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Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)
this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Cyberpunk
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What is Cyberpunk?
Cyberpunk is a science-fiction sub-genre dealing with the integration of society and technology in dystopian settings. Often referred to as “low-life and high tech,” Cyberpunk stories deal with outsiders (punks) who fight against the oppressors in society (usually mega corporations that control everything) via technological means (cyber). If the punks aren’t actively fighting against a megacorp, they’re still dealing with living in a world completely dependent on high technology.
Cyberpunk characteristics include:
- Dystopian city setting where mega-corporations rule
- Full integration of technology into society, featuring cybernetic implants
- Outsider protagonists (punks) who often are very familiar with the technology around them
- Hard boiled detective and film noir vibes and influence
- Themes dabbling in trans-humanism, existentialism, and what it means to be human.
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Altered Carbon S1
That series absolutely blew me away. Season 2 didn’t really compare so I just plan to watch season one once per year or so.
Considering I loved The Peripheral, this is for sure going on my list - thanks!
I'm still pissed that Amazon cancelled The Peripheral. I'm dying for Gibson to finish the book trilogy.
Hackers
This one from 1995, yeah?
That’s the one. It might be to literally cyber and punk but both are definitely in this film.
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Trying to avoid the already great recs, for varying levels of cyberpunk themes or aesthetics...
Movies
Gattaca 1997
Elysium 2013
Ex Machina 2015
TV
Almost Human
Cowboy Bebop (any)
Devs
Incorporated (highly recommend!)
Max Headroom
Cyberpunk Edgerunners
Battle Angel Alita was a lot of fun. (Admittedly, I'm a sucker for good action sequences.)
Battle Angel Alita being the original anime, as opposed to Alita: Battle Angel which is the pseudo live action reimagining, which was also OK
Both are cyberpunk
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Here are a couple "cult" movies:
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Hardware (1990) - not a "good" movie, but never boring and very worth watching. Great soundtrack, fun cameos, several interesting ideas.
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Johnny Mnemonic (1995) - the best really bad cyberpunk movie. A very fun watch, if you're sufficiently protected from cringeing to death. Apparently there's a 2022 black and white cut that has a much better feel, but I've never seen it.
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Videodrome (1983) - it's got lowlifes, it's got high tech (for that time and place), it's got urban dystopias, and it's got evil corporations. I'd argue it's "proto-cyberpunk". Irregardless, it's one of the best SF horror movies ever made. Yes, right up there with Alien, arguably better bc it has more to say about how technology mediates reality and bc it really gets in your head. Heh.
Johnny Mnemonic was the most like cp2020 movie I've seen.
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Not 100% sure it qualifies but i believe so, i enjoyed the dredd movie with carl urban and it has a very dystopian setting.
There is also an older one with stallone but i believe that one is more comedic.
E: also since you got blade runner in there i cant help myself and must suggest my favorite movie Alien, at least the first two. Supposedly they play in the same universe as blade runner
Dredd was good and deserved more attention, and a sequel, but Paul Leonard-Morgan's Dredd soundtrack was awesome.
No cyberpunk collection is complete without Ghost in the shell (not the scar Jo one)
The OG film (1995), the sequel (GitS: Innocence - 2005) and the series Stand Alone Complex (2002-05) are all essentials in the genre.
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Movie list pulled from the comments, hard to tell If I missed anything or if there is a question to them being cyberpunk adjacent enough
- 964 Pinocchio (1991)
- A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
- A Scanner Darkly (2006)
- Aeon Flux (2005)
- Akira (1988)
- Alien (1979)
- Aliens (1986)
- Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
- Animatrix, The (2003)
- Antiviral (2012)
- Appleseed (2004)
- Appleseed: Ex Machina (2007)
- Appleseed XIII (2011)
- Appleseed Alpha (2014)
- Astro Boy (2009)
- Avalon (2001)
- Battle Angel Alita (Gunnm OVA) (1993)
- Belle (2021)
- Big Hero 6 (2014)
- Blade Runner (1982)
- Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
- Brazil (1985)
- Burst City (1982)
- Chappie (2015)
- Cherry 2000 (1987)
- Crimes of the Future (2022)
- Cutie Honey (2004)
- Cyborg (1989)
- Dark City (1998)
- Demolition Man (1993)
- District 9 (2009)
- Dredd (2012)
- Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
- Electric Dragon 80.000 V (2001)
- Elysium (2013)
- Equilibrium (2002)
- Escape from L.A. (1996)
- Escape from New York (1981)
- eXistenZ (1999)
- Ex Machina (2015)
- The Fifth Element (1997)
- Free Guy (2021)
- Freejack (1992)
- Full Metal Yakuza (1997)
- Futureworld (1976)
- Gamer (2009)
- Gattaca (1997)
- Ghost in the Shell (1995)
- Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
- Ghost in the Shell (2008)
- Ghost in the Shell (2017)
- Ghost in the Shell Arise - Border 1 Ghost Pain (2013)
- Ghost in the Shell Arise - Border 2 Ghost Whispers (2013)
- Ghost in the Shell Arise - Border 3 Ghost Tears (2014)
- Ghost in the Shell Arise - Border 4 Ghost Stands Alone (2014)
- Ghost in the Shell Arise - Border 5 Pyrophoric Cult (2015)
- Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society (2006)
- Guns Akimbo (2020)
- Hackers (1995)
- Hardware (1990)
- Harrison Bergeron (1995)
- In Time (2011)
- Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
- Judge Dredd (1995)
- Mars Express (2023)
- megazone23 (1985)
- M3GAN (2022)
- M3GAN 2.0 (2025)
- Metropolis (1927)
- Metropolis (2001, anime)
- Minority Report (2002)
- Morgan (2016)
- Mute (2018)
- Nemesis (1992)
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth (1997)
- Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2007)
- Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (2009)
- Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (2012)
- Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021)
- Nova Seed (2016)
- Outland (1981)
- Pacific Rim (2013)
- Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
- Possessor (2020)
- Ready Player One (2018)
- Real Steel (2011)
- Repo Men (2010)
- Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
- Robocop (1987)
- Robocop 2 (1990)
- Robocop 3 (1993)
- Rollerball (1975)
- Rubber’s Lover (1996)
- Save the Green Planet! (2003)
- Sneakers (1992)
- Soldier (1998)
- Space Sweepers (2021)
- Space Truckers (1996)
- Split Second (1992)
- Strange Days (1995)
- Surrogates (2009)
- The Creator (2023)
- The Electric State (2025)
- The Lawnmower Man (1992)
- The Matrix (1999)
- The Net (1995)
- The Sixth Day (2000)
- The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
- THX 1138 (1971)
- Timecop (1994)
- Tokio Gore Police (2008)
- Total Recall (1990)
- Total Recall (2012)
- TRON (1982)
- TRON: Legacy (2010)
- TRON: Ares (2025)
- Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
- Upgrade (2018)
- Videodrome (1983)
- Virtuosity (1995)
- WALL·E (2008)
- Westworld (1973)
The majority of these that I've seen I disagree with. M3GAN is cyberpunk? Nah get outta here
Are we getting to a point that people think cyberpunk as the same as sci-fi? Because that is what this lists looks like. A lot of just sci-fi that is not even close to be cyberpunk.
Few things on the list hit 100% of the core tenants; it really depends on how strict you're looking to be.
Corporate tech hubris: a company rushes an AI product to market, ignores ethics, and treats safety as a PR problem.
AI autonomy and loss of control: M3GAN crossing from tool to actor is a classic question about agency.
Tech replacing human relationships: the doll as a surrogate caregiver fits neatly into the anxiety about mediated humanity.
It probably only hits half the criteria, but in a numbers game, there's a lot there that's celebrated as Cyberpunk that fails as many checks.
In all, I was looking to capture the contents strewn about, not make a judgment call on what stays. I fugure if people don't want parts, they can easily just not use that part of the list.
I feel that people think about the high tech and forget about the low life.
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My favorites I don’t see!
Strange Days A Scanner Darkly Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Campy ones, if you’re into that: Space Truckers Cherry 2000 964 Pinocchio Nemesis
1992 - sneakers
1975 - rollerball
1982 - TRON
2002 - equilibrium
1989 - cyborg
1994 - timecop
2015 - chappie
1995 - 12 monkeys
1992 - the lawnmower man
2002 - minority report
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If you have Escape From New York, you should also have Escape From LA.
Snow Crash once someone makes it
Snowcrash (brought to you by Meta)
I'd definitely recommend adding Space Sweepers for something fun and upbeat (for cyberpunk).
For a scifi horror with more cyberpunk elements than you might expect, I'd suggest Morgan (2016).
Soldier (1998) might be too much of a stretch but it's got a lot of the elements (minus an evil corporation) and it's a solid film.
Edit: I forgot Outland! It's great, plot is basic but works, actors are fun (it's got Sean Connery) and the aesthetics/sets are prime Alien/Aliens territory. I think of it as being set in the Aliens universe.
Does Equilibrium count as Cyberpunk?
Minority Report and the Sixth Day
I don't think I'd call Dark City really cyberpunk. I don't know what you'd call it. Retro-1940s but in a sci-fi environment?
checks Wikipedia
Wikipedia calls it "neo-noir".
It's part of a wave of tech noir movies that came out of the late 90s, along with e.g. Gattaca, The Matrix, Strange Days, eXistenZ, 12 Monkeys... I'll also count The Thirteenth Floor, even though it's an adaptation of a 1964 novel that had already been adapted in the 70s (and very well, for that matter).
(One addendum: The Matrix feels slightly out of place but that's because it brought more action and innovative special effects to the mix and ended up all but ending the genre as audiences demanded more of that now.)
Those movies were good watchin'.
Judge Dread (there are several)
Demolition Man
The Keith Urban "Dredd" is so good
Don't see Johnny Mnemonic
Strange Days (1995). The main premise is cyberpunk as fuck, the story gets real dark and it stars Ralph Fiennes playing what is essentially a brain dance dealer. Great film.
Aeon Flux, you gotta get the animated series though!
I’ll endorse Hackers also, very heavy with style
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Equilibrium
Ghost in the shell both the original movie and the first two seasons of the of og anime are both classic cyberpunk media
Well OP you could literally watch the Cyberpunk series that Netflix put out.
It's really good. Great soundtrack
Solid list OP. I didn't watch the peripheral, gonna check it out.
I know everyone recommended a bunch of movies, if you want my take, looking at the compilation list someone posted, from that list if I had to recommend just one cyberpunk movie it would be The original Ghost in the shell (1995)
And now I am questioning what cyberpunk is? I think I had a firm grasp on what it is but now I am not sure because I don't know if The matrix really checks that many boxes, there are no corporations and like poverty. There are people living in dare situations but it is more like in a post apocalypse way.
Anyway, cheers o/
I scrolled pretty far and didn't see Duncan Jones's Mute. Very strong cyberpunk aesthetics, and a great story.
1995 The Net
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