THX 1138 (1971)
The Future is here.
People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.
THX 1138 keeps every mind human — it fights its subject at zero distance. The story fights on E8/E10 of the E0–E14 reality ladder, compressing control, surveillance, conformity, drugs, rebellion.
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 Truman Show (1998)alters at E10 · same rung · rigorous
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)alters at E10 · same rung · rigorous
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)alters at E10 · same rung · rigorous
Battle Royale (2000)alters at E10 · same rung · rigorous
Eagle Eye (2008)alters at E10 · same rung · loose
The Circle (2017)alters at E10 · same rung · looseSame people
Shared director or cast.
