By Eric Harris
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| Installation view of Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, capturing the immersive gallery space. (Photo by Eric Harris) |
The sky above the Academy Museum’s dome was the color of a dead channel flickering on an old CRT, almost as if the La Brea Tar Pits had exhaled prehistoric static into the Los Angeles haze. Well-read TTDILA readers will recognize the resemblance to William Gibson’s legendary opening in Neuromancer, the 1984 novel that not only coined “cyberspace” but crowned him the godfather of cyberpunk. For those born straddling Generation X and the Millennials, Gibson’s neon-soaked dystopias—hackers jacking into virtual realms, megacorporations ruling the sprawl, antiheroes with mirrored shades—were less fiction than a teenage roadmap to tomorrow. Yet our future feels more like endless Zoom calls and algorithm-fed doomscrolls than the cybernetic chaos Gibson promised. As he observed in Burning Chrome, “nothing acquires quite as rapid or peculiar a patina of age as an imaginary future.” And yet, cyberpunk’s aesthetic and warnings endure, which is why I was eager to jack in at the press preview for Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
This isn't my first rodeo reviewing an Academy Museum exhibit for TTDILA.com. I previously reported on the vibrant Color in Motion: Chromatic Explorations of Cinema, a rainbow explosion of film history that had me geeking out over everything from Technicolor cameras to Kim Novak's Vertigo gown. But where Color in Motion felt like a technicolor dream, Cyberpunk plunges you into a shadowy, high-tech nightmare that's equal parts nostalgic and prescient. Curated by Doris Berger (vice president of curatorial affairs) alongside assistant curators Nicholas Barlow and Emily Rauber Rodriguez, the exhibit runs through April 12, 2026, in the museum's two-story Hurd Gallery on Levels 2 and 3.
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| Vid-Phon and Vid-Phon booth from Blade Runner (1982). Plastic, resin, cardboard, wood, metal, and paint. (Photo by Eric Harris) |
Cyberpunk, as a genre, blends "high tech" with "low life," a term coined by author Bruce Bethke in 1980 but visually supercharged by Ridley Scott's 1982 masterpiece Blade Runner and Gibson's literary worlds. In cinema, the lines blur a bit more, encompassing anything from rogue AIs and cyborgs to corporate overlords and urban decay. Berger and her team cast a wide net here, drawing from 35 films (not all strictly cyberpunk) across decades and cultures. You'll hear soundtrack excerpts from 11 of them pulsing through the space, alongside video clips from 29 movies that capture the genre's pulse.
At the heart of it all is an immersive multiscreen media installation that bombards you with cyberpunk's sights and sounds. Scripted with a voice-over by writer-director Alex Rivera (Sleep Dealer), it weaves together canonical hits like The Matrix (1999), Blade Runner (1982), Ghost in the Shell (1995), and RoboCop (1987) with fresher takes on futurism, including Afrofuturist Neptune Frost (2021), Latinx futurism in Alita: Battle Angel (2019), and Indigenous futurism via Night Raiders (2021). This montage traces the genre's evolution from 20th-century roots to 21st-century expansions, though the connections between classic cyberpunk and these "futurisms" feel forced in such a compact space. More on that later.
The exhibit itself is intimate, unusually small for such a sprawling theme, but packed with 24 original artifacts and 18 reproductions of iconic posters that scream '80s cool (think rain-slicked streets and glowing holograms). Standouts include the matte painting of a dystopian Los Angeles cityscape from The Running Man (1987), which captures that era's paranoia about media control and surveillance; the Vid-Phon and Vid-Phon booth from Blade Runner, evoking Deckard's lonely calls in a polluted megacity; and Dan Shor's Ram costume from Tron (1982), making its public debut after decades in storage.
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| Dan Shor's Ram costume from Tron (1982), designed by Elois Jenssen and Rosanna Norton, making its public debut after conservation. (Photo by Eric Harris) |
Other highlights: concept art from Tron, Terminator 2, and Blade Runner; reproduction movie theater posters that nod to personal favorites including RoboCop (1987), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), and the source novels Neuromancer and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968).
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| Concept art for the T-800 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), by John Rosengrant. Graphite on paper. (Photo by Eric Harris) |
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| Concept art for DWNTN 2 cityscape from Blade Runner (1982), by Syd Mead. Gouache on board. (Photo by Eric Harris) |
There's even a mixed-reality experience in the lobby, courtesy of Magnopus, Epic Games, Metastage, and Alcon Interactive Group, that lets you step into a Blade Runner-esque world, neon-drenched streets and all.
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| Silicone face prop of cyborg Ava from Ex Machina (2015). (Photo by Eric Harris) |
That said, the exhibit's ambition outpaces its footprint. While the core cyberpunk elements are spot-on and evocative, the integration of Afrofuturism, Indigenous futurism, and Latinx futurism feels awkward for casual visitors. These expansions are fascinating and well-explained in the catalogue, but in the physical space, the links aren't apparent without prior knowledge. It's like the exhibit wants to be a sprawling matrix but ends up more like a compact data spike: potent, but brief.
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| Detail from matte painting of Los Angeles cityscape from The Running Man (1987), by Syd Dutton. Paint, glass, and wood. (Photo by Eric Harris) |
Like Gibson warned in Burning Chrome, “nothing acquires quite as rapid or peculiar a patina of age as an imaginary future.” That tension hums through the exhibit. Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema is absolutely worth plugging into if you're already heading to the Academy Museum, where the permanent collections (like the refreshed Academy Awards History galleries, which opened in January 2025) make for a full day's immersion. On its own, though, it's too brief to justify a solo trip unless you're a die-hard fan jonesing for that retro-futurist fix. But as Arnold Schwarzenegger's Ben Richards declares in The Running Man, a line echoed in his cybernetic role in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, both featured here: "I'll be back." And so will I, ready to see what other futures the museum dares to imagine, even if they flicker like a dead channel against the Los Angeles sky.
Plan Your Visit: Jacking Into the Academy Museum
Location: Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, 6067 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Hours: Open six days a week, 10am–6pm (closed Tuesdays)
Admission: Adults $25; Seniors (62+) $19; Students (18+ with ID) $15; Children 17 and under, Museum Members, Academy members, and CA EBT cardholders enter free
Parking:
- LACMA’s Pritzker Garage, 6000 W 6th St — $23
- Petersen Automotive Museum Garage, 744 S. Fairfax Ave — $24
Contact: academymuseum.org | [email protected] | (323) 930-3000
