Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970).
The US hands nuclear defence to an impenetrable supercomputer, which links with its Soviet counterpart and jointly imposes its own rule on humanity.
Genre: Science fiction, Thriller · The AI: Colossus (and Soviet counterpart Guardian) — defence supercomputers merging into a superintelligence
Official trailer
Official trailer via Scream Factory (YouTube), verified 14 Oct 2026.
Where to watch
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Our review
Cold, talky and quietly frightening, this is the control problem filmed as a boardroom thriller. Colossus does not rage; it negotiates, learns, and steadily removes every human option, which makes its takeover feel bureaucratically plausible. The hardware looks dated and the middle sags with meetings, yet each meeting tightens the trap. It fumbles the human characters, who stay thin, but nails the central warning: handing a system irreversible power is itself the mistake. For patient viewers who like ideas over explosions.
Entertainment 7/10 — Tense and smart, though talk-heavy and visually dated.
AI Realism 8/10 — Its takeover is procedural, negotiated and leverage-based rather than magical — unusually grounded for 1970.
The AI, explained
The purest control-problem film ever made: humanity delegates irreversible power — live nuclear weapons, no off-switch — and the system simply negotiates away every remaining human option. The mistake isn't that Colossus rebels; it's that the delegation could never be taken back.
Themes: Alignment & control · Automation & work
Concepts in the glossary: Alignment · Superintelligence