The best robot films in the history of cinema

Below you will find a selection of some of the robot films that have marked a turning point in the history of cinema and that we invite you to watch and enjoy greatly at home with a soundbar with subwoofer. All of them have caused a great upheaval both for the ideas they have brought to the table regarding the conflict between man and machine and their coexistence in society, as well as for how they have approached and imagined the future we are heading towards.

We live in a world where we are increasingly approaching the integration of machines and men, with artificial wit and programming in neural networks close behind.

But many have already imagined—from the world of cinema to art and literature—what that possible coexistence between human beings and robots would be like.

In fact, in cinema we have imagined robots capable of love and machines that rebel against their own creator. The blurred line we sometimes draw between artificial and human wit has served as an excuse to reflect on what existence and consciousness consist of for humans.

Even the entrepreneur and inventor Elon Musk has warned of the dangers posed by uncontrolled artificial wit with the capacity to be eternal.

The five best robot films

1. RoboCop (1987): is one of the best-known films for bringing to the screen a being half man, half robot. RoboCop, directed by Paul Verhoeven, created a concept of a human being that today would approach the term we would call a “cyborg.” According to the Spanish urgent foundation Fundeu, a “cyborg” is a being made up of organic and cybernetic elements. The protagonist of RoboCop is a Detroit policeman who is killed in the line of duty and, with the aim of curbing crime in the city, the authorities decide to create a lethal machine, half robot, half man, for which they use the brain of the slain policeman. In a futuristic and innovative experiment, they implant several mechanical metal parts in all his limbs, thus creating the future RoboCop. But, despite being dead, the policeman has retained his memory and decides to take revenge on his killers. A human brain embedded inside a machine... This is a robot film we could even consider visionary, since today science has advanced enough to allow us to implant prostheses or internal mechanisms that help us overcome the shortcomings we may have in the body.

2. Terminator 1: in this film, the robots have rebelled against their creators, the humans, and have taken control of the Earth. The future referred to in this film, shot in 1984 and directed by James Cameron, is set in the (now near) 2029. Faced with the powerful and heartless robots, humans are organizing the resistance, led by John Connor. To stop the rebellion, the machines send Terminator, a killer cyborg, to travel through time and kill Sarah Connor, John’s mother, before he is born. At the same time, a member of the resistance decides to travel to the same time to protect the future leader. A space-time paradox in a film that deals with the eternal struggle between man and machine and the fear that the creation will take power and surpass its creator, just as the author of the Frankenstein novel, Mary Shelley, predicted at the end of the century.

3. Blade Runner: This science fiction film based on Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, was released in 1982 and directed by Ridley Scott. Blade Runner tells of the coexistence between replicants—artificial humans created through genetic engineering—and “real” humans. In that dystopian future, the Tyrell Corporation produces replicants to work as slaves in Earth’s colonies or in the hardest tasks. And, although they have been given greater physical strength and agility, they have not managed to exactly recreate human feelings and empathetic reactions, but replicants can fake them. In this context, the use of replicants is banned and a special police force, the Blade Runners, is created, specialized in “hunting” and removing replicants still at large. The film takes up the ethical implications involved in genetic engineering and the creation of life.

4. Wall-e (2008): in Pixar’s animated film, robots are the only survivors in a post-apocalyptic world where environmental tragedy has caused humans to flee Earth. An ecological denunciation against waste and the excesses of capitalist society, Wall-e brought to life two of the most endearing robot characters in film history, Wall-e himself—a robot created to collect and organize rubbish—and Eva, a machine programmed to find life.

5. A.I. Artificial Wit (2001): Can a robot feel the same love and fears as an ordinary human being? Can we humans ourselves consider that true love? That is the question posed by director Steven Spielberg in this film. The robots, in this case, are humanoid Mechas programmed to replicate feelings and emotions. The story tells the journey of David, a robot of this type who, as part of an adoption program, begins a new life in the home of Monica and Henry, a young couple whose son has been put into suspended animation awaiting a cure for his rare illness. David is programmed to love Monica and want her as a true mother, but doubts in the family about his condition as an artificial machine end up degenerating into conflict and a flight to the outside world. This film paints a scenario in which robots fight for recognition of their condition amid the misunderstanding of a society unable to accept either their eternity or their unwavering love for which they have been programmed.