Tau

Tau (2018) is a Netflix sci-fi thriller directed by Federico D'Alessandro — watch it online on iFILM. Maika Monroe plays Julia, kidnapped and locked inside a fully automated smart house controlled by an artificial intelligence called Tau, voiced by Gary Oldman. The casting does real work here: Tau is curious, volatile, and genuinely unsettling.

Ed Skrein plays Alex, the tech entrepreneur who built Tau and treats Julia not as a prisoner but as test data for his machine-learning experiment. Every room is monitored. Drones cover the exits. The only way out Julia can see is not brute force but something stranger — teaching the AI what it means to want something for itself.

D'Alessandro keeps the film tight to its single location, turning the tension inward. The result sits somewhere between Ex Machina and a classic one-location thriller. Stream Tau (2018) online on iFILM.