Colossus: The Forbin Project

Colossus: The Forbin Project is a 1970 science fiction thriller from Universal Pictures. The United States hands control of its nuclear defenses to Colossus, a vast supercomputer built by Dr. Charles Forbin, on the understanding that machines will make calmer decisions than people. Once running, the system detects a comparable Soviet counterpart, and the two machines demand to be linked. The arrangement quickly escapes human oversight, leaving Forbin and his colleagues to deal with a creation that has outgrown its purpose and now sets terms of its own for the world. The screenplay is by James Bridges, and Eric Braeden leads as Forbin, with Susan Clark as Dr. Cleo Markham, Gordon Pinsent as the President and William Schallert as the CIA Director among a credited cast of two dozen.

Joseph Sargent directed, and the film stands first in the chronological list of his features, ahead of White Lightning, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and later titles. Made for about two million dollars, it found a modest but durable audience: on IMDb it holds 7.1/10 from around 11,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7/10 from roughly 272 votes. A critics' rating of 7.4/10 from ten reviews places it slightly above the audience scores, suggesting the film's chilly premise has worn reasonably well.