TechSpotting’s Top 10 Hacker Movies & Geek Movies, I have complied a list of movies that every geek has should see! I have only included geek movies in this list that are actually about computing / hacking, not films that have a 2 min section of hacking in! (Like The Matrix when trinity used nmap & a real SSH exploit to crash a power station or Jurassic Pack “I know this it’s a UNIX system”).
WarGames (1983)
Out of all the hacker movies WarGames is my favorite, mainly as after I seen this film I was instantly interested in computing, mainly Linux / Unix and “network security”! The movie is about a teenager who hacks into his school computer changes his grade along with & a girl that he fancies (interesting approach). He war dials into what he thinks is a new computer game however, after playing for a few hours one night, he realizes he has almost caused a nuclear war! The film was made in 1983, and based at the time of the cold war. Every geek needs to see this hacker movie!
Hackers (1995)
Hackers the cult classic of the hacker movies genre! If you see past the lame 3d representation of the Gibson, this really is a great film, plus it has Angelina Jolie staring as “Acid Burn” ! Haha, it is a must see for all geeks out there, has mentions of Unix and the sound track is amazing, Prodigy and Orbital – “Halycon On and On” one of my favorite tunes. HACK THE PLANET!
Antitrust AKA Conspiracy.com (2001)
Antitrust, I would say has the most realistic out of all the geek movies with real computing commands & interfaces (no usual bullshit movie made GUI’s), and the Linux & Gnome desktop! The story is based on a Bill gates looking character who is focuses on world domination and recruiting programmers from the open source community, I am not going to say more for fear of ruining the plot! This is a must watch! Has some decent actors such as, Ryan Phillippe & Rachael Leigh Cook, the film was released in 2001.
Takedown – Track Down (2000) AKA hackers 2: Takedown
Takedown, the pursuit and capture of Kevin Mitnick, based on the book by “Tsutomu Shimomura” & “John markoff”. Mitnick was not happy about the book or the film and says the perception it portrays of him is not what actually happened, he also doesn’t have a lot of love for John Markoff for making him sound a lot worse than he was in the New York Times. That a side it is an interesting watch, I have also read the book and all of Kevins books.
Sneakers (1992)
Sneakers, A security company that get hired to test out bank security systems but attempting to break in via hacking & social engineering techniques get owned at their own game, incredible film with some amazing actors in, including Robert Redford, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, Mary McDonnell Classic movie! FYI, Marty (the main character played by Redford), was Mitnicks hacker alias and the Sneakers was Mitnicks favorite film!
Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999)
Pirates of Silicon Valley, the semi-humorous documentary about the men who made the world of technology what it is today, their struggles during college, the founding of their companies, and the ingenious actions they took to build up the global corporate empires of Apple Computer Corporation and Microsoft Inc.
Biographical look at the men who founded Apple and Microsoft and a look at the early days of the companies. Noah Wyle and Joey Slotnick portray Apple founders Steve Job and Steve Wozniak. Anthony Michael Hall and John DiMaggio play Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. The film attempts to compare the two firm’s operations and differences in the founder’s operations.
You get to see Bill Gates racing a digger and crash into a car, Steve Jobs doing acid tabs and some great history on the two companies and how they were formed, grew and dominated the computer industry. Well worth watching!
The Social Network 2010
Geek movie about Mark Zuckerberg building facebook where the idea came from and the legal battle! Great watch some geeky scripting and Linux stuff going on with Apache etc, well worth a watch!
January 13th, 2012 
KJS
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