Back to trending
Paycheck

Paycheck

Action · Adventure · Mystery · 2003

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.

Movie details

Paycheck

“The future depends on a past he was paid to forget.”

2003 Action · Adventure · Mystery 1h 59m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.3 / 10

117.1K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

27 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

43 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.2 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

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.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Paycheck?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Next

Next

Action · 2007

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.

Surrogates

Surrogates

Sci-fi · 2009

Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.

The Electric State

The Electric State

Action · 2025

An orphaned teen hits the road with a mysterious robot to find her long-lost brother, teaming up with a smuggler and his wisecracking sidekick.

The Creator

The Creator

Sci-fi · 2023

Amid a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war—and mankind itself.

The Time Machine

The Time Machine

Sci-fi · 2002

Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th-century inventor instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds mankind divided into two warring races.

Déjà Vu

Déjà Vu

Action · 2006

Called in to recover evidence in the aftermath of a horrific explosion on a New Orleans ferry, Federal agent Doug Carlin gets pulled away from the scene and taken to a top-secret government lab that uses a time-shifting surveillance device to help prevent crime.

RoboCop

RoboCop

Action · 2014

In RoboCop, the year is 2028 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Overseas, their drones have been used by the military for years, but have been forbidden for law enforcement in America. Now OmniCorp wants to bring their controversial technology to the home front, and they see a golden opportunity to do it. When Alex Murphy – a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit – is critically injured, OmniCorp sees their chance to build a part-man, part-robot police officer. OmniCorp envisions a RoboCop in every city and even more billions for their shareholders, but they never counted on one thing: there is still a man inside the machine.

The Matrix Reloaded

The Matrix Reloaded

Adventure · 2003

The Resistance builds in numbers as humans are freed from the Matrix and brought to the city of Zion. Neo discovers his superpowers, including the ability to see the code inside the Matrix. With machine sentinels digging to Zion in 72 hours, Neo, Morpheus and Trinity must find the Keymaker to ultimately reach the Source.

Automata

Automata

Thriller · 2014

Jacq Vaucan, an insurance agent of ROC robotics corporation, routinely investigates the case of manipulating a robot. What he discovers will have profound consequences for the future of humanity.

Minority Report

Minority Report

Sci-fi · 2002

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.

Where it lives

Watch in your region.

Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.

Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

John Woo

Written by

Dean Georgaris

Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck

Michael Jennings

Aaron Eckhart

Aaron Eckhart

James Rethrick

Uma Thurman

Uma Thurman

Rachel Porter

Paul Giamatti

Paul Giamatti

Shorty

Colm Feore

Colm Feore

John Wolfe

Joe Morton

Joe Morton

Agent Dodge

Michael C. Hall

Michael C. Hall

Agent Klein

Court is in session

Put Paycheck on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Adrenaline Seeker

“Momentum is a formal choice.”

The velocity sharpens instinct and tension, making every beat land before self-importance can settle in.

The prosecution The Prestige Tourist

“Speed as an alibi.”

The film races past its weak spots and hopes acceleration will keep the audience from inspecting the evidence.