Teleios (2017)
Space Rescue Mission
An expedition is sent to Titan to investigate a ship that has failed to return and what has happened to its missing crew
Androids
An android is a Robot that is built in the likeness of a human being. On this site, a robot is used to refer to any form of independent but non-human machine, whereas an android is a machine that has been designed to mimic a human or at least human form. (The Star Wars series also uses the term ‘droid’ to refer to all robots).
Treatments of android theme include a body of films dealing with sinister android takeover plots. Following the success of The Terminator (1984), the SF/action film has created the trope of the invincible killer android.
There is also quite a body of android identity puzzle films where people are unable to tell the difference between machine and human. More recent treatments deal with the development of Artificial Intelligence or concern self-aware androids searching for their purpose.
Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (2024)
Bollywood Android Romance
A Bollywood take on the android/A.I. themes, where a roboticist falls for an android girl and tries to have her accepted by his family
The Terminator (1984)
Time-Travelling Killer Android
One of the 2-3 most influential SF films since 1980. James Cameron creates a barrelling powerhouse of a film, all lorded over by Arnold Schwarzenegger as the relentless killer machine in the role that defined his career
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
The first sequel to The Terminator where James Cameron returns with the biggest budget for a film at the time. Cameron harnesses then top-drawer CGI technology to create one of the most original nemeses in any SF film
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
After the highs of James Cameron’s first two Terminator films, this was a crashing disappointment. Schwarzenegger is back but his performance has become self-parody and the uninspired action sequences are accompanied by some terrible effects
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
The sixth Terminator film that boasts the return of both James Cameron and Linda Hamilton to the franchise. After the troughs of Terminator: Genisys, this makes one forget about the last three sequels
Terminator Genisys (2015)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
A hodgepodge of competing elements – an aging Arnold Schwarzenegger, a soft reboot, alternate timelines, reintroduction of the familiar, twists to the familiar – that make no sense on a narrative level, least of all come anywhere near what James Cameron delivered back in the first two films
Terminator Salvation (2009)
War Against the Machines
The fourth Terminator film is slightly better than you would expect of something directed by the empty-headed McG. There are some undeniably spectacular action sequences, although the film still stands too much in the shadow of what has gone before
Test Pilot Pirx (1979)
Soviet SF/Android Saboteur Aboard a Space Mission
Soviet era science-fiction adapted from a work by Stanislaw Lem, the original author of Solaris. This heads into rather fascinating Philip K. Dick territory, becoming a whodunnit as the title hero tries to work out who aboard a space mission is an android saboteur
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009)
Man-Machine Fusion
Shinya Tsukamoto’s third Tetsuo film is a disappointingly commercial concession that waters down all of the surrealism and wild sexual fetishism that made the first film so amazing
Time of Eve (2010)
Anime/Cafe for Androids
Fascinating anime about a cafe for androids. Imagine a cross between an Isaac Asimov Robot story and Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes. The film opens up in a series of episodes that tell stories of human-robot relations that hold a lovely tenderness
Time Under Fire (1997)
Time Travel/Action
Unimaginative time travel/action film that plays out like
Tin Man (2007)
Modernised Wizard of Oz
Nick Willing conducts the first of his SF revampings of popular tales. Here The Wizard of Oz is reworked into a Steampunk fantasy with some startling reinterpetations of the familiar characters
Tomorrowland (2015)
The Fight to Create a Utopian Future
Despite being another film based on a Disney theme park, I had high expectations of this because of Brad Bird. Alas, the initial promise of a retro-sf work that mainlined the wonderment of Jetsons-styled futurism turns into a surprisingly glum and message-heavy work about how the modern world is a depressing place
Torture Garden (1967)
Horror Anthology
Following the success of Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, this was the second of Amicus’s trademark horror anthologies with Burgess Meredith as a carnival barker showing people their fates
Toys (1992)
Toy-Maker Wars/Gonzo Fantasy
Genuinely eccentric Barry Levinson film that plays out as a post-Reaganite version of Willy Wonka and features some of the most amazing sets ever designed for a film.
Transmorphers (2007)
Asylum Mockbuster/Alien Robot Invasion
The Asylum’s answer to Michael Bay’s Transformers. Bay had a $150 million budget; they try to copy it for $250,000. To its credit, the film flies valiantly to deliver a watchable show in the face of inadequate effects
Turbo Kid (2015)
Retro 80s Parody of Post-Holocaust Films
There is a fantastically witty idea here – a low-tech parody of the 1980s post-holocaust film – but one that seems in search of an accompanying film. The film overspills with retro ephemera and stylistic jokes but I wish there had been more to it beyond the hook of the initial joke
2046 (2004)
Memories of Lost Relationships
An exquisitely dreamy Wong Kar Wai film as a man remembers his liaisons with various women. Only peripherally a science-fiction film concerning a story the protagonist is writing.
2103: The Deadly Wake (1996)
Futuristic Ship Voyage
Low-budget SF film about a ship at sea carrying a cargo of convicts, toxic waste, a deadly virus and a killer android
Uncanny (2015)
Android Artificial Intelligence
This was made before Ex Machina and has a surprisingly similar plot – although takes it even further in many regards – where a woman journalist goes to interview a tech genius and ends up in a romantic triangle between him and his android creation
Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979)
Astronaut in King Arthur's Court/Disney Comedy
A Disney version of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court where the story of a man thrown back in time to Camelot is dragged into the era of Star Wars with the addition of space shuttles and androids
V/H/S/Beyond (2024)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
Seventh of the V/H/S Found Footage horror anthologies, this is one of the best with a number of the episodes venturing into SF and others that feature some genuinely outlandish moments
Vesper (2022)
Environmentally Devastated Future
Visually extraordinary film set in an environmentally devastated future, this place enormous creativity into depicting a strange, very alien world
Vexille (2007)
Anime/Future Android Japan
Anime film about an android-overrun future Japan that resembles another episode of the Appleseed franchise
Vice (2015)
Rogue Pleasure Android
Bruce Willis is the CEO of a corporation that provides customers with androids to use for whatever vices they want. Very similar to tv’s recent Westworld but has a script so boneheaded you can almost imagine it acted as an example for Westworld to do the exact opposite
Virtuosity (1995)
Android Serial Killer
Director Brett Leonard started the fascination with Virtual Reality off with The Lawnmower Man but shot himself in the foot with this absurd braindead follow-up in which Denzel Washington pursues a madly OTT Russell Crowe as an android serial killer
Warning (2021)
Anthology of Future SF Tales
An anthology film that has been intended in the same vein as tv’s Black Mirror, offering a series of dark reflections of technological changes
Westworld (1973)
Android Amusement Park Amok
A hit for novelist Michael Crichton who made his directorial debut here. Themes of machines going amok run throughout Crichton’s work and here he comes up with the ingenious idea of a Western simulation playground using androids that proceed to turn against the humans
The Whispering Star (2015)
Intergalactic Package Delivery Android
The very strange Japanese director Shion Sono makes a film about an intergalactic package delivery android, although this is anything but a regular SF film. Filmed in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone.
Wifelike (2022)
Android Wives
This is like a version of The Stepford Wives updated to the era of Ex Machina and the modern A.I./android film
The World’s End (2013)
Alien Body Snatchers Comedy
Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the trio behind Shaun of the Dead, return to conduct a very similar effort – the story of a pub crawl that is affectionately mocking the characters’ nowhere lives, before taking an abrupt dogleg turn to become a comedic take on the alien body snatchers film
Yor, The Hunter from the Future (1983)
Barbarian in a Post-Holocaust World
Italian cheapie that has become regarded as a bad movie classic. This starts out as a Conan the Barbarian ripoff before, in a twist lifted from Teenage Caveman, we learn we are in a post-apocalyptic future
Zoe (2018)
Android Relationship Film
Films about androids and artificial intelligence have taken off in the 2010s. This comes produced by Ridley Scott who made Blade Runner, the defining classic on the theme; on the other hand, it ends up in the hands of a director who specialises in relationship dramas
Zone 414 (2021)
Future Film Noir/Androids
Very much informed by Blade Runner, this features Guy Pearce as a futuristic detective on the trail of a missing girl in the android zone