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Best Cyberpunk Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of cyberpunk cinema — measured across 2,822 indexed frames from 36 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Cyberpunk films over-index on cyborg, cables and skyscraper — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Alita: Battle Angel

    Robert RodriguezDP Bill PopeIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    Alita is a creation from an age of despair. Found by the mysterious Dr. Ido while trolling for cyborg parts, Alita becomes a lethal, dangerous being. She cannot remember who she is, or where she came from. But to Dr. Ido, the truth is all too clear. She is the one being who can break the cycle of death and destruction left behind from Tiphares. But to accomplish her true purpose, she must fight and kill. And that is where Alita's true significance comes to bear. She is an angel from heaven. She is an angel of death.

  2. 2

    RoboCop (1987)

    Paul VerhoevenDP Jost VacanoIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    In a violent, near-apocalyptic Detroit, evil corporation Omni Consumer Products wins a contract from the city government to privatize the police force. To test their crime-eradicating cyborgs, the company leads street cop Alex Murphy into an armed confrontation with crime lord Boddicker so they can use his body to support their untested RoboCop prototype. But when RoboCop learns of the company's nefarious plans, he turns on his masters.

  3. 3

    Ghost in the Shell (2017)

    Rupert SandersDP Jess HallIMDb 6.3TMDB 6.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    In the near future, human organs are enhanced by the cybernetics technology developed by the powerful Hanka Robotics Corporation owned by Cutter. Dr. Ouelet is responsible for the development of the secret project 2571 of a full mechanical body to be connected to a human brain. She uses the brain of a young woman that lost her parents in a cyber attack as subject of a prototype. One year later, the woman is ranked Major and has joined Section 9, an anti-terrorist division commanded by Chief Daisuke Aramaki, working with agents Batou and Togusa. She needs to use a medicine to help the integration of her brain with the mechanical body and has no recollections of her previous life. When Section 9 hunts down the terrorist Kuze, Major learns the secrets about Hanka Robotics and the experiment she was subjected. Now she faces her ultimate enemy: Kuze, a criminal who has managed to hack into the brains of androids and control them.

  4. 4

    Dredd (2012)

    Pete TravisDP Anthony Dod MantleIMDb 7.1TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    The future America is an irradiated waste land. On its East Coast, running from Boston to Washington DC, lies Mega City One - a vast, violent metropolis where criminals rule the chaotic streets. The only force of order lies with the urban cops called "Judges" who possess the combined powers of judge, jury and instant executioner. Known and feared throughout the city, Dredd is the ultimate Judge, challenged with ridding the city of its latest scourge - a dangerous drug epidemic that has users of "Slo-Mo" experiencing reality at a fraction of its normal speed. During a routine day on the job, Dredd is assigned to train and evaluate Cassandra Anderson, a rookie with powerful psychic abilities thanks to a genetic mutation. A heinous crime calls them to a neighborhood where fellow Judges rarely dare to venture - a 200 storey vertical slum controlled by prostitute turned drug lord Ma-Ma and her ruthless clan. When they capture one of the clan's inner circle, Ma-Ma overtakes the compound's control center and wages a dirty, vicious war against the Judges that proves she will stop at nothing to protect her empire. With the body count climbing and no way out, Dredd and Anderson must confront the odds and engage in the relentless battle for their survival.

  5. 5

    The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

    Lana Wachowski, Lilly WachowskiDP Bill PopeIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →

    Neo finds himself trapped between the Matrix and the Real World. Meanwhile, Zion is preparing for the oncoming war with the machines with very little chances of survival. Neo's associates set out to free him from The Merovingian since it's believed that he is the One who will end the war between humans and the machines. What they do not know is that there is a threat from a third party, someone who has plans to destroy both worlds.

  6. 6

    Love, Death & Robots (2019)

    Tim MillerIMDb 8.4TMDB 8.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    Love, Death + Robots is a 5-time Emmy winning animation anthology series produced by Blur Studio. Launched in March of 2019 on Netflix, Love, Death + Robots delivers a variety of style and story unlike anything else, spanning the genres of science fiction, fantasy, comedy, horror, and more. Created by Tim Miller with David Fincher as executive producer, the series brings together a global team of directors and animation studios to push and expand the medium. Eighteen shorts in all, Love, Death + Robots has something for everyone.

  7. 7

    Upgrade (2018)

    Leigh WhannellDP Stefan DuscioIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    Grey's a stay-at-home mechanic, whose wife is Asha. One day, Grey asks Asha to help him return a car to his client. Whilst Grey and Asha's self-driving car malfunctions, it crashes. Grey watches helplessly as Asha bleeds to death next to him. Grey returns home - a widowed quadriplegic, under the care of his mother. His wife's death and the inability of police to identify their attackers cause him to sink into a depression. After a suicide attempt, he's offered to have high tech chip implanted - enabling him to walk. Though initially hesitant, he's persuaded to have the surgery.

  8. 8

    Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

    Shinya TsukamotoDP Shinya TsukamotoIMDb 6.9TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    Mad with pain by the festering wound in his thigh, an extreme sado-sexual "Metal Fetishist" dashes out into the street, and is accidentally hit by the car of a white-collar worker and his girlfriend. But, strangely, instead of dying, the salaryman finds himself before a mysterious and agonisingly majestic transformation--one that twists and bends the pliable human flesh, inextricably intertwining it with the strong and cold iron. Now, there is no turning back, and nothing can stand in the way of the glorious final mutation. Is this the beginning of a new era?

  9. 9

    Akira (1988)

    Katsuhiro OtomoDP Katsuji MisawaIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    2019. 31 years after being destroyed during World War 3, Tokyo (now 'Neo-Tokyo') has been rebuilt and is a thriving metropolis. Shotaro Kaneda is the leader of a biker gang. His friend Tetsuo is injured in an accident and taken to a top-secret government facility. He develops telekinetic powers but decides to use them for evil rather than good. He has the same powers as Akira, the force that destroyed Tokyo in 1988, and now it appears that history will repeat itself.

  10. 10

    Blade Runner (1982)

    Ridley ScottDP Jordan CronenwethIMDb 8.1TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    In the early twenty-first century, the Tyrell Corporation, during what was called the Nexus phase, developed robots, called "replicants", that were supposed to aid society, the replicants which looked and acted like humans. When the superhuman generation Nexus 6 replicants, used for dangerous off-Earth endeavors, began a mutiny on an off-Earth colony, replicants became illegal on Earth. Police units, called "blade runners", have the job of destroying - or in their parlance "retiring" - any replicant that makes its way back to or created on Earth, with anyone convicted of aiding or assisting a replicant being sentenced to death. It's now November, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. Rick Deckard, a former blade runner, is called out of retirement when four known replicants, most combat models, have made their way back to Earth, with their leader being Roy Batty. One, Leon Kowalski, tried to infiltrate his way into the Tyrell Corporation as an employee, but has since been able to escape. Beyond following Leon's trail in hopes of finding and retiring them all, Deckard believes part of what will help him is figuring out what the replicants wanted with the Tyrell Corporation in trying to infiltrate it. The answer may lie with Tyrell's fail-safe backup mechanism. Beyond tracking the four, Deckard faces a possible dilemma in encountering a fifth replicant: Rachael, who works as Tyrell's assistant. The issue is that Dr. Elden Tyrell is experimenting with her, to provide her with fake memories so as to be able to better control her. With those memories, Rachael has no idea that she is not human. The problem is not only Rachael's assistance to Deckard, but that he is beginning to develop feelings for her.

What cyberpunk films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a cyberpunk frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — cyborg is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • cyborg50.0×
  • cables10.8×
  • skyscraper7.1×
  • neon light3.9×
  • debris3.8×
  • handgun3.8×
  • helmet3.2×
  • concrete wall3.0×

How cyberpunk films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate cyberpunk from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 12%low anglevs 5% baseline
  • 23%dayvs 42% baseline
  • 27%naturalvs 43% baseline
  • 10%interior indeterminatevs 7% baseline
  • 56%nightvs 43% baseline

What breaks the pattern

A Scanner Darkly (2006) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 2,822 frames from 36 films carrying the cyberpunk label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/cyberpunk

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These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used