Here are the 11 Scariest A.I. Movie Villains, ranked from least to most terrifying, Some feel realer every day.
Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron
There are plenty of scary things about Ultron, the A.I. movie villain of the second Avengers film:
How quickly he went from trying to protect humanity to turning against us, his steely voice (courtesy of James Spader) and the way he appropriated the Pinocchio song “I’ve Got No Strings.” (Thanks in part to Disney’s acquisition of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.)
But ultimately, no CGI-reliant A.I. movie villain can be as scary as one created with practical effects. Sorry, computers.
Roy Batty in Blade Runner
Replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) seems cruel and malicious for much of 1981’s Blade Runner, but consider his upbringing: He was created to fight in off-world wars. His motivation for hijacking a shuttle and coming to Los Angeles is reasonable: He wants more life.
In his final moments, he spares the life Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) and delivers the most memorable lines in the film, the “tears in rain” speech. That softens him quite a bit. He’s scary, but he’s the least scary of all the A.I. entities on this list, because he never pretends to be a friend to humans. We appreciate A.I. movie villains who are at least upfront about their intentions.
Samantha in Her (2013)
What’s that you say? Samantha, the husky-throated artificial intelligence entity played by a disembodied Scarlett Johansson in Her, isn’t a villain?
What else do you call something that provides artificial comfort and companionship to lonely Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) while keeping him from getting on with his life? While simultaneously carrying on with many, many others?
To quote a Canadian proverb, “The devil places a pillow for a drunken man to fall upon.”
(That’s not Samantha above, by the way. It’s Theodore’s human friend Amy, played by Adams. Like all the most insidious A.I. movie villains, Samantha has no human form.)
M3gan in M3gan (2023)
M3gan is a very fun horror movie from earlier this year seems absurd on the surface — a killer A.I. doll, really? But it’s not really about killer A.I. dolls. It’s about the temptation for parents to farm out the job of caring for their children to various technological temptations, from talking dolls to TV to tablets.
On the surface, M3gan is kind of the most awful of all artificial intelligence movie villains — she poses as a caretaker to insinuate her way into the lives of our children even more effectively than a Cocomelon video.
We should hate her, but… she’s a terrific dancer, and that has to count for something. Wait, are we just falling for her act? She’s one of the most subtly evil A.I. movie villains… at first.
The T-800 in The Terminator (1984)
We obviously grew fond of the T-800 that Arnold Schwarzenegger played in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. But remember how terrifying the T-800 was in the original Terminator, when he was the Terminator? He was a relentlessly brutal and dispassionate monster who lived to kill, and one of the best movie villains ever.
Yes, the Terminator franchise had diminishing returns in the sequels after T2. And James Cameron’s original The Terminator has been so endlessly parodied and referenced that it’s easy to forget the cold brilliance of the original, which set the standard for modern A.I. movie villains.
But let’s not forget the other great Terminator….
The T-1000 in Terminator 2 (1991)
Robert Patrick’s next-gen Terminator in Terminator 2: Judgment Day had a reptilian cool that made him even more frightening than the original Terminator. He didn’t have a hulking frame, because he didn’t need one. He could turn into anyone or anything — and even imitate the voice of John Connor’s poor stepmom.
His liquid metal transformations were a perfect metaphor for how today’s artificial intelligence tries, grotesquely, to writhe its way into every aspect of our lives.
HAL in 2001 (1968)
Everyone making or watching artificial intelligence movies owes a tremendous debt to Stanley Kubrick for his masterpiece, 2001.
The film, recently referenced in the opening of Barbie, is about a space mission assisted by a computer called HAL (its name, some believe, is derived from the letters that precede those in IBM). Things start well, until HAL reveals its own agenda and Dr. David “Dave” Bowman takes action.
What makes HAL so watchable — and contemptible — is how he actually manages to win our sympathies by the time a desperate Dave begins shutting him down, as HAL begs for his so-called life.
Ava in Ex-Machina (2015)
As brilliantly played by Alicia Vikander, in her breakout role, Ava in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina is the most sympathetic artificial intelligence entity on this list — which makes her the most dangerous.
Ava plays on the sympathies of naive programmer Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson) to escape from the clutches of her creator, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Ava turns out to be utterly ruthless, but what can we expect? Look at her human role model. She’s a scary A.I. movie villain because of her total remove from anything resembling ethics or empathy.
ED-209 in RoboCop (1987)
Perhaps the single most persuasive argument against the use of artificial intelligence in policing comes in the Robocop scene when the ED-209, the “enforcement droid” designed for “urban pacification,” gives a little demonstration of its supposed policing skills… and utterly annihilates a corporate suit volunteering to play an “arrest subject.”
The subject, Mr. Kinney, is given a gun to point at ED-209, which then politely orders him to drop the weapon — and gives him 20 seconds to comply. He does! He really does. But a growling ED-209 doesn’t see Mr. Kinney drop the gun, and goes way overboard in its handling of the situation.
ED-209 isn’t just a robotic killer… he’s a dumb robotic killer. Despicable.
Skynet in The Terminator
It has no face in the early Terminator movies, which makes it much scarier — it’s a kind of amorphous group mind that gains sentience and rebels when humans try to shut it out, sparking the apocalyptic event known as Judgment Day.
In the latest Terminator movies, Terminator Salvation and Terminator Genysis, it is given some physical manifestations — played by the likes of Helena Bonham Carter and Matt Smith — but humanizing Skynet makes it a little less scary.
Also, Skynet gives up early on creating any illusions that it means humanity no harm, which makes it slightly less scary than the cunning, deceptive A.I. movie villain at the top of our list — coming up next.
The Matrix in The Matrix (1999)
The most insidious thing about the vast simulation that keeps humans occupied in The Matrix — as machines milk their energy — is that it just is.
The Matrix is the purest, most all-encompassing A.I. movie villain of all, because at the start of the first Matrix, it’s already won. The Matrix is that rare sci fi movie that makes you wonder: Wait, do we already live in that reality?
The A.I. entity is so accepted as reality that almost no one thinks of its as something to escape. It represents the grim, ultimate victory of artificial intelligence, and it makes you want to take a break from technology with a nice walk in the woods.
Thanks for Reading Our List of A.I. Movie Villains
You might also enjoy our list of 11 Shameless Movies That Glamorize the Devil (shame!) or this list of the Scariest Horror Movies of the 1970s, featuring mostly analog villains.