We discuss 10 movies like Lucy you must watch. Keep this list handy and add these highly recommended films to your watch list.
Luc Besson’s Lucy premiered in theaters during the summer of 2014 but continues to be talked about to this day. The story focuses on an American student named Lucy, played by Scarlett Johansson, who is tasked with transporting a new drug into Europe. However, when the drug unexpectedly drops into her bloodstream, she starts to gain consciousness over the 100% of her brain. (It’s been scientifically proven that humans only have access to 10% of our brain capacity.)
If you’ve seen Lucy and are looking for similar films to it, this is your lucky day — here are 10 movies like Lucy you might enjoy. Also, before you look through this list, we also have a 10 Movies similar to Lucy on Netflix list too.
10 Movies like Lucy you must watch
Limitless (2011)
This Neil Burger-directed sci-fi thriller from 2011 stars Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro and is an adaptation of the novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn. It follows Cooper as a struggling author in New York City who is given a new drug named NZT-48, which initially helps him concentrate and overcome his writer’s block, but soon proves to be much more powerful than that, essentially giving him superpowers. That will soon get him in trouble with dangerous people that would like the drug to be kept a secret and also cause him health problems. A sequel series to the film debuted in 2015 but was canceled after one season.
Project Power (2020)
Project Power premiered on Netflix in the summer of 2020 and follows Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Dominique Fishback in a world where a drug is being distributed that can give the user superpowers for five minutes. The movie received mixed reactions from critics and audiences, who claimed that the premise was underexplored. However, it made for a fun and entertaining piece of content that will satisfy your Sunday afternoon.
The Matrix (1999)
So far, the two movies on this list have been similar to Lucy in that they used drugs to give the user’s body to superpowers. A key element of the Scarlett Johansson film is that the drug allows people to expand their minds and what they are capable of. Continuing that line of thought, there is one movie that comes to mind — the Wachowskis’ The Matrix, arguably one of the most influential films of the past 25 years.
The Matrix has been ripped, paid homage to, and exploited with three sequels that never reached the heights of the original. The story follows Keanu Reeves’ Neo, a human working as a coder who learns that he’s been living in an illusion of 0s and 1s created by machines. When he meets Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), he learns that he holds the power to defeat the machines and save humanity from extinction.
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
If The Matrix has been ripped and parodied over and over these past few years, we must mention one of its biggest inspirations — 1995’s Ghost in the Shell, arguably one of the most iconic anime films of all time. Directed by Mamoru Oshii and adapting Masamune Shirow’s manga of the same name, it follows a cyborg public security agent as she hunts down a hacker only known as Puppet Muster in 2029, Japan. It explores themes of identity and the rise of technology and what it’s doing to humanity. The IP has inspired multiple pieces of media, from animated films to animated series, video games, and even a live-action feature starring none other than Scarlett Johansson.
Inception (2010)
Going back to the themes of movies about the expansion of the mind, we have one of the most inventive and original films of the 21st century. Christopher Nolan’s iconic sci-fi film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and a long string of top-tier actors is perhaps most famous for its jaw-dropping setpieces, which include a rotating hallway recreated practically and buildings folding onto themselves, and its highly-discussed ending. The film is set in a sci-fi world where people can control their dreams and even access someone else’s, essentially having a portal to their minds. This is exploited by DiCaprio’s character, who sells his ability to infiltrate someone’s mind to steal their deepest secrets.
Upgrade (2018)
Leigh Whannell’s underrated cyberpunk feature stars Logan Marshall-Green as a recently-paralyzed man who has implanted a microchip that will allow him to control his body. On top of that, in the accident that left him paralyzed, he was assaulted by a group of four men who killed his wife. After recovering bodily functions thanks to the chip, he starts a revenge tour.
The film came and went unnoticed at the box office, despite critical praise and Blumhouse’s backing. Whannell would go on to write Elizabeth Moss’ The Invisible Man for the studio, one of the last overperforming movies at the box office before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Transcendence (2014)
Transcendence, which stars Johnny Depp in one of the films that put the nail in the coffin of his career prior to her off-screen ventures, was not particularly well-received. However, if you are looking for a sci-fi film to spend an afternoon without turning on your brain and shoving popcorn down your throat while enjoying shallow entertainment, this might do it for you.
It follows Depp as a researcher in artificial intelligence who, along with his team, is racing to finish a groundbreaking project which he believes will create a technological singularity, which he calls “Transcendence.” Meanwhile, though, a group of anti-technology radicals is targeting his company and research.
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
The term “butterfly effect” in chaos theory refers to the event in which a small change in the initial state of a given system can result in massive differences in a later state. This is directly applied onto the 2004 mind-bending thriller directed by Eric Bress and starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart. The story follows a 20-year-old student who has been experiencing short blackout periods and memory losses since his childhood. Years later, in his 20s, he discovers that he can travel back in time to inhabit his younger self during those periods. Once he realizes that, he tries to change the past to generate a brighter future. Once again, like Lucy, The Butterfly Effect focuses on a human that finds he can expand his mind to features none of his peers are able to, essentially gaining superpowers.
Splice (2009)
Vincenzo Natali’s sci-fi horror flick from 2009 stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley as two scientists trying to splice animal DNA to create hybrids for medical use at the company. They decide to step up the game by introducing human DNA to create the first human-animal hybrid, something prohibited by their employer but which they actively pursue, despite the moral gray areas that they will soon find themselves navigating, once Dren, the hybrid creature, starts to gain consciousness and surpasses their creators in every way.
Midnight Special (2016)
The last film in our list is another underappreciated film from 2016 directed by Loving‘s Jeff Nichols. Michael Shannon plays a father trying to escape from the government and the religious cult that his son grew up in after he discovers that the child has superpowered abilities. It also features Kirsten Dunst as Shannon’s on-screen wife, Joel Edgerton as a friend of the family, and Adam Driver in one of his earlier film roles. It scored pretty well with critics and was selected to compete for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, but severely underperformed at the box office.
Do you have any other recommendations for movies like Lucy? Let us know!
