Dark City (1998)
They built the city to see what makes us tick. Last night, one of us went off.
A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.
In Dark City, consciousness is carried by aliens — a plane of “memory‑tuned city”. The story fights on E8/E11 of the E0–E14 reality ladder, compressing memory, identity, control, experiment, reality.
Same rung, same subject
Films fighting at the same level of reality, about the same things.
Same subject, different rung
The same preoccupations examined at another scale — one mind versus a nation.
Also bends a rule of reality
Other films that change a standing rule of their world — ranked first by those bending it at the same rung.
The Matrix (1999)alters at E0 · same rung · rigorous
The Thirteenth Floor (1999)alters at E0 · same rung · loose
Bliss (2021)alters at E0 · same rung · loose
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)alters at E0 · same rung · loose
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)alters at E0 · same rung · loose
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)alters at E0 · same rung · looseAlso hides consciousness here
Other films that move a human interior onto the same kind of thing.
The Host (2013)consciousness in aliens · alien‑occupied Earth
The Little Prince (2015)consciousness in aliens · imaginative cosmos
The Signal (2014)consciousness in aliens · alien integration facility
Solaris (1972)consciousness in aliens · memory-planet
Solaris (2002)consciousness in aliens · psychic ocean
The Astronaut's Wife (1999)consciousness in aliens · alien-possessed astronautSame subject, different mask
The same preoccupations carried by a different kind of thing — grief told through the dead, an animal, a machine.
Nirvana (1997)consciousness in machines · control, identity
Oblivion (2013)consciousness in machines · control, identity
Toy Story 3 (2010)consciousness in objects · identity, memory
March of the Penguins (2005)consciousness in animals · control, identity
Inside Out (2015)consciousness in abstractions · identity, memory
Toy Story (1995)consciousness in objects · identity, memory
