Man on Wire (2008)
Ask HN: What are some technically inspiring movies, TV shows or documentaries?
71–80 of 115 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are some technically inspiring movies, TV shows or documentaries?
#72One that immediately comes to mind is "The Imitation Game", on the life of Alan Turing during WWII. For something less tech-oriented, "Molly's Game" is inspiring for me. The characterization of Molly as being both smart and relentlessly hard working is motivating to me, while also showing the dangers of taking it to the nth degree. In a similar vein to "Molly's Game", "The Queen's Gambit" series on Netflix is not abo…
I also found Imitation Game, Molly’s Game and Queens Gambit galvanizing. It’s interesting that those movies elicit that kind of response despite their ostensible message being the human cost of pursuing goals at the expense of everything else. In a similar vein a Beautiful Mind and The Social network also were motivating for me.
I’m not sure if I’m just taking away the wrong message (like the people who read Liar’s Dice and wanted to go into banking) or if the writer’s own subconscious admiration of these people permeated into the medium (or maybe they made it intentionally ambiguous). There is probably some deeper insight into how we all struggle with reconciling society’s veneration of individual success (monetary and/or reputational) with the social expectation that we conform to the norms of society (being social, not abusing drugs, placing social cohesion above everything else)
Re: Ask HN: What are some technically inspiring movies, TV shows or documentaries?
#73 A lot of documentaries produced and published by ARTE are very interresting and are on various topics
- Physics/Astonomy
- Nature
- Social
- Economy
- Informatics
- etc
They have awesome youtube channels, but I know only about the frenchs one (they probably have french, german and english)
Re: Ask HN: What are some technically inspiring movies, TV shows or documentaries?
#74Documentaries
- Citizenfour 2014: Actual interview between Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden
- Voyage of Time: Life's Journey 2016: Voyager probes development and deployment
- Zero Days 2016: The background story and effects from Stuxnet
Films
- The Challenger Disaster 2013: Dramatization of Richard Feynman and his investigative work of this event
- Batteries Not Included 1987: When mechanical-based lifeforms descend into NYC to help an elderly couple
- Pi 1998: Fun film with lots of computers and wiring
- I Am Mother 2019: Post-apocalyptic robotic "rejuvenation" of the human race
- Gravity 2013: Fairly accurate dramatization of what space is really like
- Real Genius 1985: Silly film of college hackers before the 1995 film Hackers
- The Abyss 1989: Aliens under the sea, somewhat related to the 1998 film Sphere
- Innerspace 1987: Fun scifi version of Honey I Shrunk the Kids!
Re: Ask HN: What are some technically inspiring movies, TV shows or documentaries?
#75One that immediately comes to mind is "The Imitation Game", on the life of Alan Turing during WWII. For something less tech-oriented, "Molly's Game" is inspiring for me. The characterization of Molly as being both smart and relentlessly hard working is motivating to me, while also showing the dangers of taking it to the nth degree. In a similar vein to "Molly's Game", "The Queen's Gambit" series on Netflix is not abo…
In the same vein in anime: Dr. Stone is really damn good as well! Goes deep into inventing chemistry and tech from scratch. My wife is a chemist and couldn't find anything inaccurate about it!
Re: Ask HN: What are some technically inspiring movies, TV shows or documentaries?
#76An older pick that came to mind is McLuhan: The Media is the Massage. It has that sense of "possibility" to it, even being a half-century old.
Re: Ask HN: What are some technically inspiring movies, TV shows or documentaries?
#77Great suggestions here, many that I've either never heard of or never considered - I look forward to checking them out and please keep them coming, I'm hopeful this can turn into a masterthread to keep coming back and discovering motivational media.
Should maybe have done this earlier but adding a few of the ones I've already watched.
Technical Motivation:
- Silicon Valley (TV show, 2014-2019)
- The Social Network (2010)
- The Imitation Game (2014)
- Halt & Catch Fire (TV show, 2014-2017)
- Iron Man (2008)
- Primer (2004)
- The Martian (2015)
- Hidden Figures (2016)
- Flight of the Phoenix (1965 original or 2004 remake)
- The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
- Door to Door (2002) - Underrated straight-to-TV film about a man with cerebral palsy who wants to become a door-to-door salesman
- Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) - Pure sales, persistence and Pacino
- Salesman (1969 documentary) (As above, but instead of Pacino it's real door-to-door bible salesmen and what they go through)
- Mr Robot (2015-2019): probably the most thrilling and technically accurate depiction of technology and hacking ever put to a screen, but as someone else said it's also very dystopian and depressing, and not too motivational except in the brief bursts that they show Elliot setting up a hack. Either way no VisualBasic GUIs here.
- Flash of Genius (2008): about the inventor of the modern windshield wiper who had it stolen from Ford and sued them. The premise is motivational, but I personally found it more of a cautionary tale on what you can lose for your principles when you go up against the giants.
Re: Ask HN: What are some technically inspiring movies, TV shows or documentaries?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you need external inspiration to do something that's usually a bad sign. If you need it to start a business that's a recipe for disaster. I tend to agree with Elon Musk, he said: "If you need inspiring words, don't do it." [0] [0] https://www.facebook.com/drivelinebaseball/videos/if-you-nee...
this sure sounds like external inspiration: “I think Apollo 11 was one of the most inspiring things in all of human history. Arguably the most inspiring thing. And one of the most universally good things in history. The level of inspiration that provided to the people of Earth was incredible. And it certainly inspired me. I’m not sure SpaceX would exist if not for Apollo 11.” - Elon Musk
Yes but that's not something a movie can give you or words can help with.
Re: Ask HN: What are some technically inspiring movies, TV shows or documentaries?
#79Apollo 13 (1995) - there are various scenes showing the engineers working through various technical problems (much like gravity and the martian) Antitrust (2001) - The technical portion is goofy, but discusses the open source software movement, VCs, working for a major tech company (an evil bill gates character played by tim robbins) Sneakers (1992) - Personally, one of my favorite movies of all-time. Code breaking,…
seatec astronomy
Re: Ask HN: What are some technically inspiring movies, TV shows or documentaries?
#80The Computer Chronicles - old but captures that early spirit of anything is possible!