FromEx MachinatoGhost in the Shell,there are plenty of great sci-fi movies likeBlade Runnerfor fans of Ridley Scott’s seminal masterpiece to enjoy.Blade Runneris a groundbreaking work ofscience fiction cinema. With its tale ofHarrison Ford’s grizzled cop Rick Deckardhunting down androids that have assimilated into human society,Blade Runnermixes sci-fi elements into a classic film noir.
There’s no other movie quite likeBlade Runner, but there arefilms that share similarities with it. There are other movies about the dangers of A.I., other movies that put a sci-fi spin on a typical detective noir, and other movies based on the works of Philip K. Dick. FromScott’s other sci-fi effortsto different cerebral tech noirs, there are a ton of other cinematic gems that scratch the same itch asBlade Runner.
AfterBlade Runnerintroduced the “tech noir” genre to the big screen, James Cameron’sThe Terminatorsolidified it as a new subset of science fiction; he even named the film’s nightclub setting Tech Noir to hammer home the invention of this sci-fi subgenre.The Terminatortakes place in contemporary Los Angeles, where a killing machine from the future has been sent to find and kill Sarah Connor. Sarah will become the mother of the revolutionary leading the charge against the machine uprising — but when the Terminator finds her, she’s just a regular person living a regular life.
The Terminatorhas a 100% rating onRotten Tomatoes.
Throughout the movie, Sarah transforms from an everywoman into a badass, and Linda Hamilton nails that transformation.BothBlade RunnerandThe Terminatorare cat-and-mouse thrillers, but take the chase in opposite directions. WhereBlade Runneris about a human hunting down cyborgs,The Terminatoris about a cyborg hunting down a human.
9Ex Machina (2014)
Directed By Alex Garland
Tonally, the closest thing in recent sci-fi cinema toBlade Runneris Alex Garland’s existentialist gemEx Machina. Domhnall Gleeson stars as a low-level programmer named Caleb, who wins an office contest to visit his eccentric tech-bro boss, played by Oscar Isaac, at his remote compound. However, it turns out to not be such a random visit;Caleb’s boss wants him to perform a Turing test on his latest creation: Ava, a humanoid android, played by Alicia Vikander.
Ava and Rachael’s stories are a poignant sci-fi metaphor for men controlling women in society.
BothEx MachinaandBlade Runnersee their protagonist get seduced by a robotic femme fatale. Although the robotic femme fatale inEx Machinahas much more sinister motives than the one inBlade Runner, they’re both a tragic figure deep down. Ava and Rachael’s stories are a poignant sci-fi metaphor for men controlling women in society.
Blade Runnerwasn’t Ridley Scott’s first foray into the science fiction genre; he’d previously helmed the classic sci-fi thrillerAlien. WhereasBlade Runneris a sci-fi version of a detective noir,Alienis a sci-fi version of a haunted house movie. After unwittingly inviting a bloodthirsty extraterrestrial onto their ship, a crew of space truckers are picked off one by one.The ship’s tenacious warrant officer, Ellen Ripley, becomes determined to vanquish the star-beast from the ship.
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AlthoughAlienandBlade Runnerbelong to very different subgenres, they sharea unique aesthetic and a unique perspective of the future. BothAlienandBlade Runnerview the distant future through the eyes of blue-collar workers. Scott pioneered the now-popular “used future” visual style; a grimy, lived-in look at the future to contrast the usually clean and polished vision of tomorrow.
Blade Runnerwas the firstmovie adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story, but it was hardly the last. Dick’s works have also been adapted intoTotal Recall,A Scanner Darkly, andThe Adjustment Bureau. The best adaptation sinceBlade Runner— andthe most similar toBlade Runnerin terms of tone and style— is Steven Spielberg’sMinority Report. Tom Cruise stars as the head of a police unit that can predict future crimes. He has to go on the run when his department determines that he will kill a man he’s never even met in a couple of days.
Just likeBlade Runner,Minority Reportisa classic film noir set in the distant future. It uses speculative futuristic technology to enhance the mystery storyline.Minority Reportis a typical fugitive story, but the crime hasn’t been committed yet, and the perpetrator needs to figure out why he does what he’ll inevitably do.
Brazilis a much quirkier, more comedic vision of a dystopian future thanBlade Runner, but they both take a bleak approach to humanity’s fate.Brazilis essentiallyNineteen Eighty-Fouras seen through the eyes of Terry Gilliam.Jonathan Pryce stars as Sam Lowry, a miserable bureaucrat searching for the woman of his dreams while working a dull, mind-numbing job in a futuristic world that relies on unreliable machinery.
As is to be expected from a Monty Python alum,Brazilis a razor-sharp satire of a wide variety of topics. It lampoons bureaucracy, technocracy, capitalism, oversurveillance, and corporate statism. Much likeNineteen Eighty-Fouritself,Brazilhas proven to be surprisingly prescient as capitalism, surveillance, and reliance on technology have only gotten more prevalent in society. While its satire is Orwellian,Brazil’s gonzo execution is veritably Kafkaesque.
The Wachowskis’The Matrixhas a lot more action thanBlade Runner, butthey both revolve around the eternal struggle between man and machine. Keanu Reeves plays Thomas Anderson, a bored office worker who’s reborn as the messianic Neo when he learns that what he knows as reality is just a computer simulation created by humanity’s robotic overlords. The Machines are using human bodies as batteries as they lead a blissfully ignorant existence in a digital recreation of 1999.
Blade RunnerandThe Matrixeach belong to a different action subgenre;Blade Runneris a police noir andThe Matrixis a martial arts movie. But they just use their genre formula to dress upa deep sci-fi study of existentialismand personhood. They’re both warnings about the dangers of A.I. that were sadly ignored.
Blade Runnercombines a futuristic sci-fi epic with a gritty urban police thriller. Pete Travis and Alex Garland took a similar approach to their2000 A.D.adaptation,Dredd. In a reimagining of theDirty HarrymovieThe Enforcer, Karl Urban’s Judge Dredd mentors a young rookie — Judge Anderson, played by Olivia Thirlby — on her first day on the job. It ends up being a pretty eventful day as they take on a ruthless drug lord and her goons in a locked-down high-rise.
Dreddis much more violent and action-packed thanBlade Runner(it’s essentially a version ofThe Raidset in 2080), but they’re both a riveting street-level exploration of a dystopian future. They both take place in a city with corrupt cops and uncontrollable crime rates. They both view the crime-ridden future through the eyes of a grizzled veteran lawman.
Blade Runnerwas one of the earliest movies tobring the tropes of film noir into a sci-fi setting, but it wasn’t the first. Nearly two decades earlier,Jean-Luc Godard’sAlphavilleput a sci-fi twist on a classic detective noir. The story revolves around private eye character Lemmy Caution, a staple of British crime fiction, played by one of his usual portrayers, Eddie Constantine. But this is no regular case for Caution; in a dystopian future, he’s sent to destroy Alpha 60, a sentient computer that controls an entire city.
As the story of a detective taking on a powerful A.I.,Alphavilleis a forerunner toBlade Runner.
Typical of the French New Wave, this was a radical concept; it’s as if someone made a movie sending Philip Marlowe to a galaxy far, far away. As the story of a detective taking on a powerful A.I.,Alphavilleis a forerunner toBlade Runner. It’s also a disturbing look at a world where everyone is brainwashed by a machine.
If Dick’s story had been adapted as an anime as opposed to a live-action movie, it would look something like Mamoru Oshii’s cyberpunk gemGhost in the Shell. Set in the fictional New Port City in 2029,Ghost in the Shellfollows cyborg cop Major Motoko Kusanagi and her quest to bring down an elusive hacker known as “The Puppet Master.”Ghost in the Shellgot a disappointing live-action remake in 2017, but the original 1995 anime remains a masterpiece.
BothBlade RunnerandGhost in the Shellhave a similar visual style. They both explore a sprawling, neon-soaked metropolis in the near-future through the eyes of a cop. They both dig into similar themes, too: they both take place in a world ruled by technology and examine the concept of self and identity through the subject of artificial intelligence.
The sci-fi movie that’s most similar toBlade Runneris its own sequel,Blade Runner 2049. Scott passed the baton to fellow visionary Denis Villeneuve to continue his story and expand his world. Picking up 30 years after the original film,Blade Runner 2049stars Ryan Gosling asOfficer K, a blade runnerwho discovers a shocking secret that could rock the fabric of civilization.
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Rather than just rehashing the original story like most legacy sequels,Blade Runner 2049expertly flips the first movie’s central conflict on its head. WhileBlade Runneris abouta human detective who begins to suspect he’s a replicant,Blade Runner 2049is about a replicant detective who begins to suspect he’s a human. The sequel is a much bigger movie thanBlade Runner— more epic in scope — but it’s every bit the thoughtful, philosophical opus its predecessor was.
