Documentaries
The Genius of Design (2010) Denis Lawson
Future Ways of Living (2017) Marcello Ferrara
Microtopia (2013) Jesper Wachtmeister
Limits of Perception (2001) Steve Nicholls, Alfred Vendl
Everything and Nothing (2011) Nic Stacey
Films for Designers
A selection of design-orientated films with high visual style and contemplative themes
about society, politics, technology and the environment.
BLADE RUNNER 2049
WESTWORLD (HBO) SERIES
OBLIVION
GHOST IN THE SHELL
GATTACA
THE ISLAND
THE IMITATION GAME
INCEPTION
INTERSTELLAR
TRANSCENDENCE
ATLAS SHRUGGED
ANON
EX_MACHINA
MINORITY REPORT
2001: A SPACE ODDYSEY
THE AVIATOR
I, ROBOT
LUCY
BLADE RUNNER 2049
In 2049, with the powerful Tyrell Corporation missed and its science under the control of the visionary scientist Niander Wallace, the bio-engineered replicants, Nexus-8, seem to have integrated seamlessly into society. Purposed to eradicate the outdated rebellious Nexus models, LAPD's officer K--a new generation of Blade Runners--stumbles upon a dangerous and well-hidden secret that could easily undermine an already frail stability in the world. As K puts the pieces together, he will soon realize that the key element that binds everything together in this mystery is the retired Blade Runner, Rick Deckard, who has either disappeared or gone underground. But is K allowed to unearth the truth?
- Nick Riganas (IMDB)
WESTWORLD (hbo) series
The sci-fi western series from Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy was inspired by the 1973 Michael Crichton film of the same name and is set at a Wild West theme park created by Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) with human-like androids where guests are encouraged to indulge their fantasies and desires.
- Ahmetkozan (IMDB)
OBLIVION
[In 2077,] Jack Harper is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack's mission is nearly complete. Living in and patrolling the skies from thousands of feet above, his existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands.
- Universal Pictures (IMDB)
GHOST IN THE SHELL
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 the Section 9, an anti-terrorist division commanded by Chief Saisuke 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 secrets about Hanka 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.
- Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (IMDB)
GATTACA
Gattaca Corp. is an aerospace firm in the future. During this time society analyzes your DNA and determines where you belong in life. Ethan Hawke's character was born with a congenital heart condition which would cast him out of getting a chance to travel in space. So in turn he assumes the identity of an athlete who has genes that would allow him to achieve his dream of space travel.
- AVision200@aol.com (IMDB)
THE ISLAND
Set in a dystopian future, a group of people work in a facility, essentially as slaves. They do have an incentive though - a regular lottery is held and one of them gets to leave the facility and its restrictions and move to The Island, a paradise. Lincoln Six Echo is one of the workers in the facility and he is infatuated with Jordan Two Delta. His life is fairly uneventful and mundane until Jordan Two Delta gets selected to go to The Island. Then Lincoln starts to discover the truth about the facility and The Island.
- grantss (IMDB)
EX_MACHINA
Caleb Smith a programmer at a huge Internet company, wins a contest that enables him to spend a week at the private estate of Nathan Bateman, his firm's brilliant CEO. When he arrives, Caleb learns that he has been chosen to be the human component in a Turing test to determine the capabilities and consciousness of Ava, a beautiful robot. However, it soon becomes evident that Ava is far more self-aware and deceptive than either man imagined.
- Jwelch5742 (IMDB)
MINORITY REPORT
It is the near future, a future where murders have become so common, that a system had to be established. This system is called "Precrime", where 3 psychics can predict murders before they happen. Allowing police to stop the murders. This system is in production in Washington D.C. Where police officer John Anderton (who lost his son to a murder 6 years previous) has stopped numerous murders in his career. One day, he found out that he is the next person to commit a murder. Now, he is running away from a system he helped become successful, and trying to find out why he was set up to commit murder.
- John Wiggins (IMDB)
2001: A SPACE ODDYSEY
This movie is concerned with intelligence as the division between animal and human, then asks a question: what is the next division? Technology is treated as irrelevant to the quest--literally serving as mere vehicles for the human crew and as a shell for the immature HAL entity. Story told as a montage of impressions, music, and impressive and careful attention to subliminal detail. A very influential film and still a class act, even after 25 years.
- Robin Kenny (IMDB)
THE AVIATOR
Biopic of billionaire Howard Hughes, starting with his early filmmaking years as owner of R.K.O. Pictures, but mostly focusing on his role in designing and promoting new aircraft. Hughes was a risk-taker spending several fortunes on designing experimental aircraft and eventually founding TWA as a rival to Pan Am airlines owned by his great rival Juan Trippe. When Trippe's politico Senator Ralph Owen Brewster accuses Hughes of being a war profiteer, it's Hughes who gains the upper hand. Hughes also had many women in his life including a long relationship with Katharine Hepburn. From an early age, however, Hughes was also germophobic and would have severe bouts of mental illness.
- garykmcd (IMDB)
I,ROBOT
It's the year 2035, and the society now has the help of robots. These robots follow three laws integrated into their system; 1) They cannot harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2)They must do whatever they're told by a human being as long as such orders don't conflict with law one. 3) They have to defend themselves as long as such defense doesn't conflict with laws one or two. One day, the writer of the three laws, Alfred Lanning, apparently jumps out of a window at U.S. Robotics. The majority of the Chicago Police Department believe he committed suicide, but Detective Del Spooner, who hates robots, thinks he was murdered, and the number one suspect is a robot who calls himself Sonny. However, if it was Sonny, then it means he would've had to have broken the three laws. With the help of Dr. Susan Calvin, Spooner must now discover the truth before it's too late.
- Ridley Lavine (IMDB)
LUCY
Innocent and quite unlucky, Lucy, a 24-year-old American student in Taipei, is coerced into working as a drug mule for Taiwan's most powerful drug lord, the Korean Mr Jang. Having no other choice, Lucy is unwillingly subjected to a quick operation, where a highly experimental synthetic drug is implanted inside her lower abdomen to transport it in Europe. However, when the blue chemical leaks into her bloodstream, the lethal dose will initiate a mind-boggling development of her cerebral activity, unlocking extraordinary skills and abilities which extend past the normal 10% of brain use. Undoubtedly, Lucy's superpowers grow stronger by the minute, but who knows what will happen when the secrets of the full 100% are unlocked.
- Nick Riganas (IMDB)
THE IMITATION GAME
During the World War II, the mathematician Alan Turing joins a team of code-breakers at top-secret facility at Bletchley Park to try to decipher the code of the German enigma machine. Turing is a homosexual genius and during two years, he and his team successfully develop another machine to decipher the enigma.
- Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (IMDB)
INCEPTION
Mr. Cobb a unique con artist can enter anyone's dreams and extract the most valuable ideas and secrets of people with the help of "inception" (a dream sharing technology) when the state of mind is at its vulnerable best. Cobbs ability has made him the face of corporate spying, hence a wanted man too. Seeing his abilities, he is approached by Saito to carry out an almost impossible mission not to steal, but to plant the idea into the mind of the legal heir of a billion dollar enterprenauer. Mr. Cobb, with some specialists, must do the impossible in order to get back his life in a completely different "world of dreams" facing his own demons.
- Mahesh Shelatkar (IMDB)
INTERSTELLAR
Earth's future has been riddled by disasters, famines, and droughts. There is only one way to ensure mankind's survival: Interstellar travel. A newly discovered wormhole in the far reaches of our solar system allows a team of astronauts to go where no man has gone before, a planet that may have the right environment to sustain human life.
- ahmetkozan (IMDB)
TRANSCENDENCE
In New York, Dr. Will Caster is one of the three most brilliant scientists in the research of Artificial Intelligence. He works with his beloved wife and also scientist Evelyn Caster and his best friend is Dr. Max Waters. Dr. Caster is forced to go to a lecture to raise funds for their research but a group of anti-technology terrorists attack him and the two other authorities in the field of AI. Dr. Caster is poisoned and has only one month of life. When Will is near to death, Evelyn discusses with Max the possibility of transferring his emotions to the AI and they decide to try. They seem to be well succeeded, but they are attacked by the terrorists commanded by Bree that destroy the facility and Evelyn releases Dr. Caster's "soul" in the Internet to save him. Soon Dr. Caster controls the worldwide system and with his increasing knowledge, he changes human biology and the environment becoming an omnipresent power. But people are afraid of things they do not understand and Dr. Caster is considered a threat to the world that shall be destroyed.
- Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (IMDB)
atlas shrugged I,II,III
It was great to be alive, once, but the world was perishing. Factories were shutting down, transportation was grinding to a halt, granaries were empty--and key people who had once kept it running were disappearing all over the country. As the lights winked out and the cities went cold, nothing was left to anyone but misery. No one knew how to stop it, no one understood why it was happening - except one woman, the operating executive of a once mighty transcontinental railroad, who suspects the answer may rest with a remarkable invention and the man who created it - a man who once said he would stop the motor of the world. Everything now depends on finding him and discovering the answer to the question on the lips of everyone as they whisper it in fear: Who *is* John Galt?
- Robb (IMDB)
anon (2018)
In a world without anonymity or crime, a detective meets a woman who threatens their security.