Mine would be Burn Notice. It is seriously what my ideal of Shadowrun would be and it is also an interesting take on why such a professional needs to take crap jobs for crap money even though he is way better then what he is taking.

My second choice would be the first episode of Leverage. It just reminded me of a Johnson screwing a runner over hardcore and watching the way that a runner would nail the Johnson with jail time and Buba the love troll.

Lately, my favorite SR movie would be Avalon.

But the list of films that remind me of SR are too numerous....

- J.

What reminds you most of shadow run is also what you see SR to be in your minds eye. Mine is gritty, with contacts that have flavor, you are probably never going to get what you want, and there is always quite a lot of complications. You would probably be doing something else, but you don't really have a choice. That is what SR is to me.

Blade Runner and Smokin' Aces

Blade Running for the setting.
Ronin for what runners do.
(Seriously, if you haven't seen Ronin, do it. There is no better movie that I have found to show what a Shadowrun would be like)

I would like to change my vote to Burn Notice and Blade Runner if possible = D

Leverage was just what I could come up with off the top of my head... and never Jonny Neumonic.

I have to agree that it is hard to pick just two. Bladerunner is a shoo-in but as the second? "Escape from New York" or maybe" Rollerball"?

Orignal Rollerball or the new one?

Oh Ronin is great! I used a similar scene where the team got setup buying weapons (they scored a critical failure on the avail check). The street shootout near the end of Heat is pretty cool, but I dig the whole feel of Bladerunner.

In the same vein, any of the Alien movies totally reminds of Queen Euphoria and slaughtering bugs, especially #2. Old timey movie, Brainstorm from 1983 is all about the first Simsence.

Fun!

I'd add to this coversation, but I'd be repeating someone else. Burn Notice and Ronin...definite must sees for SR newbies looking to get a feel for how shadowrunners should operate. Aliens is really for when a run goes horribly horrible wrong.

Blade Runner and Black Lagoon.

No Johnny Mnemonic?

I'll add Babylon A.D., not for story, but for setting from Z-zones through toxic sites right to a shiny corporate controlled NYC.

As much as I love the usual suspects, such as Ronin, Heat, or Johnny Mnemonic, I'm going to have to go with a slight change of pace this time...

Layer Cake

-or-

Domino

Be aware that Wikipedia does a pretty good plot summary, and might be considered a spoiler. Consider yourself warned...

One that hasn't been mentioned yet is Boondock Saints.

As for how most Shadowrun games actually turn out, I gotta go with Snatch. Hell our groups regular fixer basically is Boris the Bullet Dodger with a shitload more cyberware.

Instead of naming two separate movies that resemble SR, I'm going to choose two completely unrelated movies that, when smashed together, resemble SR.

Those two movies would be Wall Street and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

God damn, Dumpshock needs a rep system.

Black Lagoon.
Ghost in the Shell: SAC.

Split Second with Rutger Hauer
Strange Days with Ralph Fiennes

Can I have some more?

Ghost in a Shell Stand Alone Complex
Black Lagoon
Total Recall
Cast a Deadly Spell

Blade runner for all the usual reasons

Rennaisance for that funky Parisian 2054 settings
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386741/

• Kara no Kyoukai - supernatural + grit
• The Usual Suspects - slick face in action

Adding more would betray the point of this topic.

Ronin.
The Boondock Saints.

Future Sport.(Big Corporates, MegaSprawls, brutal Game thatis used to decide who owns a country)
Tron. (Matrix inside)
Knightrider in all forms more or less.

Dennou Coil. AR Overlay, group of people(yes,kids in this case) playing detectives against a corp or something like that.

The character that is my name sake was VERY heavily inspired by Split Second.

- J.

Leverage has massively influenced the second "season" of my campaign; I want a team of specialists where everyone has a clearly defined role, rather than being good at a bunch of things.
One other TV show influence is Spooks (airs in the USA as MI5), because it's generally fairly missions-based and has a strong mix of using technology and tradecraft to get to the point.

What? No Akira? What about On Deadly Ground? I'm surprised we haven't seen 24, The Unit, or Le Femme Nikita (the series) mentioned either.

Hey, onle the top 2 had been asked for...

Definitely, Ronin to represent the black trenchcoat style.

For the pink mohawk style, the best isn't as clear cut in my head, but Leverage is a recent high point. Snatch isn't bad.

Burn Notice - Smart, funny, has Bruce Campbell. I like that they're all "faces", but they each have their own area of specialty - the main character's your thief, Campbell is the charmer, and the ex is your weapons specialist. She's crazy.

The R.O.D. series - I'm kind of cheating here by naming a whole series, but bear with me. RoD (Read or Die the manga & anime & Read or Dream) is about four women with the ability to manipulate paper (they're essentially phys adepts) fighting everyone from megacorporations, resurrected geniuses from history and the failing British Empire, all while trying to protect the author that they all love.

At the very least watch the ova for Read or Die - it's super action all the way around with a secret government agency trying to stop a cloning experiment gone wrong. Try imagining James Bond as a shy school teacher with a tendency to get distracted around books and you've about got it.

Read or Dream is kind of slow towards the start (it sets up the rest of the series, basically) but it gets awesome, though heartbreaking, in the second half. Skip the Read or Dream manga though, unless you absolutely love the first half of the anime series.

Honorable mention also goes to The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam (and its follow up, Guide to Paris, which I'm reading now) since it's a book series. It's about an author who writes caper novels who in reality is a gentlemen thief himself. It's a good take on people who run in the "shallows" of the shadows; he's got a fixer, a few contacts here and there, and lots of skill. Loads of fun to read since the author writes it all in this off-the-cuff manner.

What do people think about 6 string samurai? I found it interesting that no one mentioned this movie.

If you want to list your top five or top ten that is fine. The key is a group of movies/tv shows that make up your idea of Shadowrun and why.

For me #1 Shadowrun movie will always be Strange Days

#2 is a shoutout to a movie I can't even get on DVD here in the US
Hardware

Fantastic movie. If you can find some way to see this movie, its amazing.

Now, those are both pretty straight Cyberpunk and if you want to yell at me for a lack of Fantasy... I can swap #2 with

They Live Just put BUGS where the movie has ALIENS

Just to add something that hasn't appeared on here, but greatly influenced my "first season" of my current campaign: The Wire.

All the behind the scenes power plays and politics combined with the theme that the more things change, the more they stay the same really sets a mood for me. Add to that the fact that the ghettos of B-Maw (Batlimore, MD for those of you from other parts of the world) really provide some good imagery for any barrens or z-zone. Seriously, can't you see folks like Omar in the world of Shadowrun?

You can pretty much add Gibson's New Rose Motel, not just the Johnny Mnemonic. Going back to first edition shadowrun it is obvious just how much was influenced by Gibson. I think I read New Rose Motel long before playing SR, so I was already exposed to the concept of coffin motels. BTW, they're doing a film version of Neuromancer, though knowing Hollywood lately it will likely suck something fierce (least it isn't being ruined by the same jerks that ruined Pearl Harbor and Transformers and will soon ruin Star Trek).

Not really the right time period, but Cast A Deadly Spell has the feel of SR magic, to me.

And, another vote for Strange Days. I was even an extra in it, though I've never actually spotted myself in the film.

Fyn,
I live very close to you. Now, I will run around town looking for people from Strange Days.

1. Silent Mobius would be my first choice and I'm shocked no one has mentioned this yet. It's literally cyberpunk blended with magic. I don't know how much more Shadowrun one can get.
2. It wasn't a great movie by any stretch but Babylon A.D. felt far more Shadowrun to me than Blade Runner though BR is a favorite and an obvious pick. The main character is a mercenary and the movie stretches from the lawless urban warzones of Eastern Europe to the polished gleam of an almost Disneyland-esque Manhattan. Sparkle in some artificial intelligence, cybernetics, strange science and weird cults/religion aspects and there you go.

Others:

The Sopranos, The Wire and the Takeshi Kitano movie Brother have all influenced me in creating criminal heavies with personality, histories and relationships as well as getting the lingo somewhat accurate. I would argue that Ghost in the Shell is more post-human than cyberpunk but the urban decay of Akira along with the mysticism is a strong influence on me. Also: Minority Report, The Terminator movies, and Strange Days.

i actually got that movie uncut on DVD . . i think it's pretty bad actually O.o

Mind you, I am one of those who can love "bad".
NTSC or PAL? If its PAL, I cant use it if I buy it off you.
As soon as its available here, I will track it down.
I love the heroine (sucker for women who don't hide or fall down, but fight), the wastelands(background count++), Iggy Pop as a DJ(rocker). The deep religious imagery....(no magic but plenty of mysticism)
Also, it was made by the culture that gave us Shadowrun First Edition. Think "rock video" era.
From IMDB
"The band that Jill watches on TV while she makes the sculpture is Gwar, though the music is Ministry's "Stigmata"."

Holy moly, for 1990, thats awesome. I didn't even realize this when I watched it on the big screen.

*shrugs*
dunno if it's NTSC or PAL, it doesn'T say on the DVD Slim-Case . .
obtainable via laser paradise it seems

ditto though if TV Series count Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex has everything but the magic in it.

Definitely "Mannequin (1987)". Possession tradition free spirit with a weird geas? Ha ha ha.

I'd agree with quite a few that are mentioned, but I thought I'd add a few more.

Way of the Gun : Quite a few of my runs have gone from "Hey, this should be straightforward" to "Holy crap, what's going on and why are we in a massive gunfight?"

Fringe: Great show with a super evil corporation (Massive Dynamics reminds me of Ares), technology bordering on magic (including the episode that had a technomancer), and a group of misfits trying to figure it all out.

Gotta go with Blade Runner and Johnny Mnemonic...

I'd have to go with "Snatch" and "Disorganized Crime" ... but that's more for the style of campaign I prefer to run (usually badly) - not necessarily the setting.

GitS-ALL
Johnny Mnemonic

Plus, there is one I'm shocked to not see here anywhere, Freejack.

Your totally right, and that's my biggest beef with SR

that they did not keep the Matrix Iconography true to the Tron-Movie?
yeah, that would have been nice ^^
just played Tron2.0 again not long ago and it's still fun ^^

Ronin / Reservoir Dogs.

The GF suggests Narc.

Blade Runner- come on , the grand daddy of film noir/cyberpunk
Ghost in the Shell- all of it- it's SR withoutthe Awakening



Gee I thought I was the only one who knew about this gem.

nope, you're not O.o

Whilst I can't really pick it as a top inspiration for Shadowrun, I love R.O.D. with the passion of a thousand suns. Awesome animation, awesome music, awesome characters, and it's a series where the freakin British Library is the most important secret organisation in the world.
I mean come on, just for Joker the series is worth watching. The world is ending, and the man is still drinking tea.

I also want to second Dennou Coil as a perfect example of how AR would affect the world. It really plays around with the staggering implications of not being able to trust what you see around you, the idea that the virtual and the real are so perfectly integrated that the difference starts to become academic. It's also a beautiful piece of story telling and you owe it to yourself to watch it.

As for my own picks, I used to disagree with Ghost In The Shell as a the look of Shadowrun, back in 3rd edition, but I do think it perfectly fits the look and feel of 4th. If you want background music for a session, just load up the soundtracks, and maybe throw a little of Kanno's "Cowboy Bebop" material in there as well.

Whilst I agree entirely that Ronin is a damn fine example of how a shadowrun works, I'm going to have to go with Smith for my second pick. Short lived recent TV series, cancelled after 3 eps in the US, over the UK we got 7, but they're just perfect. Hunt them down on the web (pm me and I'll sling you a .torrent file) and have a watch. Any Shadowrun player will spend every minute going "holy crap that's awesome." Shadowrun GM's will walk away with their minds blown; I certainly did. There is a heist where the freaking legwork involves infiltrating a national guard base to steal a 50 cal machine gun so that they can knock over an armoured car. Now just to be clear, knocking over the armoured car is still part of the legwork; they need it to carry out the job itself.
It's also full of fantastic little details; I loved the scene where they get hungry whilst working on some prep for a heist, and so they order pizza. The guy walks over to a ziplock with about 20 cell phones in it, pulls one out, makes the order, and then bins it.

The Fifth Element for the speculative future fashions and melting pot of amalgamated culture. Not to mention commuter air travel and the monolithic and heinously evil Zorg corporation.

The other one is the seven Lone Wolf and Cub films. In the japano-centric cyberpunk landscape, the idea of the samurai rejecting the strict traditions and laws of his culture and class and becoming a "demon" resonates strongly with the concept of Shadowrunners to me. Ogami Itto strikes me as the precursor to ex-megacorporate street samurai.