I hate clickbait listicle youtube videos too, but this video actually came up with a pretty good list of obscure cyberpunk movies and I wanted to talk about them. Just to save you a click (so you don’t have to watch the video), here are the 10 movies it mentions:
- Hardware (1990)
- Nirvana (1997)
- Avalon (2001)
- Sleep Dealer (2008)
- A Scanner Darkly (2006)
- Metropolis (2001)
- Possessor (2020)
- Mars Express (2023)
- Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
- World on a Wire (1973)
I’ve already seen all but one movie on this list, but I’m obsessive about cyberpunk so that isn’t much of a surprise. Personally, I would recommend Hardware, Nirvana, Sleep Dealer, and Mars Express. I think those are legitimately good movies, although I wouldn’t say they were MASTERPIECES THE ALGORITHM BURIED!!!1!! (I hate clickbait). A Scanner Darkly is pretty good too but that one got a wide release, I wouldn’t say the algorithm buried it. Also, if you haven’t seen Nirvana, it’s very difficult to find online in English. I recommend the one posted to the internet archive but let me know if you find a better copy.
Otherwise, I find Avalon and Metropolis boring. And I don’t think Possessor is cyberpunk at all. It’s a scifi body horror by a Cronenberg so it isn’t a bad movie by any means, but I personally wouldn’t have included it in this list. And Japanese cyberpunk is so very strange I still think it’s weird to call it cyberpunk. If you haven’t seen any Japanese cyberpunk before, I recommend starting with Burst City since it almost has a coherent plot (more than Tetsuo anyway).
World on a Wire is the only movie on this list I haven’t seen before. It’s a German TV mini-series from 1973 so I don’t feel bad about missing this one. I guess it’s based on the 1964 novel Simulacron-3, which was also adapted into The Thirteenth Floor and I have seen that one. I’m not sure if I’m obsessive enough to watch a German TV mini-series from 1973 just because some youtube listicle told me to but if someone here would recommend it maybe you can convince me.
I saw World on a Wire. Its not good. It takes forever to go anywhere, the effects are horrible and the pacing is atrocious. No idea why it was recommended. The Thirteenth Floor is a superior adaptation in almost every way, but I wouldnt call it cyberpunk, more like traditional scifi. Its good though.
Thank you! I definitely won’t be wasting my time with it then.
To give you another opinion. I think it’s a better movie and a better adaption of Simulacron-3 than The Thirteenth Floor. The pacing is quite slow, yes. But if you’re fine with the pacing of 2001: A Space Odyssey, this should be fine too. The effects are decent for a TV-Production in that time. The camera work is really good. (And imdb, letterboxd and rotten tomatos is with me in this opinion, so I’m with them 😁)
A Scanner Darkly is a great, innovative but faithful adaptation of the weird novel by Philip K. Dick. But I wouldn’t exactly call it cyberpunk.
I lovehated that movie. It was great, but I wanted it to end differently lol it was a perfect ending, but it wasn’t the one I wanted. I highly recommend this movie, though, as it is absolutely spectacular
Tetsuo Iron Man is weird as fuck, good movie but real narrow group of people will like it. I was able to put it on for some people in a small private cinema and one of the like 4 people that showed up stood up and left halfway through lol
huh, so you wouldn’t consider Akira or GitS to be cyberpunk? what would you call them instead?
Sorry, I wasn’t referring to cyberpunk anime. There’s a short-lived sub-genre of live action movies that are called Japanese Cyberpunk. It’s basically movies made by Sogo ishii and his friends. So Burst City, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, 964 Pinocchio, Electric Dragon 80.000 V. They’re all crazy movies. This video does a good job of explaining them.
ahh cool! thanks for the rec!
The list reminded me of a few titles:
- Johnny Mnemonic
- Paranoia 1.0 (One Point O)
- Archive (2020)
- eXistenZ
- Hackers
eXistenZ is wicked! A mindfuck absolutely amazing!
