10 Movies That Feel Like A Black Mirror Episode

Black Mirror started as an anthology tv sequence that charts tales of assorted people who discover themselves grappling with the aftermath of know-how gone terrifyingly incorrect. The present harkened again to the traditional feeling of The Twilight Zone, exploring morality, know-how, and Sci-Fi in an anthology format.

But season after season, Black Mirror carved its personal distinctive fashion and feeling.Known for its creepy (however believable) tales about humanity’s relentless march in direction of progress and modernization, Black Mirror finds triumph in its aesthetic setting and inventive use of storytelling.

That mentioned, Black Mirror will not be the one considered one of its sort. Long earlier than the sequence premiered on Netflix, administrators have been already exploring tales with an identical tone. Uncertain futures and advancing applied sciences have helped carve some really astonishing items. These films mix mind-bending sci-fi ideas with psychological depth and lead to one thing that entertains you but additionally makes you query actuality, very like the perfect episodes of Black Mirror. These are 10 of the best movies that navigate the identical troubling terrain as Black Mirror, and stay simply as unforgettable.

10 Arrival (2016)

A science fiction film that burns low and sluggish, Arrival facilities round Louise Banks, a linguistics knowledgeable who’s tasked with speaking with unusual otherworldly crafts which have landed all over the world. These crafts are manned by alien guests, whose completely non-human language prevents the U.S. army from studying their true function. As Banks and her workforce examine the alien language, their understanding of the world is put to the check.

How It Compares To Black Mirror

At its core, Black Mirror is about making an attempt to know a future that’s unknown. Arrival falls proper in keeping with that imaginative and prescient. The thought-provoking movie by Director Denis Villeneuve is each a cerebral science fiction and an intimate human drama. By making humanity expertise first contact, it charts into the huge and unimaginable risk of the alien world.

Stream Arrival on Paramount+

9 Ex Machina (2014)

Directed by Alex Garland in his directorial debut, Ex Machina stars Oscar Isaac as Caleb Smith, a younger programmer who wins a contest and is invited to spend per week at a reclusive, narcissistic, and alcoholic CEO’s house. But the actual prize awaits him within the mansion. Caleb is quickly requested to guage Ava, a humanoid robotic constructed utilizing superior synthetic intelligence. As Caleb turns into increasingly more fascinated, there begins an eerie dance between man and machine.

How It Compares To Black Mirror

The fact is, Black Mirror episodes have a easy premise and writing. What makes them so mind-bending, twisted and astonishing is the best way they’re delivered to life. Ex Machina thrives on particular results and unanswered questions on synthetic intelligence.

Worth praising is Alicia Vikander’s mesmerizing flip as Ava, a calculative but confounded creation of the human thoughts. Moreover, Garland’s thought of getting a claustrophobic setting solely makes the film extra jarring and unforgettable. Like many Black Mirror episodes, the ending is darkish and morally sophisticated.

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8 Source Code (2011)

In Source Code, Jake Gyllenhaal performs U.S. Army pilot Colter Stevens, who finds himself transported into one other man’s physique on a commuter practice going to Chicago. When the practice explodes and Stevens begins receiving directions a few bomb and bomber, he realizes that he should unravel the thriller earlier than the practice explodes once more. With every journey solely being eight minutes lengthy, it turns into more and more taxing to resolve the puzzle.

How It Compares To Black Mirror

Given the last decade it was launched in, Source Code was one of many few high-concept science-fiction thrillers that really grew to become pioneers of an thought but unexplored by writers and administrators. The query that director Duncan Jones poses is — is it potential to change the previous and curb terrorism? Do people actually have free will? How can we inform what’s actual? Like the neatest and most brain-racking Black Mirror episodes, Source Code wrestles with heavy themes of identification, ethics, and the potential of latest applied sciences.

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7 Her (2013)

Human relationships may be tough, however what’s tougher is to bond with a voice in an augmented world. In Her, Theodore is a lonely man who works as knowledgeable author, drafting private essays on behalf of strangers for his or her family members. In order to assist curb his loneliness, he buys a brand new sentient software program and names it Samantha. Soon, Theo finds himself drawn to her consciousness and sympathy, and the 2 type an unconventional relationship that turns into one thing very intimate.

How It Compares to Black Mirror

Like the extra lighthearted Black Mirror episode “San Junipero,” Her, directed by Spike Jonze, creates a fantastically poignant story that examines fashionable relationships within the age of know-how. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Theo and Scarlett Johannson lends her voice to Samantha. Their tender method in direction of identification, romance, and connection makes the movie insightful and awe-inspiring. Like the present, Her leaves viewers mulling over whether or not it’s potential to like one thing that has no bodily type.

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6 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is probably the saddest, most original romance film of all time. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet star within the drama as Joel and Clementine, two former lovers who, after a painful breakup, determine to bear a brand new process to erase each other from their reminiscences. However, throughout the course of, Joel relives their fiery relationship and finds himself making an attempt desperately to carry onto their moments of pleasure and ache alike.

How It Compares to Black Mirror

Letting go is all the time a lot tougher than it appears. Sometimes, all you could have left of an individual are reminiscences, and having these manipulated may be terrifying. Michel Gondry’s wealthy and poignant exploration of the idea reminds you of a number of the most transferring episodes of Black Mirror.

Through its excellent mix of moody environment, surrealism, and heavy concepts, the film muses on what really makes us who we’re, and the way altering the previous doesn’t actually assist. Paired with Jon Brion’s lovely rating, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a psychedelic and inventive expertise.

Stream Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on DIRECTV

5 A Scanner Darkly (2006)

The solely animated science fiction film on the record, A Scanner Darkly relies on Philip Okay. Dick’s 1977 novel of the identical title. It was tailored for the display screen by Richard Linklater, and stars Keanu Reeves as Bob Arctor, an spy infiltrating the native scene of a brand new drug within the nation. In the method, Arctor himself turns into hooked on Substance D. With his identification rotting away and the strains between actuality and nightmare fading, Arctor struggles to not succumb to the very factor he’s tasked with controlling.

How It Compares to Black Mirror

A hallucinatory journey into the human psyche, A Scanner Darkly embraces its supply materials and creates an allegory that feels all too potential as a Black Mirror episode. The coronary heart of the movie lies in its animation, which lends a number of the most dream-like visuals with a purpose to perceive society’s detachment from actuality.

The performing by Reeves, in addition to Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr., and Woody Harrelson (captured by rotoscope know-how) is great. The ambiguous finish solely makes it extra well timed and related. And the titles of each this movie and Black Mirror allude to the ominous metaphor from Corinthians: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

Stream A Scanner Darkly on Tubi

4 The Truman Show (1998)

This one is usually branded as a feel-good comedy, however is it actually? The Truman Show is a satirical drama about Truman Burbank, an unassuming man residing a squeaky clear suburban life in Seahaven. The fact about his world, nevertheless, is that his city is a large TV set, and he’s the oblivious star of a well-liked present, which the world watches and revels in 24/7. When Truman begins to note little cracks in his routine, his need for escape is aware of no bounds.

How It Compares to Black Mirror

Clearly method forward of its time, The Truman Show expertly creates a premise that’s entertaining whereas giving beginning to unsettling questions on private freedom. Jim Carrey offers his all in a task that wouldn’t have develop into so iconic if it weren’t for his signature humor and emotional depth.

As for the film’s comparability with Black Mirror, we witness how the media cleverly and insidiously shapes, manipulates, and controls the lives of contemporary human beings. The film is an allegory for the connection between man and God, and a creation usurping the desire of its creator. But essentially the most Black Mirror-part of it’s the creepy feeling of every part and everybody round Truman being orchestrated, and faux.

Stream The Truman Show on Hoopla

3 Nope (2022)

Jordan Peele’s third directorial movie was met with a number of expectations, and to say that this eccentric neo-Western science-fiction thriller delivered what it promised is simply becoming. In Nope, OJ Haywood and his sister Emerald handle a horse ranch in inland California. When a mysterious object is seen within the skies round their farm, they determine to doc it because the existence of a UFO. Meanwhile, a neighboring theme park proprietor, Ricky “Jupe” Park, goals to revenue off of the unknown phenomenon.

How It Compares to Black Mirror

Despite being gentle on explaining issues, Peele as soon as once more manages to ship a film richly layered with provocative satire and social commentary. Daniel Kaluuya, Steven Yeun, and Keke Palmer are unimaginable of their roles, anchoring the unforgettable visuals and underlying darkness.

Much like the opposite movies in Peele’s trilogy, Nope toys with the style to ponder on how humanity reacts to and offers with issues past its restricted comprehension. Another side Black Mirror explores in good methods. And the twisted comparability with the plot of the movie and the commentary on Hollywood and filmmaking is one thing Black Mirror additionally typically did, utilizing tales to say one thing not directly about an business or know-how.

Stream Nope on Prime Video

2 After Yang (2021)

Just like his function directorial debut Columbus, director Kogonada captures the that means of grief via the eyes of his soulful characters in After Yang. The film is a young story about Jake, Kyra, and their adoptive daughter Miko. To assist Miko bond along with her Chinese roots, the household additionally undertake Yang, an android. But when Yang malfunctions and shuts down, Jake dangers every part to restore him and provides Miko her “brother” again. However, within the course of, he reveals Yang’s reminiscences.

How It Compares to Black Mirror

If Kogonada ever directed a Black Mirror episode, this film is simply what it could appear to be. The director’s delicate gaze examines weighty themes of sentience, connection, and household in a future the place know-how will develop into part of day by day life, in each form and type. The storytelling struggles to resonate with the mainstream viewers, however After Yang infuses surprise and melancholia into its character research in a method that’s uncommon and stimulating.

Stream After Yang on Prime Video

1 Don’t Worry Darling (2022)

Olivia Wilde’s newest undertaking sees Florence Pugh and Harry Styles as Alice and Jack Chambers, a married couple residing in an utopian neighborhood referred to as Victory. In the remoted city, the times are uneventful and formulaic. While the husbands commute to a top-secret facility for work, the wives spend idyllic afternoons basking within the magnificence and luxurious of their neighborhood. However, when Alice begins to note cracks of their excellent lives and calls for solutions, the thought of a paradise shatters into one million little items.

How It Compares to Black Mirror

Instead of being set sooner or later, Don’t Worry Darling transports you to the Fifties, a time when know-how wasn’t as modernized. Despite the restrictions of its time, Wilde turns the film right into a psychological thriller that navigates the paranoia of being managed or being in a simulation. Taking some staple themes from Black Mirror — like hidden social management and unreliable realities — the film emerges as a trendy throwback. Moreover, the powerhouse of the movie is Pugh, who stuns as a girl struggling to carry herself collectively.

Stream Don’t Worry Darling on Netflix