Shadowchaser (1992)
Terrorists, led by the advanced android Romulus (Frank Zagarino), seize a high-rise hospital and take the President's daughter hostage. Desperate, the FBI thaws out a convict from a cryogenic prison to help: the building's architect. However, an administrative error revives a former professional football player, Michael DaSilva (Martin Kove), who must now pretend to be the architect to defeat the killer android and win his freedom. This B-movie action-sci-fi hybrid plays on 90s cyberpunk themes of rogue AI and human-machine conflict. The imposing android Romulus represents the danger of military technology turned against its creator. The use of cryo-stasis as a form of future imprisonment highlights the high-tech control over low-life criminals. Though primarily an action flick, its premise uses a corrupt government creator and a malfunctioning synthetic being, reflecting classic dystopian anxieties.
Split Second (1992)
In a future London (2008), submerged by rising global warming floodwaters, veteran detective Harley Stone (Rutger Hauer) is haunted. He's obsessed with capturing the super-human serial killer who murdered his partner years ago. Partnered with the nerdy rookie Dick Durkin, Stone follows a trail of occult symbols and mutilated victims. They soon realize the killer is a powerful, monstrous creature with a DNA-absorbing ability and a personal, possibly psychic link to Stone himself. This film is a quintessential example of cyberpunk noir mashed with action-horror. The setting is pure urban decay and low-life—a perpetually dark, rat-infested, and waterlogged London that exemplifies environmental collapse. Harley Stone, the cynical cop surviving on "anxiety, coffee, and chocolate," is the ultimate low-life anti-hero fighting the high-tech threat of an evolutionarily advanced killer. The presence of Rutger Hauer, the lead from Blade Runner, gives it a strong lineage to the genre's origins.
Sleep Dealer (2008)
In a near-future Mexico where water is privatized and borders are sealed, hacker-dreamer Memo Cruz (Luis Fernando Peña) migrates to Tijuana. There he plugs neural “nodes” into his body so he can remotely operate U.S. construction robots—earning money while never crossing the border himself. Written and directed by Alex Rivera on a shoestring budget, the film was shot largely in Mexico City warehouses using consumer-grade HD cameras and extensive green-screen work. Premiering at Sundance, it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award and was lauded for eerily foreshadowing drone warfare and gig-economy tele-labor years before they became mainstream topics.
Strange Days (1995)
On the eve of the year 2000, ex-cop Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) deals in illegal "SQUID" recordings — sensory data that lets users relive others’ experiences. When he uncovers footage tied to a political murder, Lenny is pulled into a dangerous web of corruption, memory, and obsession. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by James Cameron, the film was a commercial failure upon release but gained cult status over time. Its depiction of memory as a digital commodity, filmed using pioneering POV camera rigs, was ahead of its time. The production also drew attention for its bold themes around race, media violence, and social unrest.
Surrogates (2009)
The film is set in a near-future world where almost all of humanity lives in isolation and interacts solely through robotic avatars called Surrogates. FBI Agent Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) is forced to leave the safety of his home and his own Surrogate to investigate the first murder in years, a seemingly impossible crime where both the avatar and its human operator were killed simultaneously. As Greer navigates the world in his actual, imperfect body, he uncovers a conspiracy surrounding the revolutionary technology and the inventor who created it. Surrogates is an adaptation of a five-issue 2005-2006 comic book series of the same name by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele. To portray the flawless appearance of the robotic avatars, actors like Bruce Willis and Rosamund Pike underwent a distinct makeup process to give them a smoother, more youthful look. The movie was filmed primarily in Massachusetts, utilizing cities like Worcester, Boston, and Lynn, and had a reported production budget of $80 million.