Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick

Birth : 1928-12-16, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

Death : 1982-03-02

History

American short story writer, novelist, and essayist. Dick has been hailed as one of the most original and thought-provoking writers of science fiction. He is regarded as one of the most prolific writers of the form during the mid-twentieth century. Since his death, Dick's work has been the subject of numerous critical studies and cinematic adaptations. Critics praise his short stories as innovative and provocative, contending that Dick's fiction cleverly explores scientific, social, and metaphysical issues of concern to post-World War II America.

Profile

Philip K. Dick

Movies

The Skull
Short Story
The Skulls is a dream come true. But Luke soon comes to realize just how powerful The Skulls organization really is -- and that the truth, like success, comes at a very high price.
A Glitch in the Matrix
self (archive footage)
Are we in fact living in a simulation? This is the question postulated, wrestled with, and ultimately argued for through archival footage, compelling interviews with real people shrouded in digital avatars, and a collection of cases from some of our most iconoclastic figures in contemporary culture.
Thlípsi
Thanks
A man who is paranoid and deluded by his own conspiracies that someone out there is after him must come to terms with the root of his suffering.
Void Vision
Writer
Void Vision focuses on a cinematic scenario where the real and the simulated are equally constructions. It presents images to be questioned, as the nature of reality is considered and re-considered in a fever-dream of paranoia and reification.
Blade Runner 2049
Characters
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
The pipers
Writer
The Crystal Crypt
Short Story
The last refugee plane to leave Mars before an intergalactic war may be hiding earthling terrorists, along with other things much more terrifying and precious.
Total Recall
Short Story
Factory worker Doug Quaid takes a virtual mind-trip vacation with the Rekall company, opting for implanted memories of being a spy. When the procedure goes wrong, Quaid becomes a wanted man by the police and joins forces with a rebel fighter to stop the evil Chancellor Cohaagen.
The Adjustment Bureau
Short Story
A man glimpses the future Fate has planned for him – and chooses to fight for his own destiny. Battling the powerful Adjustment Bureau across, under and through the streets of New York, he risks his destined greatness to be with the only woman he's ever loved.
Radio Free Albemuth
Novel
Record store clerk Nick Brady begins to experience strange visions from an entity he calls VALIS that cause him to uproot his family and move to Los Angeles where he becomes a successful music company executive. Nick finds himself drawn into a dangerous political-mystical conspiracy of cosmic proportions.
Screamers: The Hunting
Original Story
A group of humans arrive on Sirius 6-B to investigate an SOS signal sent out from the planet, which has been supposedly deserted since the destruction of the man-made weapons known as "screamers." Once the squad arrives, they find a group of human survivors eking out an existence in an old military outpost.
The Electric Dreamer: Remembering Philip K. Dick
Himself (archive footage)
Friends, family and colleagues of Philip K. Dick remember the life and work of the author of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
The Electric Dreamer: Remembering Philip K. Dick
Himself
Friends, family and colleagues of Philip K. Dick remember the life and work of the author of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
Sacrificial Sheep: The Novel vs. the Film
Self (archive footage)
A summary of the differences and similarities between Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep and Blade Runner.
Next
Novel
Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government and medical establishment in his power, he lies low under an assumed name in Vegas, performing cheap tricks and living off small-time gambling "winnings." But when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, government agent Callie Ferris must use all her wiles to capture Cris and convince him to help her stop the cataclysm.
One Summer in Austin: The Story of Filming 'A Scanner Darkly'
Himself (Archive footage)
A unique documentary that interlaces archival interviews with author Philip K. Dick with chats featuring cast and crew. Discussed are the origins of the story, parallels the cast and crew sees to the goings-on in today's world, and adapting the story for film, modern audiences, and its unique look.
A Scanner Darkly
Novel
An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.
Paycheck
Writer
Michael Jennings is a genius who's hired – and paid handsomely – by high-tech firms to work on highly sensitive projects, after which his short-term memory is erased so he's incapable of breaching security. But at the end of a three-year job, he's told he isn't getting a paycheck and instead receives a mysterious envelope. In it are clues he must piece together to find out why he wasn't paid – and why he's now in hot water.
Paycheck
Short Story
Michael Jennings is a genius who's hired – and paid handsomely – by high-tech firms to work on highly sensitive projects, after which his short-term memory is erased so he's incapable of breaching security. But at the end of a three-year job, he's told he isn't getting a paycheck and instead receives a mysterious envelope. In it are clues he must piece together to find out why he wasn't paid – and why he's now in hot water.
Minority Report
Writer
John Anderton is a top 'Precrime' cop in the late-21st century, when technology can predict crimes before they're committed. But Anderton becomes the quarry when another investigator targets him for a murder charge.
Minority Report
Short Story
John Anderton is a top 'Precrime' cop in the late-21st century, when technology can predict crimes before they're committed. But Anderton becomes the quarry when another investigator targets him for a murder charge.
Impostor
Story
A top-secret government weapons designer is arrested by a clandestine government organization on suspicion of being a clone created by the hostile alien race wanting to take over Earth.
On the Edge of 'Blade Runner'
Self (archive footage)
This is the rare UK Channel 4 documentary about Blade Runner, giving insights into it's history with interviews of Ridley Scott, the writers and nearly all the cast. Interviews with production staff, including Ridley, give details into the creative process and turmoil during preproduction. Stories from Paul M. Sammon and Fancher provide insight into Philip K. Dick and the origins of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Interweaved are cast interviews with the notable exceptions of Harrison Ford and Sean Young. Through these interviews we get a sense of how difficult and frustrating the film was to make as a result of an exacting director without allies and hot, wet, smoggy conditions; which added to the high pressure atmosphere everyone increasingly felt as the film went over budget. There is also a tour of some locations, most notably the Bradbury Building and the Warner Brothers backlot that was the LA 2019 streets, which look very different from Ridley's dark version.
Total Recall 2070: Machine Dreams
Writer
In the year 2070, the planet Earth is ruled by a single government entity and a conglomeration of corporations that hold absolute power. The crime rate is virtually nonexistent and the Citizens Protection Bureau defends the innocent from unchecked sociotechnological forces. But when the Bureau partner of Agent David Hume is dramatically gunned down, Hume's determination to uncover the dangerous truth behind this shocking crime leads him on a pulse-pounding race through the galaxy.
Screamers
Story
SIRIUS 6B, Year 2078. On a distant mining planet ravaged by a decade of war, scientists have created the perfect weapon: a blade-wielding, self-replicating race of killing devices known as Screamers designed for one purpose only -- to hunt down and destroy all enemy life forms.
Philip K Dick: A Day in the Afterlife
Himself (archive footage)
A poetic look at the life and legacy of legendary author Philip K. Dick (1928-1982), who wrote over over a hundred short stories and 44 novels of mind-bending sci-fi, exploring themes of authority, drugs, theology, mental illness and much more.
Barjo
Novel
The narrator, "Barjo" (nutcase, crap artist), is an obsessive simpleton, given to filling his notebook with verbatim dialog, observed trivia, and oddball speculation on human behavior and the end of the world. When his house burns, he moves in with his twin sister, Fanfan -- an impulsive, quixotic egoist -- and her husband, Charles, the Aluminum King. Charles becomes the focus of the film, as his wife and brother-in-law bewilder him.
Total Recall
Author
Construction worker Douglas Quaid's obsession with the planet Mars leads him to visit Recall, a company who manufacture memories. Something goes wrong during his memory implant turning Doug's life upside down and even to question what is reality and what isn't.
Morning Patrol
Writer
A deserted city is the setting, where a woman walks alone trying to approach and enter the forbidden zone. Traps and the morning patrol lurk everywhere. Electronic voices summon the (non-existent) people to abandon the city. Can a love affair in this place survive?
Blade Runner
Thanks
In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.
Blade Runner
Novel
In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.
Second Variety
Novel
Vulcan’s Hammer
Story
Set after a devastating world war, when the 70 nations of Earth form the Unity Party cede global governance to the Vulcan AI system, which algorithmically dictates policies for Unity to carry out. But after Vulcan is attacked and a special agent is murdered, Unity director William Barris is called to unravel the mystery to figure out who — or what — wants to destroy the system to which he has dedicated his life.