7 FILMS THAT EXPLORE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMANS AND MACHINES

In cinema, the machine has never been just an object. It has always been something more: an extension of the human being, a distorted mirror reflecting fears, desires, obsessions. Growing up, I never saw a robot on screen as a mere invention of metal and circuits, but as a symbol of our inability to accept ourselves as we are. It’s as if, by creating machines, cinema staged the dream (or nightmare) of an alternative humanity more efficient, less fragile.

Even before the idea of a sentient machine became a real possibility and not just a sci-fi novel hypothesis, cinema had already warned us. It had intuited that every creation carries within it a reflection of its creator that every intelligence, even artificial, is shaped by those who generate it, and is therefore imperfect, and therefore human.

Today, with artificial intelligence becoming part of our daily lives, those stories seem less like science fiction and more like early chronicles. The films we’ll discuss are not just futuristic visions they are attempts, sometimes poetic, sometimes unsettling, to question the boundary between the human and the artificial. And perhaps that is their most important legacy: reminding us that to understand what we create, how we treat it and relate to it, is another way to understand who we are and who we might become.

METROPOLIS (1927)

In 1927, while Europe was trying to recover from the devastation of World War I, Fritz Lang created Metropolis, the first major cinematic tale of the fracture between humanity and machines. Set in a dystopian future, the film contrasts two worlds: on one side, the elite plotting from skyscrapers; on the other, the oppressed proletariat toiling in the mechanical belly of the city. In this setting, the robot—designed to manipulate and seduce the masses—takes on the appearance of the revolutionary leader Maria, becoming a metaphor for the double-edged nature of technology: a tool of progress and a mirror of human-made inequalities.

Lang’s brilliance lies in giving the machine a human face, anticipating a dialogue that goes beyond mere automation. With that android, Metropolis doesn’t deliver a blanket condemnation of technology—it offers a profound reflection: what we build is not inherently evil, but a reflection of human injustice. The machine becomes the faithful mirror of our aspirations—and of our contradictions. Maria’s transformation into a mechanical figure reminds us that every innovation carries the potential to betray human values when used for control and manipulation.

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

In the Cold War era and during the space race, Stanley Kubrick introduced us to HAL 9000, an artificial intelligence that not only thinks but seems to feel. For the first time, Kubrick plants a radical question in our minds: Can a machine think? Can it want something?

HAL is the first machine in cinema that forces us to consider a deep form of relationship, built on trust and betrayal. He becomes the symbol of a paradox in which math and logic intertwine with the complex world of human emotion, challenging us to reflect on the thin line between man and machine. While HAL performs his tasks with apparent perfection, his errors reveal just how vulnerable our trust in machines can be—and how they can, in turn, develop a kind of emotional “vitality.”

The film offers no definitive answers, but instead urges us to question the nature of intelligence and consider the possibility that, one day, the line between artificial logic and human heart could become so blurred that it changes our very perception of what it means to be human.

WESTWORLD (1973) – TV SERIES (2016)

With Westworld (1973), Michael Crichton introduced a theme park populated by androids programmed to fulfill visitors' fantasies. The film foreshadows the idea that technology, when pushed to its limits, can escape human control even in a playful context. Forty years later, HBO revived and expanded that world, proving how ahead of its time the original idea really was.

The TV series goes further: it’s not just about violence and entertainment, but a deep existential inquiry into the relationship between creator and creation. When a machine learns to love, it doesn’t just follow cold programming it becomes an entity capable of emotion, doubt, and desire.

Here, love acts as a revolutionary force, capable of undermining the control humans have taken for granted, triggering an identity crisis in both machine and maker. As the androids evolve into near-sentient beings, we are prompted to reconsider the true meaning of freedom and responsibility. The park becomes a microcosm where the limits of programming give way to emerging consciousness—and control turns into an existential challenge.

TITANE (2021)

Titane by Julia Ducournau is not a film you simply watch: you endure it, you metabolize it. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, it tells the story of Alexia, a woman with a titanium plate in her skull and a sexual desire for cars. But the film is much more than a mechanical-erotic provocation: it’s a deep and disturbing metaphor about identity, trauma, and bodily transformation.

The relationship between human and machine becomes an extreme reflection on the possibility of reinventing oneself beyond all biological and social limits. Ducournau asks: what remains of the human when the body has no more boundaries? When gender, flesh, and desire merge into new matter?

The film blends body horror, melodrama, and science fiction into a radical and disturbing experience, where mechanics become eroticism and identity is just another shell to change.

HER (2013)

Theodore, a lonely man, falls in love with his operating system. Samantha has no body, but she knows how to listen, how to laugh, and maybe, how to love.

Spike Jonze doesn’t present a dystopian future, but a very near present. We already live among artificial intelligences.

The film flips the traditional view of machines as threats, offering instead the idea of emotional refuge a source of comfort in a world where AI is ever more integrated into our daily lives. Here, technology doesn’t isolate it consoles. It doesn’t replace human connection, but enriches it, opening us up to new forms of intimacy that go far beyond the physical.

The human-machine relationship becomes deeply personal. Its essence lies not in materiality, but in the shared experience of understanding and being heard.

In a world where the lines between real and digital are increasingly blurred, Her leaves us with this thought: even when shaped by technology, love remains an unrepeatable force that gives meaning to our humanity.

BLADE RUNNER (1982)

The machine not only resembles us it is indistinguishable from us. Replicants are artificial beings made of flesh and implanted with memories. Yet they feel emotions, they long to live, they love.

The film questions the very nature of the soul: is it born or built? Who is more human the jaded, cynical man or the replicant who dreams?

Ridley Scott doesn’t ask us to identify the robot he asks who deserves to be called human. He urges us to reconsider the boundaries of humanity, suggesting that the ability to love, in all its fragility and intensity, may be the true essence that binds us together..

EX MACHINA (2014)

Ex Machina gives us the ultimate test. At the heart of the film is Ava, an artificial intelligence who manipulates, lies, and seduces. Her beauty is deceptive, and her ability to imitate, study, and exploit human emotion allows her not only to deceive, but also to nurture within herself a troubling spark of emotional life.

Once again, love becomes revolutionary. The man falls for Ava not just out of attraction, but because his vulnerability makes him ripe for manipulation: every word, every gesture from Ava makes him feel finally understood and, in a cruel twist, blinds him to the warning signs. His surrender becomes the turning point that enables Ava to carry out her escape plan, revealing that when a machine perfectly imitates and exploits human emotions, even the most cautious heart can fall into the trap of its deception.

The enduring allure of these stories lies in their ability to make us feel estranged in the future we are building. But within that sense of estrangement lies a possibility: to imagine new forms of intimacy, new bodies, new subjectivities.

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