5 Most Inventive Cyberpunk Movies to Watch Before Blade Runner 2099 Drops

Cyberpunk was incredibly popular in the 90s. It was then, in the era of the first digital boom, that most of the major cyberpunk films were released.

It seems that the genre is slowly making a comeback – fans are eagerly awaiting Blade Runner 2099 – the series does not have an exact release date yet, but we will probably see it sometime in 2025.

To make the wait less painful, we have chosen the best cyberpunk films, both modern and those that stood at the origins of the genre.

1. The Thirteenth Floor, 1999

The Thirteenth Floor is an unnoticed masterpiece that had bad luck with its release date. The plot is a complex multi-level detective story about a simulation in cyberspace.

The creator of the perfect VR system, Hannon, is murdered in his own office. All evidence points to his colleague Douglas. To find the real killer, Douglas dives into a virtual reality whose inhabitants are unaware of the artificiality of their origins.

The Thirteenth Floor didn't impress the critics, who panned its complex plot, but praised its visual effects. Viewers were also not impressed by the mix of neo-noir and cyberspace, especially since The Matrix was released in the same year, where similar ideas were mixed with bright special effects.

2. Nirvana, 1997

The plot revolves around developer Jimi, who suddenly learns that Solo, one of the characters in the video game he created, Nirvana, is gaining consciousness. Tired of the constant cycle of death and reincarnation, Solo begs the creator to erase the game and end his suffering.

But this is not so easy to do, Jimi will have to go in search of an “angel” – a hacker who can bypass the protection of the corporate network.

Nirvana is a complex, multi-layered philosophical parable disguised as cyberpunk. Director Gabriele Salvatores has created an esoteric sci-fi that uses the topic of virtual reality as an excuse to talk about the eternal.

3. Avalon, 2001

The director of Ghost in the Shell, the famous Mamoru Oshii, decided to set the action of the movie in an exotic place, and he chose distant and mysterious Poland.

The ancient streets of Wroclaw, filmed through a sepia filter, look like a strange decadent world, where the technologies of the future coexist with a hopeless past.

In the future, the game Avalon has become a serious source of income, and people disappear into virtual reality for weeks. The main character, the best player in Avalon, tries to reach the highest, secret level of the game, gradually losing the understanding of where the real world is and where it is not.

4. Johnny Mnemonic, 1995

The cult cyberpunk action movie starring Keanu Reeves is based on the short story of the same name by William Gibson. In the year 2021, the world has been taken over by megacorporations, and people's minds have been taken over by virtual reality.

The latter has led humanity to a new disease – nerve attenuation syndrome. Johnny works as a mnemonic courier and delivers important corporate information, only instead of a hard drive, the data is stored on a special implant in the brain.

The last job does not go according to plan: the Yakuza start to hunt Johnny, the amount of data exceeds the permissible values, and the man has only a few days before the situation takes an irreversible turn.

5. Upgrade, 2018

In the future, there will not be a single area of life where AI will not be involved. The car mechanic Grey repairs cars and does not want to switch to new technologies. One day, a gang attacks the main character and his wife: the beloved dies in front of the paralyzed Grey.

Then the man is offered to install a STEM chip, which will not only restore his ability to walk, but also make him stronger. Having decided to take revenge on the killers, Grey agrees, not realizing the price he will have to pay.

Upgrade is a very inventive movie, built on unimaginable camera tricks that allow the viewer to experience the intervention of a chip in Grey's consciousness almost in the first person.