Top 10 Hacker Movies You’ve Missed
Who Am I? (2014)
Introduction
Yeah, I’m doing one of these.
I’m going to list and rank ten movies that feature hackers as major characters or hacking itself as a major plot point and discuss what makes them good or bad.
I am purposefully not including WarGames, Sneakers, Hackers or Swordfish, all movies that have existing rabid fans and detractors in the hacking scene.
10. Prime Risk (1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiU7hkMe4_M
Prime Risk is a weird movie, despite how much they talk about hackers and computers it is obvious that the writers had no idea about either so we get an odd movie about electronics causing ATMs to spit out money. Add in a conspiracy by a shadowy cabal to undermine the entire financial system and you have something approximating a coherent movie.
I like that the hacker in this is a woman though, and her sidekick is a goofy guy.
9. Hide and Seek (1984)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjQnucHby8Y
This movie is based on a sci-fi novel from 1977 but it is essentially a lower budget Canadian WarGames, there’s a certain charm to it though.
A high-school student hacker befriends a rogue AI and mischief ensues before the plot takes a hard left turn into averting nuclear disaster.
8. Takedown (2000)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbgDMYy9mzM
This movie about Kevin Mitnick caused so much controversy, as he was still in prison when they started filming it, that it never saw a proper release. You can find copies online though.
Skeet Ulrich is serviceable as Mitnick, Donal Logue is great as Lewis de Payne and if you can separate the film from the actual story and person it was based on and just see it as a work of fiction it becomes a lot more watchable.
7. Blackhat (2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CA95Bzpy7s
I honestly don’t know how I feel about this movie, I watched it and then heard there was a director’s cut that was longer and more cohesive. I purchased a special edition Blu-ray so I could watch the director’s cut and I still don’t know how I feel about it.
A lot of people in the hacking scene hate it, but it looks great, it is very visually stylish and Mann seems really engaged with the subject matter. Chris Hemsworth is miscast though, or he was told to act in a way that renders his character an emotionless hulk for most of the movie.
6. The Net (1995)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsHYQjHrhKY
I really like this movie, it meanders a bit in the middle but the overall concept is tight and if you can ignore the hand waving over whether any of it is technically possible you will have a good time.
Sandra Bullock is great and the plot captures genuine anxiety from the mid-90s as to how this thing called the internet was steadily encroaching on people’s lives and threatening to change society.
You can find a video I made about it over at the YouTube channel.
5. 23 (1998)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUDWU4RBtds
The first of two German hacker movies on this list, it is set in the 80s and really feels like it. I’ll warn you now though this is based on the real life case of young German hackers who handed data over to the Soviet government, it does not have a happy ending.
You may have trouble tracking down a copy with english subtitles for this one, I don’t think there is any dubbed version.
I’ve made a video on this movie over on my YouTube channel.
4. Masterminds (1997)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5gtXzHnN7M
This is an action comedy with Patrick Stewart holding a school full of rich kids hostage while a teen hacker who was previously expelled from the school tries to thwart his plans.
The plot moves along quickly, there is a satisfactory amount of action and Patrick Stewart makes a wonderful villain, I recommend checking it out.
3. Enemy of the State (1998)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3mrRv-1khI
I recently rewatched this movie, having originally seen it in the cinema when it came out with my local 2600 meetup, and I still like it. The concerns over privacy seem really outdated now, as we all hand over so much data to corporations and the government.
It is a solid movie about a man (Will Smith) who isn’t the most technically minded person finding himself up against a vast and nefarious surveillance apparatus. Plus you get Jamie Kennedy and Jack Black as smart ass government hackers, I feel like both of them played similar roles in multiple movies.
2. Who Am I (2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vnjheCqRIs
The second German movie on this list, I love this movie. A dark thriller about a young man who joins a sort of Anonymous like hacker group, has various thrills and spills with them before disaster strikes.
A little bit Mr Robot, you need to check this movie out if you like your hacker movies with tangled plots and absolutely soaked in paranoia.
1. The Steal (1995)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBxvGaIK2eE
I only discovered this movie recently and until it appeared on some streaming services it was quite hard to track down.
It is a whimsical British crime caper involving a free spirited American con artist and an uptight British computer programmer being pursued by a British aristocrat, while they try to drain bank accounts belonging to an evil corporation.
Hacking and social engineering play a heavy role in the movie and I love the cast.
You can watch the entire movie on YouTube, linked above.
Conclusion
I was going to include some honorable mentions here, but honestly there are so many movies I could have added to this list that a follow up blog is inevitable.
If you enjoyed this blog head on over to Bluesky for similar thoughts on hackers in pop culture.
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