My official list of 17+ must-see computer geek movies - Part 1

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/22/08 at 11:04:19 pm

From the outlandishly inaccurate to the surprisingly plausible, here is my list (in no particular order) of technology related movies that geeks, gamers, programmers, and nerds will all surely enjoy if they haven’t already.

WarGamesWarGames
WarGames is a 1983 classic starring Matthew Broderick as David Lightman, a bright but unmotivated high school student who uses his 1970s vintage IMSAI microcomputer and modem to perform automated searches for computer systems connected to the public telephone network, which he then cracks. After seeing an advertisement for a new game David has his computer dial every number in Silicon Valley in an attempt to find the game manufacture’s computer system. When he later reviews the results, he finds a system that has a very intriguing list of games that later turns out to be a government supercomputer that runs real-life war simulations.

HackersHackers
Hackers although wildly unrealistic is another cult classic that features Jonny Lee Miller as Dade “Zero Cool” Murphy, a young computer hacker who, at the age of 11, was able to take down 1,507 systems in one day causing havoc in the New York Stock Exchange. Upon conviction for his computer crimes Dade was banned from owning or operating a computer or touchtone telephone until his 18th birthday. Fast forward to 7 years later, Dade and his divorced mother move to New York City and he quickly returns to his crazy computer cracking shenanigans under his new name Crash Override.

Dade later hooks up with a group of fellow hackers and together in their travels through cyberspace they discover The Plague (Fisher Stevens), a former hacker turned computer security expert for a multinational corporation. The Plague secretly allied himself with a group of criminals and is using his expertise to drain funds from corporate bank accounts. He is also smart enough to leave clues that would lead investigators to someone else (in this case, Dade and his friends) and has a secret weapon at his disposal, a computer virus that could wipe out the entire World Wide Web in a matter of minutes!


Freedom DowntimeTrack Down & Freedom Downtime
Track Down, also known as Takedown, is a movie about computer hacker Kevin Mitnick that is based off the book Takedown by John Markoff and Tsutomu Shimomura. Kevin Mitnick, the most notorious computer hacker in the nation uses the latest (at the time) electronic gadgetry to break into countless computers and gain access to sensitive and valuable information. But when he breaches the system of leading computer crimes expert Tsutomu Shimomura it sets off an epic battle between a pair of hard-driven geniuses operating on different sides of the law.

In Kevin Mitnick’s book The Art of Intrusion, Mitnick states that both book and movie are “extremely inaccurate” and are based on nothing more than media hype. In response to this hype the 2600 Magazine community created its own film titled Freedom Downtime which is supposed to depict a more accurate take on the Kevin Mitnick story and the Free Kevin movement. In my opinion, both movies are great in their own ways.

AntitrustAntitrust
Antitrust is by far one of my favorite films of all time, and when I mentioned surprisingly plausible at the beginning of this entry I think this movie could easily fit the description. While working with friends to start their new software development company, Milo Hoffman (Ryan Phillippe) is approached by CEO Gary Winston (Tim Robbins) of a Microsoft like company called NURV for a programming position few would refuse. Despite the flagship product (Synapse, a worldwide media distribution network) being well on schedule, Hoffman begins to develop suspicions about the motives and methods of NURV. He eventually discovers that their employees are extensively monitored and much of the source code for Synapse is stolen from other programmers who are being contractually killed by the company. Hoffman begins a one-man investigation into NURV’s secrets, and by gathering his computer hobbyist friends and an FBI mole inside the company he manages to disrupt Gary Winston’s ultimate goal.

Startup.comRevolution OS, E-Dreams & Startup.com
Revolution OS, E-Dreams, and Startup.com are all documentary style films. The latter two are about internet startup companies with E-Dreams being real footage that follows the founders of Kozmo.com as they raise money and file for an IPO only to suffer from the .com crash shortly after. Startup.com is a similar concept but it’s based off a fictional story. Revolution OS is an informative documentary about Linux founder Linus Torvalds and the twenty-year history of GNU, Linux, open source, and the free software movement. I recommend all three.

Looking for more must-see computer geek movies? Check out Part 2 of this list.

5 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

  1. [...] Looking for more must-see computer geek movies? Check out Part 1 of this list. [...]

    Pingback by My official list of 17+ must-see computer geek movies – Part 2 » Markus Langenfeld — April 24, 2008 #

  2. Nice! this is a great list so far mark.

    Comment by Greg — April 24, 2008 #

  3. My home server’s gonna be busy this week.

    Thanks for the list.

    Comment by Maxime Rousseau — April 26, 2008 #

  4. Muhahahah!

    Comment by Markus Langenfeld — April 26, 2008 #

  5. [...] Part 1 and Part 2 [...]

    Pingback by Maxime Rousseau » Blog Archive » Discovering The Classic Geek Movies — April 27, 2008 #

Leave a comment

XHTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Copyright © 2008 Markus Langenfeld. Some Rights Reserved.
Version 26, Powered By WordPress & Professionally Hosted With A Small Orange.
Disclosure Policy | XML Sitemap