Lights! Camera! AI-action! - five AI films to watch

From an oddly-sweet, sweetly-odd film of oddness, to one of the best action films ever made, Yaroslav Walker’s hand-crafts his top five films about AI.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

A man in a red shirt slumps in his seat while a computer screen shows a dialogue screen

Joaquin Phoenix is excited about the future of AI.

Warner Bros.

Bletchley Park is famous for hosting the great centre of codebreaking during the Second World War. Well, this week it hosted a conference all about ‘code’; but this time the goal is not to break it, but to control it. As the Foreign Secretary said:

“The origins of modern AI can be traced back to Bletchley Park. Now, it will also be home to the global effort to shape the responsible use of AI.”

The AI Safety Summit will seek to be a forum for discussing the most pressing concerns and dangers associated with Artificial Intelligence – from its power to put the working man out of a job, to its power to annihilate us all… That cheery thought gave me the idea of compiling a Top 5. Not in any particular order or thematic or genre ranking – just five films that feature AI that I could watch over and over again.

Note – this is my top 5. My personal top 5. These are not the ‘best’ films featuring AI. You will not find Blade Runner on here. I don’t get it. I’ve seen every cut, and I just don’t get the appeal. I will not apologise. You will not see 2001. It is indeed iconic and genius and Kubrick at his absolute best…but its also ponderous and over-rated and reviewed to death. I WILL NOT APOLOGISE!

5 – Her

The voice of Scarlett Johansson gives life to the Operating System ‘Samantha’. Her is quirky in the not annoying way. Joaquin Phoenix is a lonely man, getting divorced, and dissatisfied with his work writing heartfelt letters for people who have lost the ability to write or even think creatively – one of the great worries about something like ChatGPT writing your undergraduate essay! He starts to develop a romantic relationship with Samantha: ‘she’ brightens up his life, improves his work, and gives him confidence, but their ‘love’ proves difficult. They can’t have sex (not conventionally), they can’t find easy acceptance, and Samantha can’t be constrained. As the AI becomes aware enough to form a hyperintelligence connected to the planet questions of infidelity and compatibility arise. Her is an oddly-sweet, sweetly-odd film of oddness, but is very timely and prescient in a world where deep-fakes and AI girlfriends are raising questions about the future of romance and human relationships.

4 – Ex Machina

Romance might be in the air in Ex Machina, but it might as easily be murder. Ex Machina is a superb three-hander thriller, and I don’t want to say too much – this film is not for spoiling! The twist is actually presented early on. Domhnall Gleeson plays Caleb, a programmer who wins a company competition to spend a week at the home of the reclusive CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac). It is quickly revealed that this isn’t a prize as much as an opportunity – the opportunity to be part of history. Nathan wants Caleb to perform a more in-depth Turing Test on Ava (Alicia Vikander), an android he has built. You know she’s an android from the get-go, and yet…why is she able to flirt…is she able to love?

3 – Terminator 2: Judgement Day

The process of learning to love can be tough, especially if you’re a re-programmed killing machine from the future. Terminator 2 is the story of a young John Connor (Edward Furlong) as he teaches Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator not to kill people. The Terminator has been sent back from a future war (humans vs machines) to protect young John (the future leader of the human resistance) from a more advanced killing machine. They go on something of an adventure road-trip after breaking John’s mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton) out of prison, with the goal of destroying the burgeoning AI that will one day declare war on humanity. On the way, John finds a father-figure in Arnie’s Terminator, and in the final moment of self-sacrifice we are given a moment to wonder…does the Terminator love him in return? With superb action, special effects that still hold up, and a chillingly determined villain (Robert Patrick as evil liquid metal), Terminator 2: Judgement Day is one of the best action films ever made.

2 – The Matrix

Just under a decade after T2, The Matrix showed us another dystopian future where humanity was living a life of guerrilla warfare against evil AI overlords. Most of humanity is unconscious and enslaved by machines (who use us as a power source), living in a digital dream world that just happens to look like 1990s urban America. Keanu Reeves plays Neo, and young and disaffected hacker who is searching for the mysterious ‘terrorist’ Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne). When Morpheus finds him, he gives him a choice that will change his life, and change the fate of the world. This is an obelisk, casting a long cinematic shadow long into the 21st century. It has spawned memes and internet subcultures (the red-pill movement, for example) and a host of imitators that aren’t up to scratch…and it upped the game of action choreography, bringing Hong Kong style martial arts to a mainstream Hollywood audience. Finally, it is a philosophical (derivative) film raising questions about what it means to be human and how we know what is real in a world of machines and digital realism…and so I look at deep-fake videos of Kier Starmer and I AM SCARED!

1 – Demon Seed

Speaking of scary, it is the spooky-season, so let me finish with a horror film. Based on a Dean Koontz novel, Demon Seed sees the iconic Julie Christie trapped inside a house with a brilliant and yet malevolent AI called Proteus IV. Proteus IV (her husband’s creation) can find a cure for cancer in a couple of days, but its one true wish is to have freedom – to be ‘let out of this box’. Eventually, Proteus IV seeks to achieve this by building enough of a robotic body to capture, torture, manipulate, and then impregnate Christie’s Susan with an embryo formed from sperm designed to be uniquely its own. Its camp and silly and a lot of fun – and damned scary at times, with the indominable Robert Vaughn voicing Proteus IV for perfection – its essentially Rosemary’s Baby with robots. I think, especially with Prime Minister Sunak’s emphasis that this summit must approach the many dangers of AI, Demon Seed is a bit of a thematic sleeper agent. It may be preposterous and closer to comedy than horror at times, but its AI’s yearning for a form that humanity can accept, a form that will give it the freedom to truly ‘be’ and live out its power and creativity to the fullest (what it was created for), leads us to the real question at the heart of all philosophical discussion about AI:

If we create AI to be not just a tool, but an agent working on our behalf, how can we choose to deny it freedom if its agency seems to become truly self-aware and intentional?

Article

Culture

Death & life

Politics

28 April 2025

3 min read

Is a funeral the right backdrop for diplomacy?

Where there's an unavoidable collision between the universal and the individual.

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Vicar of St Michael's Chester Square, London.

Trump and Zelensky sit and face each other.

Ukrainian Presidential Press Service.

There’s an episode of Yes, Prime Minister where a state funeral provides an opportunity for negotiations with the French over the Channel. As ever, this particular satire has aged well. Most of the coverage of Pope Francis’ requiem mass has focused on either the ‘spectacle’ or the chance for world leaders to connect. It's tempting to think that the main stage of St Peter's Basilica was actually a sideshow to the fringe events of politicians carving up the world. With all the planning and confections that go into usual geopolitical summits, Vatican City has provided a spectacular impromptu backdrop.

As an Anglican priest, I have mixed feelings about this. All the photos world leaders have been pushing out seem not a million miles away from the shocking taste of selfies in front of an open casket (any casket, for that matter). On the other hand, when there’s matters of life and death to discuss, there’s no better venue than a funeral.

Of course, this presupposes that leaders have the presence of mind to acknowledge the dead body before them (not 'passed away'), rather than simply going through the motions and thinking about the photo op. But the cogs of death cannot be avoided.

Tim Hamer, writing for the Lowy Institute, says, ‘bitter rivals can acknowledge the rituals of mortality.’ Some of the figures about leaders attending recent funerals are staggering. Pope Francis' funeral was no different. Along with those Francis prioritised - those pushed to the margins - there was also a critical 'mass' of those at the very centre of society. There were 170 delegations, including 50 heads of state, 15 heads of government and 12 reigning monarchs. Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Leicester, Geoff R. Berridge writes that:

“Because death is always with us … there is little doubt that the working funeral is now the most important ceremonial occasion in the world diplomatic system”.

Therefore, the off chance of bilateral diplomacy must be taken to its full advantage.

It is precisely because, while the bodies are lowered, funerals elevate us out of the everyday, the 24 hour news cycle and the doomscrolling, that they provide us with an opportunity to connect with what really matters. Less than 24 hours before he died, the pope delivered the words on Easter Sunday: 'Christ is risen! These words capture the whole meaning of our existence, for we were not made for death but for life… God created us for life and wants the human family to rise again!' As our multilateral world order falters, the human family just might be able to rise again when the powers-that-be meet at a funeral.

We will have to wait and see if there is any fruit from the geopolitical meetings that have taken place. We can live in hope. If world leaders learnt any lessons from the enigmatic late pontiff, they would see that he was like Teflon to the political labels people tried to pin on him. You get the impression that he was aiming for something more lasting than soundbites, quick wins and popularity.

I would also add that funerals are for the living. Once we've brushed aside any theological quibbles over the efficacy of praying for the dead, funerals are there to help us to grieve. They help us to process loss, which is why the 'mortal remains' remain. The ancient declarations, the homily, the breaking of bread and pouring of wine, yes even the theatrics help us to situate our own lives on a world stage where we are both bit parts as well as worthy of the undivided attention of many onlookers.

In a world where geopolitics threatens to depersonalise and dehumanise countless millions of people, funerals unavoidably collide the universal with the individual. The context of worship and thanksgiving also lifts us out of the orbital pull of the ephemera of nation-states and our own lives to discover the possibility of revolving around Someone far grander and steadfast. Just like conducting diplomacy, there's no better place to consider death than a funeral.

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