Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EBMovies like Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB
- Key Features:
- Dystopian future, Underground world, Escape, Surveillance, Government control, Science fiction, Short film, Technocracy, Loss of identity, Social alienation, Rebellion, Pursuit, Totalitarianism
- Tone:
- serious, stylized, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Sci-fi enthusiasts, Dystopian fiction fans, Experimental film viewers, Short film aficionados
- Emotional Arc:
- Anxiety → Escape
Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB

In an underground city in a dystopian future, the protagonist, whose name is "THX 1138 4EB", is shown running through passageways and enclosed spaces. It is soon discovered that THX is escaping his community. The government uses computers and cameras to track down THX and attempt to stop him; however, they fail. He escapes by breaking through a door and runs off into the sunset. The government sends their condolences to YYO 7117, THX's mate, claiming that THX has destroyed himself. Electronic Labyrinth: THX-1138 4EB is a 1967 science fiction short film written and directed by George Lucas while he attended the University of Southern California's film school.
Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB
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.

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.

“2048: Nowhere to Run” takes place one year before the events of Blade Runner 2049. The short film focuses on Sapper, a man who is trying to make it through life day-by-day without turning back to his old ways. We’re introduced to both the gentle nature of Sapper and the violence he’s capable of when set off.

A high school student is haunted by thoughts of "The Matrix" and a person named "Neo".

This animated short revolves around the events causing an electrical systems failure on the west coast of the US. According to Blade Runner 2049’s official timeline, this failure leads to cities shutting down, financial and trade markets being thrown into chaos, and food supplies dwindling. There’s no proof as to what caused the blackouts, but Replicants — the bio-engineered robots featured in the original Blade Runner, are blamed.

This in-world short film takes place in the year 2036 and revolves around Jared Leto’s character, Niander Wallace. In this short, Wallace introduces a new line of “perfected” replicants called the Nexus 9, seeking to get the prohibition on replicants repealed. This no doubt has serious ramifications that will be crucial to the plot of Blade Runner 2049.

Frikke, a 14-year-old boy, discovers a sinister computer game that uses real children from his neighbourhood as players. In a race against time Frikke must find the evil creator of this horrible game.

A group of people are plunged into a dark, claustrophobic maze, where they must fight to survive, as the outside world watches.

What if mankind had to leave Earth and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off? After hundreds of years doing what he was built for, WALL•E discovers a new purpose in life when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL•E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, and races back to space to report to the humans. Meanwhile, WALL•E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets into motion one of the most imaginative adventures ever brought to the big screen.

Vincent, a young Parisian uncomfortable with his appearance, installs a brain chip named Reality+ which allows users to see themselves and fellow users with their dream body. However, Reality+ only works over 12-hour intervals, proving infuriating for Vincent as he falls for Stella, another user.

"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.

A young man’s life is suddenly and inexplicably derailed, as he finds himself at the mercy of automated ‘justice’.

In the near future, the sun has become so toxic people can no longer leave their houses in daytime, and normal life is conducted mostly inside the virtual realm. Against this dystopian backdrop, a dying man seeks to ensure the future well-being of his family, while coping with what it means to be human in this new reality.

A man trapped in an automated prison must outsmart a computer in order to escape and try and find his way back to the outside world that may already be wiped out.

Following an assassination attempt on Senator Padmé Amidala, Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi investigate a mysterious plot that could change the galaxy forever.

In 2019, Lincoln Six-Echo is a resident of a seemingly "Utopian" but contained facility. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully-controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to The Island — reportedly the last uncontaminated location on the planet. But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie.

A trilogy of separate stories. In "Labyrinth labyrinthos", a girl and her cat enter a strange world. In "Running Man", a racer takes on the ultimate opponent. In "Construction Cancellation Order", a man must shut down worker robots.

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.

In the future, the inmates of a private underground prison are computer-controlled with cameras, dream readers, and devices that can cause pain or death. John and his illegally pregnant wife Karen are locked inside "The Fortress" but are determined to escape before the birth of their baby.

An interstellar teleportation device, found in Egypt, leads to a planet with humans resembling ancient Egyptians who worship the god Ra.

In the immense city of Tokyo, the darkness of the afterlife lures some of its inhabitants who are desperately trying to escape the sadness and isolation of the modern world.

The human resistance works to convert a sentinel to their side. Part of the Animatrix collection of animated shorts set in the Matrix universe.

When Sarah is forced to babysit her half-brother Toby, she inadvertently summons the Goblin King who whisks Toby away to his castle at the center of a labyrinth. Sarah enters into a bargain with the Goblin King where she is given just thirteen hours to solve the labyrinth and rescue Toby, or else lose him forever.

Belgrade, 2074. Edit Stefanović, a psychology student, after failing the same university exam for the sixth time, decides to visit a dealer on the black market who installs a stolen military chip in her body that will record everything she sees to help her pass the exam. Edit also has a job at a scientific and social research company, in taking care of Abel Mustafov, an autistic math genius who discovered a formula that connects all forces in the world, but no computer was able to calculate it fully without becoming self-aware and shutting down immediately after that. After Edit sees the formula graph, the chip calculates the formula, and becomes able to "survive" thanks to its connection to Edit. It develops a parallel personality and affords her abilities greater than she ever imagined.

Paris 2047. Most of the population spend all their time online, connected into virtual worlds, and don't care anymore about reality. A shadow agent, Nash, working for one of the multinational companies behind these virtual worlds, is tracking down terrorists who threaten the system...

A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy lurking directly beneath their neighborhood.

Following an accident, an Engineer of an asteroid mining company endures the extreme limits – both physical and psychological – of human survival, trapped inside an escape pod as he helplessly idles towards the Sun.

David, a robotic boy—the first of his kind programmed to love—is adopted as a test case by a Cybertronics employee and his wife. Though he gradually becomes their child, a series of unexpected circumstances make this life impossible for David.

A group of strangers find themselves trapped in a maze-like prison. It soon becomes clear that each of them possesses the peculiar skills necessary to escape, if they don't wind up dead first.

Daryl is a normal 10-year-old boy in many ways. However, unbeknown to his foster parents and friends, Daryl is actually a government-created robot with superhuman reflexes and mental abilities. Even his name has a hidden meaning -- it's actually an acronym for Data Analyzing Robot Youth Life-form. When the organization that created him deems the "super soldier" experiment a failure and schedules Daryl to be disassembled, it is up to a few rogue scientists to help him escape.

There's something in his apartment. A man looking for an insect-like thing devolves into a bout of insanity as his subconscious mind begins to strangle his waking one.

Loneliness, death and the meaning of life, explored through vastly separate lives colliding in interweaving short stories set in future Earth.

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.

Eccentric scientist Dr. Daniel and his shy assistant Max lead a quiet life on their space station, carrying out illegal research on androids, until they receive an unwelcome visit from three fugitives one of whom is female. Both Dr. Daniel and Max show an interest in her, but one of the other visitors has more sinister intentions.

As the result of a head injury, brilliant computer scientist Harry Benson begins to experience violent seizures. In an attempt to control the seizures, Benson undergoes a new surgical procedure in which a microcomputer is inserted into his brain. The procedure is not entirely successful.

In an oppressive future, where everyone's only contact is their computer, one lonely young man is forced to venture forth in search of human contact.

Ren Amari is the driven inventor of a revolutionary new drug. OtherLife expands the brain's sense of time and creates virtual reality directly in the user's mind. With OtherLife, mere seconds in real life feel like hours or days of exciting adventures. As Ren and her colleagues race around the clock to launch OtherLife, the government muscles in to use the drugs as a radical solution to prison overcrowding. They will create virtual cells where criminals serve long sentences in just minutes of real time. When Ren resists, she finds herself an unwilling guinea pig trapped in a prison cell in her mind. She must escape before she descends into madness, and then regain control of OtherLife before others suffer the same fate.

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.

Cocky researcher Sebastian Caine is working on a project to make living creatures invisible. Determined to achieve the ultimate breakthrough, Caine pushes his team to move to the next phase — using himself as the subject. The test is a success, but when the process can't be reversed and Caine seems doomed to future without flesh, he starts to turn increasingly dangerous.

Unconscious soldiers are dropped into a testing site only to discover their memories have been wiped and that once docile machines are the new intelligence.

When Elias van Dorne, CEO of the world's largest robotics company, introduces his most powerful invention, Kronos-a super-computer designed to end all wars-it determines that humans are the biggest threat and launches a worldwide attack on mankind. A small band of survivors must form an unlikely alliance to survive the greatest artificial intelligence threat man will ever know.

A young programmer whose job is to watch over the reality-warping Cube defies orders to rescue an innocent mother trapped in one of its rooms.

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.

Werner Herzog's exploration of the Internet and the connected world.

1967 film student George Lucas has writer's block trying to finish his "Space Wheat" script, until a beautiful fellow student with a familiar hairstyle teaches him that the best stories are in plain sight.

Dave, an artist who has yet to complete anything significant in his career, builds a fort in his living room out of pure frustration, only to wind up trapped by the fantastical pitfalls, booby traps, and critters of his own creation. Ignoring his warnings, Dave’s girlfriend Annie leads a band of oddball explorers on a rescue mission. Once inside, they find themselves trapped in an ever-changing supernatural world, threatened by booby traps and pursued by a bloodthirsty Minotaur.

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.

Four prison inmates have been hatching a plan to literally dig out of jail when another prisoner, Claude Gaspard, is moved into their cell. They take a risk and share their plan with the newcomer. Over the course of three days, the prisoners and friends break through the concrete floor using a bed post and begin to make their way through the sewer system -- yet their escape is anything but assured.

Delos is a futuristic amusement park that features themed worlds populated by human-like androids. After two patrons have a run-in with a menacing gunslinger in West World, the androids at Delos all begin to malfunction, causing havoc throughout the park.

Earth has been conquered by robots from another galaxy and the human survivors must stay in their homes, or risk incineration.

Bound together by a desire to play "Mazes and Monsters," Robbie and his four college classmates decide to move the board game into the local cavern. Robbie loses his mind, and the line between reality and fantasy fuse into a harrowing nightmare.

A simple man is turned into a genius through the application of computer science.

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.

Executive Harold Pelham suffers a serious accident after which he faces the shadow of death. When, against all odds, he miraculously recovers, he discovers that his life does not belong to him anymore.

A deep space mining vessel has been adrift for two years. It is suspected the crew brutally killed each other, but the reason for the bloodbath is unknown. A rescue crew is sent to find if there are any survivors, what happened and why.

Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.

When the creator of a popular video game system dies, a virtual contest is created to compete for his fortune.

For ten years, inventor David Kressen has lived in seclusion with his inventions, including Adam, a robot with incredible lifelike human qualities. When reporter Joy Andrews is given access to their unconventional facility, she is alternately repelled and attracted to the scientist and his creation. But as Adam exhibits emergent behavior of anger and jealousy towards her, she finds herself increasingly entangled in a web of deception where no one’s motives are easily decipherable.

Year 2038: The mineral resources of the earth are drained, in space there are fights for the last deposits on other planets and satellites. This is the situation when one of the bigger mining corporations has lost all but one mineral moons and many of their fully automatic mining robots are disappearing on their flight home. Since nobody else wants the job, they send prisoners to defend the mining station. Among them undercover agent Stone, who shall clear the whereabouts of the expensive robots. In an atmosphere of corruption, fear and hatred he gets between the fronts of rivaling groups.

Buenos Aires, Argentina. A luxurious van is parked on the sidewalk. A man enters with the purpose of stealing whatever he can find, but when he wants to leave, he cannot. The doors do not open, the control panel does not respond: the van has become an armored box and he is trapped like a mouse.

In the midst of societal conflict in the futuristic city of Metropolis, Kenichi and his uncle Shunsaku Ban set out to uncover the mystery behind the first human-like robot, Tima.

An entire city has lost its voice. Mr. TV, the owner of the city's only television channel, is carrying out a sinister plan to control all of the city's inhabitants.

Two brothers, scientists Scott and Tony Nelson, develop an amplifier which enables a person to enter a 4th dimensional state, allowing him to pass through any object. Scott experiments on himself and discovers that each time he passes through something he ages rapidly. He begins killing people, sucking out their life energies and regaining his youth as a result.

On an uninhabitable 22nd-century Earth, the outcome of a civil war hinges on cloning the brain of an elite soldier to create a robot mercenary.

A planet is discovered in the same orbit as Earth's but is located on the exact opposite side of the sun, making it not visible from Earth. The European Space Exploration Council decide to send American astronaut Glenn Ross and British scientist John Kane via spaceship to explore the other planet.

A top-secret government weapons designer is arrested by a clandestine government organization on suspicion of being a clone created by the hostile alien race wanting to take over Earth.

In post–civil war Spain, 10-year-old Ofelia moves with her pregnant mother to live under the control of her cruel stepfather. Drawn into a mysterious labyrinth, she meets a faun who reveals that she may be a lost princess from an underground kingdom. To return to her true father, she must complete a series of surreal and perilous tasks that blur the line between reality and fantasy.

In 2030 the world is in a permanent state of economic recession and facing serious environmental problems as a result of global warming.

A scientist becomes obsessed with returning his family to normalcy after a terrible accident.

In a totalitarian future society, a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

After their airplane crashes behind enemy lines, four soldiers must survive and try to find a way back to their battalion. However, when they come across a local peasant girl the horrors of war quickly become apparent.

A paraplegic computer engineer that moves in a wheelchair and works in his basement starts hearing noises and voices of bank-robbers.

2081 depicts a dystopian future in which, thanks to the 212th Amendment to the Constitution and the unceasing vigilance of the United States Handicapper General, everyone is "finally equal...." The strong wear weights, the beautiful wear masks and the intelligent wear earpieces that fire off loud noises to keep them from taking unfair advantage.

2038: George Almore is working on a true human-equivalent AI, and his latest prototype is almost ready. This sensitive phase is also the riskiest as he has a goal that must be hidden at all costs—being reunited with his dead wife.

George Orwell's novel of a totalitarian future society in which a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

Washington, D.C. psychologist Carol Bennell and her colleague Dr. Ben Driscoll are the only two people on Earth who are aware of an epidemic running rampant through the city. They discover an alien virus aboard a crashed space shuttle that transforms anyone who comes into contact with it into unfeeling drones while they sleep. Carol realizes her son holds the key to stopping the spread of the plague and she races to find him before it is too late.

Vincent is an all-too-human man who dares to defy a system obsessed with genetic perfection. He is an "In-Valid" who assumes the identity of a member of the genetic elite to pursue his goal of traveling into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation.

Thomas Jerome Newton is an alien who has come to Earth in search of water to save his home planet. Aided by lawyer Oliver Farnsworth, Thomas uses his knowledge of advanced technology to create profitable inventions. While developing a method to transport water, Thomas meets Mary-Lou, a quiet hotel clerk, and begins to fall in love with her. Just as he is ready to leave Earth, Thomas is intercepted by the U.S. government, and his entire plan is threatened.

Two leading computer scientists work toward their goal of Technological Singularity, as a radical anti-technology organization fights to prevent them from creating a world where computers can transcend the abilities of the human brain.

A computer hacker's goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.

For years, we have tried to harness the power of the human mind… and failed. Now, one breakthrough will change everything. Beyond technology. Beyond humanity. Beyond control. David, Ryan, and Jordan hope the telepathy invention will solve all their problems, but the bleeding-edge technology opens a Pandora’s box of new dangers, as the team discovers that when they open their minds, there is nowhere to hide their thoughts.

A nameless drifter navigates a barren landscape punctuated by satellite dishes, radio towers and droning airplanes. Stopping periodically in anonymous hotel rooms, she makes attempts to connect to an unidentified second party.

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.

Experiments in biological warfare have destroyed all but a few remnants of the human race. Alone in a lab, eight students work feverishly to create a vaccine before they are forced outside in search for food. It is then that the surviving scientists discover creatures mutated by the plague. Now they prepare to do battle against their worst fear: The Terror Within.

The war on terror exploded, literally, the day Sarajevo was destroyed by a homemade nuclear device. The leading democracies transformed into total surveillance states, and the developing world has drowned under a wave of genocides. The mysterious American John Paul seems to be behind the collapse of the world system, and it's up to intelligence agent Clavis Shepherd to track John Paul across the wreckage of civilizations and to find the true heart of darkness—a genocidal organ.

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 teenager with no memory of his past finds himself among a group of boys living in a walled enclosure surrounded by a massive, ever-changing maze. As he struggles to adapt to their rules and society, he begins to uncover clues that may lead to escape and the truth behind their confinement.

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.

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.

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

An android fighting-machine is charged with destroying a small brigade of rebels in a Latin American war who are fighting to maintain their freedom and protect their village. Contrary to his programming, Peebles decides to stay and assist the rebels in their plight. Having gained this information, his "creators" develop a more powerful android to try and defeat him.

A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.

After earth is taken over by an army of robots, the small number of humans left are forced into hiding. In the nuclear winter, only droids walk the face of the earth, in fear of the rumored human resurgence, and in search of a hidden cache of weapons. One robot, his evil circuits destroyed, enters a small town where a robot civil war is taking place.

Six young computer hackers sent to work on a derelict space freighter, are forced to match wits with a vengeful artificial intelligence that would kill to be human.

A terminally ill woman opts for a cloning procedure to ease her loss on her friends and family. When she makes a miraculous recovery, her attempts to have her clone decommissioned fail and lead to a court-mandated duel to the death.

SIRIUS 6B, Year 2078. On a distant mining planet ravaged by a decade of war, scientists have created the perfect weapon: a blade-wielding, self-replicating race of killing devices known as Screamers designed for one purpose only -- to hunt down and destroy all enemy life forms.

The film follows Kaspar Hauser, who lived the first seventeen years of his life chained in a tiny cellar with only a toy horse to occupy his time, devoid of all human contact except for a man who wears a black overcoat and top hat who feeds him.

As the president of a trashy TV channel, Max Renn is desperate for new programming to attract viewers. When he happens upon "Videodrome," a TV show dedicated to gratuitous torture and punishment, Max sees a potential hit and broadcasts the show on his channel. However, after his girlfriend auditions for the show and never returns, Max investigates the truth behind Videodrome and discovers that the graphic violence may not be as fake as he thought.

