What are cyborgs? How have they been represented in cinema? And why have they generated such an astonishing degree of critical interest? These are the questions that underpin this book. It asks what relevance the cyborg has in exploring the nature of human identity, questioning our relationship to technology, and speculating on envisaged prospects for the future. It also goes beyond other work in the field by not only evaluating individual texts, but addressing what cyborg films have in common, acknowledging the development they have undergone over the last twenty years, and speculating on the reasons for this transition. The cinematic cyborg's continued appeal is testified by the decision to revive the Terminator franchise with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Jonathan Mostow, 2003), as well as other high profile releases that similarly explore 'posthuman' potential, including the X-Men films (Bryan Singer, 2000, 2003) and the Matrix trilogy (Andy & Larry Wachowski 1999, 2003). In referencing such films, and the legacy they draw upon, this study is not only the most up-to-date analysis of cyborgs, and their variants, in film, but also the first to comprehensively assess cyborg cinema as both an important sub-genre of science fiction, and a definitive cycle in its own right.