I'd be especially interested in ones where the characters are actually acting rather like Shadowrunners.

Of the top of my head the only group really following the Runner model is Firefly. Some come close with the PI angle, Fifth Element, Bladerunner. And I suppose Ghost in the Shell could be twisted into runner like stuff if the old Ape was just a Johnson.

Rest I can think of only have cyberpunk/sci-fi setting stuff. But lack the runner sort of aspect.

Leverage is very shadowrunny, pilot's has it all: a doublecrossing Jonson, a runner team consisting of an "elven" cat thief, street samurai, hacker and a face and also few nice runs.

more about leverage and an other new serie Fringe in here.
and you might like to read this also.

Well, considering that a shadowrun is a quasi-legal undertaking [as defined by the World World Watch].
...Your options should be numerous and varied.

Even more numerous if you ignore SR 4's apparent insistence that all Characters are criminals.

Rather than write out yet another list of the same TV programmes and Movies already noted as inspiration by many people, I'll just mention that here's a few on my website.

Rather than an exhaustive list (Synner667's is great), just the ones I find really key (and why).

• Blade Runner, visuals and dystopian future (and an inspiration for the Renraku Arcology)
• Ronin, plot twists and group dynamics (and arguably the best car chase ever filmed)
• The Usual Suspects, "that you did not know you were stealing from Lofwyr..."
• RoboCop, magacorp replacing government (OCP is a corrupt version of Ares)
• Ghost In The Shell, cyber and matrix
• Sneakers, intrusion / heist

And while not film/TV, I have to mention the written works of Danial Keys Moran, especially Emerald Eyes and The Long Run. Most of his work is out of print, but available online (with the author's permission).

These books (written in the late mid-to-late 1980s), have a fallen United States, genetic engineering (including variant races), cyborgs, hackers, the matrix (albeit by another name), AIs, psionics (akin to limited magic). The web material and hacking have an unusual level of realism due to the authors background as a computer programmer, he even describes internet addiction (coining the term datastarve).

_{EDIT: I can't believe I forgot TUS, a must have even on a short list.}

On a note for hackers I just saw some Max Headroom. Actually that's one the GMs should probably see as well for what the Hackers should be able to pull off.

from anime;
Ghost in the Shell: by the end of the 1st TV serries they're in opposition to government agencies, in the 2nd season they are opposing government agents and the whole 3rd movie has as a bad guy a governement agency.

Witch Hunter Robin: same thing, they start as government agents then things go wrong.

Gunslinger girl : Italian government agents, team a face with a CZ.

From movies:
Aeon Flux

Wait....SR has an uncorrupt version of Ares?

SR has non-corrupt anything?

...for how most runs would really go down...the Rockford Files.

Burn Notice:
In it's 2nd season now co-staring the legendary Bruce Campbell. A great series about Michael - a former spy, who's been framed by someone as a traitor to the government. He's sought shelter in Miami, where he needs to take on different jobs to make a living while finding out who set him up and got him into hot water with his agency and government. Michael the main character is a spy/face/thief etc. and he has 2 helpers: Fiona - IRA/mercenary/Michael's girlfriend, and Sam - a old buddy of Michael retired FBI agent and womanizer (Mr Bruce Campbell). The show deals with running a new job every episode, its tonnes of fun.

Check it out its about as close as u get to a shadowrunner series on TV.

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.

A Johnson, a fixer, and a sense of humor.

if you like physads ;
"District 13" french movie (Banlieu 13) a must see! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_13
"Ong Bak" ... the acting is lame but Tony jaa can make Jacky Chan when it comes to stunts and kick ass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ong-Bak:_Muay_Thai_Warrior
"Yamakasi" I and II (not on the priority list but if you like free running) bunch of acrobats turned to thiveries to pay one hospital bill ... the plot is just a lame excuse to watch them do their tricks of parkour or free running http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamakasi_%28film%29


a polyhumanist twisted plot;
french movie; "crimson rivers" and "crimson rivers II" ... (les rivieres pourpres 2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_River..._the_Apocalypse
Both great movies

rigger and cars;
"Taxi" (watch only the first movie and the second) a other french movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_%281998_film%29
it's not in theater yet .. but I'm sure the new movie "death race" will be on this list
"knight rider 2008" ... and yes the cars is still 20 times more inteligent than the driver ... a group of shadowrunners give them a run to remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Rider_2008
the transporter



shadowrunners pit against shadowrunners in a job that didn't turned as expected; (legwork IS important )
"the big hit" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Hit
"smoking aces" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_aces


sport movie not far from Shadowrun;
"Rollerball" (a remake) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball this movie is kinda lame ... but hey just for the fun of it!

corporate espionage;
cypher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypher

distorted perceptions and assumtions of A.I. and how someone fall when he loose is SIN
"wargames; dead code" a 2.5/5 movie.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames_2:_The_Dead_Code

japan anime;
black lagoon episode list a smugler/shadowrunner team in shallow waters

a fan movie of shadowrun ... and a larp game
(la course des ombres) is literaly ; run in the shadows ....I think it's only in french http://www.shadowrunmovie.com

those are movies and series that were not mention before and in my eyes are shadowrun related

A few months ago there was someone who posted anything that might even slightly be related to SR.... forgot what the thread was called, but it was some list (it also only dealt with movies though.)

The sixties TV series Mission: Impossible, the Movie not as much. No magic in either one.

The William Gibson Cyberpunk movie Johnny Mnemonic. No magic here either. Gotta love that Monofilament Whip though. <<I stand corrected>>

The Richard Pryor movie Blue Collar: no Johnson, good example of post-run repercussions.

The Richard Burton movie The WIld Geese: multinational corps, mercenaries, and a double-crossing Johnson.

Shaft, the original version: That's how you work your contacts.

Oceans 11, the Sinatra version.

Oh yeah, mustn't forget Aliens: Weapons, Vehicles, BattleTac stuff, and another double-crossing Johnson.

Might as well include Terminator, Predator, and Total Recall. Is Arnold an Ork or a Troll?

He's a cop, you idiot!

Correction,William Gibson wrote Johnny Mnemonic ,not Sterling.

Hustle - BBC show about a group of con artists; lots of good Shadowrun stuff as some of the cons get very intricate.

I'll also throw in a second for Burn Notice; one of my favorites.

Michael Mann movies: Heat, Collateral, and Miami Vice. Excellent looks into a slightly Hollywood underground and how it takes care of biz. Also a bonus as a decent reference on how the real pros handle guns. If you're not a shooter, I strongly suggest seeing Collateral if only for the two Mozambique Drills in the alleyway.
"Yo, homie! Is that my briefcase?"

A third for Burn Notice on Thursdays at 10pm in the US on the USA channel (if they haven't changed it on me). Good stuff for "covert ops" and the main character's op ed during each show has all sorts of great little tricks you can use in your game.

The movie Ronin is a modern-day shadowrun. Great stuff in this one.

Total Recall for one of the best mind-fuck movies ever. Erasing your brain and overwriting it to do an infiltration? That's hard-fuckin'-core. Now add that this movie is the only movie ever to tell you the whole plot, not once but twice, before the end and it's even more interesting.

24, the TV series on reruns, downloads, and DVD. Excellent source of technical ideas and, again, how to run "real" clandestine ops. Decent gunplay and action will all sorts of neat double-crosses and plot hooks that you can tweak for your own twisted GM enjoyment, err...your players enjoyment. *clears throat*

I find the 1993 sci-fi-esque mini-series Wild Palms very shadowrun-y. Its not high sci-fi but its got some high tech, double dealing, and intrigue.

Here's two recent discussions we've had: Here you go. And here you go.

Boom-shaka-laka!

Hmmm I suppose I wasn't searching for Movies.

The trick with movies is usually that they lose a lot of the Runner aspect in lieu of something epic, and to boot usually encourage a Mary Sue style as opposed to a team.

...totally in agreement here.

I'll also throw in one of my faves: the Original Italian Job with Michael Caine, Noel Coward, and Benny Hill. and add the first Die Hard, mainly for how Hans and his friends wormed their way in to Nakatomi Tower only to be taken down by John "cowboy" McClane

Happy Trails Hans.

Shows been pretty much nailed . .
Movies?

Death Machine: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109575/ Ares Like Weapons Corp. Killer-Dropne, Power-Armor, no magic/cyber

Hardware: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099740/ endtimes, cyberware, no magic

Mean Guns: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119642/ no magic, no cyber, but hell yes it screams shadowrun!

Ganheddo: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097410/ maybe a bit over the top for gear-heads, but meh *g*

The Crow 1 - 4, even though it got progressively worse . . some magics in here folks!

Transporter 1 and 2 for Rigger-fans

Bladerunner, ooh, another of the Classics . .

who could forget about TRON? i still picture the SR Matrix to be looking like the inside of a computer did in that movie ^^ by the way, part two is in the making, set to be released in 2010 i think O.o damn, writing the year 2010 somehow feels funny . . i've allways thought of it as the far future from old scifi movies and the such and now it's basically around the corner waiting to hit me *grins* ^^

Series/Anime:
Dennou Coil? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Coil at least, SR4 like matrix, and yes, the characters are more or less acting like typical shadowrun player characters . . heck, they even have their own johnsons and a big ass huge fucking corporation for the matrix stuff . .

Someone already called out Sneakers but seriously if you haven't seen it, it's a shadowrun without the awakening.

Similarly, for getting totally screwed by fate/johnson The Usual Suspects.

In anime, no one's said it yet but Read or Die the Serries. 3 mages and a face get manipulated by two rival corps after the same treasure without open warfare.

For movies, well from the Arnold ovre we have laready brought up Total Recall, heck the mutants makes that pretty much post awakening. and there's T-2 with a run against the computer complex, mental hospital etc. and The Eraser where a govenrment agent is forced underground by his corrupt bosses working for a corp.
Sixth Day where corp thugs are willing to commit murder to prevent their dirty little secrets from coming out.

For an older film Where Eagles Dare a WW2 film with Richard Burton and a young Clint Eastwood. Undercover, behind the scenes stuff and a climax so mind popping you're not sure which way it up. Trust me. Kaiser Sose learned the mind f*** from Richard Burton's character in that film.

For a face character- check out Tony Curtis in Operation Petticoat. or James Gardner in The Great Escape, these guys could give lessons to the A-Team.

I just downloaded and watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. What can I say? There is no magic (unless you count time travel), no Mr. Johnson (unless you count John Connor in the future), and no megacorp (unless you count Skynet, and its builders). There are no elves, dwarves or trolls, but there are plenty of cyborgs, and the threat of an emerging AI. There is no UGE or SURGE, either. They make up for it with plenty of leg-work.

Oh yeah! Don't forget the tech toys!

Do the characters act like Shadowrunners? I vote: YES!!!

There are bodyguards, faces, fixers, hackers, infiltration specialists, investigators, samurai, smugglers. street docs, tech wizards, weapon specialists, etc. They alternate between SIN-less and criminal SIN-ners. They constantly blur the line separating good guys from bad guys.

Skills used so-far: Automatics, Blades, Clubs, Escape Artist, Exotic Melee Weapon (Various), Forgery, Gymnastics, Infiltration, Locksmith, Palming, Pistols, Unarmed Combat, Dodge, Pilot Ground Craft, Climbing, Running, Con, Etiquette, Instruction, Intimidation, Leadership, Negotiation, Artisan, Disguise, Language, Perception, Shadowing, Tracking, Armorer, Computer, Cybertechnology, Data Search, Demolitions, First Aid, Hacking, Hardware, Medicine, Software, Survival. Also, various Interest, Professional, and Street Knowledges. I'm waiting for them to introduce Cybercombat in Season 2.

There was a scene in episode nine where a runner and his samurai visit a SIN manufacturer and his bodyguards. I could actually picture the runner rolling the dice on his knowledge skill before identifying the meaning of the inscription on a sword hanging on a wall at the meeting site.

Hum...


The classic seinen manga serie (and animes) Golgo 13 may be very interesting for players of 'professionals' and DM alike. Cynic, dark, realistic.... No magic or high tech (much) really, but...


The extremely brutal and freaky Ichi the Killer may be great for japanese low level or yakuza-themed games. Or in Saitoland... Similar remark for Crying Freeman (toward Triads and chinatowns and China).

Violence Jack (so disturbing...) for slum-ish ganglands? And retro punkiness...

The equaly brutal Riki-oh/Story of Ricky (the manga is actualy quite dark and realistic... so grim) for eastern slums, armyland, etc feel. And perhaps Shadowrun China, especialy if there is truely lowtech places (and jails..). Also, physica-fighting adepts.

realistic? err...

i bailed on it after about 6-7 episodes as it was "japanese sniper/marksman/genious wins, no matter the odds". replace the lead with a american ex-military or something and you would have 1 of a dozen or more 80's tv shows...

I hard so-so reviews of the TV serie, but the base material is still awesome. Things are often so grey, the 'good' guys ain't always so clean...

Duke himself is kind of a Deus Ex Machina at times, but it's a part of the appeal, I guess. Leaving the show to the protagonistsand antagonists others.

By the way Hulu.com is awsome and has a bunch of the stuff we're talking about. At least the American stuff.

Did somebody say Burn notice yet? That's awsome.

Hellsing could fit. sure not quite the normaly run but the same thing could well exist in the 6th would well up to about volume 5 then it gets a bit to much for shadowrun.

It's an eceltic mix, but.

The Maltese Falcon - a classic, and what you usually feel like during a run.

Strange Days - living on the lower end of things?

Denno Coil - a Japanese cartoon - watch to see how wireless works.

The Matrix - only to see what wired 3 looks like.

The Great Escape - how to plan

Max Headroom - already mentioned, but yes, this is a media blitz.

i seriously need to fake my way in there with a US proxy of some sort...

same the closest in the UK you have to pay for. =(

and they wonder why p2p is popular...

One show that I think probably inspired some of my gadgets is Bugs, an old 1995 UK TV show. It follows a group of freelance high-tech experts, saving people and solving crimes. Some of the ideas were pretty funky though, and much of the tech was shadowrun-grade, although there was no cyberware that I can remember. Things like fly drones that inject viruses tailored to members of a specific family, bombs that go off when they hear a particular voice pattern, gold-eating bacteria, etc.

It's well worth a look. Even if you can't find the videos, you could read the synopses on IMDB.

When someone said hellsing, were they meaning the Hellsing anime, or the recent feature film with lots of swinging from ropes? The anime was excellent, really good animation, and might serve as an idea for some runs. I think they did another thing more recently, "Hellsing Ultimate OVA Series", but I don't know if it was as good.

Anyone seen Alias or Nikita. Both are very shadowrunny as the main characters are performing runs as assasins/data steal/destruction/infitration.

If books count. The sciencefiction books of Modesitt, L.E.
Especially Flash, Archform: Beauty, Octagonal Raven,The Elysium Commision

Not very cyberpunkish but showing the impact of high tech on human society and on the individual

The Dresden files, if not mentioned, are rlevant from a magic+skyscrapers kind of way.

The only thematic disconnect is that typically Shadowrun magic threats are pretty straighforward. It would take work and maybe some houserules to make stuff a real mystery.

The books more so than the show, because the show has the magic more flashy and visable, and Harry's digs as nicer than they are described in the book, mostly due to the needs of the visual medium.

As for watching US shows, I think most of the websites like Hulu just check the location of your DNS. Try changing your DNS to open DNS and you should be good to go. Of course, to watch the BBC you'll have to switch back. I feel your pain - we get Dr. Who with a few weeks of lag, and Torchwood is at least as slow. Old media is really silly about this stuff, Hulu is a start in the right direction.

theres http://tvparadise.org idk if its legal or not though.

Wow, I really got in with this before everyone?

Cyber Wars, and Sin City. Come on, people.

Cyber Wars, for those who haven't found this tiny gem, is so cyberpunk it bleeds little William Gibsons when you cut it. It opens with a bounty hunter wrapping up people with fake SINs, and ends with a massive megacorp conspiracy, and hits all the great tourist sites on the way. Betrayals, setups, Matrix work, gangs, cyberware, spy drones...get a clue and buy this thing. I did, and it's #2 on my list of DVDs to show SR newbs, behind Johnny Mnemonic and before Blade Runner and GitS.

Also, read the 2099 Marvel comics. Especially Spider-Man and Ghost Rider 2099.

Nuff said.

Wild Palms (Virtual Reality meets Oliver Stone conspiracy) and the Max Headroom (AIs in a corporate television controlled future) TV series. Both are pretty dated but worth one watching.

QFT.

I have been told (and by the pics I saw, it really have) that the old anime Cyber City Oedo 808 have really a Shadowrun/cyberpunk taste by the technical side of stuff. Criminals/ex-criminals forced to do 'runs' for the governement? hum!

I quintuple that, (or whatever number we're up to) but Sam is ex-military, not FBI, and he's been in the series from the beginning.

Also, Total Recall 2070 is right up there for TV shows, Kiss of the Dragon for movies.

And though it's been mentioned: Black Lagoon. It's so much like what my group is doing right now we're leaving hong kong and looking for Ronapur.

By the way in addition to Hulu there is a site called animewin.com I'm not sure if it's as fully legal as Hulu is though, but it only does anime and I don't know that it does current shows the way hulu does so maybe the licencing fees are low enough it manages on site ads.

Anyway it can get you at a whole heck of a lot of anime there.

Oh and the Japanese have a style of show that I don't think we really have here where they mix fighting demons or mechs or some action element but then shift down to something closer to romantic comedy for even up to a whole episode. Like imagine if Dresden from The Dresden files was also in the cast of Friends.

Anyway I wouldn't spend a whole session on stuff like that. But I do find it can help a game to mix in elements like that. And it really fleshes out the PCs. Otherwise they have a tendancy to be just numbers on paper that kill things.

It occurred to me, watch Casablanca and see "rick' as a fixer.

He has contacts, brings people together and pays off the local police

Big Bruce Campbell has been there since day one of that series. It is kinda hard to recognize him at first since he has put on some weight. He does a great job of playing his part.

I have series one on dvd, and series two on my tivo since I tend to watch the episodes over and over again. it is a good show.

now to my adds to the thread...

Street Kings.. no cyber/magic.. but if you took Keanu out of the police force (he sorta is now) and make him independent than you have shadowrunning to a the gill. Working outside the normal rules. Doing whatever it takes to complete the job. The "in-house" people hate him but know that they need him for what he does.

second (or so): ronin.. that is classic shadowrunning as is..

True. Or watch Michael Clayton. George Clooney's protagonist flat out states that he's a "fixer" and behaves accordingly.

For a thrilling moment there I actually thought you meant Nikita. Truly some of Luc Beson's best work. The lighting, camera-work and score are all amazing. In the dictionary under Dystopian there is a picture of the minuscule Anne Parillaud crouched in that kitchen holding up that gigantic Desert Eagle.

Some of the better parts of the score appear in Fifth Element, another strong candidate for this list.

Smokin' Aces would be a pretty good film, I think. A variety of runners, fixers, and plenty of people getting screwed over.