No Open Blockers

Last semester I learned a very disturbing fact. The majority of my students, namely those born in the 80s or (more depressingly) the 90s, had not seen some of the classic computer-related movies. Sure, I like the first Matrix movie (I’ll pretend the abomination that was the last in that trilogy didn’t exist). I liked Swordfish as well, despite the awful scene where Hugh Jackman codes the virus on a 9 monitor system. But the real classic computer-related movies are much older and many of them still stand up after decades.

Below are a few what-I-wish-could-be-required-viewing-for-my-class movies that any real computer geek should see. It’s not a full list by any means (I’m sure many will be pissed I omitted 2001: A Space Odyssey), but instead are just my favorites.

Released in 1995, Hackers has the best chance of actually having been seen by my students. To those that haven’t seen it, realize there was actually a time before Angelina Jolie had 37 kids.

Between the cheesy 3D navigation of a file system to the impractical button (not keyboard) based interface to the super computer, it’s a technical atrocity. But something about the cyberpunk themes and solid techno music still make me have to watch it whenever it’s on.

There’s a solid (read: depressing) chance that most of my students weren’t alive when War Games was released in 1983. The sad part about that is there is an entire generation of computer geeks who can’t appreciate a good “Global Thermonuclear War” joke. Other parts of the movie that still get referenced among the truest of computer geeks include tic tac toe jokes, “Joshua”, and the almighty WOPR (with a W, not a friggin’ J).

Before he played Ferris (and to my students, please tell me you at least recognize that reference), Matthew Broderick played a high school hacker who, while in search of new video games to play, accidentally starts a world war. Classic.

The only thing I’m going to attack in this one is the “social engineering” (the term isn’t used in the movie but in today’s culture that’s what it would be called) he uses to discover his school’s password. Anyone who actually stores their passwords that way deserves to be hacked into the stone age.

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) is actually older than me, a fact I’m quite happy to be able to say. My dad introduced me to this movie on VHS a few years ago. They colorized it for the DVD, but in my opinion it doesn’t really lose its original charm in the process.

For being as old as it is, it still holds up as an excellent movie even today. Again I won’t comment on the technical possibility, nor will I even provide a summary of what it’s about (ok, I will say it’s your pretty standard issue “the world is ending”). Just watch it, trust me on this.