Like any other film genre, cyberpunk movies have two extremes, ranging from iconic masterpieces to hideous wastes of time, and this is despite cyberpunk generally being a niche genre in media at the time being. Suffice to say, there are great and gross cyberpunk movies that have graced both mainstream and indie categories.
Arguably, without these poorly rated cyberpunk movies, we never would’ve appreciated the truly good ones; it could be the other way around, though, where tons of cinematically excellent cyberpunk movies have raised the bar too high for cyberpunk. Whatever the case may be, we have compiled a list of the best cyberpunk films as well as the ones you should avoid, courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes.
Best: Akira (88%)
Apart from being a prime example of beautiful hand-drawn animations, Akira is also a significant advancement in the cyberpunk genre. It paints a bleak world where the oppressive government and elite care little for the common person, all in a techno dystopian backdrop.
The anime movie follows the stories of biker Kaneda and his friend Tetsuo as the latter gets subjected to a dangerous military experiment which gave him all kinds of psychic and telekinetic powers. This, in turn, turned Tetsuo into a loose cannon, one which the authorities are intent on destroying, making Kaneda’s job of saving his friend a lot more difficult. Go watch this cultural cornerstone if you haven’t already.
Worst: Freejack (18%)
The cyberpunk genre is best utilized as more than just a backdrop for a movie: it is the movie, and that is something the creators of Freejack probably don’t understand. It’s a poorly-reviewed film both by the critics and the audience despite having big names in its cast such as Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, and even Mick Jagger.
Freejack is, first and foremost, an action movie where the protagonist named Alex Furlong, is a hotheaded F1 racer who somehow gets transported into the near future. That future is then ruled by corporations, one of which has a CEO that wants Furlong’s body in order to become immortal. Furlong escapes, of course, and gets the most insufferable field trip of his life.
Best: The Matrix (88%)
The Matrix is how you do action in a cyberpunk film, and that’s by making it look and feel like a seamless part of the genre. It may be over-the-top at times but The Matrix was all the rage back when it was first released in 1999. Even today, The Matrix still has some eager and loyal fans waiting for the 4th film starring Keanu Reeves again.
In any case, if you’ve avoided the black clothing bandwagon and hype of the early 2000s, now is the time to get familiar. The Matrix is just as relevant today as it was 20 years ago. It’s a story of Thomas Anderson A.K.A. Neo’s journey and awakening from The Matrix, a virtual reality simulation made to subdue the human race so that machines can turn them into a power source. Under that ridiculous premise are revolution iconography, questions about reality, and modern-day slavery parallels which ought to spark a philosophical debate in your head.
Worst: Judge Dredd (1995) (17%)
Sylvester Stallone became a household name thanks to his tendency to be in every other action movie in the 1980s and 1990s (along with Arnold Schwarzenegger). As you can expect, not all of his movies are stellar or decent. One of those atrocities is Judge Dredd, a film adaptation of a dystopian comic book franchise where cops are given the authority to also be judge, jury, and executioner due to overpopulation and absurd crime rates.
That sounds like a cool concept for a film; they surely couldn’t fail such a great material, right? Well, they did. Judge Dredd turned out more like a low-budget sci-fi parody (thanks in part to Stallone’s acting “prowess”). If you want a better movie introduction to the Judge Dredd franchise, watch the 2012 version instead called Dredd.
Best: Robocop (1987) (89%)
Robocop is what 1995’s Judge Dredd wished it could be. It’s primarily an action film, but it has significant enough subject matter that even those who don’t like action movies can find something worth their time. The film, beneath its gung-ho facade, tackles corrupt corporations, machine existentialism, and even superhero themes.
Robocop is initially about police officer Alex Murphy, whose dying body gets transformed into a cyborg law enforcement machine. Once he’s done hunting down the street-level criminals of a crime-infested futuristic Detroit, he then goes after the bigger crooks who wear suits, making this film a cyberpunk classic.
Worst: Johnny Mnemonic (13%)
What we have here is another movie starring Keanu Reeves, except it’s ironically on the other end of the film spectrum, the ill-reputed Johnny Mnemonic. To make it more poetic, Johnny Mnemonic is also a cyberpunk action thriller movie not unlike The Matrix.
As Johnny, Keanu undertakes a grueling dirty job in the film where he risks his brain and memory to illegally transport sensitive information which the authoritative corporations that have taken over society don’t want to be passed around. It’s Keanu in cyberpunk, but it’s up to you if that combination alone makes this film worth watching.
Best: Blade Runner (89%)
These days, you can’t bring up the cyberpunk genre in Hollywood without mentioning and paying homage to Blade Runner. It’s a film that was ahead of its time, and even its sequel was also ahead of its time, hence both of them became underappreciated and underrated. Make no mistake, however, Blade Runner is almost synonymous to the cyberpunk genre in Hollywood.
It’s actually a film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and follows the exploits of Rick Deckard. Deckard is a Blade Runner, or a person tasked to “retire” androids who have gone rogue and started exercising freedom just like regular human beings. You don’t want to miss this definitive cyberpunk cult classic.
Worst: Robocop 3 (3%)
How the mighty have fallen. The first Robocop film was a resounding success and was a cultural icon, but, like all successful Hollywood movies, their license-holders tend to milk and abuse their popularity. So, one of the end results of that greedy corporate practice is an abomination called Robocop 3.
Nearly everyone agrees that Robocop 3 is a horrible film, and that, if you want more Robocop, you’re better off rewatching the first movie or even the generally bad 2014 remake. Robocop 3 just doesn’t quite know where to fit in, muting the gore but not the implied carnage just to hit a PG-13 rating for more bucks. As a result, it satisfied no type of audience.
Best: Ghost In The Shell (1995) (96%)
There it is, the best cyberpunk film according to Rotten Tomatoes and since that website is merely an aggregator, this sentiment might as well be according to everyone. It’s safe to say that without the original Ghost in the Shell, there wouldn’t be a The Matrix franchise at all. That’s how revolutionary and important this anime film is.
At the beating heart of Ghost in the Shell is Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg military officer who no longer has her original human body. As she combats techno baddies and criminal organizations, she also begins to question her humanity or rather what’s left of it, at times even wondering whether her thoughts are hers or whether she has become a machine. There’s nothing quite like it and even Hollywood just can’t replicate it successfully.
Worst: Moon 44 (0%)
Last and certainly the least is Moon 44, a sci-fi cyberpunk movie that absolutely no critic likes. That means it has an aggregated critic score of zero percent. It’s a low-budget sci-fi B movie that tries to imitate the atmosphere of better films like Ridley Scott’s Alien and even Blade Runner. Sadly, it failed to emulate their success.
Moon 44 chronicles the tale of a group of prisoners enlisted by a mining corporation against a corporate war where interplanetary companies vie for control of dwindling resources. If you’ve seen most of the great sci-fi or cyberpunk movies there are, then there’s simply no reason to watch Moon 44 as it derived from them and failed.
