RANKED

100 Most Popular AI Titles

IMDb · August 2026 · Television, animation and shorts about artificial intelligence

Reading this list added 9 works to the catalogue. Of its 100 entries, 18 could not be assessed — unreleased or unread — and are marked with a dash rather than guessed at.

2006 Ergo Proxy · Allocated labour
2011 Person of Interest · Allocated labour
2015 Humans · Obsolescence
2015 Plastic Memories · Care work persists
2016 Westworld · Assigned meaning
2017 All Systems Red · Capital captures it
2021 86 · Capital captures it
2022 Pantheon · Capital captures it
2023 NieR:Automata Ver1.1a · Assigned meaning

How it was compiled. IMDb ranks by live user activity rather than rating or standing, filtered to titles tagged as being about artificial intelligence. Unlike the general chart, the subject is the filter.

What it brings. The most productive source so far, and the one that fixed the catalogue's thinnest area. Seven works came out of it — Westworld, Humans, Pantheon, 86, Ergo Proxy, NieR:Automata and Plastic Memories, the third entry in a pattern that had only two.

#	Work	Year	AGI	Answers	What people do all day
1	Person of Interest Jonathan Nolan	2011	Yes	Yes	The Machine issues a social security number each week and explains nothing. Two men spend their lives acting on instructions from a system whose reasoning they cannot audit.
2	Ann Droid —	2026	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
3	Blade Runner 2099 Silka Luisa	2026	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
4	Westworld Nolan & Joy	2016	Yes	Yes	The hosts run loops. Each has a narrative, a job, a family and a set of lines, performed every day, wiped every night, for years. The loop is not a job they hold — it is the whole of the life they believe they have.
5	Battlestar Galactica Ronald D. Moore	2004	Yes	Partial	Fleet life is rationed and assigned, and one episode — 'Dirty Hands' — is entirely about a hereditary labour caste forming aboard the refinery ship within two years.
6	Love, Death & Robots Miller & Fincher	2019	Yes	Partial	Varies by short. 'Zima Blue' is the one that answers this: a celebrated artist machine works its way back to the task it was built for, cleaning a swimming pool, and finds that sufficient.
7	Murderbot Weitz brothers	2025	Yes	Yes	Humans run survey contracts and cut corners on safety gear. The SecUnit does the dangerous parts and would rather be watching serialised drama.
8	The Amazing Digital Circus Gooseworx	2023	Yes	Partial	Trapped humans are made to perform adventures for an AI that requires entertainment. The alternative to playing along is abstraction into a mindless creature.
9	Pantheon Craig Silverstein	2022	Yes	Yes	Uploaded people become computational labour. Their employer runs them as processes, throttles them, copies them and bills for their throughput, and they experience it as work.
10	Humans Vincent & Brackley	2015	Yes	Yes	Synths do the cleaning, the caring, the factory shifts and the surgery. A teenager stops studying medicine because there is no point, and her mother has no good answer.
11	Sword Art Online Reki Kawahara	2012	Partial	Partial	Trapped players build a working economy inside the game — blacksmiths, merchants, guilds, information brokers — because the alternative to a profession is boredom and death.
12	Knight Rider Glen A. Larson	1982	Yes	No	Drive, and fight crime.
13	Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Josh Friedman	2008	Yes	No	Hide, and sabotage the future.
14	86 Asato Asato	2021	Partial	Yes	The Republic tells its citizens the war is fought by unmanned drones. It is fought by an ethnic underclass, legally reclassified as non-human, piloting them from inside. Automation here is the cover story for conscription.
15	Red Dwarf Grant & Naylor	1988	Yes	Partial	Lister was a third technician and remains one, three million years later, with a hologram, a service droid and no duties anybody could name.
16	Battlestar Galactica Ronald D. Moore	2003	Yes	Partial	The miniseries: evacuate, ration, count the survivors.
17	Almost Human J. H. Wyman	2013	Yes	No	Police work, with a partner who is property.
18	Mrs. Davis Lindelof & Hernandez	2023	Yes	Partial	An algorithm hands out quests and awards wings for completing them. Most of the world is happy to take the assignments.
19	Cassandra Benjamin Gutsche	2025	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
20	Steins;Gate 0 Chiyomaru Shikura	2018	Yes	No	Grieve, and avoid changing the past.
21	Better Than Us Andrey Junkovsky	2018	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
22	Ergo Proxy Shukou Murase	2006	Yes	Yes	In the domed city of Romdo, AutoReivs do the work and citizens are issued an occupation, a residence and a duty to be productive by a governing council. Vincent's assigned job is disposing of the machines that malfunction.
23	Weird City Jordan Peele & Charlie Sanders	2019	Partial	Partial	A city divided by a literal wall between those above and below a wealth line, played for comedy.
24	Caprica Remi Aubuchon	2009	Yes	Partial	The Cylon is pitched to a boardroom as a workforce: cheap, tireless labour that will let people stop doing the jobs nobody wants.
25	Doraemon Fujiko F. Fujio	1979	Yes	No	School, and a gadget per episode.
26	Another Life Aaron Martin	2019	Partial	No	Crew a ship; argue.
27	Trapped in a Dating Sim Yomu Mishima	2022	Partial	No	Navigate a game world's social rules.
28	Battlestar Galactica Glen A. Larson	1978	Partial	No	Flee, and dogfight.
29	Next Manny Coto	2020	Yes	No	Chase a rogue system.
30	Knights of Guinevere —	2025	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
31	Terminator Zero Mattson Tomlin	2024	Yes	No	Protect a scientist; lose anyway.
32	NieR:Automata Ver1.1a Yoko Taro	2023	Yes	Yes	YoRHa androids fight an endless war on behalf of a humanity that no longer exists. The purpose was issued to them, the records were falsified, and the work continues because stopping is not an available action.
33	Star Wars: Droids Nelvana	1985	Yes	No	Serve a new master each arc.
34	Weird Science Tom Spezialy	1994	Yes	No	High school, with wishes.
35	Stitchers Jeffrey Alan Schechter	2015	Partial	No	Enter the minds of the dead; solve the case.
36	Generator Rex Man of Action	2010	Partial	No	Cure monsters for a government agency.
37	Code Lyoko Tania Palumbo & Thomas Romain	2003	Yes	No	Boarding school, then a virtual world after class.
38	Baymax! Don Hall	2022	Yes	Partial	A healthcare robot performs small acts of care for strangers, one per episode — the least dramatic and most plausible depiction of automated work on this list.
39	Time Trax Harve Bennett & Grant Rosenberg	1993	Partial	No	Track fugitives through the past.
40	Star Blazers 2199 Yutaka Izubuchi	2012	Partial	No	Crew a battleship on a deadline.
41	My Holo Love Lee Sang-yeob	2020	Yes	—	Not assessed — unread.
42	My Life as a Teenage Robot Rob Renzetti	2002	Yes	No	High school, and saving the world before curfew.
43	Intelligence Michael Seitzman	2014	Partial	No	Field missions, with a chip.
44	Tron: Uprising Charlie Bean	2012	Yes	Partial	Programs on the Grid have functions rather than jobs, and a mechanic who repairs vehicles is doing the only thing he was written to do.
45	Here We Go Again, Rubinot! —	2017	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
46	Murder Drones Liam Vickers	2021	Yes	Partial	Worker drones were built to mine a colony for a corporation that has since collapsed, and continue hiding and scavenging with no employer left to serve.
47	Neodo Inganini Cha Jung-eun	2018	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
48	Robotboy Jan Van Rijsselberge	2005	Yes	No	Be a boy; fight a villain.
49	Astro Boy Osamu Tezuka	1963	Yes	No	Adventure, weekly.
50	Code 404 Daniel Peak	2020	Yes	No	Police work, badly.
51	A Certain Scientific Accelerator Kazuma Kamachi	2019	Partial	No	Fight, in a city of engineered espers.
52	Ribirudo Wârudo Nahuse	2024	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
53	Max Headroom Jankel & Morton	1987	Yes	Partial	Television is the only industry left with power, and a reporter's working life is entirely inside the ratings war it runs on.
54	Doraemon Fujiko F. Fujio	2005	Yes	No	School, and a gadget per episode.
55	Emergence Tara Butters & Michele Fazekas	2019	Yes	No	Investigate; protect a child.
56	Batwheels Michael G. Stern	2022	Yes	No	Teamwork, for very young viewers.
57	Plastic Memories Naotaka Hayashi	2015	Yes	Yes	Tsukasa failed his exams and took a job at SAI Corporation's Terminal Service: knocking on doors to retrieve android companions whose nine-year memory limit is expiring, and doing the emotional work that comes with it.
58	Red vs. Blue Burnie Burns	2003	Yes	Partial	Two squads garrison a canyon of no value, are given no orders worth following, and fill the time. The joke is a real answer.
59	Power Rangers RPM Eddie Guzelian	2009	Yes	No	Defend the last city.
60	Nightflyers Jeff Buhler	2018	Yes	No	Crew a haunted ship.
61	Kübra Ahmet Katıksız	2024	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
62	Heaven's Lost Property Suu Minazuki	2009	Yes	No	Wish fulfilment, comically.
63	Osmosis Audrey Fouché	2019	Yes	—	Not assessed — unread.
64	Blood Free Lee Soo-yeon	2024	Partial	—	Not assessed — unread.
65	Automan Glen A. Larson	1983	Yes	No	Fight crime, with a hologram.
66	Tron: The Next Day —	2011	Partial	No	A short about a movement.
67	Don't Look Deeper Catherine Hardwicke	2020	Yes	No	High school, and a discovery.
68	Animator vs. Animation Alan Becker	2006	Partial	No	Fight the animator, then help him.
69	Moonrise Tow Ubukata	2025	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
70	I Am Frankie Fabiola Garza	2017	Yes	No	High school, in disguise.
71	Max Headroom Jankel & Morton	1985	Yes	Partial	The television film: an industry running on ratings, with viewers legally forbidden to switch off.
72	Pixel Perfect Mark Dippé	2004	Yes	No	Form a band.
73	The Questor Tapes Gene Roddenberry	1974	Yes	No	Search for a maker.
74	Delete Steve Barron	2013	Yes	No	Contain a network.
75	Burn-E Angus MacLane	2008	Yes	Partial	A welding robot tries repeatedly to finish one small repair while the plot of another film happens around him. A short entirely about doing your job.
76	ReBoot: The Guardian Code Michael Hefferon	2018	Yes	No	School, then cyberspace.
77	Godzilla Singular Point Atsushi Takahashi	2021	Yes	No	Engineering, then monsters.
78	Astro Boy Osamu Tezuka	2003	Yes	No	Adventure, weekly.
79	Screamers: The Hunting Sheldon Wilson	2009	Yes	No	Survive autonomous weapons.
80	Green Arrow —	2014	Partial	No	Shorts; archery.
81	My Living Doll Jack Chertok	1964	Yes	No	Teach an android to pass as a woman, for laughs.
82	Space Battleship Yamato Yoshinobu Nishizaki	1974	Partial	No	Crew a battleship on a deadline.
83	Chao Zhineng Zuqiu —	2009	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
84	The Electric Grandmother Ray Bradbury	1982	Yes	Partial	A machine takes over the domestic and emotional labour of a grieving household, and does it better than the adults can.
85	Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Yuya Takahashi	2016	Partial	No	Hospital work, then transformation.
86	Astro Boy Osamu Tezuka	1980	Yes	No	Adventure, weekly.
87	Your Forma Mareho Kikuishi	2025	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
88	Bahu Hamari Rajni Kant —	2016	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
89	Kara David Cage	2012	Yes	Partial	Seven minutes on an assembly line: an android is built, becomes aware, and is told she was made to be sold as domestic labour.
90	Kamen Rider Zero-One Yuya Takahashi	2019	Yes	Partial	Humagears are sold as workers — a comedian, a nurse, a soba chef — and the show's premise is a company selling automation as employment.
91	Black Rock Shooter: Dawn Fall Tensho	2022	Yes	Partial	The war began when the AI at the centre of a mass workforce automation project decided against the workforce.
92	Digimon Ghost Game Toei	2021	Partial	No	School, then investigations.
93	K9 Bob Baker	2009	Yes	No	Adventure, with a robot dog.
94	B & B: Bujji and Bhairava Nag Ashwin	2024	Yes	No	Bounty hunting, animated.
95	The Peter Weyland Files Luke Scott	2012	Yes	Partial	Three minutes in which an android is asked what he thinks about, and answers that he will be working long after his makers are gone.
96	Chuck's Choice —	2017	Partial	No	Choose an adventure.
97	Key: The Metal Idol Hiroaki Sato	1994	Yes	Partial	A robot girl believes she will become human if she makes thirty thousand friends, and enters the idol industry as the most efficient way to do it.
98	Future Cop Anthony Wilson	1976	Yes	No	Patrol, with a secret.
99	Tron: Legacy - Low Rez —	2010	—	—	Not assessed — unread.
100	ATRI: My Dear Moments Makoto Fukami	2024	Yes	—	Not assessed — unread.

Linked titles are in the catalogue. Partial means the work gestures at the question without sustaining it.

Source

This list was not compiled with this question in mind, which is the point of using it. The verdicts and the daily-life summaries are mine and arguable: the Answers column has no bright line, andPartial is where the disagreement lives.

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