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.
Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
51–60 of 186 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#52BBS Documentary
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
On the other hand, Hackers did take the time to name its characters after handles taken from 2600.
but that's probably because Emmanuel Goldstein was a consultant on the production of the movie.
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#54Apollo 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
Thats been one of my favorite scenes since I was a kid!
Ugh, I feel so old.
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#5523 (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).
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually The Plague (the bad guy) was just trying to determine how much of the "garbage file" they had - how much they knew... I have to admit that the movie sort of is a guilty pleasure...
The soundtrack is great. They also did quite a lot of research in names and related "hacker stuff" (a Jolt Cola can in Plague's bedroom comes to mind) And, of course, there is Angelina Jolie in her 18's. That more than compensates for any screenplay flaw.
The Soundtrack is the first thing I bought on eBay (it came from the US)
I also wanted the headset that Zero wears. Now all I need is a spinning Phonebooth.
Angelina hubba hubba
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#57My 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.
Agreed, Real Genius captures the insanenes (sic) of Caltech and the people who go there perfectly.
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#58Fan 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.
Indeed, Adleman, the A in RSA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Adleman) was a consultant on that movie.
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#59Waking 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.
i always remember the bit about trying to flip light switches in a dream to determine whether you're really dreaming or not.
Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?
#60I 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/
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.
thanks! will check it out.