A Scanner DarklyMovies like A Scanner Darkly
- Key Features:
- Undercover cop, Drug addiction, Identity crisis, Government surveillance, Distorted reality, Dystopian future, Loss of hope, Paranoia, Psychological thriller, Cerebral
- Tone:
- serious, cynical, stylized
- Target Audience:
- Sci-fi enthusiasts, Fans of Philip K. Dick, Viewers interested in philosophical themes, Indie film aficionados
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Confusion → Despair
A Scanner Darkly

An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.
A Scanner Darkly
After a man with extraordinary, and frighteningly destructive, telepathic abilities is nabbed by agents from a mysterious rogue corporation, he discovers he is far from the only possessor of such strange powers. Some of the other “scanners” have their minds set on world domination, while others are trying to stop them.

When other Scanners in the Los Angeles area are left drained of life, Sam is forced back into action in a desperate attempt to stop Volkin, who is determined to become the most powerful - and ruthless - of his kind.

A breed of humans with dangerously powerful telepathic abilities -- the scanners -- are being recruited by a corrupt police commander, John Forrester, in his crusade to take over the city.

Rookie cop Sam Staziak has a unique gift: he is a Scanner, which gives him the power to read the thoughts of others, and also to inflict great bodily harm. When a mad scientist begins using mind control to murder police officers, Sam realizes that only he and his unique gift can put an end to the mayhem.

People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.

A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.

Over the course of three days Ross, a college dropout addicted to crystal-meth, encounters a variety of oddball folks - including a stripper named Nikki and her boyfriend, the local meth producer, The Cook - but all he really wants to do is hook up with his old girlfriend, Amy.

Black police officer Russell Stevens applies for a special anti-drug squad which targets the highest boss of cocaine delivery to LA—the Colombian foreign minister's nephew. Russell works his way up from the bottom undercover, until he reaches the boss.

A woman, accidentally caught in a dark deal, turns the tables on her captors and transforms into a merciless warrior evolved beyond human logic.

In a town of low-income and fractured families, a group of teens are lured into working for a dangerous drug dealer. A new girl arrives who hides a dangerous secret that will impact everybody and change their lives forever.

Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.

The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.

Set in a near-future world where there is no privacy, ignorance or anonymity, our private memories are recorded and crime almost ceases to exist. In trying to solve a series of unsolved murders, Sal Frieland stumbles onto a young woman who appears to have subverted the system and disappeared. She has no identity, no history and no record. Sal realizes it may not be the end of crime but the beginning. Known only as 'The Girl', Sal must find her before he becomes the next victim.

In a dystopian 2021, Johnny is a data trafficker who has an implant that allows him to securely store data too sensitive for regular computer networks. On one delivery run, he accepts a package that not only exceeds the implant's safety limits—and will kill him if the data is not removed in time—but also contains information far more important and valuable than he had ever imagined. On a race against time, he must avoid the assassins sent to kill him and remove the data before it, too, ends his life.

A cop named Cristi must go undercover to trail teen Victor who is suspected of selling pot in the north-eastern city of Vaslui.

John 'Breacher' Wharton leads an elite DEA task force that takes on the world's deadliest drug cartels. When the team successfully executes a high-stakes raid on a cartel safe house, they think their work is done – until, one-by-one, the team members mysteriously start to be eliminated. As the body count rises, everyone is a suspect.

Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.

Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.

When a seemingly straight-forward drug deal goes awry, XXXX has to break his die-hard rules and turn up the heat, not only to outwit the old regime and come out on top, but to save his own skin...

Undercover cop Jim Raynor is a seasoned veteran. His partner, Kristen Cates, is lacking in experience, but he thinks she's tough enough to work his next case with him: a deep cover assignment to bring down the notoriously hard-to-capture drug lord Gaines. While their relationship turns romantic during the assignment, they also turn into junkies, and will have to battle their own addictions if they want to bring down Gaines once and for all.

Undercover Las Vegas police officer Vincent Downs, who has a lot of enemies, is caught in a high stakes web of corrupt cops and the mob-controlled casino underground. When a heist goes wrong, a crew of homicidal gangsters kidnap Downs’ teenage son T. In one sleepless night, Downs will have to rescue his son, evade an internal affairs investigation, and bring the kidnappers to justice.

A prisoner in a state-of-the-art penitentiary begins to question the purpose of the emotion-controlling drugs he's testing for a pharmaceutical genius.

A U.S Customs official uncovers a massive money laundering scheme involving Pablo Escobar.

In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.

In the year 2044, time travel has not yet been invented but in 30 years it will have been. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target into the past where a looper, a hired gun, like Joe is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good until the day the mob decides to close the loop, sending back Joe's future self for assassination.

Following a major terrorist attack, the US government initiates the ODIN surveillance system, made up of millions of mobile, robotic security cameras known as "Eyeborgs." When the physical evidence in a string of odd murders doesn't line up to the surveillance recordings, one federal agent finds himself working outside the system to find out who's really controlling the Eyeborgs.

Sean Kane is forced to resign from the San Francisco Police Department's Narcotics Division when he goes berserk after his partner is murdered. He decides to fight alone and follows a trail of drug traffickers into unexpected high places.

A bigoted junkie cop suffering from borderline personality disorder and drug addiction manipulates and hallucinates his way in a bid to secure promotion.

A young scanner with extraordinary telepathic powers transforms into a lethal killing machine after taking one of her father's experimental drugs.

An awkward office drone becomes increasingly unhinged after a charismatic and confident look-alike takes a job at his workplace and seduces the woman he desires.

Jack Caine is a Houston vice cop who's forgotten the rule book. His self-appointed mission is to stop the drugs trade and the number one supplier Victor Manning. Whilst involved in an undercover operation to entrap Victor Manning, his partner gets killed, and a sinister newcomer enters the scene...

A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.

When Erin Bell was a young cop, she was given an undercover assignment that ended badly and destroyed her life. Years later, she must face her demons in order to make peace with her past.

When the trail goes cold on a murder investigation of a policeman, an undercover narcotics officer is lured back to the force to help solve the case.

After a traumatic event, a drug trafficker turns sides and conspires with a dangerously ambitious undercover police officer to bring down the mysterious kingpin of a major drug cartel.

Dr. Peyton Westlake is on the verge of realizing a major breakthrough in synthetic skin when his laboratory is destroyed by gangsters. Having been burned beyond recognition and forever altered by an experimental medical procedure, Westlake becomes known as Darkman, assuming alternate identities in his quest for revenge and a new life with a former love.

A young woman, institutionalized by her abusive stepfather, retreats into a vivid fantasy world where she envisions a plan to escape. Gathering a group of fellow inmates, she embarks on a quest to collect five mystical items, blurring the lines between reality and imagination.

A drug pusher grows increasingly desperate after a botched deal leaves him with a large debt to a ruthless drug lord.

In the near future, Frank, a police officer, discovers that the legalization of all recreational drugs comes with a price.

A private detective is hired to find a missing stripper but the job turns complicated when everyone he questions ends up dead. From the mean streets of Los Angeles to the desolate desert of New Mexico, Cruz must contend with a brutal Russian Boxer, three brash LAPD detectives, an aged billionaire looking for the Big Bang, and the billionaire's stunningly gorgeous wife. The solution to the mystery will cost ten lives, net $30 million and just might explain - well - everything.

An entry-level employee at a powerful corporation finds himself occupying a corner office, but at a dangerous price—he must spy on his boss's old mentor to secure for him a multi-billion dollar advantage.

Former policeman Lenny Nero has moved into a more lucrative trade: the illegal sale of virtual reality-like recordings that allow users to experience the emotions and past experiences of others. While they typically contain tawdry incidents, Nero is shocked when he receives one showing a murder.

"All men are not created equal. It is the purpose of the Government to make them so." This is the premise of the Showtime film adaption of Kurt Vonnegut's futuristic short story Harrison Bergeron. The film centers around a young man (Harrison) who is smarter than his peers, and is not affected by the usual "Handicapping" which is used to train all Americans so everyone is of equal intelligence.

An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico.

Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.

A poet falls in love with an art student, who gravitates to his bohemian lifestyle — and his love of heroin. Hooked as much on one another as they are on the drug, their relationship alternates between states of oblivion, self-destruction, and despair.

After a successful deployment of the RoboCop Law Enforcement unit, OCP sees its goal of urban pacification come closer and closer, but as this develops, a new narcotic known as "Nuke" invades the streets led by God-delirious leader Cane. As this menace grows, it may prove to be too much for Murphy to handle. OCP tries to replicate the success of the first unit, but ends up with failed prototypes with suicidal issues... until Dr. Faxx, a scientist straying away from OCP's path, uses Cane as the new subject for the RoboCop 2 project, a living God.

The details of undercover police officers are deleted from a police database and a senior officer is left struggling to know who are the undercover officers and who are the criminals.

On the planet Latimer, Takeshi Kovacs must protect a tattooist while investigating the death of a yakuza boss alongside a no-nonsense CTAC.

In the near future, oil reserves are nearly depleted and Europe is connected by series of underground tunnels. While navigating these tunnels, Roger hears voices, one in particular. Seeking a way to rid himself of the voice only leads Roger deeper into a bizarre conspiracy of control - mind and body.

Unable to cope with a recent personal tragedy, LA's top celebrity shrink turns into a pothead with no concern for his appearance and a creeping sense of his inability to help his patients.

A tormented jazz musician finds himself lost in an enigmatic story involving murder, surveillance, gangsters, doppelgängers, and an impossible transformation inside a prison cell.

Detectives Jimmy and Paul, despite nine years as partners, can still sometimes seem like polar opposites—especially when Paul's unpredictable antics get them suspended without pay. Already strapped for cash and trying to pay for his daughter's wedding, Jimmy decides to sell a rare baseball card that's worth tens of thousands. Unfortunately, when the collector's shop is robbed and the card vanishes with the crook, Paul and Jimmy end up going rogue, tracking down the card and the drug ring behind its theft, all on their own time and without any backup—except for each other.

John Anderton is a top 'Precrime' cop in the late-21st century, when technology can predict crimes before they're committed. But Anderton becomes the quarry when another investigator targets him for a murder charge.

A detective becomes entangled in a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program while investigating a string of reality-bending crimes.

Based on true events. A disgraced police detective seeking redemption goes undercover to expose a violent crime syndicate. But as he sinks deeper into the mob, the price for absolution may be higher than he can afford.

In need of creative inspiration, a professionally stagnant and hard-partying Los Angeles artist recklessly indulges in a series of drug binges. As the narcotics fly out of control, so does her newfound and inexplicable, yet unquenchable, craving for blood.

DCP DeSilva sees a way to bring to justice the feared head of a criminal empire by recruiting a man named Vijay, who looks exactly like the crime boss. The ruse works too well, and soon Vijay finds his life in danger when DeSilva, the only one who knows his true identity, dies.

With his partner, a celebrity performance artist publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. An investigator from the National Organ Registry obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed... Their mission — to use the artist's notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.

In Los Angeles, a gang of bank robbers who call themselves The Ex-Presidents commit their crimes while wearing masks of Reagan, Carter, Nixon and Johnson. Believing that the members of the gang could be surfers, the F.B.I. sends young agent Johnny Utah to the beach undercover to mix with the surfers and gather information.

In the year 2045, a Los Angeles Police Department detective and his new android partner enter the Zone, a forbidden section of the city plagued with an unknown disease. There, they discover the source of the illness and attempt to stop it using the android's advanced technology and weaponry.

A young agent is tasked with investigating a tangled web of corruption and fraud in New York.

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

A supermarket clerk decides to step in for an absent drug dealer, setting off an explosive, comedic chain of events.

In a series of escalating encounters, former security guard David Dunn uses his supernatural abilities to track Kevin Wendell Crumb, a disturbed man who has twenty-four personalities. Meanwhile, the shadowy presence of Elijah Price emerges as an orchestrator who holds secrets critical to both men.

A psychological thriller based on the concept of anamorphosis, a painting technique that manipulates the laws of perspective to create two competing images on a single canvas.

The Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre (LETAC) has developed SID version 6.7: a Sadistic, Intelligent, and Dangerous virtual reality entity which is synthesized from the personalities of more than 150 serial killers, and only one man can stop him.

Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government and medical establishment in his power, he lies low under an assumed name in Vegas, performing cheap tricks and living off small-time gambling "winnings." But when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, government agent Callie Ferris must use all her wiles to capture Cris and convince him to help her stop the cataclysm.

When a successful New York public defender loses his first case, he is pulled into a drug heist by a former client in an effort to beat the broken system at its own game.

Plagued by strange memories, Neo's life takes an unexpected turn when he finds himself back inside the Matrix.

The life of an unsuccessful writer is transformed by a top-secret 'smart drug' that allows him to use 100% of his brain and become a perfect version of himself. His enhanced abilities soon attract shadowy forces that threaten his new life.

Theresa, a haunted young woman spiraling in the wake of profound loss, is torn between her fractured emotional state and the reality-altering effects of a potent cannabinoid drug.

A fading celebrity decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.

During a crack epidemic two narcotics agents hunting for a cop killer. Hoping for leads, Moran and Thorton pay off a junkie informant. To provide for his wife and son, Moran involves the stool pigeon in a deadly scheme. This causes the partners to come under the scrutiny of a suspicious internal affairs agent.

After going to extremes to cover up an accident, a corrupt cop's life spirals out of control when he starts receiving threats from a mysterious witness.

While investigating police corruption in his department, undercover cop Buster McHenry is forced to participate in a heist, leading to innocent casualties and the theft of an ancient Lakota tribal spear. After McHenry ends up severely wounded, he is taken in by Native American Hank Storm, who is out to recover the spear and avenge the death of a loved one in the heist.

An undercover cop teams up with a martial-arts expert to stop a gang of drug smugglers and car thieves.

In the year 2029, the barriers of our world have been broken down by the net and by cybernetics, but this brings new vulnerability to humans in the form of brain-hacking. When a highly-wanted hacker known as 'The Puppetmaster' begins involving them in politics, Section 9, a group of cybernetically enhanced cops, are called in to investigate and stop the Puppetmaster.

In a violent, near-apocalyptic Detroit, evil corporation Omni Consumer Products wins a contract from the city government to privatize the police force. To test their crime-eradicating cyborgs, the company leads street cop Alex Murphy into an armed confrontation with crime lord Boddicker so they can use his body to support their untested RoboCop prototype. But when RoboCop learns of the company's nefarious plans, he turns on his masters.

An American master chemist plans to score big on a once in a lifetime drug deal. All does not go as planned and he is soon entangled in a web of deceit.

A man on the verge of a promotion takes a mysterious hallucinogenic drug that begins to tear down his reality and expose his life for what it really is.

David Norton is used to being in control. As a best-selling author, he decides the fate of his characters, their lives and their deaths. But what happens when his fictional world becomes all too real?

In the near future, Major is the first of her kind: a human saved from a terrible crash, then cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals.

Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon dead bodies, $2 million and a hoard of heroin in a Texas desert, but methodical killer Anton Chigurh comes looking for it, with local sheriff Ed Tom Bell hot on his trail. The roles of prey and predator blur as the violent pursuit of money and justice collide.

Along with his new friends, a teenager who was arrested by the US Secret Service and banned from using a computer for writing a computer virus discovers a plot by a nefarious hacker, but they must use their computer skills to find the evidence while being pursued by the Secret Service and the evil computer genius behind the virus.

David Aames has it all: wealth, good looks and gorgeous women on his arm. But just as he begins falling for the warmhearted Sofia, his face is horribly disfigured in a car accident. That's just the beginning of his troubles as the lines between illusion and reality, between life and death, are blurred.

Detective Breslin crosses paths with Calloway, a ruthless hacker desperate to find his wife, who has been kidnapped by a drug cartel. When Calloway escapes police custody, Breslin joins forces with a no-nonsense female cop to reclaim his prisoner. But is Calloway’s crime-boss father somehow involved in this explosive situation?

Recently promoted and transferred to the homicide division, Inspector Jessica Shepard feels pressure to prove herself -- and what better way than by solving San Francisco's latest murder? However, as Shepard and her partner, Mike Delmarco, soon discover, the victim shared a romantic connection to her. As more of Shepard's ex-lovers turn up dead, her mind starts to become unstable, and she begins to wonder if she could be the very killer she's trying to track down.

An artificial intelligence escapes her spaceship to turn into a female ghost and challenges two blade runners to a galactic chase.

The residents of San Francisco are becoming drone-like shadows of their former selves, and as the phenomenon spreads, two Department of Health workers uncover the horrifying truth.

Big time drug dealer Victor Rosa is looking to get out of the game and sees his chance with a big deal with a new friend who happens to be a Wall St. stockbroker. Thinking this will be his chance to go out on top, Victor soon finds out that he's been double crossed and his last option is to get revenge.

In a flooded future London, Detective Harley Stone hunts a serial killer who murdered his partner and has haunted him ever since — but he soon discovers what he is hunting might not be human.

To find Ilona and unlock the secrets of her disappearance, Karas must plunge deep into the parallel worlds of corporate espionage, organized crime and genetic research - where the truth imprisons whoever finds it first and miracles can be bought but at a great price.

After a tragic accident Luke Gibson is left with critical injuries and complete amnesia. A new technological breakthrough from the Hexx Corporation - a Psi-Comp Implant that's hardwired into Luke's brain - saves his life, but Luke soon finds out that this new technology comes with a price and that the Hexx Corporation harbors sinister plans for the new device.

The old and overcrowded penitentiaries are just a memory. Inmates now serve their sentence in a state of deep sleep that renders them harmless, and has drastically reduced recidivism. Until one day, a psychologist in charge of monitoring the mental state of inmates finds himself confronted with a prisoner over whom he's lost all control.

A mind-bending love story following Greg who, after recently being divorced and then fired, meets the mysterious Isabel, a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is just a computer simulation. Doubtful at first, Greg eventually discovers there may be some truth to Isabel’s wild conspiracy.

Rogue agent Gabriel Shear is determined to get his mitts on $9 billion stashed in a secret Drug Enforcement Administration account. He wants the cash to fight terrorism, but lacks the computer skills necessary to hack into the government mainframe. Enter Stanley Jobson, a n'er-do-well encryption expert who can log into anything.

When a drug heist swerves lethally out of control, a jaded cop fights his way through a corrupt city's criminal underworld to save a politician's son.
