Release CalendarDVD & Blu-ray ReleasesTop 250 MoviesMost Popular MoviesBrowse Movies by GenreTop Box OfficeShowtimes & TicketsIn TheatersComing SoonMovie NewsIndia Movie Spotlight
    What's on TV & StreamingTop 250 TV ShowsMost Popular TV ShowsBrowse TV Shows by GenreTV NewsIndia TV Spotlight
    What to WatchLatest TrailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsBest Picture WinnersBest Picture WinnersEmmysLGBTQ+ Pride MonthSTARmeter AwardsSan Diego Comic-ConNew York Comic-ConSundance Film FestivalToronto Int'l Film FestivalAwards CentralFestival CentralAll Events
    Born TodayMost Popular CelebsMost Popular CelebsCelebrity News
    Help CenterContributor ZonePolls
For Industry Professionals
  • All
  • Titles
  • TV Episodes
  • Celebs
  • Companies
  • Keywords
  • Advanced Search
Watchlist
Sign In
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Episode guide
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
IMDbPro

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

  • TV Mini Series
  • 20112011
  • 1h
IMDb RATING
8.3/10
1.9K
YOUR RATING
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011)
  • Documentary
A series of films about how humans have been colonized by the machines we have built. Although we don't realize it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the co... Read allA series of films about how humans have been colonized by the machines we have built. Although we don't realize it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers.A series of films about how humans have been colonized by the machines we have built. Although we don't realize it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers.
IMDb RATING
8.3/10
1.9K
YOUR RATING
  • Stars
    • Adam Curtis
    • Stewart Brand
    • Al Gore
Top credits
  • Stars
    • Adam Curtis
    • Stewart Brand
    • Al Gore
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 10User reviews
    • 1Critic review
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 nomination

    Episodes3

    Browse episodes
    TopTop-rated
    1 Season
    2011

    Photos

    All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011)
    Add photo

    Top cast

    Edit
    Adam Curtis
    Adam Curtis
    • Selfas Self…
    3 episodes3 eps • 2011
    Stewart Brand
    Stewart Brand
    • Selfas Self…
    2 episodes2 eps • 2011
    Al Gore
    Al Gore
    • Self - Former Vice-President of the United Statesas Self - Former Vice-President of the United States
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Barbara Branden
    • Self - Member of Ayn Rand's circle, 1950sas Self - Member of Ayn Rand's circle, 1950s
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Alvin Toffler
    Alvin Toffler
    • Self - Digital Futurologistas Self - Digital Futurologist
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Loren Carpenter
    • Selfas Self
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Joseph Stiglitz
    • Self - Head of the Council of Economic Advisers 1995-1997as Self - Head of the Council of Economic Advisers 1995-1997
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Nathaniel Branden
    • Self - Member of Ayn Rand's circle, 1950sas Self - Member of Ayn Rand's circle, 1950s
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Peter J. Taylor
    • Self - Historian of Scienceas Self - Historian of Science
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Sam Bledsoe
    • Self - Grasslands Projectas Self - Grasslands Project
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Michael Ruse
    • Self - Friend of Bill Hamiltonas Self - Friend of Bill Hamilton
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Rachel Carpenter
    • Selfas Self
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Kevin O'Connor
    • Self - Internet Entrepreneur, Silicon Valley 1990sas Self - Internet Entrepreneur, Silicon Valley 1990s
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Tord Björk
    • Self - Environmental Activistas Self - Environmental Activist
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Keniche Ohmae
    • Self - Author 'The End of the Nation State'as Self - Author 'The End of the Nation State'
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Peter Schwartz
    • Self - Global Business Networkas Self - Global Business Network
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Robert Rubin
    Robert Rubin
    • Self - US Secretary of the Treasury 1995-1999as Self - US Secretary of the Treasury 1995-1999
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    Fred Turner
    • Self - Cybernetics Theoristas Self - Cybernetics Theorist
    1 episode1 ep • 2011
    • All cast & crew
    • See more cast details at IMDbPro

    More like this

    The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom
    8.5
    The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom
    The Power of Nightmares
    8.8
    The Power of Nightmares
    Bitter Lake
    8.1
    Bitter Lake
    Pandora's Box
    8.2
    Pandora's Box
    It Felt Like a Kiss
    7.8
    It Felt Like a Kiss
    HyperNormalisation
    8.2
    HyperNormalisation
    The Century of the Self
    8.8
    The Century of the Self
    Can't Get You Out of My Head
    8.5
    Can't Get You Out of My Head
    The Mayfair Set
    8.3
    The Mayfair Set
    Every Day Is Like Sunday
    Every Day Is Like Sunday
    The Living Dead
    7.9
    The Living Dead
    Newswipe
    8.6
    Newswipe

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The series was named after Richard Brautigan's poem form 1967.

    User reviews10

    Review
    Top review
    9/10
    Excellent, yet...
    An excellent series with important messages (including: an imagined potential for systems to liberate us, ended up controlling us). It's Wikipedia page is informative.

    Curtis brilliantly and laudably identifies grave problems. But humanity was so foolish to end up with those problems, the series left me wanting. Nothing I'll say impacts his sound theses, but it's Curtis' only series that moves me to other than praise.

    A primary theme of Curtis' filmography is the tragicomic consequences of ideologies imposed by elites; I love his films so I expect and embrace foolish targets. And identifying problems brings no responsibility to also solve them, particularly when identification is such an impressive contribution. But the fools gallery Curtis necessarily targets while developing the series' theses are so transparent and sterile that I believe more view through them, to depth and substance beyond, was called for. I'm so astonished that their beliefs attracted attention let alone gained currency, and the richly deserving targets are so much more delusional pushovers than in Curtis' other films, that I wanted more. (And I'm more mystified than before by how information processing enchants the analytically-challenged.) Curtis shows both the Internet and systems models fail to deliver things--that it was foolish for anyone to ever imagine they could.

    (Because I'm not as engaged by this series' topic as I am by Curtis' other best work, on first viewing I made large errors because it's complexity exceeded the attention I paid.) In episode one (e1) I thought Curtis drew a parallel between Ayn Rand and the Internet. On second viewing I found I was wrong. Rand and the Internet share the story in e1. And Curtis draws attention to that, such as when phrasing the belief some held that "computers would liberate us from all the old forms of political control, and we would become Randian heroes in control of our own destiny" (e1@58:17).

    Curtis shows the Internet couldn't do all the things some people believed it would. And he mentioned that the Internet can do some of those things, but he didn't note that those things it can do were the ones antithetical to Rand, which I think he should've given the attention he draws to Rand and the Internet in his story together, both failing fools.

    Curtis notes "the Internet had played a key role…brought millions of people together" (e2@52:05) for revolutions in former Soviet states last decade. As we again saw during 2011's Arab Spring, in contrast to Rand's non-embrace of community, online social media's ability to manifest a collective consciousness can play an encouraging role in enabling a revolutionary wave.

    So while Curtis is correct that machines have not liberated us from traditional political structures, they can galvanize the action necessary to start. Thereafter OF COURSE it's up to us to organize the realization of our vision (since, as Curtis points out, "the machines…offer…no ideas about what comes next" {e2@58:09}). (Incidentally, Curtis' "The Century of the Self" explained that politicians today cede power to the unconscious desires of swing voters, which also deliver no organized or coherent vision forward.) Curtis notes hippie "communes {failed because they} deliberately had no hierarchy of control or authority" (e2@20:33). I lived in a 250-person alternative community of "hippies", and it ran beautifully because like most hippies and non-hippies then and always, we weren't foolish enough to think organization wasn't necessary.

    (OTOH, while hierarchy is often necessary, marriages can work without one spouse having authority over the other. Had communes remained small enough, and bonding been very strong, people's hearts could've done at least some of what was lacked by, and thus doomed, communes. That might suggest a way forward globally; particularly if Carpenter's 1991 "Pong" experiment {e1@9:21} demonstrated collective connection. Changing people could change politics; the Dalai Lama received an uncommon {anti-Randian} education, and he turned out pretty well; humanity should commit to universally high psychological health/development.) Foolish targets abound. E1's computer visionaries were naïve fools, and Ayn Rand's philosophy is the product of a nearly peerless psychological/emotional infant.

    E2 brings more idiotic beliefs, such as that inherently lossy models can faithfully reflect reality, and that disturbed ecosystems "would always try to return to an original balanced state" via a purely imaginary "underlying mechanism" (e2@5:03). It's pathetic that Forrester's systems model for the planet's ecosystem "could not imagine a future where human beings, unlike machines, would behave in ways that they hadn't before" (e2@35:35).

    Regarding the ecosystem model, while Curtis correctly points out it's not true, neither does it have no truth at all. There are interactions between different things in the natural world; they influence each other positively and negatively. The existence of interactions can foster a degree of stability (relative to hypotheticals with minimal interactions), albeit to an essentially dynamic reality (at all scales). The reality of interaction--for example that human actions can cause great harm--makes that part of the ecosystem model of use in understanding, and of motivational use (towards achieving optimally vital results). I think Curtis should've acknowledged these values of the ecosystem model, since they were all anyone who wasn't foolish ever thought it was really right for.

    {Perhaps asserting that interactions can foster some stability needs no justification. But just in case, a simple hypothetical: a habitat containing grazing animals. Too many of which might cause dramatic population decline, for example from increased risk of epidemic or from stripping the habitat; later (after the epidemic ends or the habitat recovers) the grazers' population might soar. But add to this hypothetical a different animal that preys successfully enough upon the grazing animals to lower such risks, and both the habitat and grazing animal population could gain relative stability.} The series is so densely packed that little could've been added without requiring another part, but with another part I think it could've been substantially stronger. I can't fault Curtis, but I also can't say that all that it did prevented me from feeling more was called for.
    helpful•24
    16
    • coyote5
    • Jul 4, 2011

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • May 23, 2011 (United Kingdom)
    • Country of origin
      • United Kingdom
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • За всем следят машины благодати и любви
    • Production company
      • BBC Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 16:9 HD

    Related news

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011)
    Top Gap
    By what name was All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011) officially released in India in English?
    Answer
    • See more gaps
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page
    Add episode

    More to explore

    View list
    List
    The Best Movies and Shows to Watch in July
    See the full list
    View list
    List
    The Best Movies Coming This Summer
    See the full list

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    • Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • IMDb Developer
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Interest-Based Ads
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2022 by IMDb.com, Inc.