
Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies? - rogercosseboom
One of my favorite movies is the 2004 film Primer which was written, directed, scored, and stars a mathematician and software engineer.  Aside from the obvious (gems like Wargames, King of Kong- stinkers like the Matrixes and Hackers) what other (good) tech films are there?
======
scott_s
Apollo 13 has some great hacker scenes. It has, in fact, my favorite hacker
moment from any movie.

"We gotta find a way to make _this_ [holds up square peg] fit into the hole
for _this_ [holds up round peg] using nothing but that [points to random
assortment of crap that they know is on board].":
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNDuGuerpf8>

~~~
hernan7
The square peg/round hole sequence is of course the embodiment of the hacker
spirit (not an original thought of mine, but I can't seem to find the original
URL at the moment).

Another space/hackish movie would be "The Dish" about the Australian engineers
in charge of one the (of course) dishes used to communicate with Apollo 11.
Cliffhanger scene: the dish goes out of alignment for some reason and they
need to scramble to regain contact in time to televise the moon landing.

And of course there's always "The Right Stuff".

~~~
brandnewlow
Q: How do you know if you're a hacker? A: If you get chills during that scene.

I did, but I didn't know what it meant at the time.

My dad on the other hand wouldn't stop talking about it during the drive home
afterward. He was a mechanical engineer at West Point and it got him going on
the laws of thermodynamics and the time he calculated the condensation point
of a drop of water on a steel pipe and realized that engineering is no
different from magic at a certain point.

------
mechanical_fish
Okay, I'm insane, I know that. But I have this strange urge to nominate _The
Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai_ in this category. I'm not sure I can explain
why. Perhaps it's just to be perverse. ;)

There's just something about the character that rings true. He's a famous
superhero, but he doesn't wear a costume or come from another planet. He's a
mad scientist, but he doesn't cackle or plot or soliloquize. He's an odd guy
with a diverse collection of obsessive hobbies and an even more diverse
collection of friends, who are world-class experts in their fields while also
being strange and geeky people. And somehow these people aren't his minions or
his sidekicks: They're _colleagues_. He and his band work on things that
nobody on Earth has ever heard of, but they don't seem too excited about that
-- there are no breathless gasps. It's just part of their usual routine.

There's something about this guy, his lab, and his team that reminds me of the
_actual_ basement of the physics department at Cornell, and of the actual
people who you might find wandering the hallways of such a place. A place
where the pile of junk in the corner is actually the remains of a Nobel-
winning experiment from 1967, and the guy who just asked you how to find the
men's room is the Secretary of Energy.

~~~
pg
I once walked past John Lithgow in Harvard Yard.

I was so surprised I blurted out "Dr. Lazardo!"

"Laugh while you can, monkey-boy," he replied, and kept walking.

~~~
ivankirigin
that's awesome

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d682xV0n1YY>

------
bd
_The Prestige_ (competing magicians inventing new tricks, cameo by Nikola
Tesla):

<http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/prestige>

 _Iron Man_ (fun movie where the main character is hacker/inventor):

<http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/ironman>

 _There Will Be Blood_ (not a hacker movie per se, but still kind of startup-
relevant, it's about creation of the oil empire from scratch):

<http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/therewillbeblood>

 _Odyssey 5_ (TV series about a group of astronauts sent back in time to
prevent destruction of Earth, AI plays a significant role):

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318236/>

Few Japanese cyberpunk animated classics:

 _Ghost in the Shell 1 & 2_:

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113568/>

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347246/>

 _Akira_ :

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094625/>

Bonus: if you liked Primer, you may like also _Timecrimes_ (even though it's
not a hacker movie):

<http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/timecrimes>

~~~
sofal
Regarding Iron Man: It is hard for me to suspend my disbelief when movies
feature world-shatteringly advanced artificial intelligence and yet pay no
attention whatsoever to the obvious implications of such technology. Forget
the silly flying suit!

~~~
rogercosseboom
That was exactly what I took from the movie- not the suit or whatever was
interesting but how great a user-agent setup he had!

~~~
jdavid
I named my ubuntu box Jarvis that day, after seeing it twice. ;-)

------
mschwar99
Fan of:

The headache inducing blue ribbon winner: Pi -
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/>

The slightly corny but worthwhile: Sneakers -
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/>

~~~
artlogic
Sneakers may be corny - but it's actually based on some serious math.
Essentially one of the characters has developed a way to solve a prime
factorization in what appears to be constant time (i.e. O(1)). Once you do
that - well that's the end of basically all public key cryptography based on
the RSA algorithm (pretty much everything in common use). Much more realistic
than say, Hackers.

~~~
tptacek
On the other hand, Hackers did take the time to name its characters after
handles taken from 2600.

~~~
biohacker42
It also had Angelina Jolie.

It... motivate me to be a hacker.

And yet now that I am a hacker... I am no closer to Angelina, funny that.

~~~
jdavid
When I was young, I thought mechanical engineering would be my ticket to the
space race, but after seeing the movie hackers for the 1st time on the
engineering floor in college, I thought hacking was COOOOL.

I know it sounds lame, but I have to think that that movie got me fantasizing
about it.

So, later on when I was struggling with Statics and Dynamics my teacher
recognized that I was really a hacker and not an engineer. He asked how I did
all of that stuff on my calculator, I then showed him my serial cable mod for
the TI-82, and the other software i had written to make his class easier,
because S&D was so hard. He suggested I change majors.

I AM SO HAPPY I DID, and today I have a job where I get paid to design the
OpenWeb, and work on side projects. Maybe one will break out.

I still think I owe the campy fantasy of hacking to the movie 'Hackers,' for
letting me think i had a better chance of getting a girl via hacking. I guess
today i am still hopeful.

------
mechanical_fish
My Caltech friend assured me that _Real Genius_ perfectly captured the spirit
of Caltech. (It borrows a lot of legendary Caltech hacks.) It certainly is the
best fictional depiction of grad school I've ever seen, though it's kind of
confused about the distinction between undergrad and grad school. On the other
hand, perhaps that's normal at Caltech as well.

~~~
DaniFong
It's supposed to be undergrad, which is like that at Caltech (and for that
matter, many physics departments).

Real Genius is a terrific movie, and it leapt to mind as being definitive. :-)

~~~
narag
But it can't beat "Young Einstein" in number of geniuses: Edison, Darwin,
Marie Curie, Rutherford, Freud and Einstein himself.

------
kobs
Antitrust: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/>

Pirates of Silicon Valley: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/>

~~~
Shamiq
I got a real kick out of watching Pirates of Silicon Valley.

~~~
jimbokun
I much prefer "Triumph of the Nerds."

<http://www.pbs.org/nerds/>

The real Gates, Jobs, etc. are far more compelling, interesting, and
charismatic than actors trying to portray them.

~~~
petercooper
Though Steve Jobs thought Noah Wyle was so good that he invited him to trick
the audience at one of his keynotes.

------
imp
Slightly off topic, but a good hacker TV show is "Big Bang Theory" on Monday
nights on ABC. It's about 4 physics PhD students at Cal Tech.

The best part is that they don't water down the physics at all. One guy got
dumped by his girlfriend because of their differing opinions on string theory.

I just got the season 1 DVD and it's great.

~~~
bd
They are not PhD students, more something like postdocs. The only one of them
without PhD is a target of jokes because of this.

~~~
imp
Yeah, you're right. I was just trying to summarize. Either way, still very
rare for network TV.

------
pasbesoin
GATTACA might be worth adding to the list.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca>

~~~
rms
Gattaca is an underrated classic. Andre Niccol's other movie The Truman Show
is even better.

~~~
rms
His other other movie, Lord of War, was also pretty good. It does involve
entrepreneurship. The Terminal, his other other other movie, was ok, but no
hacking. I haven't seen his other other other other movie, S1m0ne.

~~~
danteembermage
I've seen s1mOne; the basic premise is very hacker-y. A guy living in his
house develops photo-realistic CG, telling no one, and delivers it to a movie
producer and then dies. What should he do with it? His choice == the film.

------
mixmax
I liked "a beauiful mind" about John Nash and game theory.

And "The Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires" is a must-see
about how Microsoft, Apple, et al. started out.

~~~
mschwar99
Triumph of the Nerds is great. Hopefully Cringley will make a version for this
decade about Web empires.

~~~
rogercosseboom
He did make "Nerds 2.0" about the first web boom. Sadly, this has never been
released on vhs/dvd.

~~~
mixmax
It has been released on the Intertubes apparently:
[http://www.torrentbox.com/torrent_details?id=29078&filel...](http://www.torrentbox.com/torrent_details?id=29078&filelist=1)

~~~
rogercosseboom
Sadly I tried to download this a while ago and it turned out to be fake... its
another (not-so-interesting) documentary on the internet.

~~~
mixmax
This one seems to be the real deal, I'm downloading it now, and I saw Robert
X. Cringely in the preview.

------
Setec_Astronomy
Not all are hacker movies per se, but these have great general geek appeal:

Existenz <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0120907/>

Cube <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/>

The Nines <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0810988/>

The World's Fastest Indian <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0412080/>

October Sky <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0132477/>

Three Days of the Condor <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0073802/>

~~~
apgwoz
+1 for Cube. Cube 2: Hypercube and Cube Zero, not so much.

~~~
Setec_Astronomy
Totally agreed. The others were dismal.

~~~
SteveC
I actually refused to show the third to friends because it was so bad it
actually ruined the first a little bit.

------
tptacek
Good movies about startups: "Tucker", "24 Hour Party People", and
"Ghostbusters".

~~~
mechanical_fish
Wow, _Ghostbusters_ is a movie about a startup. It seems so obvious once it's
pointed out, but it never occurred to me before.

~~~
scott_s
It's also very much a product of the Reagan era: the bad guys are the
scientists, academia and the EPA.

~~~
tptacek
Uh, hello? Venkman: "Back off, man! We're scientists!"

Also, didn't they give props to a Dem mayor of NYC?

~~~
scott_s
That's what he says, but they lack the skepticism of actual scientists. I love
the movie - and the quote - but Venkman is clearly calling himself a scientist
because it's convenient at the moment.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Wait, how do we know that Venkman isn't a legitimate scientist, again? Because
he's insufficiently skeptical about ghosts? But in the universe of
_Ghostbusters_ ghosts _physically exist_!

If anything, the part of _Ghostbusters_ that strains my credulity is that in
their universe there seem to be scientists who _don't_ believe in ghosts.
You'd think that the accumulated evidence would be pretty overwhelming by the
1980s!

~~~
jjs
IIRC, the spate of hauntings in the movie was brought on by the imminent
return of Gozer the Gozerian (or by the same rare set of conditions that
allowed Gozer to return).

By the sequel, the Ghostbusters had mostly closed up shop due to the collapse
of the haunting bubble.

------
mark_h
At the other end of the hacker spectrum (the cry-yourself-to-sleep reality end
not the fantasy end), there's Office Space.

~~~
jcl
I also enjoyed Mike Judge's other film "Idiocracy". It's not explicitly a
hacker film, but it's a sci-fi story about an average guy in a world of
idiots, so it verges on hacker territory. It also has some examples of
hilariously bad human/computer interface design.

(And if you're into cry-yourself-to-sleep-reality movies, there's also
Outsourced, a recent comedy about a call center manager who must train his
replacements in India. I found it surprisingly enjoyable. Its primary themes
are culture clash and figuring out what's important in life, so it shares
similarities with Office Space and Gung Ho.)

------
mechanical_fish
Okay, I'll say this much in defense of the _Matrices_ : (a) the first _Matrix_
movie is emphatically not a stinker; (b) I appreciated the second two a lot
better after reading these links [1]:

[http://corporatemofo.com/media_and_mediocrity/the_matrix_rel...](http://corporatemofo.com/media_and_mediocrity/the_matrix_reloaded_the_corpor.html)

[http://web.archive.org/web/20071005000019/http://www.corpora...](http://web.archive.org/web/20071005000019/http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/031109matrix.htm)

I mean, I still don't think the sequels worked very well, particularly #3, but
I admire the audacity of the experiment.

\---

[1] (Alas, the second link now appears to be Wayback Machine material.
Essayists, defend your archives!)

~~~
rogercosseboom
I thought about "Matrices" but decided that there was only one Matrix (in all
senses of the word...)

~~~
mechanical_fish
What former physicist could resist? It's like trying to resist saying _boxen_
, only more so, because _matrices_ is an actual word.

------
aditya
More sci-fi than pure tech, I just saw: "The man from earth",
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/>

Highly recommended.

~~~
staunch
I've watched The Man From Earth about 30 times. Favorite movie of the past few
years by a long shot.

Bixby also wrote a Star Trek TOS episode with basically the same story:
[http://www.cbs.com/classics/star_trek/video/video.php?cid=64...](http://www.cbs.com/classics/star_trek/video/video.php?cid=649548575&pid=ldOkx_DqxB1DMiFZVa6kp011elNkv6Ah&play=true)

------
iuguy
You already had the best (Primer) After that, in no particular order:

Sneakers. Brilliant film.

Hackers - I think it's old enough now to be allowed but it was really
laughable at the time - in the kind of way swordfish will be almost respected
20 years from now.

Wargames is the Hackers of the early 80s.

Pirates of Silicon Valley is also worth a watch.

Three Days of the Condor is a fantastic film if you're even slightly old
school.

The nines is one of those films you'll either get and love or won't - I loved
it.

Battle Royale is an amazing film that happens to have some hacking in it.

2001 is the ultimate hacker film, even though there's not much that you could
associate hacking with it. The way it's put together, the dedication to
realism, the way the special effects were implemented a year before man went
to the moon defines it as a hacker film for me, although YMMV.

------
aduk98
There was a sort of 'unofficial' 'hackers 2' with Skeet Ulrich playing Kevin
("My kung-fu better than you kung-fu!") Mitnick in Takedown
(<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159784/>) - the story following the book of the
same name by Tsutomu Shimonura. Also, I think they recently screened 'Wargames
2 : the dead code' (<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0865957/>) over here in the
UK. Don't forget Tron! Ah.. just hearing the sounds of the video arcade at the
beginning...

------
prakash
I liked the King of Kong: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0923752/>.

Man on Wire is on my list of movies to watch:
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1155592/>

~~~
divia
If you liked King of Kong, you might like Chasing Ghosts:
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479879/>

It has a different focus, but it's about a lot of the same guys (Billy
Mitchell, Walter Day, Roy Schmidt), and is also really well done.

~~~
prakash
thanks! will check it out.

------
thomasswift
On the social engineering tip, I'd say "Catch Me If You Can" is a good watch.
It's a little too hollywood, but there are some good bits.

------
ojbyrne
There's no computers in it, but Coppola's "The Conversation" is a classic -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conversation> \- it's about electronic
surveillance. There's a great scene near the end that reminds me of debugging
- the wikipedia article has a picture and descriptive caption of that scene:

"At the end of The Conversation, Gene Hackman, as paranoid audio surveillance
expert Harry Caul, plays the saxophone in his apartment, which he took apart
piece by piece trying to find a bug. The scene vividly illustrates Caul's
complete emotional isolation by having him literally tear away practically
every vestige of the material world that surrounds him, shattering the safety
and security of his carefully-constructed womb."

~~~
skmurphy
I always thought Gene Hackman's character in "Enemy of the State" (opposite
Will Smith) was Harry Caul 30 years later.

~~~
ojbyrne
Never thought of that, but yeah. He must have brought some of the first role
to the second role.

------
tlrobinson
On the documentary side of things (all of which are available free/legally
online):

1\. "Code Rush", documentary about Netscape open sourcing Mozilla.

<http://www.viddler.com/explore/coderush/videos/1/>

2\. "Revolution OS" was a pretty interesting documentary on Linux and the free
software movement.

[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409&...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409&ei=xYF-
ScDeJZPCqAOfkJizBA)

3\. "Freedom Downtime", a documentary about Kevin Mitnick. There's also "Track
Down", but that's more of a fictional portrayal loosely based on him.

[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6746139755329108302...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6746139755329108302&ei=fIF-
SceYCKS2qAO52Py1BA)

------
skmurphy
The Dish tells the story of the Australian downlink that provided
communications support for the Apollo moon landing. True to life and truly
funny picture of engineers collaborating on some hard problems against a
deadline.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0205873/>

------
tom_rath
The Dam Busters (1955 - <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046889/> ) is excellent.
You can see real-world examples of the hacker problem-solving mindset right
from the start of the movie and it continues on throughout.

(PC Warning: One of the main characters has an unfortunately named black dog,
which I suspect is the reason this superb film is only rarely seen).

------
rms
E-Dreams: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262021/> Startup.com:
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/>

~~~
dallasrpi
A little more info - Traces the birth and failure of new media company
govWorks.com

If you are or were part of a start-up company you will be entertained by this
documentary. It makes your head spin to see some of the mistakes and money
this company goes through. They hired literally hundreds of people for an idea
that could now probably be run with a dozen people (most of them sales).

------
there
23 (not the jim carrey one)

<http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0126765/>

if you've ever read the cuckoo's egg, 23 is sort of the other side of the
story, following karl koch and the germans (though stoll was mostly tracking
markus hess in the cuckoo's egg, not koch).

~~~
prospero
I've been looking for a version of this with English subtitles for a while
now. Do you have any suggestions?

~~~
there
thepiratebay :(

------
CaptainMorgan
Swordfish; if nothing for the totally cool monitor setup he had at Gabriel's
place.

Alien; the original- the next couple of movies in the series were okay but the
first I think is a classic in form of technology and all that good stuff. If
you watch it, it may seem a bit old-school for our time, but for their time
that was pretty cool! Finding a solution to space travel at light-year speed?
Come-on- that's awesome.

Stargate; another one for space travel, but overall it was kind of corny- I
just liked how the Egyptians, or whoever, discovered a way to transport across
galaxies.

Enemy of the State; cool NSA tech stuff.

Deja Vu; the ability to go back in time only four days earlier or less... I
like their setup and how they explained the plausibility of the technology
actually coming to fruition.

~~~
tlrobinson
Swordfish did have a cool monitor setup, but he built a virus using some sort
of graphical tool! I suppose that's a bit more exciting for most people than
vi or something.

And, of course, there was the "break into this system in 60 seconds while I
hold a gun to your head and some woman gives you a blowjob" scene.
Hollywood...

------
streblo
Waking Life. Not so much a 'hacker' movie per say, but a great film for anyone
who is interested in some heavy thinking and interesting cinematography.

~~~
there
i always remember the bit about trying to flip light switches in a dream to
determine whether you're really dreaming or not.

------
ciscoriordan
Primer - Ultra low budget film about a couple of engineers who accidentally
invent a time machine in their garage while working on a startup.

Blow - Not really a hacker movie, but it's rags-to-riches-to-rags storyline
should be interesting to a lot of entrepreneurs.

Day of the Jackal - Not a hacker movie either, but the main character's
methodical preparation for an assassination will appeal to a lot of hackers.

The Net - A pretty good thriller about a hacker who has her identity stolen in
a big conspiracy.

Fat Man and Little Boy - Slow but well done movie about the Manhattan Project.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
Although not obviously related to startups or to hacking, I've found that all
my hacker friends (yes - I have friends) love _The Princess Bride._

"Never get involved in a land war in Asia"

"Inconceivable!"

------
hachiya
"Antitrust" is cheesy, but if you suspend disbelief and just treat it as
fiction, it's a very entertaining movie. And even Bill Gates is spoofed in the
movie.

~~~
Zev
As far as computer movies go, Antitrust wasn't too bad; It at least had real
code whenever it was needed to be shown on screen.

------
ardit33
5th Element, I think is the ultimate guy/hacker movie. Disutopian reality,
future, flying cars, spaceships, tech and gadgets, weapons, awesome
soundtrack, action, funny, love story, and hot chicks...

What do you want more from a movie?

~~~
jdavid
I think they could make a whole series of prequels to the 5th element. I would
love to see the adventures of "Corban Dallas"

------
gcheong
Its sci-fi, but I have no doubt 2001:A Space Odyssey inspired many a hacker to
go into AI.

------
hugs
I can't believe no one's mentioned Back to the Future! Favorite scene: opening
scene with the robotic arm automation Favorite quote: "You'll have to forgive
the crudeness of this model, I didn't have time to paint it or build it to
scale."

------
mct
Perhaps it's more of a good "science movie" than a good "hacker movie", but I
adore Carl Sagan's _Contact_. I get chills whenever I watch the scene where
the signal is first detected.

~~~
jdavid
thats a hacker film. they had to find the signal, and then prove they were
there!

------
utnick
I recently rented August from blockbuster.

Its about a VC funded startup with little revenue that goes bust.

It was a pretty terrible movie though and the web2.0 talk will make you
cringe.

~~~
rokhayakebe
August was pretty bad. I just watched it Friday. What did LandShark do?

~~~
thomasswift
E-everything

~~~
rokhayakebe
"E is the highway, not the vehicle, we do not need traction." Well I would
assume a highway is definitely built for vehicles, hence needs the traction to
justify the investment.

------
ideamonk
I would go for some documentaries -

Triumph of the Nerds, Hackers : Angels or Daemons History of Video Games

another one on hacking from National Geographic, i can't recall the name

Antitrust too :P

~~~
gcheong
Project Ardvark about a group of interns at Fog Creek Software

EDIT: The actual name is Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks With Geeks

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=984060502281891679>

------
zandorg
Loads, but Revolution OS for Stallman fanservice, Johnny Mnemonic (which
everyone criticises, but Gibson did write the script), Sneakers _DVD
commentary_ (Canadian R1 DVD), and I'll be cute and say Ferris Bueller for his
hacks.

------
gravitycop
Dup. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=396120>

_Ask HN: What's a modern equivalent of the 80's "War Games" movie?

4 points by gur 45 days ago | 5 comments | flag_

------
azharcs
I saw "Hackers are people too" recently. I is a very good documentary about
Hackers and the culture.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1279942/>

------
code_devil
Dare I say "Italian Job", the guy who hacks into the Traffic System. I think
they said in the movie that napster was his idea, but someone stole it while
he was sleeping.

------
cgranade
Sadly, it's kind of hard for me to come up with good hacker movies, but I can
at least try to make a recommendation of interest to (most) hackers: Paprika.
It's an anime film (by the same team that brought us Perfect Blue and
Millennium Actress) that explores the ramifications of a device that allows
someone to interact with someone else's dreams. Like I said, not a hacker
movie per se, but I think it's one that most hackers will probably like.

~~~
gommm
As an aside millenium actress was really a great movie I thought... But of
course not a hacker movie at all

------
chriseidhof
I like The Lawnmower Man a lot too. Stunning graphics and it really captures
the spirit of a computer enabling you to do much more cooler things than Real
Life.

------
geuis
My own cheesy favorite, The First $20 Million is the Hardest. Plus I love
Rosario Dawson, so that's probably a contributing factor.

------
michaelneale
The Devil Wears Prada

Its about fashion, but I see a lot of parallels with fashions in software
coming and going and returning.

------
sjs382
BBS Documentary

------
prakash
no wonder the netflix prize is such a _hard problem_.

------
stevedekorte
TRON

------
joe_bleau
(Canadian?) TV show "Regenesis". Biology stuff, apparently a bit of real
science mixed in from time to time. The first couple of seasons or so are in
syndication, so watch for it at really bad times in the US, like 1AM Monday on
minor TV stations.

------
jcl
I'm a little surprised "21" wasn't mentioned yet. The movie, like the book
"Bringing Down the House", is a fictionalized account of a true story about
how the MIT blackjack club took Vegas casinos for many thousands of dollars.

------
emson
An excellent movie I enjoyed was: Dark City It was kind of like a precursor to
The Matrix.

<http://www.scifimoviepage.com/darkcity.html>

~~~
SteveC
I haven't watched it yet but I'm told that the directors cut is much better
and should be watched first.

------
bocalogic
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086856/>

------
davidw
Not a movie but "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr." is great fun, and is
available on DVD. There's something kind of hackerish about it.

------
lallysingh
Blade Runner's on there, too.

Oh, and cowboy bebop.

Another vote for: Hackers Sneakers

~~~
apgwoz
> Oh, and cowboy bebop

I think Ein, yes the dog, is my all time favorite character in any
series/movie ever.

~~~
jdavid
They are making a full motion movie. Supposedly the downside is they cased
Spike as Keano Reaves. (i guess when i think about a 'film nior' space-cyber-
punk-black-belt, i do not think about NEO)

~~~
apgwoz
How is it that you just completely made my day, and then absolutely destroyed
it all in about 3 seconds? Oh yeah, Keano Reaves.

------
Xichekolas
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey

Seriously. The timeline in those movies is an awesome puzzle. Not quite
Primer, but the same vein.

------
z3r0p4r4d0x
Zack and Miri make a porno

Seriously, they're broke, they bootstrap and they make the porn, and it's
really entertaining.

------
ovi256
Primer - hackers doing a startup.

------
jnil
The last season of 24 had really good hacking scenes. Also, Anitrust is a
decent one.

------
vaksel
does Die Hard 4 count as one?

------
jasonlbaptiste
I'd personally say The Friday After Next just sneaks into the top ten.

------
tlrobinson
Mission: Impossible (the first one, not so much the others)

------
jobeirne
Army of Darkness.

------
noamsml
Revolution OS and Pirates of Silicon Valley

------
blender
Swordfish.

Yah, that was a joke...

------
jdavid
still a few more (some are in the works)

* Stargate

* "startup.com" - about the formation of 'govworks.com' i wonder what these guys think about Obama.

* Takedown - 'Kevin Mitnick's story'

* Serenity

* Star Trek: the Voyage Home

* The Last Starfighter

* Johnny Mnemonic

* Short Circuit 1 & 2

* Crest of the Stars (anime)

* Fahrenheit 451

* Equilibrium

* Batman (begins, dark night, the tim burten one)

* Edward Scissor Hands

* Space Balls

* Avalon ( [http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/decade/2000-current/ava...](http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/decade/2000-current/avalon/#comments))

* LAIN: The Serial Experiments (anime)

* Cherry 2000

* Dune

* Ender's Shadow (in the works)

* Ender's Game (in the works)

* Diamond Age (in the works for sci-fi, 'a young girls illustrated primer')

* The Arrival

* The Terminator 1,2,3

* The Sarah Conner Chronicles

* D.A.R.Y.L

* Flight of the Navigator

* Explorers

* AI

* Batteries Not Included

* Blade Runner

* IRobot

* Appleseed (anime)

* Bubble Gum Crisis (anime)

* Ergo Proxy (anime)

* Virtuosity

* Metropolis (all of them are good)

* The Last Exile (anime)

* Cherry 2000

* Robocop (this so hold up)

* Primmer

* Probe ( the TV series, it took me 3 months to find the copies of this Issac Asimov based TV series on ABC ) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probe_(TV_series)>

* Infest Wisely

* Logan's Run

* Planet of the Apes

* Star Trek: First Contact

* CQ ( if you get it, you'll get why this is a hacker movie , 'la resistance')

* Amelie

* 2046

* Trigun (anime)

* Escaflone (anime)

* Tank Girl

* Twelve Monkeys

* THX 1138

* Bicentennial Man

* The Philadelphia Experiment [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philadelphia_Experiment_(fi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philadelphia_Experiment_\(film\))

* Seaquest ( some episodes )

* Strange Days ( new yeas hacker style )

* Freejack

------
Allocator2008
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. I saw it during a company outing to the
cinema when it first came out. Lots of fun. Not a hacker movie per ce, but
very cool animation, set in the future,etc. Also my first introduction to
"gaia theory" which was interesting though actually I am on the reductionist,
"selfish gene" side of that debate myself.

------
vidioradeo
Maybe not so much hacker, but let me suggest Slacker.

