The Best Robot Friends In Movies We Wish Were Real

Animation fans were introduced to Brad Bird (The Incredibles) in a big way back in the late 90s with The Iron Giant. Possibly the greatest non-Disney animated film to be released, the film’s story is based on a Cold War children’s novel that is so universal, that its message still works today.

This robot best friend happens to be a huge space robot that may or may not have been sent to Earth to destroy the planet. But in finding nine-year-old Hogarth, the Iron Giant is capable of stopping himself from immediately destroying any weapon or threat he comes across. It also helps that the Iron Giant is a super cool, enormous metal-eating robot that can take on a whole army.

And for anyone who ever says Vin Diesel can’t act, the ending of The Iron Giant, in which the musclebound action star melts our hearts with one sentence, will convince you otherwise.

By the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, you will believe a machine can feel. If you were being hunted by a murderous robot from the future, there would be no robot best friend who would do better to keep you safe than the T-800. What this movie gets right, that all the sequels have forgotten, is that it’s the quiet moments between the T-800 and John Conner that help ground the film and add dramatic weight to the amazing action set pieces.

The famous motorcycle chase only works so well because the T-800, through Arnold Schwarzenegger’s understated performance, convinces us that this is a robot best friend who will move Heaven and Hell for his little fleshy buddy. In doing so, the T-800 even manages to teach John Conner a life lesson that will help shape him into the savior humanity needs.

Unlike the later models, the T-800 had real heart, and that’s what makes this one of the greatest sci-fi movies in history.

Cross the T-800 with R2-D2, and you get V.I.N.C.E.N.T. (Vital Information Necessary CENTralized) from Disney’s attempt to cash in on the Star Wars craze, The Black Hole. With the same stature as R2-D2 and those adorable eyes, you’d be forgiven for thinking V.I.N.C.E.N.T. is just another cute robot best friend, but this little guy is also a fighter, standing up for his friends and saving them from certain doom. Pound for pound, no other robot on this list is as brave as the Palomino’s diminutive crewmember.

While The Black Hole was a box office disaster, V.I.N.C.E.N.T. surpassed our expectations for a robot best friend, and we’d love to roll around town with this little guy by our side. He’s smart, he’s resourceful, and he’ll beat anyone up.

Proving Brad Bird knows his robot best friends, the 80s sci-fi classic Batteries Not Included introduced the world to the Fix It’s, strange little alien spaceships that might be biomechanical life forms or might be piloted by tiny aliens. The film, to its credit, doesn’t bother explaining what they are or how one of them is pregnant and instead focuses on how they become friends with an elderly couple, Frank and Faye. The pair manage an apartment building being targeted by an evil developer, and just when things are at their bleakest, here come the Fix It’s.

We can only imagine how great life would be if we had robot best friends like the Fix-Its, who not only scare away the developer but fix an entire building overnight. That and, again, they are incredibly adorable, resembling flying hamburger patties and they even make cute noises. Though we have no idea why they are here, we’d love to have them by our side.

SpaceCamp is a classic 80s kids movie, starring a young Joaquin Phoenix, and sure, it might not hold up well today, but that shouldn’t diminish anyone’s opinion of Jinx. And yes, the name fits, because of all the robot best friends on this list, Jinx is the most likely to be well-meaning but makes things worse, such as say, sending you into space.

Where the adorable, awkwardly put-together screw-up wins us over, and why Jinx would still be a fantastic robot best friend, is that they obviously care and truly do mean well. It’s nice having a buddy that we know won’t be part of the robot uprising. Yet, it would be nice if Jinx could think through the consequences of their actions.

In 2007, Transformers re-introduced the world to the Autobots, and while we’d vote for Optimus Prime to hold office, we fell in love with Bumblebee. Thankfully, everyone else did, too, so when he got his own film in 2018, it was official: Bumblebee is an all-time great robot best friend. Smart, caring, powerful, and brave, the yellow ‘bot wants to be a good friend, and the world would be a better place if more people thought that way.

If you thought Bumblebee was a great robot best friend to Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf), he went past our already lofty expectations with how he befriends Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) and helps her find direction in life. If every 18-year-old had a friend like Bumblebee, every therapist would be out of business. Also, Bumblebee’s radio voice means he basically talks in memes, and what kid doesn’t love that?

Unlike the other robot best friends, the good robotic versions of Bill and Ted from the underrated sequel, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, aren’t sentient and have no intelligence of their own. Instead, how cool would it be to have a remote-controlled version of yourself? Sure, they aren’t the best-looking robots, but for cobbled-together spare parts from a hardware store assembled by a martian, they’re amazing.

The Good Robot Us’s counter-act is the evil Bill and Ted androids that kill our heroes and serve as a reminder that anyone can be a hero, but not everyone knows how to rock. Oh, and if, for some reason, instead of a robotic version of you, you get one of the actual Good Robot Us, that just means you have Keanu Reeves as a robot best friend, and that sounds amazing.

R2-D2 is the robot’s best friend by which all others should be judged, as he’s not only the real hero of the Star Wars universe but incredibly loyal, brave, and willing to do whatever it takes to help his friends. If you’re indecisive and have no idea what to do, don’t worry, as R2-D2 takes charge and does what has to be done. While yes his solution to helping with homework might be to hack the school’s network and get the answers, we admire that level of gumption.

Best of all, R2-D2 talks in whoops and whistles, which means having a lot of in-jokes together as you, like everyone in Star Wars, lie about what he’s saying. Not every robot best friend should curse like a sailor, which is what we’re certain R2-D2 does, but at least he’ll also make you laugh. Finally, if you tell him a secret, such as oh, how Darth Vader is really your dad, and you really shouldn’t kiss Princess Leia, he’ll keep his mouth shut and not tell anyone.

While Short Circuit doesn’t hold up today, that’s because the film’s humor would not over with a modern audience, and not because of the star, Johnny 5. A military robot struck by lightning, SAINT Number 5 decides he wants to be one of the humans, joins society, and finds his own place in the world. Deciding on the name Johnny, the former weapon proves himself as an amazing robot best friend by helping out his buddies and even seemingly sacrificing himself when the military comes to town.

The sequel, Short Circuit 2, has Johnny 5 trying to make friends, and when he’s taken advantage of by those same people, it means two things: 1) how trusting and devoted Johnny 5 is, and 2) if you hurt him, or his friends, he will hunt you down and make you pay. There’s something to be said for a robot best friend who’s so honest and open but yet willing to throw fists (or shoot shoulder-mounted laser cannons, in his case).

The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is an amazing sci-fi novel by Douglas Adams and a decent sci-fi movie carried by the wild performance of Sam Rockwell and the instantly iconic Marvin, voiced by the legendary Alan Rickman. Marvin is easily the smartest robot on this list, but as with most truly intelligent people, that means he’s depressed all the time over how ultimately, nothing truly matters. A different type of robot best friend, Marvin, can solve almost any problem, but he lacks the motivation to do so.

Not shown in the film is the greatest Marvin scene in the novels, where, to save his friends, the Paranoid Android is face-to-face with a military Deathbringer robot that’s wondering how Marvin is going to fight. Marvin explains that he wasn’t given any weapons, which shocks the military robot so much that it blows itself up. It’s unconventional, but it gets the job done, and that’s Marvin.

Besides, if you ever wanted to hang out with Eeyore, Marvin is the closest robot best friend you’ll get to spending time with, the embodiment of depression. Imagine how much you’ll appreciate life when compared to Marvin’s worldview!

Dogs are man’s best friend, so it stands to reason that a robot best friend that’s also a dog is the best of both worlds. That’s the plot of A-X-L, a box office bomb that, had it been released even 20 years earlier, would have been a huge hit. Again, there’s a military robot on the run, and it’s taught to appreciate humanity by its new human friends, and yes, it then sacrifices itself to save everyone.

While the film won’t get any prizes for originality, A-X-L himself is, again, a giant robot dog, and that’s awesome. Like a dog, A-X-L is loyal and proves in his final moments how much he loved his time on Earth with his friends, and that’s a beautiful commentary on how dogs view us. Don’t worry; it has a happy ending, which is good because, robot or not, nothing should ever happen to the dog.

Atom is the toughest robot best friend on this list, with the heart and determination that makes Real Steel a modern “Rocky with robots,” and while he doesn’t do anything on his own (mostly), Atom has one very cool feature: the shadow function. Atom will mimic its user, which has the side benefit of letting you know just how good you are at, well, whatever task it is, from painting to punching people. Silent and not exactly warm and loving, Atom is still able to be comforting in this odd way.

Truthfully, though, imagine being able to program your own Atom to do household chores. One session with the shadow function, and you’ve got a robot best friend that will be, well, you, only a little better. That sounds like the start of a Philip K. Dick story, but Real Steel is based on Steel, a short story by Richard Matheson, so like the source material, we choose to be optimistic and think of how cool living with an atom would be.