50 Essential Sci-Fi Films of the 21st Century (So Far)

The epitome of this quarter-century’s sci-fi endeavours is Steven Spielberg’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Conceived of long before the uses and abuses of real AI had taken hold, the film tells of a little boy android whose ability to love and desire to be loved drive him on a quest to become human.

Abandoned by his human mother Monica (Frances O’Connor), advanced humanoid “mecha” and forever-child David (Haley Joel Osment) is cast out into a cruel world whose usable surface is dwindling thanks to man-made global warming, and which is littered with sentient mechas who have been similarly abused and abandoned. Accompanied by his robotic Teddy (voiced by Jack Angel), David searches for Pinocchio’s Blue Fairy, who he believes will make him real and thus deserving of his mother’s love.

A collaboration between Stanley Kubrick, who conceived of the project but put it off until technology caught up, and Spielberg, who went the distance and helmed the film following Kubrick’s death, A.I. enmeshes both writer-directors’ narrative, character, and aesthetic intuitions, damning humanity but redeeming us through our creations. Every detail is given the utmost consideration, from the vast CG cityscapes, right down to the animatronic puppetry that brings Teddy to life, all of which fully realises a film that is achingly beautiful and tragic in equal measures.

And while the sentimentality of A.I.’s ending feels pure Spielberg, it is in fact Kubrick’s own creation - providing an unexpectedly tender coda to the director’s life and career.