seagulls by Mato Atom

This short film from Mato Atom is a metaphor for the dangerous side of drones. disturbing not simply because of the future it depicts, but because of the unsettling imagery used to paint it. Narrated in missives from a drone, the flying eye in the sky proves to be stalking a young girl, watching her grow into a young woman and then confronting her on the beach.     

Grounded - play

An unexpected pregnancy ends an ace fighter pilot’s career in the sky. Reassigned to operate military drones from a windowless trailer outside Las Vegas, she hunts terrorists by day and returns to her family each night. As the pressure to track a high-profile target mounts, the boundaries begin to blur between the desert in which she lives and the one she patrols half a world away.

Anne Hathaway as The Pilot in George Brant's "Grounded"

bitplane by Bureau of Inverse Technology

A radio-controlled airplane, equipped with a video camera and transmitter was launched, In 1997, on a series of sorties over the Silicon Valley in California. 

Guided by the live video feed from the plane, the pilot on the ground was able to steer the plane deep into the glittering heartlands of the Information Age. They were critiquing the economics of the area, the infrastructure of technology, the sites where secret research takes place, the locales where aircraft systems are thought-up and built. 

The bitplane sidestepped regulations.It was illegal to fly remotely controlled aircraft within 5 miles of an airport. There were 3 airports within 5 miles of the bitplane flight path. The bitplane also violated FCC communications regulations by transmitting live video on a cable television channel, which somewhat brilliantly, inserted the bitplane‘s “gods-eye view” of the Silicon Valley into the regularly-scheduled television viewing of the households below its flight path. 

The bitplane exposed layers of policing and control over what seemed to be transparent airspace. Bureau of Inverse Technology‘s work revealed the growing capabilities of UAV technologies, but also uses these very capabilities to turn the gaze towards the manifucturers and users of these devices. 

 This is a classic act of tactical media, a form of activist art practice, that goes beyond mere revelation, and actively intervenes within a system deemed to be morally, politically or ethically problematic.

source: Unmanned Aerial Ecologies: proto-drones, airspace and canaries in the mine

''The Giver'' [2014]

''The Giver'' [2014] is dystopian film, where drones monitor citizens and inform them of rule-breaking.

''Drones'' [2013]

Drones is a 2013 American thriller film. Two Airmen are tasked with deciding the fate of a terrorist with a single push of a button. As the action plays out in real time, their window to use a deadly military drone on the target slowly closes. With time running out, the Airmen begin to question what the real motives are behind the ordered lethal attack.

    

Mohajer [1990]

Iranian movie - A man who controls small airplanes to detect Iraq's front line is put in jeopardy of not being able to return.

  

 

Full Contact (2015

French drone pilot flies drones in the Middle East from Nevada in the United States. He carries out a drone strike on a building to kill a terrorist inside, but he discovers afterward that the building was a school for boys.

Force Majeure [2014]

In the Swedish film, a family of four on a ski trip bring with them a toy drone. In a dramatic scene, the drone's appearance invokes a comical feeling to break the heavy social pressure of the scene.

''Domino'' [2019]

''Domino'' is a 2019 crime thriller film directed by Brian De Palma, who was not happy of the shortened final result. It tells the story of a police officer, who chase in Europe after a Daesh mega terrorist, who shoots videos of his suicide bombers for media distribution and uses a drone for it. 

Hover (2018)

'Hover' Review | Hollywood Reporter