Movies can be strangely clairvoyant. Since the advent of cinema, they have been predicting A.I. and self-operating machines. Nearly 100 years ago, Fritz Lang’s silent film Metropolis introduced a robot named Maria. Designed to look human, she takes control of a squadron of workers in an underground city. In 1955, Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still featured an alien humanoid (Michael Rennie) tasked with brokering an interplanetary peace mission; he is aided by the powerful robot Gort. And in 1964, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove unveiled the “Doomsday Machine,” an embodiment of automated decision-making and its unintended consequences. Film Forum now presents a three-week marathon of such movies, among them, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Tracy-Hepburn Desk Set, Forbidden Planet, and more. —Elena Clavarino