11. Ghost in the Shell
The anime Ghost in the Shell is based on a manga by Masamune Shirow. The film is about a cyborg police officer and her partner who hunt a mysterious hacker.
With Ghost in the Shell, we have included a popular sci-fi anime on the list. It is considered a classic of the genre that even later cyberpunk productions have modeled after.
Ghost in the Shell is a serious and deep film that deals with complex themes around humanity and machines, as well as artificial intelligence.
The anime is particularly praised for its style and animations. The audience is thrown into a dystopian city full of futuristic technology, which appears both fascinating and somewhat creepy.
There are prosthetics for individual body parts all the way to entire “cyberbrains,” with which humans essentially carry the internet in their heads.
This is what IMDb ratings say: With 7.9 stars, the anime also does well on IMDb, with a total of 149,125 ratings.
Fun Fact: The author Shirow Masamune named his manga “Ghost in the Shell” as a homage to a book on philosophical psychology. This is by Arthur Koestler and is titled “The Ghost in the Machine.”
12. Dune
Dune is the film adaptation of the eponymous book by Frank Herbert. The story takes place in the distant future on the desert planet Arrakis, where young nobleman Paul Atreides becomes embroiled in political intrigues.
The sci-fi epic impressed audiences upon its release in 2021, especially with stunning visuals that were particularly striking in theaters.
With expansive landscape shots of the desert planet, enormous sandworms, and epic battles, such as the fight of the Arrakeen, Dune succeeds in transporting viewers to a foreign world, just like in the pages of the book.
This is what IMDb ratings say: Dune receives a rating of 8.0 stars from IMDb users based on a total of 686,802 votes.
Fun Fact: Film composer Hans Zimmer spent a week alone in the Utah desert to incorporate the various sounds of the environment into the soundtrack.
This year, Dune: Part Two will be released in theaters:
