Ghost in the Shell (1995)

Stars	User	Rating
8	Spunkie	96 _99th
(After the uncounted rewatch) Now I know I'll never get over the amazement from this 80 minutes piece of animation. I don't care about it bridging Blade Runner to Matrix, it's complete and compact on its own. So complete that 2nd installment is just masturbatory override of the 1st. With the extended time I spent on Shirow's manga and tv series, reading and thinking on it I guess this is the only fandom of my life.
4	MArkjp	90 _90th
An obvious influence on The Matrix, it's also a critique of the hierarchical structure of the Japanese corporate structure, the collusion of international politics and technological ventures and humanity's flirt with technology. Oshii mixes and matches different religions, but the animistic 'Shinto' is the most important for understanding the film's point of technology as a means to spiritual growth. Also: the first anime to really incorporate CGI, it offers way better animation than say, Akira.
3	Alex Watkins	4 _70th
An exciting and thoughtful action/sci-fi hybrid that takes more than a page or two from Blade Runner's playbook while simultaneously paving the way for The Matrix. As with any good cyberpunk anime, the highlight is its immaculately conceived vision of technologically-advanced-yet-dilapidated Tokyo. If there's anything to complain about, it's that its climax is a rather uncinematic monologue on identity and AI. That, and the unnecessary tits.
3	Nathan S	6 _99th
The breadth of its ambition, inspiration, and influence has been duly traced. An existential vision of overwhelming technological advent - the future wrought with genetic and social engineering - and solipsist speculations of unapologetic intellectual seriousness, immaculately rendered with architectural and mechanical detail. The only significant flaw is that, despite the material's generally post-gender attitude, there is an unfortunately adolescent male gaze with regard to the female form.
3	BillyShears	75 _65th
It's like the Matrix but you feel gross watching it. (Pretend the Matrix came out 5 years earlier)
3	Kusanagi	100 _99th
An almost perfect presentation of the Puppet Master arc from the original manga, with Oshii's trademark confusing plot structure and Kenji Kawaii's appropriately eerie soundtrack. It will probably not make much sense if you're not already familiar with GitS, but it stands cemented as one of the most popular R rated anime, certainly one of the most influential. Yet another example of the quality of animation that Japan is still unrivaled in and it took a year to make this.
2	Dorkovsky	5 _59th
Interesting themes and beautiful animation, unfortunately most of the time it is a boring convoluted mess.
2	PeaceAnarchy	74 _40th
There are plenty of reasons why I should like it, including the gritty setting the interesting story and the fact that it doesn't shy away from posing philosophical questions. The fact remains, though, that while I enjoyed it well enough I never really got into it.
2	Ranald	25 _1st
Awful in virtually all respects: flaccid pacing, wooden voice acting in both Japanese and English soundtracks, and, every ten minutes or so, everything stops so that someone can give a puerile and shallow philosophical lecture.
2	Prophet92	88 _81st
Intellectually stimulating but emotionally dead, Ghost in the Shell is enjoyable, and its influence is undeniable, but it's hard to feel particularly attached to the action when the characters rarely act like anything more than the hollow automatons that they are. A must see for the aspiring otaku, but far from the classic it is often billed as.
2	Bown	76 _40th
I expected something less slight, but overall I dug it. Liked the themes and the way they were prioritised over the action, which no doubt the remake will change completely. Pacing isn't the best - feels like it speeds up a ton in the last 25 or so minutes. Or more like it's too drawn-out until then. Ending is great.
2	Judo Koala	72 _42nd
Beautiful animation and a distinctive soundtrack combine wonderfully to flesh out GitS's dystopian atmosphere, but the narrative moves far too quickly to allow for a proper digestion of its existential navel-gazing. Ultimately, it feels as if it presumes the viewer to already have knowledge of the original manga, instead feeling like an extended episode of its anime series thereafter than a full-fledged film.
2	kevinjoseph	71 _77th
This was my first exposure to the Ghost-in-the-Shell-Universe and to be honest, I was pretty confused. (I dunno if this film was intended for newcomers, but there's a surprising lack of exposition for a film about such a complex dystopian world). That being said, it's pretty engaging and has some great animation. (I should also note, it was the dubbed English version I saw; I heard it's not the best version.)
2	redacted	42 _17th
82 minutes is too short for a film like this, it easily could have added another 40 to pad out the rushed exposition & introduce the setting and characters properly instead of giving focus to their nipples & awkward, baseless philosophical monologues. What they did get right was stopping to take the time to bathe us in the brilliant cyberpunk, dystopian art direction.
2	AlienIndie	52 _29th
Never been a fan of the Ghost in the Shell franchise. It just feels like they keep saying the most obvious things in the most convoluted way possible. Music and atmosphere are great though.
2	deep_green	90 _97th
For me the philosophical themes are interesting only in that they lend the film more of its' pronounced atmosphere, which is intoxicating. The music and animation, the world created, is wonderful.
2	Corbad	65 _43rd
The atmosphere, rich in image and sound, is superb, but the story is too shallow and quick. The abhorrent English voice cast (which might have been computer generated for all their monotonous intoning) certainly doesn't help the brief attempts at characterization. The concepts and environments make the film easily worth watching, however.
1	Kavu	86 _87th
Original ideas, mainly great visuals, beautiful score and a thrilling plot. It felt like it assumed the novel to be read, or maybe that's just as disjointed, I don't know.
1	Ytadel	6 _70th
I know people who worship at the altar of this film - I've never really been one of them. But I do admire and respect its innovation and imagery and imagination and influence on cyberpunk themes/ideas/storytelling. There are individual scenes that stand out as so memorable I've never forgotten them, although the overall narrative strokes always seem to wash away for me quickly after watching the film.
1	Cowman	60 _28th
Not sure what to think. Probably my expectations were too high. The backgrounds, design, atmosphere and music are great, but the story isn't exactly very compelling. It is definitely confusing though! The main character gets naked all the time, which is cool if you don't have internet acces or something, but for now I thought it was kind of weird.
1	MonsterGear	94 _95th
Short, but densely packed with stylish action, cool technology, and interesting philosophical questions. Many other sci-fi action films could take a page from this playbook (The Island, I'm looking at YOU)
1	Anomaly	70 _49th
Beautiful action sequences, but quite ironically GITS is missing its "Ghost" - that is, emotion. Characters will espouse philosophy at each other without ever demonstrating it emotionally. The closest we get to something interesting is the idea that hackers can spoof memories, but that's left to one unsettling scene and then forgotten about to continue treating consciousness as a black box system. A lot of style with some great animation, but the substance is a let down.
1	frederic_g54	9 _90th
I had to look up some info after watching it, for I'd be lying if I said I understood it all. 'Ghost in the Shell' is an enigmatic, thought-provoking sci-fi actioner, maybe overshadowed by a slight wave of self-centeredness, but still wildly imaginative and entertaining. Visually, it seems to have drawn a lot of inspiration from 'Blade Runner' and other dystopian films. Japanese animation will never cease to amaze me. P.S. I watched the dubbed version, which apparently is not recommended...
1	sebby	40 _15th
The wet dream of a pimple-faced Japanese teenage pseudo-intellectual.
1	Luna6ix	74 _48th
It's like "Blade Runner", but anime. Just as slow feeling, but just as enveloping and beautiful at times. The last about ten minutes or so didn't quite sit well with me, it was too intentionally existential and in a shallow, porous fashion.
1	Jeb	90 _79th
Action packed and has great animation. Stunning.
1	Waldheri	95 _95th
One of the great cyberpunk anime films because of it's high philosophy content. This film is more than a story, it is food for thought.
1	archagon	11 _25th
Great art, great characters, but too short and not dense enough. I was left wanting for closure. I really liked the soundtrack as well as some of the quiet, meditative shots of the environment. It's a shame we don't get those in Western moviemaking very often.
1	moviesinhell	75 _54th
Boasting the biggest budget ever afforded an anime feature -- a record previously held by the pioneering _Akira_ -- this supplies a sensory feast of dizzying high-tech imagery and exotic music. Ontological explorations aside, most of this is given over to actionful battles between the competing security agencies, along with elaborately animated virtual-reality displays and visual odes to Kusanagi's flawlessly sculpted, frequently naked cyberbody.
1	Judge Holden	1 _4th
I knew right from the start that this movie and I were not going to be friends. It comes across like it was written first on a public anime forum by some fourteen year old with only a hard drive full of hentai and a pack of redbull for inspiration.
1	kitchen867	50 _28th
Great concept, but the movie's a bit on the shitty side.
1	Dunder74	8 _86th
What is so distinctive of Ghost in the Shell, so utterly awe-inspiring is the construction of an intriguing and founded atmosphere. The film succeeds as both an action sci-fi movie and an inquisitive pondering; I am sure Mamoru Oshii loved Blade Runner. I do have a complaint with the essentially immortal protagonists because it steals so much of the danger from the otherwise perfect action scenes. Neverthless, Ghost in the Shell is intellectually and aesthetically appealing, memorably so.
1	e_p_o	90 _75th
Now here's a movie that creates a believable, fascinating, iconic, influential and gorgeous universe in like 1 hour and 20 minutes. Precision!
1	Tjekhov	70 _69th
Anime meets Kierkegaard. Maybe the pace is a bit too fast, though.
1	shoegays	65 _25th
Some neat ideas, but they don't hit particularly hard in the 21st century, and they're not enough of a payoff for a slow movie that has pretensions of being more than it is.
1	Deadmarsh	60 _34th
Meh, some cool visuals, but the plot is garbage.
1	dunbar	84 _84th
Visually stunning. Although the narrative and philosophy brought into it was less appealing to me. My favourite moment by far was the musical interlude with gorgeous slow tracking shots of cityscape and water, which beat the hell out of the long-winded monologues scrambling to contain deep philosophical insights on existence.
1	hellboy76	65 _45th
I am no fan of anime. I can appreciate the stunning artwork and visualization, but the stories usually seem as if they are secondary and this is no exception.
1	damil	60 _43rd
It has some pretty cool concepts and ideas about technology and the future, but that was about it, for me. I didn't really care about the characters or the plot. The animation is pretty nice; I particularly liked the backgrounds. You can easily see the influence the film had on The Matrix. So, yeah, it's decent for what it is, but I prefer something like Paprika or even Akira.
1	Bagger	80 _84th
Follows in a nice trend of japanese cyperpunk speculations about the nature of the individual and its relation to others, as also masterfully done by Akira and (after repeat viewings) Neon Genesis Evangelion. While all the sepculations may seem too Philosphy 101 to western audiences (especially those that disliked the Matrix for these excact reasons) I find these are excellent for cinema to explore, especially in animation.
1	NunMak	74 _85th
Visually arresting, thematically intriguing, narratively unsatisfying.
1	Leonardis	97 _95th
I loved it. I guess it never occurred to me that I was missing out on something so influential all of this time. Probably one of the best thinking-persons sci/fi's I've ever seen. The detail to the storytelling, animation, and world-building is incredible. I'm sure I'll grow to appreciate it even more with repeat viewings. Living proof that the world animation in general is most definitely on par with some of the biggest cinematic classics in my opinion. Most definitely worth seeing.
1	loc42	80 _79th
Like the evolution chart in the museum this movie has an idea of teleology which alludes to different philosophies starting from Herakleitos and ending at Hegel I think. Like the evolution of Lang's Metropolis and preceding the "Matrix", "Ghost in the Shell" asks whether an authentic existence per se is possible at all or it may claim that existence as machine is just the continuation of a dialectical process according to which even the organic existence we know functions like a machine.
1	lex	90 _80th
One of the most aesthetically fascinating movies I've ever seen with an abundance of rich themes and ideas that - provided you have no prejudice against anime - will have you returning to its fleshed out cyberpunk nightmare to indulge again.
1	TheEscapist	73 _65th
Nice imagery, atmosphere and music. I appreciate the film for what it's trying to do and injecting philosophy in it the way that it did. I didn't really connect with it on that level though, it didn't feel very profound or insightful. The plot isn't great either and can be hard to follow. So I do think it's a bit overrated, but clearly it has inspired other, in my opinion better, media and that's worth something. I also think the aesthetics and atmosphere are nailed pretty well.
1	Groovy_Souls	90 _90th
As opposed to its cerebral anime counterpart, Akira, it holds up really well. While its story is not the greatest anime or in general, movie plotline of all time, it does deliver some thought-provoking and interesting stuff. The tone is deeply cerebral and beautiful, but aesthetically, the movie shows off not only fantastic animation but great cinematography, for an animated film. A really well done anime film.
1	mooper	88 _95th
Not every day you get to experience such an excellent worldbuilding as you witness in Ghost In The Shell. Every tiny detail is centered around humanity and existence in the world of tomorrow: a world that is engulfed with technology to the point where we start to adapt our bodies to it.
1	igormachete	66 _29th
Didn't like it as much as I though I would. The animation is nice, particularly the backgrounds, but the plot felt rather bland. It's really far too short to cover the ideas it tries to cover. And what's with all the unnecessary nudity?
1	NathanBates	60 _34th
The animation is still incredible. It's just that asking existential questions without strong (and deep) characters doesn't really make a compelling movie.
1	ajmurad	50 _23rd
I was pretty bored for most of this movie (everything bar the first 30 minutes), it tries to say a lot of things about the nature of humanity but it doesn't feel fleshed out enough. Unsatisfying ending.
1	Revan007	69 _23rd
Considered a classic, the TV series is a much better example of the promise of the premise and what GITS can be. The original movies sometimes odd pacing and random visuals make it a bit more of an experimental film and detract for the overall substance.
1	brell	40 _76th
introspective and quietly haunting. did you see what I did there? I should give up the ghost

Average Percentile 66.66% from 5575 Ratings