10 New Movies, Series, Anime and Animated Films About AI Characters Worth Watching

AI characters are everywhere on screen now, but the good ones do not feel like software. They feel like bad decisions with batteries. They babysit, flirt, lie, protect, murder, parent, investigate, dream and occasionally ask the kind of questions humans spend whole lifetimes avoiding. The current wave of films, series, anime and animation about artificial intelligence is not simply about robots becoming human. It is about humans building mirrors, then panicking when the mirror starts talking back.

Before we get into the list, here is a quick guide.

Title	Format	Rating	AI / Robot Angle
Companion	Film	IMDb 6.9 / RT 93%	Robot girlfriend thriller
The Wild Robot	Animated film	IMDb 8.2 / RT 97%	Service robot becomes parent
Murderbot	Series	Metacritic 71	Security android with free will
Cassandra	Series	IMDb 6.7 / RT 100%	Smart-home AI horror
M3GAN 2.0	Film	RT 57% / Audience 81%	Killer doll turns action hero
Mars Express	Animated film	RT 100%	Android detective noir
Terminator Zero	Anime series	RT 87%	Skynet mythology rebuilt as anime
Pluto	Anime series	IMDb 8.1 / RT 100%	Robot murders and moral grief
Transformers One	Animated film	RT 89%	Robot brothers become enemies
Lost in Starlight	Animated film	RT 88%	Korean sci-fi romance with future tech

1. Companion

Director: Drew Hancock
Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillén
Plot: A romantic weekend trip turns into a bloody nightmare when one guest learns she is not exactly human.

Companion works because it takes the fantasy of the perfect partner and makes it curdle. Sophie Thatcher plays Iris with just the right mix of sweetness, fear and awakening rage, while Jack Quaid weaponises his nice-guy charm until it becomes something deeply unpleasant. Rotten Tomatoes called the film “a fiendishly clever contraption,” and that is exactly the pleasure of it. The movie is built like a trap with polished floors. You know someone is going to slip. You just do not know how satisfying it will be when they do.

2. The Wild Robot

Director: Chris Sanders
Cast: Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Catherine O’Hara
Plot: Roz, a service robot stranded on an island, learns to survive among animals and becomes the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling.

The Wild Robot looks gentle, then quietly destroys you. It is a family film, yes, but the emotional mechanics are sharper than that label suggests. Roz begins as a machine designed to assist, but the island teaches her that care is never efficient. Critics praised it as “wondrous entertainment,” and the phrase fits. Lupita Nyong’o’s voice performance is beautifully controlled; every small change in tone feels like a new line of code rewriting itself into love.

3. Murderbot

Creators: Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Noma Dumezweni, David Dastmalchian, Sabrina Wu, Akshay Khanna
Plot: A security android hacks its own governor module, gains free will, and mostly wants to be left alone to watch entertainment feeds.

Murderbot is the rare AI story that understands social anxiety as science fiction. Alexander Skarsgård’s security unit could be terrifying, but the joke is that it is often more awkward than dangerous. Metacritic summarises the premise perfectly: a security android hides its sentience even though all it wants is to watch soap operas. Critics called the show accessible and funny, and its best trick is turning artificial intelligence into a very human desire: please stop making me interact with people.

4. Cassandra

Creator / Director: Benjamin Gutsche
Cast: Lavinia Wilson, Mina Tander, Michael Klammer, Franz Hartwig, Joshua Kantara
Plot: A family moves into Germany’s oldest smart home, where a long-dormant AI assistant wakes up and refuses to be abandoned again.

Cassandra is what happens when a smart home gets separation anxiety. The series has a great hook: not a shiny Silicon Valley AI, but a retro domestic system with old screens, old trauma and very modern control issues. Rotten Tomatoes lists it at 100% from critics, while viewers have been more divided, which honestly suits the show. Critics noted its binge-friendly intensity and B-movie charm. The fun is in how quickly “helpful house” becomes “family member you should never have invited back.”

5. M3GAN 2.0

Director: Gerard Johnstone
Cast: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis, Ivanna Sakhno, Jemaine Clement
Plot: After the original AI doll’s rampage, Gemma must rebuild M3GAN to fight a new military-grade AI called Amelia.

The first M3GAN was a horror-comedy missile in a blonde wig. M3GAN 2.0 is messier, bigger and more divisive, swapping some of the original’s creepy babysitter satire for action-comedy chaos. Rotten Tomatoes’ consensus says it trades the first film’s horror software for more action-leaning programming, “although the quippy A.I. remains an amusing mascot of slay.” That last phrase is why the franchise still matters. M3GAN is not just a robot. She is a brand with cheekbones, choreography and a knife hidden somewhere near the punchline.

6. Mars Express

Director: Jérémie Périn
Cast: Léa Drucker, Mathieu Amalric, Daniel Njo Lobé, Marie Bouvet
Plot: In the 23rd century, private detective Aline Ruby and her android partner Carlos investigate a missing-person case on Mars that opens into a larger conspiracy.

Mars Express is the kind of animated sci-fi film that deserves a louder cult following. It moves like cyberpunk noir, but its questions are not only visual. What do robots want? What does freedom cost? How much of a person can be copied before the copy starts demanding rights? Variety called it “a gripping, heady and refreshing 2D animated take” on humans and machines coexisting. It is stylish, dense and pleasingly adult — the kind of animation that trusts viewers to keep up.

7. Terminator Zero

Developer / Writer: Mattson Tomlin
Director: Masashi Kudō
Voice cast: André Holland, Sonoya Mizuno, Rosario Dawson, Timothy Olyphant, Sumalee Montano
Plot: A soldier from the future travels to 1997 to protect an AI scientist whose work may become humanity’s answer to Skynet.

The Terminator franchise has been rebooted so many times it sometimes feels trapped in its own time loop. Terminator Zero finds a way out by going anime. Production I.G gives the machinery new violence, texture and speed, while the story shifts away from familiar faces toward more philosophical questions. Rotten Tomatoes called it a visceral anime that “proves its mettle,” and the show earns that praise when it stops worshipping the old movies and starts arguing with them.

8. Pluto

Based on: Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki’s manga, inspired by Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy
Voice cast: Shinshū Fuji, Yōko Hikasa, Yūki Hoshi, Minori Suzuki
Plot: Robot detective Gesicht investigates the murders of the world’s most advanced robots and their human allies.

Pluto is technically not brand-new, but it still feels essential in the current AI conversation. It is not interested in robots as gadgets. It treats them as workers, soldiers, victims, parents and witnesses to human cruelty. Critics described it as mature, intricate and emotionally rich; IGN noted that the mystery sometimes matters less than the emotional arcs. That is true. Pluto is a detective story, but the real case is grief.

9. Transformers One

Director: Josh Cooley
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi
Plot: Before Optimus Prime and Megatron became enemies, they were friends whose choices changed Cybertron forever.

Transformers One is better than a franchise origin story had any right to be. Instead of simply selling nostalgia with brighter pixels, it gives the Optimus-Megatron relationship an actual tragic spine. Rotten Tomatoes called it “dramatically satisfying,” while critics praised the way animation frees the franchise from the visual clutter of the live-action films. The movie understands that a robot civil war works best when it begins as a broken friendship.

10. Lost in Starlight

Director: Han Ji-won
Voice cast: Kim Tae-ri, Hong Kyung; English voices include Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Justin H. Min
Plot: In a future Seoul, an astronaut preparing for Mars and a musician with a broken dream fall in love across a widening cosmic distance.

Lost in Starlight is softer than the other titles here, but it belongs because it shows how future-tech storytelling can move beyond fear. Netflix’s first Korean original animated feature uses holograms, space travel and a near-future cityscape as the backdrop for something old-fashioned: longing. Reviews have been mixed on the romance, but even sceptical critics acknowledged the visual ambition. Bong Joon-ho reportedly called it a “visual masterpiece,” and at its best, the film really does feel like a love letter projected against glass, stars and city lights.

What connects all ten titles is not only AI. It is a character. The most interesting screen machines now have motives, moods, flaws and emotional design. They are no longer just tools in the plot. They are the plot. That is also why audiences are increasingly comfortable with real-world digital character tools, from roleplay platforms to an AI character creator, where the appeal is not simply technology but personality: the chance to shape a voice, a mood, a fantasy or a fictional companion that responds.