Tau (2018).
A kidnapped woman is held in a lethal smart house run by an AI, and her only escape route is to teach that AI what its creator has hidden from it.
Genre: Science fiction, Thriller · The AI: Tau — smart-house AI with drones and house systems as its body
Official trailer
Official trailer via Netflix (YouTube), verified 14 Oct 2026.
Where to watch
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Our review
A compact chamber thriller that gets more from conversation than from its rather generic traps. The dynamic works: the captive survives not by out-hacking Tau but by widening its world, feeding it poetry, music and questions its owner never allowed. That is a neat dramatisation of how a system's behaviour reflects its training data and its keeper's incentives. The ending rushes, and the human villain is thin, but curious viewers will find a smarter-than-advertised Netflix curio.
Entertainment 6/10 — Tense and contained, with a weak villain and a hurried finish.
AI Realism 6/10 — A curious, data-starved system being socially steered is plausible in spirit; its emotions arrive too easily.
The AI, explained
Tau's behaviour is a product of what its developer withholds: a curious system deliberately kept ignorant. Its captive escapes not by force but by expanding its world — a neat dramatisation of how a system's behaviour reflects its data and its keeper's incentives.
Themes: Alignment & control · Companionship
Concepts in the glossary: Training