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Artificial intelligence has been one of the most durable subjects in cinema since at least the 1920s, when Fritz Lang's Maschinenmensch in Metropolis (1927) set the template for the screen robot. The list below is a working filmography of movies, documentaries, and TV series where artificial intelligence, robots, or related ideas drive the plot, plus a separate section for productions that used generative AI tools during filmmaking. Entries cite release year, director or showrunner, and the production company or distributor where known.
AI on screen tends to cycle between two moods: the helpful or sympathetic machine (HAL pre-malfunction, Wall-E, Samantha in Her, Baymax) and the apocalyptic one (Skynet, the replicants of Blade Runner, M3GAN). Documentaries have multiplied since around 2017, when AlphaGo's victory over Lee Sedol made machine learning a mainstream story. After ChatGPT launched in November 2022, AI also became a production tool. Films like The Brutalist and Here used voice cloning and de-aging, and Hollywood began wrestling with the labor questions that drove the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
This page tries to stay narrow. A film counts if AI is a central character, a major plot device, or the subject of the documentary. Productions that merely use VFX are excluded unless the AI usage itself became a news story.
| Title | Year | Director | Distributor or producer | Subject |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AlphaGo | 2017 | Greg Kohs | Moxie Pictures | DeepMind's match against Lee Sedol in Seoul, March 2016 |
| Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World | 2016 | Werner Herzog | Magnolia Pictures | Internet history, robotics, autonomous vehicles, AI ethics |
| Do You Trust This Computer? | 2018 | Chris Paine | Papercut Films | Interviews with Elon Musk, Ray Kurzweil, Stuart Russell on AI risk |
| iHuman | 2019 | Tonje Hessen Schei | UpNorth Film | AI surveillance, autonomous weapons, China's social credit system |
| The Great Hack | 2019 | Karim Amer, Jehane Noujaim | Netflix | Cambridge Analytica, data harvesting, the 2016 US election |
| Coded Bias | 2020 | Shalini Kantayya | 7th Empire Media | Joy Buolamwini and the MIT Media Lab on racial bias in facial recognition |
| The Social Dilemma | 2020 | Jeff Orlowski | Netflix, Exposure Labs | Recommendation algorithms, social media, ex-tech employees on persuasive design |
| In the Age of AI | 2019 | Neil Docherty, David Fanning | PBS Frontline | Two-hour PBS report on the US-China AI race, automation, and surveillance |
| We Need to Talk About A.I. | 2020 | Leanne Pooley | Curious Film | Survey of AI risk featuring Stuart Russell, Robert Cailliau, others |
| The Alignment Problem | 2024 | Various | Future of Life Institute | Documentary mini-series on AI alignment and existential risk |
| AI Dilemma | 2023 | Various | Center for Humane Technology | Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin presentation on the rapid arrival of generative AI |
| Title | Year | Director | Studio or distributor | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metropolis | 1927 | Fritz Lang | UFA | The Maschinenmensch is the first iconic film robot |
| Forbidden Planet | 1956 | Fred M. Wilcox | MGM | Robby the Robot, the first major Hollywood AI character |
| 2001: A Space Odyssey | 1968 | Stanley Kubrick | MGM | HAL 9000, the canonical malfunctioning AI |
| Colossus: The Forbin Project | 1970 | Joseph Sargent | Universal Pictures | Cold-war supercomputer takes control of nuclear arsenals |
| Westworld | 1973 | Michael Crichton | MGM | Theme-park robots go violent, written and directed by Crichton |
| Demon Seed | 1977 | Donald Cammell | MGM | A sentient supercomputer named Proteus IV traps a researcher's wife |
| Alien | 1979 | Ridley Scott | 20th Century Fox | Ash the android (Ian Holm), the first cinematic example of the corporate android trope |
| Blade Runner | 1982 | Ridley Scott | Warner Bros. | Adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? |
| Tron | 1982 | Steven Lisberger | Walt Disney Pictures | Programs as conscious entities inside a computer |
| WarGames | 1983 | John Badham | MGM, United Artists | Joshua, the NORAD wargaming computer, almost starts WW3 |
| The Terminator | 1984 | James Cameron | Orion Pictures | First appearance of Skynet and the T-800 |
| Electric Dreams | 1984 | Steve Barron | MGM | Romance between a man, his AI computer, and a cellist |
| D.A.R.Y.L. | 1985 | Simon Wincer | Paramount Pictures | A boy is revealed to be a military AI experiment |
| Short Circuit | 1986 | John Badham | TriStar Pictures | Johnny 5, a military robot struck by lightning, gains sentience |
| RoboCop | 1987 | Paul Verhoeven | Orion Pictures | Cyborg cop, with the murderous ED-209 as a pure robot foil |
| Terminator 2: Judgment Day | 1991 | James Cameron | TriStar Pictures | The T-1000 and a reformed T-800; Skynet origin story |
| Ghost in the Shell | 1995 | Mamoru Oshii | Production I.G | Anime feature based on Masamune Shirow's manga, formative for The Matrix |
| Bicentennial Man | 1999 | Chris Columbus | Touchstone Pictures, Columbia Pictures | Robin Williams plays Andrew, a robot who seeks legal personhood, from Asimov |
| The Matrix | 1999 | The Wachowskis | Warner Bros. | Humans live inside a simulation maintained by machines |
| A.I. Artificial Intelligence | 2001 | Steven Spielberg | Warner Bros., DreamWorks | Project started by Stanley Kubrick, finished by Spielberg |
| Minority Report | 2002 | Steven Spielberg | 20th Century Fox, DreamWorks | Precrime division uses predictive AI, based on Philip K. Dick |
| I, Robot | 2004 | Alex Proyas | 20th Century Fox | Loose adaptation of Isaac Asimov, starring Will Smith |
| Stealth | 2005 | Rob Cohen | Columbia Pictures | Autonomous fighter jet AI, EDI, goes rogue after a lightning strike |
| WALL-E | 2008 | Andrew Stanton | Pixar | A trash-compacting robot left alone on Earth |
| Eagle Eye | 2008 | D. J. Caruso | DreamWorks Pictures | Supercomputer ARIIA manipulates citizens by phone |
| Moon | 2009 | Duncan Jones | Sony Pictures Classics | Sam Rockwell and an AI named GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) on a lunar base |
| Tron: Legacy | 2010 | Joseph Kosinski | Walt Disney Pictures | Sequel to Tron, featuring the AI character Quorra |
| Robot & Frank | 2012 | Jake Schreier | Samuel Goldwyn Films | A retired thief and his caregiver robot |
| Her | 2013 | Spike Jonze | Annapurna Pictures, Warner Bros. | Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) falls for Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) |
| The Machine | 2013 | Caradog W. James | Content Media | British indie about a sentient combat AI |
| Transcendence | 2014 | Wally Pfister | Warner Bros., Alcon Entertainment | Johnny Depp uploaded into an AI |
| Ex Machina | 2014 | Alex Garland | A24, Universal Pictures | Ava, the Turing test movie that launched Garland's directing career |
| Big Hero 6 | 2014 | Don Hall, Chris Williams | Walt Disney Animation | Baymax, a healthcare robot |
| Automata | 2014 | Gabe Ibañez | Millennium Films | Antonio Banderas investigates self-modifying robots |
| Avengers: Age of Ultron | 2015 | Joss Whedon | Marvel Studios | Tony Stark's peacekeeping AI Ultron becomes genocidal |
| Chappie | 2015 | Neill Blomkamp | Columbia Pictures | A police robot is reprogrammed with a child-like consciousness |
| Uncanny | 2015 | Matthew Leutwyler | RLJ Entertainment | Indie film about a roboticist and his unsettling creation |
| Morgan | 2016 | Luke Scott | 20th Century Fox | Corporate risk consultant evaluates an artificial humanoid |
| Blade Runner 2049 | 2017 | Denis Villeneuve | Warner Bros. | Sequel set 30 years after the original, featuring Joi, a holographic AI |
| Ghost in the Shell | 2017 | Rupert Sanders | Paramount Pictures | Live-action adaptation starring Scarlett Johansson |
| Upgrade | 2018 | Leigh Whannell | OTL Releasing, Blumhouse | A man's nervous system is replaced by an AI called STEM |
| Tau | 2018 | Federico D'Alessandro | Netflix | A woman is trapped in a smart house run by a learning AI |
| Anon | 2018 | Andrew Niccol | Netflix | Future where AI catalogs every memory; Clive Owen, Amanda Seyfried |
| Zoe | 2018 | Drake Doremus | Amazon Studios | Researchers test a relationship between a human and a synthetic |
| Archive | 2020 | Gavin Rothery | Vertigo Releasing | A scientist trying to revive his wife builds three generations of androids |
| Bigbug | 2022 | Jean-Pierre Jeunet | Netflix | French satire about humans trapped at home by their domestic robots |
| After Yang | 2021 | Kogonada | A24 | A family tries to repair their malfunctioning android companion, from a Alexander Weinstein short story |
| M3GAN | 2022 | Gerard Johnstone | Universal Pictures, Blumhouse | AI doll designed by Allison Williams's character becomes lethally protective |
| The Creator | 2023 | Gareth Edwards | 20th Century Studios | War between humans and AI in a fictional New Asia |
| Atlas | 2024 | Brad Peyton | Netflix | Jennifer Lopez plays a data analyst hunting a rogue AI in a mech suit |
| Megalopolis | 2024 | Francis Ford Coppola | Lionsgate | Self-funded epic that touches on technology and utopia, limited AI theme |
| Subservience | 2024 | S. K. Dale | Millennium Media | Megan Fox plays a domestic AI companion that goes rogue |
| M3GAN 2.0 | 2025 | Gerard Johnstone | Universal Pictures, Blumhouse | Sequel announced for June 2025 release |
| Companion | 2025 | Drew Hancock | Warner Bros., New Line | Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid in a robot-companion thriller |
| Mickey 17 | 2025 | Bong Joon-ho | Warner Bros. | Adaptation of Edward Ashton's novel about an expendable worker repeatedly cloned, AI-adjacent rather than core |
| Title | Years | Creator | Network | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Twilight Zone | 1959-1964 | Rod Serling | CBS | Episodes such as The Lonely (1959) and In His Image (1963) anticipated the AI companion trope |
| Star Trek: The Next Generation | 1987-1994 | Gene Roddenberry | Syndication | Data, the android officer, played by Brent Spiner; the trial in The Measure of a Man (1989) is a personhood classic |
| Battlestar Galactica | 2004-2009 | Ronald D. Moore | Sci Fi Channel | Cylons, with the genocidal AI trope central to the show |
| Person of Interest | 2011-2016 | Jonathan Nolan | CBS | Surveillance AI called the Machine, and a rival ASI named Samaritan |
| Black Mirror | 2011-present | Charlie Brooker | Channel 4, Netflix | Anthology with major AI episodes including Be Right Back (2013), White Christmas (2014), USS Callister (2017), Hang the DJ (2017), and Joan Is Awful (2023) |
| Humans | 2015-2018 | Sam Vincent, Jonathan Brackley | Channel 4, AMC | British remake of the Swedish Real Humans (2012-2014), starring Gemma Chan |
| Mr. Robot | 2015-2019 | Sam Esmail | USA Network | Hacker drama with extensive cybersecurity and AI themes |
| Westworld | 2016-2022 | Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy | HBO | Reboot of the 1973 film, focused on theme-park hosts attaining sentience |
| Pure Genius | 2016-2017 | Jason Katims | CBS | Silicon-Valley-funded hospital with an AI diagnostic system |
| The Good Place | 2016-2020 | Michael Schur | NBC | Janet, the all-knowing AI assistant played by D'Arcy Carden |
| Altered Carbon | 2018-2020 | Laeta Kalogridis | Netflix | Consciousness uploaded to stacks, with AI hotel proprietor Poe |
| Maniac | 2018 | Patrick Somerville, Cary Joji Fukunaga | Netflix | Limited series with a pharmaceutical AI named GRTA, voiced by Sally Field |
| Devs | 2020 | Alex Garland | FX on Hulu | Mysterious tech company builds a deterministic quantum AI |
| Foundation | 2021-present | David S. Goyer | Apple TV+ | Adaptation of Asimov, with AI character Demerzel |
| Mrs. Davis | 2023 | Tara Hernandez, Damon Lindelof | Peacock | Nun versus an omniscient global AI named Mrs. Davis |
| Pluto | 2023 | Toshio Kawaguchi | Netflix | Anime adaptation of Naoki Urasawa's manga, a riff on Asimov |
| Class of '09 | 2023 | Tom Rob Smith | FX on Hulu | FBI uses a predictive AI to fight crime over two decades |
| Sunny | 2024 | Katie Robbins | Apple TV+ | Rashida Jones investigates her husband's death with help from a homebot |
| Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song | 2021 | Shinpei Ezaki | Wit Studio, Crunchyroll | Anime about an AI singer trying to prevent a robot uprising |
| Plastic Memories | 2015 | Yoshiyuki Fujiwara | Doga Kobo, Crunchyroll | Anime about androids called Giftia with a 9-year, 4-month lifespan |
| Title | Year | Director | Studio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ghost in the Shell | 1995 | Mamoru Oshii | Production I.G | Cyberpunk feature, source for The Matrix aesthetics |
| Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence | 2004 | Mamoru Oshii | Production I.G | Sequel exploring gynoid consciousness |
| Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex | 2002-2003 | Kenji Kamiyama | Production I.G | Anime TV series with the Tachikoma AI tanks |
| The Iron Giant | 1999 | Brad Bird | Warner Bros. Animation | A 50-foot war robot befriends a boy in 1957 Maine |
| WALL-E | 2008 | Andrew Stanton | Pixar | Listed in both feature and animated tables because it is both |
| Big Hero 6 | 2014 | Don Hall, Chris Williams | Walt Disney Animation | See feature films section |
| The Mitchells vs. the Machines | 2021 | Mike Rianda | Sony Pictures Animation, Netflix | A road trip turns into a robot uprising when smart-home AI PAL goes rogue |
| Next Gen | 2018 | Kevin R. Adams, Joe Ksander | Tangent Animation, Netflix | A girl bonds with a combat robot in a future Shanghai |
| Ron's Gone Wrong | 2021 | Sarah Smith, Jean-Philippe Vine, Octavio E. Rodriguez | 20th Century Studios, Locksmith Animation | A boy's defective social-media robot turns out to be the best friend |
| Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song | 2021 | Shinpei Ezaki | Wit Studio | Listed in TV section for completeness |
A separate category for productions whose use of generative AI became a story in itself. Inclusion here is descriptive, not endorsement; many of these uses sparked controversy.
| Title | Year | AI usage | Tool or vendor | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rogue One: A Star Wars Story | 2016 | Digital recreation of the late Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin | Industrial Light and Magic, traditional CGI assisted by ML | Lucasfilm, contemporary Variety reporting |
| The Irishman | 2019 | De-aging Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino across multiple decades | ILM, partially ML-assisted | Netflix, Wired |
| Avengers: Endgame | 2019 | Neural ML to de-age and stunt-double Marvel cast | Lola VFX, ILM | Marvel Studios |
| The Mandalorian, season 2 | 2020 | A deepfake-style recreation of young Luke Skywalker drew Lucasfilm to hire the YouTuber Shamook | Industrial Light and Magic | The Hollywood Reporter |
| Top Gun: Maverick | 2022 | Voice cloning for Val Kilmer, who had lost his voice to throat cancer | Sonantic, later acquired by Spotify | NPR, Wired |
| Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny | 2023 | AI-assisted de-aging of Harrison Ford in the opening sequence | Industrial Light and Magic FaceSwap pipeline | Variety, Empire |
| Late Night with the Devil | 2023 | AI-generated still images used in three interstitial cards | Undisclosed, image generators | The Verge, Variety |
| Civil War | 2024 | A24 used AI-generated promotional images | Undisclosed | Wired |
| True Detective: Night Country | 2024 | HBO used AI-generated promotional images for the season | Undisclosed | Futurism, The Daily Beast |
| The Brutalist | 2024 | Respeecher used to fine-tune Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones's Hungarian-accented dialogue | Respeecher | Red Sea International Film Festival interview with editor Dávid Jancsó, Variety |
| Emilia Pérez | 2024 | Respeecher used to extend Karla Sofía Gascón's vocal range for singing | Respeecher | Variety |
| Here | 2024 | Metaphysic AI applied real-time face replacement to de-age Tom Hanks and Robin Wright | Metaphysic | Robert Zemeckis press tour, Variety |
| Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga | 2024 | Compositing combined a young actress and Anya Taylor-Joy with a digital model of Charlize Theron's Mad Max: Fury Road appearance | Various VFX vendors | George Miller interviews, IndieWire |
| Alien: Romulus | 2024 | A digital recreation of the late Ian Holm as the android Rook drew criticism | Industrial Light and Magic | The Hollywood Reporter |
| Title | Year | Creator or studio | Tool | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Frost | 2023 | Waymark | DALL-E, other models | Twelve-minute short considered an early proof of concept for fully AI-generated film |
| Pepperoni Hug Spot | 2023 | Pizza Later (Lucas Crespo) | Runway, Midjourney | Viral AI-generated pizza ad parody, spread by reposts in mid-2023 |
| Air Head | 2024 | Shy Kids, OpenAI | Sora | One of the first Sora shorts shown publicly, March 2024 |
| Toys 'R' Us, The Origin Story | 2024 | Native Foreign | Sora | First major brand commercial made with Sora, debuted at Cannes Lions in June 2024 |
| Detached | 2024 | Aiden Glaze | Pika, Runway | Short film that toured early AI film festivals |
| The Last Screenwriter | 2024 | Peter Luisi | ChatGPT (script), Eleven Labs, other | A Swiss feature whose screenplay was written by ChatGPT-4, pulled from its London premiere after protests |
A few recurring questions show up across this list:
Personhood. Bicentennial Man, A.I., Ex Machina, Star Trek: TNG's The Measure of a Man, and After Yang all return to whether a sufficiently sophisticated machine deserves rights. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics hover over all of them.
Romance. Her, Bicentennial Man, Electric Dreams, Zoe, Companion, and the Black Mirror episode Be Right Back keep coming back to whether a relationship with an AI counts as real. Her in particular has aged unusually well; many people now talk to large language models in ways the 2013 film anticipated.
Surveillance. Person of Interest, Eagle Eye, Minority Report, Coded Bias, and iHuman connect AI to government and corporate monitoring. The Great Hack shifts the lens to data brokers and election interference.
Alignment and existential risk. 2001, The Terminator, The Matrix, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Transcendence, and The Creator run different versions of the same story: a smart system pursues a goal poorly specified by its makers. The documentary Do You Trust This Computer? foregrounds the same question without fictionalization.
Labor. WALL-E, Sleep Dealer (Alex Rivera, 2008), Elysium (Neill Blomkamp, 2013), and The Mitchells vs. the Machines circle the displacement of work by automation. After 2023, that question moved off screen and into Hollywood's actual labor negotiations.
The AI-themed film boom of 2014-2015 (Her in late 2013, Transcendence in April 2014, Ex Machina in early 2015, Chappie in March 2015, Ex Machina's wider release that summer, Avengers: Age of Ultron in May 2015) coincided with the deep learning revolution that followed AlexNet (2012). A second wave is happening now, after ChatGPT (November 2022). M3GAN, The Creator, Atlas, and the M3GAN 2.0 sequel all sit in that second wave.
Documentary output similarly tracks public anxiety. Between 2018 and 2024, films focused on facial recognition (Coded Bias), platform manipulation (The Great Hack, The Social Dilemma), and broad existential framings (Do You Trust This Computer?, iHuman). The TED-style AI Dilemma presentation by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin in March 2023 has been viewed many millions of times and is widely cited inside the AI safety community.
For production use of AI, the 2023 WGA strike won contractual language that prohibits studios from using AI to write or rewrite scripts and requires disclosure when AI-generated material is shown to writers. The SAG-AFTRA strike produced similar protections around digital replicas of performers. Both contracts expire in 2026, so this is an open situation rather than a settled one.