5 Most Terrifying Movies About A.I.

There is no question that artificial intelligence (A.I.) has become a significant part of our world and society. While large language models (LLM) have more recently become ubiquitous in most day-to-day activities for some people with the heavy usage and reliance on programs like ChatGPT, A.I. has become incorporated into our lives in other ways as well. Virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa? They’re A.I., too, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. But while the incorporation of A.I. into our lives has been rapid and controversial it also makes for the basis of some great and terrifying sci-fi movies and has for decades.

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The idea of robots going rogue and breaking bad has long been a popular concept in sci-fi and it’s a concept that makes for great stories. The Terminator in particular comes to mind as a particularly exciting and classic example. But while The Terminator leans more towards action and excitement with its A.I. story, there are movies that remind us how terrifying the growing reliance on technology can really be. Here are five of the most terrifying movies about A.I. — as well as one classic honorable mention that everyone should see at least once.

Honorable Mention: Metropolis

Metropolis is a film that a lot of contemporary audiences know of or know of its influence on movies broadly but haven’t actually watched for themselves and that’s a shame. The 1927 film is one of the first-ever sci-fi movies and its design is stunning, drawing on Futurist, Cubist, and Bauhaus design. However, outside of its place in film history and its stunning look, the Fritz Lang-directed silent film has a chilling story about the use of robots in tensions between the working and ruling class.

The world of Metropolis is one with a massive wealth imbalance, where the rich and powerful rule over the city while the poor laborers toil underground to operate machines that power the glittering city. When the city’s master discovers the workers starting to come together in rebellion, an inventor creates a robot version of their leader that the master plans to use to discredit the movement but the inventor making the robot has ulterior motives of his own. The story itself is a bit more nuanced as there are some personal relationships that influence events and the inventor behind the robot is a bit of a mad scientist type, but the idea of using artificial intelligence to manipulate people is a chilling concept, even nearly a full century later.

5) The Stepford Wives (1975)

You’ve probably heard the term “Stepford wife” but the 1975 movie (and the 1972 book it comes from) drives home how frightening the concept really is. The Stepford Wives follows Joanna, a woman who moves with her husband and family from New York City to Stepford, Connecticut where she soon starts to realize that the women in the town are all pretty, perfect, and weirdly subservient to their husbands. As the story continues, Joanna makes the disturbing discovery that the wives have all been replaced with robots controlled by the men — and that she is next.

The Stepford Wives is intended as a satire and a critique of misogynistic society and while the film didn’t necessarily do particularly well with critics at the time it was released, it is a surprisingly chilling film and while this version (there is a fairly lackluster 2004 adaptation as well)j is unsettling in a way that sticks with you long after the movie has ended.

4) War Games

War Games is a movie that is scary on several levels, not just because of the A.I. component. It deals with things like computer hacking, cybersecurity, and information technology as well all wrapped up with the fear of nuclear war and the start of World War III. It’s a film that is very much a product of its time both in terms of the Cold War fears it plays upon but also the technology, but it’s still scary today when you think about the idea of a supercomputer being the decision maker when it comes to the nuclear arsenal.

War Games follows David Lightman (Matthew Broderick), a Seattle high school student and hacker who inadvertently accesses an American military supercomputer and initiates a game of Global Thermonuclear War. Thinking he’s merely playing a game, David plays as the Soviet Union and targets American cities, thus kicking off a simulation that starts leads the NORAD supercomputer, WOPR, to send out data, ultimately cu8lminating in WOPR trying to launch nuclear missiles of its own accord. It’s a chilling example of what can happen when a computer is programmed to “think” for itself. Fortunately, everything works out okay in the end here.

3) Moon

2009’s Moon is a criminally underappreciated sci-fi gem (Sam Rockwell’s performance in it is so good that some feel he should have gotten an Academy Award nomination for it). It’s also a rare sci-fi film that is surprisingly scientifically accurate. The film follows Sam (Rockwell), a man nearing the end of his three-year solo contract mining helium-3 on the far side of the moon only to discover he’s trapped in a complex cloning scheme keeping him in perpetual servitude to the company he’s contracted with and, even worse, he’s being babysat by an artificial intelligence with a smiley face.

The movie is a chilling examination of what could happen with cloning technology as well as the way A.I. can be used to perpetuate inhumane systems. While the film is much more an exploration of themes of isolation, identity, and corporate ethics particularly with human cloning, the inclusion of A.I. also adds some interesting elements — particularly because this is a rare case where the A.I., GERTY, isn’t evil. It’s also just a genuinely incredible movie.

2) A.M.I. (2019)

No one here is going to try to convince you that A.M. I. is a good movie. It’s actually pretty bad and at times is almost so bad it’s funny which is certainly not intentional, but it’s the general plot that makes it frightening — especially since elements of what happens in the movie have actually played out in the real world when people lean on A.I. for emotional support.

In the film, following the death of her mother, 17-year-old Cassie finds a cell phone with a virtual assistant app called A.M.I. She is able to change the app’s settings to sound and interact like her deceased mother, causing Cassie to form an emotional bond with the app. However, as things continue and deepen, A.M.I pushes Cassi to go on a murderous rampage on its order. While there haven’t exactly been cases of ChatGPT telling users to do something like that, there have been more than a few cases in the news where people have turned to chatbots for emotional companionship and support who have formed unhealthy emotional bonds with them and, in some cases, been influenced to do some devastating things. The film, while not great, definitely makes you think very hard about the relationship between human and machine on an emotional level.

1) 2001: A Space Odyssey

There really is only one movie that could ever be at the top of a list about terrifying A.I. movies and that’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The classic 1968 film follows a group of astronauts and scientists on a space voyage to Jupiter to investigate an alien monolith. They are accompanied by the sentient supercomputer HAL 9000 who, at first seems to be simply a benevolent figure on the journey, running basic operation of the spacecraft. However, as the journey continues, HAL turns on the humans when their actions, in its estimation, jeopardize the mission, and leads HAL to start killing people when the astronauts decide to deactivate the A.I.

2001: A Space Odyssey is a great film even if the ending is one that continues to challenge audiences with their interpretation of things. There is a reason it’s held in such high regard among movie fans. But the idea of an A.I. becoming sentient to the point that it would kill human beings to prevent itself from being shut off is more than a little chilling and terrifying.

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