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?
Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
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Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#2Fan 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/
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#3My 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.
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#4Antitrust: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/
Pirates of Silicon Valley: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#5"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.
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#6I 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/
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#7Fan 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/
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.
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#8Fan 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/
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.
Very true. Must be the one of first times a major Hollywood studio employed a consultant that had taken something beyond College Algebra.
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#9[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#10does Die Hard 4 count as one?