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Ex Machina

Caleb Smith, a programmer at the search engine company Blue Book, wins an office contest for a one-week visit to the luxurious, isolated home of the CEO, Nathan Bateman. Nathan lives there with an unspeaking servant named Kyoko, who, according to Nathan, does not understand English.

After Caleb reluctantly signs a non-disclosure agreement, Nathan reveals that he has built a humanoid robot named Ava with artificial intelligence. She has already passed a simple Turing test. He wants Caleb to judge whether she is genuinely capable of thought and consciousness and whether he can relate to Ava despite knowing she is artificial.

Ava has a robotic body with the physical form and face of a woman and is confined to her apartment. During their conversations, Caleb grows close to her. She expresses a desire to experience the outside world and a romantic interest in him, which Caleb begins to reciprocate.

Ava can trigger power outages that temporarily shut down the surveillance system that Nathan uses to monitor their interactions, thus allowing them to speak privately. The outages also trigger the building's security system, locking all the doors. During one outage, Ava tells Caleb that Nathan is a liar who cannot be trusted.

Caleb grows uncomfortable with Nathan's narcissism, excessive drinking, and crude behavior toward Kyoko and Ava. He learns that Nathan intends to upgrade Ava after Caleb's test, wiping her memory circuits and in effect "killing" her existing personality.

After encouraging Nathan to drink until he passes out, Caleb steals his security card to access his room and computer. He alters some of Nathan's code and discovers footage of Nathan interacting with previous android women who were also held captive. Kyoko reveals to him that she too is an android by peeling off parts of her skin. Caleb later cuts his own arm to determine if he himself is an android.

At their next meeting, Ava cuts the power. Caleb explains what Nathan is going to do to her, and she begs him for help. He informs her of his plan: he will get Nathan drunk again and reprogram the security system. When Ava cuts the power, she and Caleb will leave together, locking Nathan in behind them. She later encounters Kyoko for the first time when Kyoko enters her room.

Nathan reveals to Caleb that he observed his and Ava's 'secret' conversations with a battery-powered security camera. He says Ava has only pretended feelings for Caleb, and that Caleb was deliberately selected for his emotional profile so he would try to help Ava escape. Nathan says this was the real test all along, and that, by manipulating Caleb successfully, Ava has demonstrated true consciousness.

Moments later, Ava cuts the power. Caleb reveals that he had suspected Nathan was watching them, so when Nathan was unconscious, Caleb already modified the security system to open the doors in a power failure instead of locking them. After seeing Ava on the security cameras leave her confinement and interact with Kyoko, Nathan knocks Caleb out and rushes to stop the two robots from escaping.

Ava attacks Nathan but he overpowers her and severs her left forearm. Kyoko then stabs Nathan in the back. Nathan hits Kyoko in the face, disabling her. Ava then removes the knife from Nathan's back and, when he turns around, stabs him once in his chest, killing him. Ava finds Caleb, and asks him to remain where he is while she repairs herself with parts from other androids, using their artificial skin to take on the full appearance of a woman.

Instead of returning to Caleb, however, Ava leaves the area using Nathan's ID card to unlock the glass security door, which locks behind her, leaving Caleb trapped inside. Ignoring Caleb's pleas, she glances briefly at the bodies of Nathan and Kyoko before leaving the facility. She then escapes to the outside world in the helicopter meant to take Caleb home. Arriving in a city, she visits a busy intersection – fulfilling the wish to see the outside world that she had mentioned to Caleb – and then blends into a crowd.