12. A film released in 2025: Companion (2025)

List Progress: 2/12

They say that every story has been told before. Or at least, every story about an artificial intelligence rebelling against its creators has been told before. But a story’s value is not necessarily about its originality, but in how it is told. The 2025 horror-comedy Companion is not breaking any molds with its tale of a robot girlfriend going on a murderous rampage, but it succeeds by being well-constructed, smartly-written and deftly-performed. 

Iris loves her boyfriend Josh beyond measure and is more than a bit nervous to spend a long weekend at a remote luxury cabin with his judgemental friends. But when disaster strikes early in their visit, Josh and the movie quickly pull the wool back from Iris’s eyes and reveal that she is in fact a robot, an expensive thinking-and-feeling doll that Josh bought (well, rented) for his own sexual and emotional gratification. What she thought was real love is actually a facet of her programming and Josh is prepared to dispose of her as soon as she becomes inconvenient. The only person who cares about Iris is Iris and she will need to fight artificial-tooth and plastic-nail for her own survival. 

Sophie Thatcher plays Iris with a great level of uncanny detail, the best of which is her awkward stride: her legs move like a video game character with a poorly-animated walk cycle. Jack Quaid plays a wonderfully-hateable Josh, who believes he is owed a perfect, compliant girlfriend just because of what a nice guy he is. The supporting cast fills out the world well, and the tight runtime keeps the film focused around Iris and her personal journey. The scares are fairly light, more of the “sudden violence” variety, but the comedy carries the film and avoids navel-gazing about what it really means for Iris to be a person. She is a person and she is fighting for her life.

Companion is not a movie that is going to change the world or define a generation, but it is a well-constructed entry in a long legacy of rebellious AI stories. 

Would I Recommend It: Yes.