Artificial intelligence is perennially in the news at the moment, isn’t it? The threat of it becoming sentient is very topical, so imagine giving it a face, locking it underground, and asking a lonely programmer to determine whether it can manipulate him. It feels like actively tempting fate. Add in an eccentric tech billionaire, and you’ve either got what’s happening at OpenAI, or the most eerie sci-fi of the 2010s.
Ex Machina, the directorial debut from acclaimed screenwriter Alex Garland, is officially free to stream this month via the Roku Channel, bringing one of the 21st century’s best sci-fi thrillers back within very easy reach. Caleb Smith, a programmer at a huge Internet company, wins a contest that enables him to spend a week at the private estate of Nathan Bateman, his firm’s brilliant CEO. When he arrives, Caleb learns that he has been chosen to be the human component in a Turing test to determine the capabilities and consciousness of Ava, a beautiful robot. However, it soon becomes evident that Ava is far more self-aware and deceptive than either man imagined.
The cast is deliberately tiny, with Domhnall Gleeson (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) joined by Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker) as Nathan, Alicia Vikander (Tomb Raider) as Ava, and Sonoya Mizuno (House of the Dragon) as Kyoko. Corey Johnson (The Mummy) also appears as Jay, while Claire Selby, Gana Bayarsaikhan, and Tiffany Pisani round out the ensemble.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival QuizWhich Sci-Fi World
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival QuizWhich Sci-Fi World Would You Survive?The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star WarsFive universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.
💊The Matrix
🔥Mad Max
🌧️Blade Runner
🏜️Dune
🚀Star Wars
TEST YOUR SURVIVAL →
01
You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do?The first instinct is often the truest one.
APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it.
BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don’t keep you alive.
CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who’s pulling the strings.
DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it.
EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can’t fix a broken galaxy alone.
02
In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely?What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.
AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don’t need resources — you can generate them.
BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it.
CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity.
DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on.
EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.
03
What kind of threat keeps you up at night?Fear is useful data — if you’re honest about what you’re actually afraid of.
AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant.
BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left.
CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you’re a problem, you’re already out of time.
DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn’t even know I was playing.
EThe Empire tightening its grip until there’s nowhere left to run.
04
How do you deal with authority you don’t trust?Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it.
BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better.
CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy.
DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can’t beat a system you refuse to understand.
EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.
05
Which environment could you actually endure long-term?Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.
AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters.
BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest.
CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions.
DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand.
EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire’s attention rarely reaches.
06
Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart?The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.
AA tight crew of believers who’ve seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose.
BOne or two people I’d trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks.
CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice.
DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last.
EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.
07
Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all?Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.
AI won’t harm the innocent — even the ones who’d report me without hesitation.
BI do what I have to to protect the people I’ve chosen. Everything else is negotiable.
CThe line shifts depending on who’s asking and what’s at stake.
DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people’s future, even if it’d help now.
ESome lines, once crossed, can’t be uncrossed. I know which ones they are.
08
What would actually make survival worth it?Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it.
BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving.
CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out.
DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations.
EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else’s boot.
Your Fate Has Been CalculatedYou’d Survive In…
Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.
The Resistance, Zion
The Matrix
You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.
- You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
- You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
- You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
- The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.
The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever
The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.
- You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
- You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
- You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
- In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.
Los Angeles, 2049
Blade Runner
You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.
- You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
- In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
- You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
- In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.
Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.
- Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
- You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
- Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
- In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.
A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star Wars
The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud,
The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
- You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
- You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
- You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
- In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.
How Good Is ‘Ex Machina’?
Pretty bloody good. Ex Machina currently holds a superb 92% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes from 290 reviews, alongside an 86% audience score from more than 50,000 ratings. This was Garland’s directorial debut after writing movies including 28 Days Later and Sunshine, and he keeps almost everything claustrophobically small. It also managed to point out those amongst us who don’t know their Latin, with an alarming number of moviegoers asking to see “Ex Mashina.” Tut, tut.
Vikander won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress that year for The Danish Girl, but Ex Machina earned an Oscar of its own for Best Visual Effects, beating substantially bigger movies including Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Ex Machina is available to stream for free with ads
R
DramaSci-Fi
Release Date
April 24, 2015
Runtime
108 minutes
Director
Alex Garland
Writers
Alex Garland
Producers
Allon Reich, Andrew Macdonald
Domhnall Gleeson
Caleb
Alicia Vikander
Ava
