The Top 10 Best Movie Cyborgs

5. Grey Trace and Stem- Upgrade

The newest movie to grace this list features a character you would never guess was a cyborg just looking at him. Grey suffers a brutal assault that leaves him paralyzed and his wife dead. Left with nothing to lose he hits rock bottom. Luckily, he’s chosen for a non-FDA approved procedure to implant a chip in his spine that will let him walk again. Enter Stem, the AI controlling the chip. The thing is that Stem doesn’t just let Grey walk again. He gives him a chance to go on a blood-soaked rampage to get back at the ones who killed his wife. While Grey might not be a total badass, when he turns over control to Stem he becomes a brutally efficient killing machine. Most of the characters on this list have very obvious robotic enhancements, Grey’s is subtle but makes him someone who could go toe to toe with the other nine.  Upgrade is easily one of my favorite movies of 2018 and I’ve got my fingers crossed already for a sequel.

4. Luke Skywalker- Star Wars

Things seem so much easier in the Star Wars universe. Losing a limb don’t mean a thing. It’s pretty much the equivalent of getting a boo boo. In fact, I hear the robot nurses snicker if you cry over something as trivial as that. Hell, you don’t even have to go through rehab afterward. Of course, the emotional damage that comes from your daddy being the one who took that limb from you is a whole other thing. Luke threw down with his dad and it ended up costing him big time. That didn’t keep him out of the fight for long though and it’s a good thing too because The Empire was all set to wipe out the Rebels. Luckily, you don’t need both hands to use the force or swing a lightsaber. Losing that hand was a hard ordeal for Luke, but hey it brought him closer to dear old dad in the end.

3. Major Motoko Kusanagi- Ghost in the Shell

You don’t get much more cyborg than the Major. Recently this classic anime/ manga character got her chance to appear on the big screen thanks to an actress that is no stranger to taking on comic book roles. What makes the Major worthy of this list isn’t so much that she’s a total badass, but that she’s a human that is almost completely robotic. At this point, only her cyberbrain remains and that raises a lot of ethical and existential questions. Is she still human? Is she a machine? Is she autonomous? Is she property? Is she even who she thinks she is? Turns out that cyborgs don’t really have it that easy after all. Of course, she’s not on this list because she’s emo. The Major has mastered being a blend of human and machine. She moves through violence like a ballerina. A brutal death bot ballerina.

2. Alex Murphy- Robocop

Cyborgs have been around for a long time, but Alex Murphy is the character that thrust them into the cinematic limelight. A cop brutally gunned down in the line of duty gets a second chance at life thanks to some robotic modifications. Of course, those pesky memories of who he is and what his life once was aren’t really necessary for him to do his job. With all his upgrades he’s able to clean up the streets in a pretty brutal fashion. That all comes to an end though when the masters who have him on a leash turn out to be the bad guys of this tale. He’s forced to go against his prime directives, something the machine in him isn’t a big fan of. The thing is that cyborgs aren’t all machine. There’s still enough man in there to give them a will of their own. That’s what makes them more dangerous than any man or machine at the end of the day.

1. Darth Vader- Star Wars

While baby boy Luke might have lost his hand, Vader lost… Well, his good looks for starters. After refusing to yield to the guy who had the high ground Vader found himself in a world of hurt and down more than a few limbs. He also kinda found himself on fire. An incident like that would probably have ended his career as a Jedi or a Sith, but this is the Star Wars universe. A few hours in the nurse’s office and he was ready to rule the universe with an iron fist. Of course, it helps that he got a much more menacing look as part of his transition to becoming a cyborg. While a lot of the cyborgs on this list use their modifications to be bigger badasses, Vader doesn’t need them. He is strong with the force and barely has to lift a finger to take out an entire ship full of rebels. When he does lift a finger though, you better believe those new robot parts come in handy.

Honorable Mention: Cyborg- Justice League

Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it before. DC sucks Marvel rules. Whatever. Now Marvel has its fair share of cyborgs in the MCU, but none of them come close to the level of modifications cyborg underwent. For the most part, he’s more machine than man at this point and that has caused quite the existential crisis for the characters. Not only is he covered in robotic pieces, but they aren’t even man-made. In fact, no one really knows what he is and what he might be capable of. Still, that doesn’t stop him from helping save the day when the chips are down, no matter how much he wants to play the reluctant hero. While he was introduced in Justice League there’s a full-blown Cyborg movie scheduled to be released by DC, so here’s hoping we get to know this metal man a bit better in the future.

There you have it, 10 of the coolest cyborgs to grace the silver screen. They’ve had everything from arms to eyes to their entire bodies replaced by shiny new parts and use them to lay beat downs on anyone who crosses them. Of course, there are plenty more cyborgs getting ready to hit the silver screen in the near future, so be sure to check back for updates. In the meantime, leave a comment below about who your favorite cyborg is and who you wish you could have seen in the top 10.