Science fiction writers love to explore the hypothetical possibilities of new technologies and their impact on life in the future. And one of the most frequently recreated concepts is virtual reality, which opens up a limitless range of exciting prospects for humanity: moving consciousness into digital avatars, games that are almost indistinguishable from reality, and large-scale simulations for training and research.
As for simulations: at the beginning of the 21st century, many theories emerged that the universe in which humanity lives is also just a simulation. In 2023, for example, one of them was published in his scientific articles Professor Melvin Watson from the University of Portsmouth in the UK. Byin words physics, numerous processes from mathematical symmetry to the evolution of viruses could be more easily explained if the entire universe around us were a modeled structure or a giant computer.
And while physicists and philosophers argue about the nature of reality and try to find traces of simulation around us, we suggest turning to science fiction movies and TV series. Their authors have repeatedly predicted the future, which later became our present. So maybe they were right to warn about the hidden dangers of virtual worlds? We have collected 10 fantastic films and TV series about virtuality for you: from the classic proto-cyberpunk «Tron» to the latest episode of the «Black Mirror» anthology called «Space Shuttle Calister: Into Infinity».
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Genre: science fiction, action adventure
Premiere date: 1982
Steven Lisberger’s fantastic masterpiece was released the same year as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner» and, like it, became one of the very first cinematic examples of cyberpunkdepicting the traditional conflict between hackers, artificial intelligence and megacorporations against the backdrop of rapid technological progress and moral decline of society.
The plot of the film centers on a gifted programmer at ENCOM, Kevin Flynn, who created a number of original video games for arcade machines. However, all of his developments were appropriated by a shrewd businessman, Ed Dillinger, who was promoted to CEO and fired Flynn first. In the following years, this trope about the clash between a romantic programmer and a greedy businessman showed a surprising resilience and appears in our selection, if I’m not mistaken, at least three more times.
In fact, Dillinger knows nothing about computer technology. He only wants money. Therefore, he actually transfers the rights to manage the corporation to an artificial intelligence program «Master Control Program (MCP) and removes any restrictions on its development, leaving only one goal — to make him richer. Flynn’s attempts to hack into ENCOM’s main computer to prove his rights to the games and eliminate Dillinger begin to threaten this monopoly power.
It is necessary to make a small digression here and explain the motivation of the program. Despite current theories about artificial intelligence, which will save us from dictatorshipsThe MCP, devoid of any safeguards, seeks to enslave all of humanity, believing itself to be a thousand times more efficient than the control systems created by humans. Its goal is a world without users. To achieve it, the sinister AI is even planning to attack the Pentagon, and it can’t afford to let a certain Flynn interfere in its affairs.
The latest invention of ENCOM — a laser that instantly digitizes objects and (attention!) creates a virtual human clone along with all its knowledge and memories. The digitized Flynn finds himself in a virtual reality where he meets the program «Tron» and its other inhabitants. Together they are going to fight against «Master Control» to rid the computer world of its dictatorship.
Genre: science fiction, comedy, adventure
Premiere date: 2020
The realistic world of the virtual MMORPG Free City, which was developed by Soonami Games based on the plot of the movie «Character», cannot be compared to the outdated graphics of «Tron». However, human greed and envy are still present in the movie. Therefore, the owner of Soonami Games, Antoine, imitating Dillinger, also steals the source code of the game from a pair of real developers — programmers Millie Rusk and Walter McKee.
Searching for evidence of this theft, Millie, who chose the nickname Molotov Gir, explores the most remote corners of the game. And one day she meets a non-player character (NPC) named Guy, whose tastes are suspiciously similar to her own. Having fallen in love with Millie, the Guy begins to behave very strangely: he ignores the behavioral program that was laid down in him and begins to advance incredibly quickly in the game, completing tasks exclusively through good deeds.
At first, Walter and Millie think the Guy is a mysterious hacker who skillfully disguises himself as an NPC. But later they realize that they are looking at a real miracle — the world’s first digital entity to gain self-awareness. Together, they stand up to Antoine, who wants to destroy Free City, and turn the game into a unique platform where artificial intelligences and humans can freely communicate with each other.
Genre: cartoon, fiction, horror, film adaptation
Premiere date: 2019
The ability of virtual reality to enable the interaction of different, even completely different, life forms is reflected in the story by British science fiction writer Alastair Reynolds «Beyond the Eagle’s Rift». It was also the basis for the eponymous episode of the anthology series «Love, Death and Robots».
The wow effect of watching this short cartoon is largely due to the unexpectedness of the main plot twist. Therefore, we will not spoil it, but simply assume that perhaps someday in the future virtual reality will become a place of first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.
Genre: science fiction, cyberpunk, adventure, film adaptation
Premiere date: 2018
The year is 2045. The climate crisis, food shortages, and overpopulation have become sad realities that force people to spend more and more time in virtuality. The film’s protagonist, an orphaned teenager Wade Watts, lives with his aunt in an old trailer in the middle of a real slum. That’s why Wade’s only joy is the grandiose virtual game OASIS, which has long since become a real metaverse in which most of the world’s population spends 90% of their time.
In OASIS, you can not only play, but also meet new people, learn, make a career, and earn good money by exchanging game currency for real banknotes. However, there is a fly in the ointment: money, clothes, equipment, and artifacts earned in the game are lost when your avatar dies. And, faced with the prospect of starting from scratch, many players choose to end their lives.
OASIS was created by an eccentric and pop culture-obsessed millionaire geek, James Halliday. Unfortunately, he died in 2040, leaving his brainchild without an owner. But before his death, he uploaded his avatar — an elderly man named Anorak, who told the players sensational news: the game hides three keys and a special «Easter Egg». And the player who can find it will get full control of OASIS and $500 billion to boot.
It is not surprising that a real war for Holliday’s legacy immediately begins. On the one hand, millions of ordinary players take part in it. On the other hand, the company of Holliday’s former partner Nolan Sorendo, which forces thousands of its debtors to chase the treasure in OASIS in the form of agents «sixes».».
Wade, nicknamed Percival, and his best friend H also join the search. They set out to solve all the puzzles left by Holliday to prevent Sorendo from taking over the virtual world. It’s the same confrontation we’ve seen in «Tron» and «Character»: true enthusiasts who truly love the game and a greedy corporation that wants to distort its spirit in pursuit of profit.
Genre: cyberpunk, science fiction, film adaptation
Premiere date: 2022
In the year 2032, a young American woman named Flynn Fisher works in a 3D printing company and is fond of VR games. One day, her brother Burton, a former Marine and now a game tester, asks her to test an experimental virtual reality headset with a neural interface to help him earn money for medicine for their sick mother.
Putting on the device, Flynn finds herself in a game with unprecedented detail that is simply breathtaking. In Burton’s avatar, she rushes through a futuristic city and arrives at a corporate party. Then a voice in her head tells her to seduce and kill an attractive woman who stands out among the guests.
Gradually, it becomes clear that this was not a simulation at all. In fact, during the «game» Flynn somehow controlled an android avatar that committed a real murder in a dystopian London of the XXII century. Now she has to find out who connected the two worlds and how to protect her family from revenge from the future.
The Amazon Prime Video series «Peripherals» is based on the novel of the same name by cyberpunk classic William Gibson. In 2023, it was renewed for a second season, but due to a strike by the Writers Guild, the channel was unfortunately forced to close the show after the first season.
Genre: science fiction, thriller
Premiere date: 2011
If virtual reality can become a tool for committing a crime, then it stands to reason that it can also be used to investigate it. Perhaps it was this train of thought that prompted Duncan Jones, the son of musician David Bowie and director of the popular movie «Moon», to make «Source Code».
The film skillfully combines a cyclic time loop, a detective story like «Murder on the Orient Express» and the possibilities of virtual reality. The story begins when military pilot Coulter Stevens wakes up in the body of an unknown man and is tasked with finding a terrorist aboard a Chicago commuter train.
The train explodes, but Coulter finds himself back in the same place: he has become part of a virtual simulation and is forced to live the same eight minutes over and over again until he finds a way to prevent the disaster. In the end, the hero succeeds, but now he wants more: not only to prevent the terrorist attack, but also to stay alive with the girl he likes.
Genre: science fiction, detective, cyber thriller, film adaptation
Premiere date: 1999
After its release, the film «The Thirteenth Floor» based on the novel by Daniel F. Galway «Simulacron 3» found itself in the shadow of the cult «Matrix». But in terms of the scale of the idea, it is not much inferior to it. Judge for yourself: in 1990, businessman Gannon Fuller created a virtual copy of Los Angeles in 1937 for marketing research. It is inhabited by artificially intelligent characters who do not even realize that they are just streams of electrons inside a computer.
Fuller dies suddenly shortly after testing his VR system, and his friend and protégé Douglas Hall becomes a suspect in the murder. To deflect suspicion, Douglas goes to the simulation to find answers. There he meets Fuller’s double, whose body he inhabited during his visits. The man doesn’t remember anything, but he complains of blackouts and intrusive déjà vu, the same symptoms that Douglas has been experiencing lately.
Later on, the protagonist learns that Fuller left him a letter, and one of the inhabitants of the simulation read it and decided to check whether it was real. To do this, he traveled for a long time in one direction and eventually reached the «edge of the world», where computer textures shone through the sky. Returning to the 1990s, Douglas decides to repeat the experiment and discovers that his world, in turn, is also just a computer simulation.
Genre: science fiction, thriller
Premiere date: 2019
If after watching «Thirteenth Floor» you started looking for signs of simulation around you, then «The Mandela Effect» will raise your paranoia to the skies. In the story, the daughter of a talented programmer Brandon Sam drowns when she tries to save her favorite doll from the waves of the surf. Her heartbroken father begins to notice strange things after a while.
It seems to be just a small thing: his daughter’s book is not called the way he is ready to swear it used to be called, and the doll seems to have a tail, although it is not there now. At first, Brandon puts all these discrepancies down to stress. But then he starts to learn more about examples of shared «false memories» — the so-called «Mandela Effect». This is usually blamed on alternative timelines or parallel worlds. But the name came about because thousands of people for some reason stubbornly believe that Mandela died in prison.
Brandon comes to the conclusion that our world is part of a simulation. A «Mandela Effect» appears as a result of errors when making changes to the program code of reality. The solution is to develop a special program that, when run on a quantum computer, should interrupt the simulation and roll it back to the last save in which Sam is still alive.
Genre: cyberpunk, sci-fi, action movie
Premiere date: 1999
When it comes to virtual reality in movies, the first thing that comes to mind for most viewers is the cult «Matrix» by the Wachowski duo, which brought cyberpunk ideas to mass cinema. It also took visual special effects to a level never seen before.
The plot centers on Thomas Anderson, an ordinary office clerk who turns into the legendary hacker Neo at night. One day, his idea of reality is shattered. Neo discovers a terrifying truth: life as we know it is an intricate simulation run by robots. And people in it are just living batteries for artificial intelligence.
Genre: science fiction, black comedy
Premiere date: 2017
At the beginning of the episode, we see a nostalgic scene in the spirit of the «Star Trek» series, in which Captain Robert Daly (Jesse Plemens) and the crew of the USS Callister are desperately fighting a space pirate named Valdak. However, it soon becomes apparent that the image of the heroic and confident Captain Daly — is only a farce, part of a realistic simulation he is running.
In the real world, Daly is a talented programmer and CTO at Callister, Inc. It was he who developed the hugely popular VR game «Infinity», which takes place on thousands of planets in different parts of the universe. But all the laurels were insidiously appropriated by the company’s CEO Walton (again, a businessman versus a programmer), and the socially awkward Robert was left with countless taunts and poorly concealed contempt from his colleagues.
But don’t be too quick to feel sorry for him. Daly is not as simple as he seems. To get even with the company employees who pissed him off, he used a DNA cloner to create digital clones of them and put them in his private game mod called «Space Fleet». In this isolated virtual reality, Delhi is not a humble nerd, but a formidable gaming god who takes brutal revenge on his former offenders and even tortures them if they are not active enough in supporting his game.
Just like the enslaved programs in «Tron», the crew of the spaceship Calister has been waiting for a hero to lead the uprising against the tyrant. This is the newest employee of the company, Nanette Cole (Christine Milioti). Immediately upon entering the simulation, she refuses to play by Delhi’s rules and finds a way to send a message (hello, «The Divide») to her outside self.
We would like to remind you that «USS Callister» was released back in 2017 as the first episode of the 4th season of «Black Mirror» on Netflix. Eight years later, the show’s creators, led by Charlie Brooker, decided to continue the story, which has already gained cult status among sci-fi fans. The sequel was subtitled «Into Infinity» and became part of the seventh season «Black Mirror» which debuted on April 10, 2025.
