Really Makes You ThinkWant to feel smart, but don't want to read an actual book? Check out these lists of movies, TV shows, and other forms of entertainment that will get your mind wheels spinning.
Updated November 5, 2019 742 votes 228 voters 28.2K views
Voting Rules
Vote up the most non-sensical, trippy, and imaginative representations of virtual reality in films that aren't The Matrix or its sequels.
Virtual reality is really coming into its own these days, with VR technology being used in surprising ways across many areas of our everyday life. More than a few movies from our recent past had weird and crazy ideas about how VR technology might develop. Back in the '80s and '90s, VR was still in its nascency, so in the early days of using virtual reality in the movies, creators had some trippy ideas about how the technology might be used or abused. While The Matrix is undoubtedly the most famous, there are plenty of other, more ridiculous, movies that featured VR technology. While some of depictions seemed cutting edge at the time, they seem downright silly in retrospect. Other interpretations of VR, however, were scarily accurate.
Whether utopia or dystopia, sci-fi thriller or existential drama, here are some of the craziest non-Matrix virtual reality movies that explore the digital world.
Part-noir mystery, part-paranormal thriller, Dark City follows John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), a man with amnesia in a city where the sun never shines. When Murdoch struggles to regain his memories, mysterious albino men in black appear in the shadows and manipulate reality.
As Murdoch goes further down the rabbit hole, he realizes his city is actually a giant virtual reality "tuning" simulation run by the men in black, actually creepy aliens with massive control issues. The difference here, however, is that it is not a digital simulation — this form of virtual reality is a real matter simulation, remotely influenced by alien minds. It's a super trippy film, and probably best not watched before bed.
Infamous for being one of Keanu Reaves's worst projects, Johnny Mnemonic follows the adventures of a man who uploads files to his own brain to securely carry them for corporate clients. Johnny can manipulate his abilities inside virtual reality to hack the machines he interfaces with, resulting in laughably weird visual effects and a partnership with a genius hacker dolphin. Seriously, there's a dolphin hacker. And he is not handled tastefully.
In The Lawnmower Man, Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) is your typical mad scientist. He needs a willing volunteer to demonstrate that his virtual reality machine is the key to next step of evolution for mankind. He finds his volunteer in Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey), a developmentally disabled handyman Angelo believes he can transform into a genius by plugging him into his virtual reality games and simulations. It's not long before Jobe unlocks superhuman powers and turns the tables on Dr. Angelo.
With all the laughable visual effects of a weird '90s virtual reality movie, The Lawnmower Man shows us a world in which virtual reality games and landscapes can transform an imbecile into a genius through disturbingly colorful screen savers. It wasn't exactly what one would call "scientifically accurate" or "even slightly plausible."
A classic way ahead of its time, Tron is one of the first movies to explore the concept of a virtual world inside a computer, and navigating said world with a digital avatar. Flynn (Jeff Bridges), in an attempt to hack the corporation that swallowed up his video game company, gets beamed into a computer by an artificial intelligence and is forced to compete on a "game grid" — where digital gladiators battle to the death inside a neon colored digital maze.
Game-changing concepts and visuals from this early 'scif-fi/80s fantasy influenced many stories to come, and was one of the first movies to use computer generated graphics. It later became a huge influence on science fiction, inspiring The Matrix, Lawnmower Man, and of course, Tron: Legacy.
The world of Strange Days accurately predicted the way the porn industry would come to harness virtual reality technology to titillate and thrill. In this world, Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is a street hustler who sells POV immersive sex videos — basically voyeuristic movies inside virtual reality. Things take a dark turn when a serial killer records his exploits, and starts putting his virtual reality snuff videos on the black market. Given the terrifying and tragic things people have done with live streaming, it's easy to see the dark side of VR technology.
What if the virtual reality spaces you explored were someone else's dreams, and by extension, the hidden corners of someone's mind? In Inception, Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) leads a crack team of specialists through several layers of dreams within dreams in order to plant an idea for the purposes of corporate sabotage.
Through the use of one of his specialists, known as the architect (Ellen Page), travelers inside the dream space can bend the rules of physics and shift the landscape to help make the mission go smoothly. While not a digital experience, the simulated reality in Inception is still a fascinating exploration of the medium.
