A.li.ce (1999)
Anime/Dystopian Future/Time Travel
This was the first anime film made in CGI, an ambitious SF film involving a time travel plot and a struggle against a machine-dominated future
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality (or VR) refers to a simulation of the real or an imagined world inside a computer environment. VR technology is a very likely real world development of the near-future. On screens, this is depicted as full-immersion that replicates all five senses.
Depictions of VR began in the 1980s, although there have been a number of works that can be said to prefigure its themes. Interest peaked in the 1990s as real world fascination with the topic heated up.
Stories concern people caught in lifelike VR simulations that are unable to be detected from the real thing or characters inside VR simulations coming to life in the real world. The Cyberpunk genre made depictions of VR commonplace. There is the surprising popularity of a number of erotic films with VR themes.
Another variation on VR themes is the hologram in particular the holodeck stories of various of the modern Star Trek tv series.
Aeon Flux (2005)
Dystopian Future/TV Series Remake
Disappointingly watered down live-action adaptation of the cult animated series. Karyn Kusama creates some interesting visuals but eventually everything lapses to Hollywood formula
Allegiant (2016)
Young Adult Dystopian Future
The Divergent series is a fundamentally implausible scenario for people that think horoscopes are a profound insight into human nature. This is the most interesting of the films and gives us an imaginative future world
The Animatrix (2003)
Compilation of Matrix Anime Shorts
To accompany their two Matrix sequels, The Wackowskis hired seven anime directors to each make a short film set in The Matrix universe. The results are often quite remarkable
Arcade (1994)
Malevolent Virtual Reality Game
A quickie effort made by Albert Pyun for Charles Band’s Full Moon Productions to exploit the Virtual Reality themes popularised by The Lawnmower Man, concerning a malevolent VR videogame
Assault Girls (2009)
Virtual Reality Videogaming
Disappointing live-action film from anime director Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell fame, construed as nothing beyond a live-action videogame with kick-ass girls engaged in serial combat encounters
The Assessment (2024)
Future Couple Undergo Assessment for a Child
An hilariously black, deadpan film set in a future as a couple undergo assessment for whether they are fit to be parents. This involves Alicia Vikander moving into the house and play-acting being a child with absolutely chaotic effect
Avalon (2001)
Virtual Reality
Visually stunning live-action film from Mamoru Oshii, director of Ghost in the Shell, set in the beautifully stylised faded sepia tone world of a Virtual Reality game
Belle (2021)
Anime/Beauty and the Beast in Virtual Reality
A beautiful anime from Momoru Hosoda that retells Beauty and the Beast and spins it in SF terms as tale about a girl who finds fame as a singer in Virtual Reality
Black Box (2020)
Amnesia and Mind Transference
Blumhouse film in which an initial plot about a man suffering amnesia undergoes a twist to become a body theft story
Bliss (2021)
We Are All Living in a Virtual Reality Illusion
Quite an entertaining film based on the conspiracy theory that we are all living in The Matrix where Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek become wound up in virtual simulation
Blue Flame (1993)
Alien Psychological Games in Dream Reality
Low-budget but not uninteresting film that throws in a mind-bending mix of aliens, dream and alternate realities
Brainscan (1994)
Deadly Virtual Reality Game
One of the many virtual reality films that came out after The Lawnmower Man with Edward Furlong dealing with a figure from a horror videogame who turns his life upside down, urging him to become a killer
Brainstorm (1983)
Memory Recording Device
Highly ambitious film for its day, this concerns a memory-recording device that manages to accidentally record the experience of someone dying. Well worth seeing today, including being one of the first films to depict the internet
The Call Up (2016)
Deadly Live-Action Videogame
This has the interesting idea of a group of people selected to take place in a live-action videogame only to find themselves trapped in a The Belko Experiment scenario.
Cargo (2009)
Problems Aboard a Space Mission
Fine Swiss-made SF film where cryogenic sleepers are awoken aboard a deep space mission to find someone is killing the crew and even that the very purpose of their mission may be a lie
Chemical Wedding (2008)
The Reincarnation of Aleister Crowley
Ostensibly about occultist Aleister Crowley reincarnating in the present, this overflows with mad ideas involving quantum physics, VR, alternate worlds and a heap of classic references – and moreover, is written by the lead singer of Iron Maiden
ClearMind (2024)
Virtual Reality Therapy
This starts out as a seeming improv piece about several couples gathered for a weekend where the bickering becomes increasingly darker, all before it reaches an SF twist
Code 46 (2003)
Dystopian Future
A standout Michael Winterbottom film set in a fascinatingly detailed and well conceived future dominated by genetic laws where Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton conduct an illicit affair
Conceiving Ada (1997)
Ada Byron Biopic/Ada Recreated in Cyberspace
Rather muddled film that seems to want to be a biopic of Ada Byron but ends up with her (as played by Tilda Swinton) recreated in cyberspace
The Congress (2013)
Virtual Actress/Future Shared Drug Hallucination
Waltz With Bashir director Ari Folman adapts a work by Stanislaw Lem into a conceptually challenging part-animated film concerning a virtual actress and a future where the populace lives inside a drug-induced mass hallucination
Cybertech P.D. (1995)
Cyberpunk
At face value, this seems to be no more than a Lorenzo Lamas action film for video release, but it surprises one and becomes a quite reasonable Cyberpunk film that conducts a smart airing of the tropes
Dark Cloud (2022)
Trapped by an A.I. House
SF film about a woman suffering amnesia who is sent to an automated house to recuperate only to be made prisoner by the sinister A.I. that runs the house
Death House (2017)
Asylum of Insane Killers Unleashed
This comes with the winning idea of being conceived as a horror version of The Expendables bringing back an amazing line-up of horror actors from principally the 80s. Alas, the film itself as an incoherent mess
Death Race 2050 (2017)
Future Road Race/Satire
Death Race 2000 was a hit for producer Roger Corman. It was remade minus the satire as a straight action film with Death Race; here Corman remakes the original (albeit very cheaply) and restores the satire
Demonic (2021)
Demonic Possession in Virtual Reality
Neill Blomkamp, the director of District 9, returns with a possession film that uniquely takes places in Virtual Reality as Carly Pope must use a device that enters her comatose mother’s dreamspace
Devs (2020)
Computer That Can Predict the Future
Alex Garland directed-written tv mini-series that grasps at big ideas about the meaning of it all concerning a computer that can track every particle and predict past and future. This emerges as one of the finest SF work of the last few years
Die Another Day (2002)
James Bond Film
Pierce Brosnan’s final outing as James Bond lacks the sharpness of the preceding entries and is hampered by Halle Berry who is given great presence but nothing to do. Despite which this has some of the best action scenes of any Bond film
Digital Man (1995)
Amok Android
Fairly average 90s SF/action video release about soldiers hunting an amok military android before realising the androids have also infiltrated their troupe
Disclosure (1994)
Michael Crichton Adaptation/Sexual Harassment Thriller/Virtual Reality
It is telling that the only film made about workplace sexual harassment up to this point is one that painted the male as a victim. This adaptation of a Michael Crichton book came mired in controversy
Discontinued (2022)
Shutting Down the Reality Simulation
We’ve all heard the theory that we might be living in The Matrix. This asks the question of what happens when it is announced that the simulation is being shut down
Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
Sinister Utopian Town
Actress Olivia Wilde creates a variant on The Stepford Wives set in an idyllic 1950s town where the women seem to be prisoners. Wilde is making a feminist parable but the plausibility of her SF scenario falls apart
Doug’s 1st Movie (1999)
Animation/Children's TV Series Spinoff
Film spinoff of a popular children’s animated tv series Doug about a kid and his observations on life. The film’s story has the title character befriending a local lake monster
Dreamtrips (1999)
Virtual Reality Dreamscapes
A Virtual Reality film that came out the same year as The Matrix and prefigures the dreamscape themes of Inception. Despite the possibilities, this has a dreary pace that very nearly approaches falling asleep
The Dungeonmaster (1984)
Warrior's Virtual Quest/Anthology
An anthology film produced by Charles Band where assorted directors turn in seven episodes all centred around a videogame warrior put through a series of tests by The Devil
The Electric State (2025)
The Robot Revolution
This is a film that had the capacity within its hands to be a classic work about A.I. and robotics. Adapted from the art of Simon Stålenhag and directed by the Russo Brothers who were behind the last two Avengers films
eXistenZ (1999)
Virtual Reality
David Cronenberg tackles Virtual Reality themes in an interestingly mind-bending work. Cronenberg has some interesting takes but this ended up being overshadowed by the phenomenon that was The Matrix the same year
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions (2004)
Dystopia
Spanish film set in a dystopian future where physical contact between the sexes is outlawed and rebels discover forbidden broadcasts. This becomes overrun by its pretensions
Final Mission (1994)
Virtual Reality Brainwashing of Pilots
Top Gun meets Virtual Reality in a rather ridiculous plot about Air Force pilots being introduced to a new virtual targeting system that turns them into brainwashed killers
Flashburn (2017)
Amnesiac Scientist Imprisoned/Reality Bender
Reality bending film where an amnesiac Sean Patrick Flanery wakes up in a warehouse and learns he is a scientist who holds the antidote to a pandemic. But all is not it seems.
Future Kick (1991)
Cyberpunk Future Action
Cheap Cyberpunk action film that borrows the basics of Cyborg with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson as android bounty hunter engaged in stopping corporate skulduggery
Game Over (2019)
Bollywood Horror
A reality bending Bollywood film in which a wheelchair-ridden woman videogame designer is haunted by mysterious events, although quite what is all about is a very good question
Gamer (2009)
Future Live-Action Videogames
Film somewhere between Counterstrike and The Running Man where convicts are controlled as avatars inside a live-action videogame. A difficult to believe premise that is pumped up with hyper-adrenalised action visuals
Ghost in the Machine (1993)
Serial Killer in Cyberspace
Made in the aftermath of The Lawnmower Man, this utterly ridiculous film has a serial killer uploaded to the internet. Written by people who know nothing about computers and filled with absurdly over-the-top effects
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
Cyberpunk Anime
Mamoru Oshii’s follow-up to Ghost in the Shell where he makes a work that pushes both an artistic envelope at the same time as taking his philosophical fascination with the Cyberpunk world to a stunning level
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Cyberpunk Anime
Classic anime from Mamoru Oshii, a Cyberpunk work with a heroine who is a cyborg special forces officer, a work that delves deeply into the philosophical questions of what is human and what is machine
Ghost in the Shell: Arise (2013-2014)
Cyberpunk Anime
Reboot of the Ghost in the Shell series in a quartet of prequel stories. This funnels the essence of Cyberpunk superbly, creating a dazzling world with cyborgised security services fighting terrorists hacking people’s brains
Ghost in the Shell (2015)
Cyberpunk Anime
Another anime film in the Ghost in the Shell franchise. This was the fifth episode of the Ghost in the Shell: Arise reboot series that received a theatrical release
Ghost Machine (2009)
Malevolent Spirit Manifests Inside Virtual Reality
A Virtual Reality/horror film about a malevolent spirit incarnated inside a videogame. This churns all the Virtual Reality cliches as though nothing had changed since the tide of shabby 1990s Lawnmower Man copies
Ghosts of War (2020)
G.I.'s at a Haunted Chateau in WWII
US soldiers arrive at a chateau in Nazi-occupied France during World War II that appears to be haunted. In a conceptual reversal twist, everything is not what it seems
Ghosts With Shit Jobs (2012)
Slice-of-Life Portraits From a Post-Cyberpunk Future
Fascinating film interviewing people about the jobs they are forced to take in an economically collapsed future. Despite a minuscule budget, this has the grip of strong, intelligent SF
A Glitch in the Matrix (2021)
Documentary About the Theory We Are All Living in a Virtual Simulation
Rodney Ascher, who made the wacko Room 237, makes another fascinating documentary that discusses the theory that we might all be living in a virtual simulation
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (2025)
Time Traveller
A completely mad and all over the place film with Sam Rockwell as a time traveller (or madman) arrived at a diner to recruit six people on a mission to save the world from an evil A.I.
Haphead (2015)
Life in a Post-Cyberpunk World
From SF writer Jim Munroe who made the impressive Ghosts With Shit Jobs, a micro-budgeted work set in a post-cyberpunk future where the fascination lies in the casually littered assumptions around the edges
Hardwired (2009)
Satiric Corporate Future/Advertising Brain Implants
This has the promising idea of a corporate-ruled future where people receive advertising implants but soon dissolves into the equivalent of a B-budget hacker thriller
Holidays (2016)
Horror Anthology
Another in the spate of multi-director horror anthologies with each episode here being set around a holiday. As with these films, some of the episodes work well, some end with a puzzled WTF and most fall somewhere in between
Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015)
Time Travel Comedy
Why we needed a sequel to Hot Tub Time Machine is a big question. Essentially, Back to the Future Part II meets The Hangover, all this does is wind the original’s amiable coarseness up by a factor of ten
I.K.U. (2000)
Cyberpunk Pornography/Sex Androids
Described as a cyberporn fantasy, a quasi-pornographic film set in a Cyberpunk future where androids are designed to consume sexual experience
The Illustrated Man (1969)
Ray Bradbury Anthology
An anthology that adapts three stories from Ray Bradbury’s short story collection but does so with singularly heavy-handed regard. The best aspect of the film is the framing story with a brooding Rod Steiger in the title role.
Jason X (2001)
Slasher in Space
The tenth Friday the 13th film. This tries to add novelty as Jason is thawed out in the future aboard a space station to slaughter anew. Featuring no less than David Cronenberg as a victim
Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (2019)
Gonzo Virtual Reality Spy Capers
This gets full marks for an attention-grabbing title. Beyond that, it is is otherwise a very strange and surrealistic film about spy shenanigans in Virtual Reality
Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)
Incompetent Spy Comedy
Rowan Atkinson in his third outing as the inept spy. Atkinson is a talented comic but these Johnny English films, which are like less sophisticated versions of Peter Sellers’ Inspector Closeau, are the least of his comedy incarnations
Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
Cyberpunk/William Gibson Adaptation
The first attempt to film the works of cult Cyberpunk author William Gibson met with very mixed success, nevertheless is a modest effort that does mainline the essence of Gibson’s world
Kill Me Again (2025)
Serial Killer Caught in a Timeloop
One of a growing number of horror takes on Groundhog Day with the unique premise of a serial killer trapped in a timeloop where he kills everybody but must change his ways to escape
Latency (2023)
Reality-Warping VR Headset
A film about an agoraphobic videogamer confined to their apartment who is given a Virtual Reality headset to test that soon starts to warp their sense of reality
The Lawnmower Man (1992)
Virtual Reality/Enhanced Intelligence
This has nothing to do with the Stephen King story about a Pan-worshipping lawnmowing service and is a film about Virtual Reality. Harnessing some top-drawer CGI effects of the day, this was influential on subsequent VR films
Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996)
Messianic Cyberspace Madman
The Lawnmower Man was far from a classic but this sequel has an absurdity that pushes it into extremely bad movie stakes with Matt Frewer as a messiah trying to move everybody into cyberspace
Let’s Be Evil (2016)
Augmented Reality Experiment
While the title suggests a series of malicious games, this is an SF film about participants in an augmented reality experiment who are locked in a facility with strangely alien children
Level Five (1996)
Virtual Reality Game/World War II Documentary
Chris Marker, the director of La Jetee, returns to SF. Though this is set around a Virtual Reality game, it is in fact a documentary essay about the Battle of Okinawa
LX 2048 (2020)
Future Cloning and Virtual Reality
A film I went into with no expectation that quickly creates a fascinating future and offers some ingeniously original treatments of cloning and Virtual Reality themes
The Mandela Effect (2019)
Editing of the Timeline/Living in The Matrix
Dramatised film based on the popular conspiracy theory that people are living in an alternate timeline where their memories have been edited and that we are all living in a simulation a la The Matrix
The Matrix (1999)
Virtual Reality
A film that was as groundbreaking when it came out as Star Wars was in its day. The Wachowskis create a defining work on Virtual Reality themes and do so with a sublime cool and a series of breathtaking action moves that blew everybody away
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Virtual Reality
The first of the sequels to The Matrix inevitably disappointed on the massive build-up. The Wachowskis leave more questions than answers, while the new action scenes are often jaw-dropping they also feel boiler-plated on
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
Virtual Reality
One of The Wachowskis returns to the world of The Matrix and rather wittily turns it into an anti-blockbuster about her reluctance to do so
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Virtual Reality
Third of The Matrix sequels and the weakest of the series. This offers one showstopping effects sequence, on the other hand it also leaves a host of unanswered questions dangling
Megaville (1990)
Dystopian Future
Little-known SF film with Billy Zane in a dystopian future involving Virtual Reality tech and implanted memories. Like Total Recall rewritten as an episode of Miami Vice
Mindwarp (1992)
Post-Holocaust/Virtual Reality
One of three films produced by Fangoria magazine, this takes place in a post-holocaust wasteland of crazies and is certainly gore-drenched but unfortunately only churns cliches
Mnemophrenia (2019)
Virtual Memories
Film that takes place across three future eras that questions what happens when Virtual Reality produces artificial memories more vivid than real world ones
A Murder at the End of the World (2023)
Hi-Tech Murder Mystery
Brit Marling is one of the most intelligent creative faces of the 2010s/20s. Here she co-writes, co-directs and stars in a fascinating murder mystery set in the tech world at a futuristic retreat
Nirvana (1997)
Cyberpunk
Strong and intelligent Cyberpunk film with Christopher Lambert dealing with a videogame character that has come to life
One Point 0 (2004)
Strange Apartment Neighbours/Reality Blurrings and Paranoia
This travels into very similar places to Roman Polanski’s The Tenant – a paranoid tale about a man surrounded by very strange apartment neighbours. Apart from adding some reality blurring SF twists to the mix, this does little more than churn cliches
1, 2, 3, Whiteout: The End of the Light Age (2007)
Experimental Film/Future Thought Experiments
Baffling SF film that lacks anything resembling a plot and seems mostly an experimental film about showing pretty light patterns
Open Your Eyes (1997)
Reality Bender
Excellent film from Alejandro Amenabar in which a handsome playboy finds himself in the midst of a baffling series of reality flips before arriving at an SF twist ending
The Pink Cloud (2021)
Toxic Cloud
Brazilian film that becomes an allegory for Covid lockdown as a toxic cloud forces people to remain indoors for years at a time
Radioflash (2019)
Socially Catastrophic EMP Burst
Film in which the entire US Western seaboard falls into social chaos after being hit an EMP burst focusing on one girl’s journey to safety across anarchic territory
Ready Player One (2018)
Virtual Treasure Hunt Through 1980s Pop Trivia
Steven Spielberg adapted Ernest Cline’s book about a massive virtual treasure hunt through 1980s pop culture trivia. The film winds up the pop culture references by a factor of ten, but misses the book’s compulsive readability
Repo Men (2010)
Future Organ Repossession
SF film set in a future where agents are sent to repossess artificial organs when the owner’s fall behind on payments. Sort of Sicko by way of Logan’s Run but lacking the necessary sense of black humour to work
Resurrected (2023)
Resurrection Process
This has a fascinating premise where the Catholic Church develops a resurrection process, before one priest starts to see a darker conspiracy beneath. Shot in the Screenlife process where the film screen becomes a computer screen
Revelation (1999)
The Anti-Christ in Virtual Reality
The second in a series of Biblical End Times films from Canada’s faith-based Cloud Ten Pictures, this offers the peculiarity of the Anti-Christ appearing in Virtual Reality
RPG (2013)
Deadly Elimination Game in Avatar Bodies
A Hunger Games wannabe with elderly people forced to eliminate one another while inhabiting young avatar bodies inside a virtual simulation. It is a long time since I have encountered a film where the fundamental premise makes no sense whatsoever when you look at it logically
S1m0ne (2002)
Virtual Hollywood Actress
Andrew Niccol makes a comedy in which down-on-his-luck film director Al Pacino obtains a computer program for simulating a performance and creates a virtual actress, hoodwinking the public into believing she is a real person.
Savage (1995)
Alien-Altered Neanderthal Superman
Bizarrely incomprehensible film from Avi Nesher set in a Cyberpunk future in which Olivier Gruner is turned into a Neanderthal superhuman by aliens living in cyberspace
The Second Arrival (1998)
Alien Infiltration and Takeover
Low-budget and fairly indifferently made sequel to David Twohy’s quite good alien invasion film
The Singularity is Near: A True Story About the Future (2010)
Documentary/SF Story About Future Machine Evolution
Based on Ray Kurzweil’s non-fiction book about the coming evolution of machine intelligence, this is an odd mix of documentary and SF, including a storyline to illustrate Kurzweil’s main theses … The vision is an extraordinarily utopian one but one has just a few plausibility problems with it
The 6th Day (2000)
Cloned Man/Action
Arnold Schwarzenegger revisits something of Total Recall in this modest and clever action film in which he discovers that a clone has stolen his life
Slayers (2022)
Social Media Influencers vs Vampires
A group of social media influencers fall prey to a vampire and are required to call on the help of grizzled vampire hunter Thomas Jane
Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)
Toon Basketball Game
For reasons not clear to me, Space Jam is considered a classic. Now we get a sequel that updates it to the present featuring a different NBA star LeBron James
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
Animation/Comic-Book Superhero
The animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse proved an unexpected success. This sequel builds on that ups the artistic quality of the original to something quite extraordinary
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)
Adventures Inside a Videogame
The third in the series is no longer even a Spy Kids film but a Virtual Reality videogame film. Robert Rodriguez has some fun creating the virtual worlds but the parody that the other films engaged in is missing
Spy Kids: Armageddon (2023)
Juvenile Spy Adventures
Robert Rodriguez revisits his juvenile spy capers franchise after a twelve year absence. Not perfect but it improves over the last couple of sequels