fore, primarily that Iris is, as Josh later says tersely, “an emotional support robot that fucks.” Iris is devastated by the revelation that her entire life experience—even her meet-cute with Josh—is the result of programming by a company called Empathix. Thatcher delivers a terrific performance that shifts between comedy and poignancy. The science-fiction premise proves a deft vehicle to satirize bro culture. There are snappy twists I won’t spoil here; discover it cold if possible.
8. M3GAN (2022, dir. Gerard Johnstone)
This fiendishly dark horror-comedy has a lot to say about parenting and tech addiction, but such social observations are neatly packaged in the 4-foot frame of its titular character, a walking, talking doll eager to dispense life lessons or even sing Taylor Swift’s “It’s Nice to Have a Friend.” We learn the Model 3 Generative Android, otherwise known as M3GAN, is the latest AI companion for children. Its creator, star engineer Gemma (Allison Williams), ill-advisedly uses M3GAN as a buddy for her 9-year-old niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), after the deaths of the girl’s parents. Cady and M3GAN become inseparable, but this titanium-plated pal is protective to a fault. Can parenting be successfully outsourced to a machine? M3GAN isn’t predisposed to passivity. When a neighbor’s dog bites Cady, the doll takes notice. And when a boy bullies Cady during a class field trip, the doll is all ears. M3GAN suggests that corporate-created childcare has its limits, especially when the nanny in question can rip off appendages.
7. The Stepford Wives (1975, dir. Bryan Forbes)
The cultural legacy of The Stepford Wives was so considerable, it all but overshadows what a damn fine slow-burner it is. Amid the social revolution of the 1970s, screenwriter William Goldman adapted Ira Levin’s bestselling satire of male panic and paranoia sparked by the women’s lib movement. Joanna and Walter Eberhart (Katherine Ross and Peter Masterson) leave New York for the suburban hamlet of Stepford, Connecticut. Walter finds an immediate social circle with the town’s exclusive men’s association, but it’s a different story for the intelligent, independence-minded Joanna. She doesn’t jibe with Stepford’s glamorous but vacant wives who are preoccupied with baking, housecleaning and satisfying their husbands’ every sexual want. Joanna and another recent Stepford transplant, the sassy Bobbi (Paula Prentiss), investigate why the housewives act like obedient androids. Turns out that’s exactly what they are. Director Bryan Forbes incorporates suspense into the satire, a blend decidedly more successful than the broad comedy of an unnecessary 2004 remake.
6. Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970, dir. Joseph Sargent)
Surprisingly forward-thinking and absurdly underseen, Colossus: The Forbin Project was a box-office dud upon its initial release. That might have partly been a matter of timing, coming on the heels of such science-fiction heavyweights as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes. Time has vindicated the film, as the fears of technological overreach stoked by director Joseph Sargent and screenwriter James Bridges still resonate in the 21st century. Colossus is the supercomputer created by Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden) to fully control the entire U.S. defense system, eliminating human error from nuclear decision-making. “There’s no way in,” Forbin boasts when the U.S. president (Gordon Pinsent) unveils Colossus to the world. “No human being can touch it.” But Forbin and company barely have time to pat themselves on the back before Colossus has identified and joined forces with Guardian, the Soviet Union’s newly operational supercomputer. The computerized super friends, quickly surmising that they know what’s best for earthlings, resolve to help—read: control—humankind. Among the film’s more charming traits is how its AI prescience is offset by its dated production. From the space-age font of the opening credits to the chunky mainframes, blinking lights and reels of tape that comprise Colossus, this picture is a groovy blast.
5. Ex Machina (2015, dir. Alex Garland)
The brilliant, challenging Ex Machina skewers Silicon Valley’s tech bro culture while playing on AI fears. The tale begins with tech firm CEO Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac) inviting one lucky employee for a weekend at his secluded estate. It’s a little like Willy Wonka, only instead of chocolate we have Ava (Alicia Vikander), an android built by Nathan. The weekend houseguest, a bright programmer named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), is asked to determine whether Ava can think independently. But Caleb grows attached to the humanoid, who appears to reciprocate his feelings, as he grows wary of Nathan’s arrogance and cruel treatment of his creation. “You feel bad for Ava? Feel bad for yourself, man,” Nathan cautions him. “One day, the AIs are gonna look back on us the same way we look back at fossils, skeletons and the plains of Africa—an upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.” Caleb knows something is not right with this setup, but who can he trust? Nathan? Ava? He certainly can’t trust Alex Garland, making his directorial debut here after a successful screenwriting career (28 Days Later, Sunshine), who keeps us perpetually off-balance.
4. Blade Runner (1982, dir. Ridley Scott)
In the far-off year of 2019, “blade runners” are tasked with tracking down and terminating renegade “replicants,” the pejorative term for androids, who are no longer serving humans. Harrison Ford is Deckard, a craggy, noir-friendly blade runner who is on the trail of outlaw replicants led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer). Blade Runner’s four-month shoot was a nightmare. Ford groused that director Ridley Scott seemed more engaged with the picture’s elaborate visual design than working with his star. Ford and co-star Sean Young clashed; their onscreen romance is conspicuously heat-free. Relations between the British director and his American crew were no better. Scott lamented to a reporter that they paled in comparison to UK crews, adding that British technicians quickly took directives with a cheery “Yes, guv!” After the interview ran, crew members printed T-shirts reading “YES, GUV—MY ASS!” The result was stunning science-fiction. Based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the film lays bare the pain of being almost human. “All those moments will be lost in time,” says Roy Batty about his mortality. “Like tears in rain. Time to die.” Hauer largely improvised the monologue the day of filming. Blade Runner asks if replicants, programmed with ersatz memories yet certain of their autonomy, are truly less human than someone like Deckard. And speaking of him, is the blade runner human? All of the movie’s various cuts are ambiguous on that count.
(See more in The 10 best movie dystopias.)
3. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001, dir. Steven Spielberg)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence is the merging of two disparate sensibilities: Steven Spielberg’s warmth and humanity meet Stanley Kubrick’s icy misanthropy and fascination with technology. Spielberg took on the film after his friend Kubrick, who had worked on the project over two decades, died in 1999. Set in the year 2142, A.I. Artificial Intelligence posits a world of humans and robots, the latter designed to fulfill people’s needs and desires. Haley Joel Osment is David, an 11-year-old child robot who is gifted to Henry and Monica Swinton (Sam Robards and Frances O’Connor) while their son lies comatose from a mysterious illness. The child’s recovery renders David, who has been programmed to love his mother, expendable. The bot is left to fend for himself in the woods. At the movie’s core is the Pinocchio fable. David longs to be real and to be loved, presumably as deeply as if he was programmed by God or DNA, rather than by Professor Hobby (William Hurt), his actual maker. Osment is affecting in a role that Kubrick had long assumed would have to be a CGI creation. Knowing his painstaking and lengthy film shoots, the director joked that any child actor would have a beard by the time production ended.
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, dir. Stanley Kubrick)
The humans in 2001: A Space Odyssey often come off as emotionally remote (cavemen excluded). It is no coincidence, then, that the most interesting entity in Stanley Kubrick’s opus is the HAL-9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain), the artificial-intelligence system of the Discovery One spaceship headed to Jupiter. HAL, as it’s better known, is stuck with the company of two of the most wooden astronauts in the universe, Dave Bowman and Frank Poole (Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood, respectively). When they spot what appears to be a malfunction by HAL, the pair confer privately in a soundproof pod—or so they think—on how to dismantle it. But HAL discovers their plan and strikes first, killing Poole before attempting to do the same to Bowman. Christiane Kubrick, the director’s widow, told Space Odyssey author Michael Benson how her husband was adamant that HAL’s eventual shutdown be depicted as a death. “It was very important to him that the computer suffers when he (Bowman) takes these bits of the brain. That’s why he lit it red, so it looks fleshy.” As HAL’s voice slows to a crawl, it warbles “Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Build for Two)”—a song learned in its infancy—in an accelerated state of decay. HAL’s demise, incidentally, is the last stop before humankind’s next evolutionary metamorphosis.
1. Her (2013, dir. Spike Jonze)
Spike Jonze’s Her is a smart, sad comedy-drama that also happened to be eerily prescient regarding the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence. The idea of a lonely man falling in love with his computer’s operating system didn’t seem that far-fetched in 2013. But few anticipated how quickly there would be such a blurring between human consciousness and AI that we now have a subculture of people in relationships with chatbots. Set in an unspecified near-future, Her stars Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore Twombly, a lonely divorcee whose emotional isolation is deepened by the irony that his job entails drafting personalized greeting cards for a company called BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com. Theodore’s attachment to his OS (marvelously voiced by Scarlett Johansson), which has named itself Samantha, follows the familiar rhythms of a budding relationship. It is the give and take of two conscious entities learning about each other and letting nature (if that term still applies) take its course. Provocative ideas abound. What is the role of artificial intelligence? What defines a healthy relationship? Is intimacy strengthened by technology—or weakened by it? What is love? And why does everyone in the future dress so funny?
Honorable mention: After Yang (2021, dir. Kogonada), Alphaville (1965, dir. Jean-Luc Godard), Demon Seed (1977, dir. Donald Cammell), Ghost in the Shell (1995, dir. Mamoru Oshii), The Matrix (1999, dir. Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski), Metropolis (1927, dir. Fritz Lang), Moon (2009, dir. Duncan Jones), The Terminator(1984, dir. James Cameron), WALL-E (2008, dir. Andrew Stanton), WarGames (1983, dir. John Badham)
Cutting to the Chase with Phil Bacharach 