Living, in reality, might upset you quite often. So what do you do next? Take a break. And probably think of a scenario that you want. Now that’s the unrealistic part because it’s a rare or sheer coincidence when we get what we want and in the way we want it. Movies are aptly this unrealistic bliss. It’s good for you to distract yourself from the world and watch something that might help you take your mind off it. So here we have a set of the best hacker movies that might help you ease your worries for a while.
A hacker is usually a person who is well versed with information technology and uses his technological knowledge to derive information from the most secretive authorities too. These movies will help you understand that knowledge is good, but too much of anything can be worse for all. Here are 30 such hacking movies that will keep you entertained for a long time. So, welcome to the real world of hacking.
30. The Matrix (1999)
- Director: The Wachowskis
- Writer: The Wachowskis
- Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie: Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano.
- IMDB Rating: 8.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
- Platforms Available: Buy or rent it from iTunes or google play. Also available to watch on Netflix and Amazon Prime.
This movie makes its way to be one of the best hacker movies of all time. ‘ The Matrix ‘ is an amazing cyber adventure movie. It creates a very frightening future which shows that humans are curbed within a stimulated timeline. The Matrix has created some intellectual machines which will deviate the humans and use their bodies as the ultimate source of energy.
This is soon found out by the computer programmer Thomas Anderson, with the help of ” Neo,” who is a hacker himself. They form a union to go against such machines. And the union comprises all those individuals who have been freed from this machine.
29. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
- Director: Mamoru Oshii
- Writer: Shirow Masamune, Kazunori Ito
- Cast: Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Otsuka, Iemasa Kayumi, Koi chiz Yamadera, Tessho Genda.
- IMDb rating: 7.9/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
- Platforms available: Watch it on amazon prime, Netflix
This movie tops the list of those hacker movies that will blow your mind. And this is a 1995 animated cyberpunk thriller movie. Being a manga movie, the movie did gain for itself the appropriate rating.
It is the story of Motoko Kusanagi, who is a cyborg security agent. He finds his way down to find a hacker who goes by the name Puppet Master. And then the movie follows self-identity theft in this world, which is so technologically advanced.
28. Citizenfour (2014)
- Director: Laura Poitras
- Producer: Mathilde Bonnefoy, Dirk Wilutzky.
- Cast: Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, William Binney, Jacob Appelbaum, Ewen MacAskill.
- IMDb rating: 8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Vudu, Amazon Prime, Microsoft Store, and Redbox.
Yet again, one of the most appreciated hacker movies of all times.” Citizenfour ” Is a 2014 documentary movie concerning the NSA spying scandal. It was in the year 2013 that Laura Poitras received an email from an id that called itself ‘citizen four. ‘ It claimed to have information regarding the national security agency. The plans that it had in collaboration with the other agencies. They go forward to meet this man, turns out that he’s Edward Snowden.
27. The Imitation Game (2014)
- Director: Morten Tyldum
- Writer: Graham Moore, Andrew Hodges
- Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Charles Dance.
- IMDb rating: 8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
- Platforms available: Rent it or buy it from iTunes or Google Play. Also available to watch on Netflix.
‘The Imitation Game ‘ is based on a real-life incident. It follows the story of the cryptanalyst Alan Turing. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the role of Turing, who decodes the intelligence messages from the Germans during World War II time.
It is all about Turing’s time off work during the world war II era. Hence this real-life story is bound to capture your attention. Hacking films like these serve as an inspiration to the viewers and also keeps them well informed about the happenings of the world.
26. The Conversation (1974)
- Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- Composed by: David Shire
- Cast: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest.
- IMDb rating: 7.8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
- Platforms available: Stream, download or buy from Apple TV+, Paramount +, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.
This is a mystery thriller movie about a surveillance expert and the trauma that he faces when it’s discovered that his recordings will reveal a murder. Harry Caul is one of the best electronic surveillance experts, but he doesn’t let anyone in his apartment. And he takes up the task of recording a discussion amongst a young couple. This hacker movie is bound to keep you glued to your seats for a long time.
25. Zero days (2016)
- Director: Alex Gibney
- Composed by: Will Bates
- Cast: Richard A Clarke, Michael Hayden, Joanne Tucker, Tadashi Mitsui.
- IMDb rating: 7.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Google Play. Or watch it on Hulu.
Zero Days is a movie that covers the Stuxnet virus. Stuxnet is a computer worm that was discovered in the year 2010. It has been under development since the year 2005 in the US and Israel. This computer virus was widely known to cause damage to the Iranian nuclear facilities.
24. The Girl with the Dragon (2011)
- Director: David Fincher
- Writer: Steven Zaillian, Stieg Larsson
- Cast: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard, Steven Berkoff.
- IMDb rating: 7.8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 86 %
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Google Play or YouTube.
This is a psychological thriller movie deriving its roots from a novel by Stieg Larsson. In this movie, we see that a journalist named Mikael Blomkvist is diving deep into the past to find out about a young girl from a very well-to-do family who mysteriously disappeared 40 years earlier.
Mikael takes the help of a young hacker named Lisbeth Slander. This young female hacker will help him get to the roots of this case. Well, hacker films hold a special place in the ‘must-watch list,’ so why leave this out?
23. Office space (1999)
- Director: Mike Judge
- Composed by: John Frizzell
- Cast: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Stephen Root, Gary Cole, David Herman.
- IMDb rating: 7.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 80%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from iTunes, Google Play, or YouTube. Also available on Hulu and Amazon Prime.
This is an American comedy movie that focuses on the 1990s software company. Where we only have a handful of people working, and they, too, are tired of their jobs.
Peter Gibbons is tired of his job and deals with a lot of problems each day. He has two software engineer friends named Michael and Samir. And Peter thinks his girlfriend is cheating on him. But she convinces him to go to a hypnotherapist. And things do fall in place for a short period when Peter makes a mistake with the decimal, and he might be behind bars for this.
22. Who am I? (2014)
- Director: Baran bo Odar
- Writer: Jantje Friese
- Cast: Tomorrow Schilling, Elyas M’Barek, Hannah Herzsprung, Wotan Wilke Mohring, Antoine Monot Jr.
- IMDb rating: 7.5 /10
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Google Play or watch it on Netflix.
Benjamin is an invisible being, but things change when he comes across Charismatic Max. They’re very different from each other but share a common interest, Hacking. This is one of the best computer hacker movies. Soon these boys create a computer hacker group that demands fame globally.
21. Mission Impossible: Ghosts Protocol (2011)
- Director: Brad Bird
- Writer: Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec
- Cast: Tom Cruise, J. J. Abrams, Bryan Burk
- IMDb rating: 7.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Amazon Prime, Apple TV, or Vudu. Or watch it on Netflix.
This is a 2011 action spy movie. In the movie, we see that Ethan Hunt, along with his team, is running against all the odds to find a nuclear terrorist who goes by the codename ‘ cobalt. ‘ He has access to the Russian launch codes, and he does use them to bomb Kremlin.
20. Pirates of the Silicon Valley (1999)
- Director: Martyn Burke
- Writer: Paul Frelberger, Michael Swaine
- Cast: Anthony Michael Hall, Noah Wyle, Joey Slotnick, J. G. Hertzler, John DiMaggio.
- IMDb rating: 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
- Platforms available: Watch it on Netflix, Hulu, Disney + Hotstar, and HBO Max.
This is a biographical movie about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. These two men have given their valuable contributions to the world of technology. The tribulations faced by them in their college lives and the trouble of setting up their system of companies.
Basically, how apple and Microsoft came into existence.
19. Enemy of the State (1998)
- Director: Tony Scott
- Writer: David Marconi
- Cast: Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Regina King, Loren Dean.
- IMDb rating: 7.3 /10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 72%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it on google play or watch it on Disney+ Hotstar.
Robert Clayton Dean is a lawyer working in Washington. Then a politician named Thomas Brian Reynolds is trying to deal with a representative named Philip Hammersley. They are discussing surveillance systems with the help of satellites.
But Hammersley’s denial leads to him being murdered by Reynolds. But this murder is taped by a guy and every possibility is thought of to get rid of that tape. That’s when things get difficult for Dean.
18. Snowden (2016)
- Director: Oliver Stone
- Writer: Kieran Fitzgerald, Luke Harding, Anatoly Kucherena.
- Cast: Joseph Gordon, Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Edward Snowden.
- IMDb rating: 7.3 /10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 61%
- Platforms available: Watch it on Netflix or buy/rent it from Google Play.
Misapprehended by the intelligence community, Snowden quits his job at the National security agency. He’s aware that a heap of data is being prepared to track down all the possibilities of digital communication. It doesn’t restrict itself to the other governments but also to the terrorist groups and every other source that might lead to some information. When Snowden gave way to this information, the National security agency held him as a culprit and a traitor. Though he turns into a hero for others is now tied to the laws.
17. The Italian Job (1969)
- Director: Peter Collinson
- Writer: Troy Kennedy: Martin
- Cast: Michael Caine, Noel Coward, Benny Hill, Raf Vallone, Tony Beckley
- IMDb rating: 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 81%
- Platforms available: Watch it on Netflix or Hulu Or buy or rent it from Google Play.
The Italian Job is a comedy movie. Charlie has an enormous task to do. He gets to know that one of his friends has undertaken a very risky job in Italy, and that too under a great Mafia.
Because his friend didn’t go that far with the job, Charlie takes up the job from there.
16. Sneakers (1992)
- Director: Phil Alden Robinson
- Writer: Phil Alden Robinson, Lawrence Lasker, Walter Parkes.
- Cast: Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn.
- IMDb rating: 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 79%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent from Google Play or watch it on Netflix or Hotstar.
Martin Bishop is the head of the group that looks after the testing of the security systems. The government agents blackmail him to get his hands on a black box. Now the team finds themselves in huge danger after they realize that the box is no ordinary box but can decide the encryption code all around the world and the agents who hired them for this task weren’t from the government at all.
15. War Games (1983)
- Director: John Badham.
- Writer: Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes, Walon Green
- Cast: Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Ally Sheedy, Juan in Clay.
- IMDb rating: 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Google Play or watch it on Amazon Prime or Vudu.
The war game is a movie about a young computer kid who accidentally hacks a supercomputer. This supercomputer allows the young boy to get complete control over the US nuclear arsenal. This also allows him to challenge a game between America and Russia, but he unknowingly calls in for World War iii. Will he be able to convince the computer that it’s just a game and stop it from getting into World War III?
14. Live free or die hard (2007)
- Director: Len Wiseman
- Writer: John Carlin, Roderick Thorp, Mark Bomback, David Marconi.
- Cast: Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Mary Elizabeth, Cliff Curtis.
- IMDb rating: 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 82 %
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from iTunes or Google Play.
The Director of the cybercrime division suspects all the hackers, including the young hackers and the old ones, when someone hacks the FBI’S computers. He was informed of this on the date when there weren’t many agents to get to the hackers. And so he allows the local PD to get a look here. And one of the cops brings in Farrell, but the moment he gets there, the shooting starts.
13. Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
- Director: Joseph Sargent
- Writer: James Bridges, D.F. Jones.
- Cast: Eric Brandon, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, William Schallert, Marion Ross.
- IMDb rating: 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Google Play.
Forbin has designed a very complex computer that would run on America’s nuclear defense. But just when put to use, it detects the presence of a guardian, the Soviet counterpart, which was not known to the US. And when these two computers are linked, they convert into supercomputers and pose a threat to the world about the discharge of nuclear weapons.
12. Tron (1982)
- Director: Steven Lisberger
- Writer: Bonnie MacBird, Charles S. Haas.
- Cast: Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, Barnard Hughes.
- IMDb rating: 6.8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 71%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Google Play or watch it on Disney + Hotstar.
Kevin Flynn is a hacker who used a software pirate to break into the data stream. He rebuilt the 3D graphical world of computers. And that’s when he joins hands with Tron to outmaneuver the master control programming prodigy.
11. Swordfish (2001)
- Director: Dominic Sena
- Writer: Skip Wood
- Cast: John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, Vinnie Jones.
- IMDb rating: 6.5 /10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 25 %
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Google Play.
When the Drug Enforcement Administration closed its dummy corporation named Swordfish. They had generated a huge amount from it, then they let it sit till they could get a huge interest in it. But a counter-terrorist named Black Cell wishes to get his hands on this amount. Will he be able to steal millions from them? They
10. Hackers (1995)
- Director: Iain Softley
- Writer: Rafael Moreu
- Cast: Jonny Lee, Angelina Jolie, Fisher Stevens, Lorraine Bracco, Jesse Bradford.
- IMDb rating: 6.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 31%
- Platforms available: Watch it on DirecTV or buy /rent it from Google Play.
The US Secret Service takes a young boy for coming up with a computer virus, and so they ask him to refrain from using the computer on his 18th birthday as well. But after a few years, this young boy, along with his friends, discovers a computer virus, but now they need to find evidence. Will the young hackers be able to crack this?
9. Ocean’s 8 (2018)
- Director: Gary Ross
- Writer: Olivia Milch, George Clayton Johnson, Jack Golden Russell.
- Cast: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Awkwafina, Mindy Kaling.
- IMDb rating: 6.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 68%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from iTunes and Google Play.
After being released from prison, Debbie Ocean gets to meet her partner in crime, Lou. She tries to convince her to be a part of a heist she planned while she was behind bars. They form a team called the ‘ Rose Weil. ‘ And get back the members, which include a fashion designer, a jewelry maker, a computer hacker, a street hustler, and a pickpocketer.
8. Takedown (2000)
- Director: Joe Chappelle
- Writer: Tsutomu Shimomura, John Markoff, David Newman
- Cast: Skeet Ulrich, Russell Wong, Angela Featherstone, Donald Logue, Christopher McDonald.
- IMDb rating: 6.3/10
- Platforms available: Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Max.
Kevin Mitnick happens to be one of the best hackers in the world. He has his own game of hunting down information from every possible source. And thus, this evil genius gets himself way more cyber trophies than anybody else. And he is always looking forward to gaining control and giving way to more challenges.
7. The Fifth Estate (2013)
- Director: Bill Condon
- Writer: Daniel Domscheit: Berg, David Leigh, Luke Harding.
- Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Bruhl, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis.
- IMDb rating: 6.2 /10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 35%.
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Google Play or Amazon Prime.
Julian Assange and Daniel come together to watch the underground world of the privileged and the powerful. They soon got their hands on all the anonymous data and, because of that, gained popularity. But without the use of any such high-tech equipment, they get their hands on the biggest trove, which contains the intelligence documentary explores. Will they be able to bring this in front of the world?
6. Untraceable (2008)
- Director: Gregory Hoblit
- Writer: Robert Fyvolent, Mark Brinker, Allison Burnett
- Cast: Diane Lane, Billy Burke, Colin Hanks, Joseph Cross, Mary Beth Hurt
- IMDb rating: 6.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 16%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Google Play.
A secret service agent, Jennifer Marsh, gets caught in a very silly game with a killer. This killer knows the deep web and is aware of the crowd will arrive at this site to see the violent murders he conducts. He performs these live murders that will send a chill down your spine. The more viewers he gets on the live-streaming video, the more brutal treatment the victim faces.
5. Antitrust (2001)
- Director: Peter Howitt
- Writer: Howard Franklin.
- Cast: Ryan Phillippe, Rachael Leigh Cook, Claire Forlani, Tim Robbins, Richard Roundtree.
- IMDb rating: 6.1/10.
- Rotten Tomatoes: 24%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it on Google Play.
Programming genius Milo Hoffman has completed his graduation and is now setting foot in the real world. Where to begin his career, this college graduate is summoned by Gary Winston, who is very loosely based on Bill Gates.
Winston is the CEO of NURV, and they are on the verge of completing global communications. Hoffman, welcomed to the virtual reality by his girlfriend Alice, takes up the job. But later, he realizes that it’s not a good thought to trust anyone.
4. The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018)
- Director: Fede Alvarez
- Writer: David Lagercrantz, Steig Larsson, Jay basu.
- Cast: Claire Foy, Sverrir5 Gudnason, LaKeith Stanfield, Sylvia Hoeks, Stephen Merchant.
- IMDb rating: 6.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 38%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from iTunes or Google Play.
Still green in the memories are those sinful acts of the father; Lisbeth Salander is a young hacker and is very antisocial too. But you might throw any computer program towards her; she will ace that up. It’s been a long time since she saw her friend, Mikael, but she’s after finding those who stole Project Firefall, which was a very powerful instrument that could breach the online defense systems.
Now following the National Security Service, the Swedish security service is following her trail, and Lisbeth’s horrendous past flashes in front of her.
3. The Net (1995)
- Director: Irwin Winkler
- Writer: John Brancato, Michael Ferris
- Cast: Sandra Bullock, Jeremy Northam, Dennis Miller, Diane Baker, Wendy Gazelle.
- IMDb rating: 5.9/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 42%
- Platforms available: Watch it on Netflix or rent or buy it from Vudu or Amazon Prime.
Angela Bernett is a computer genius. And is never away from technology. The only activity she has, apart from technology and computers, is to meet her mother. And has just one friend whom she talks to over the phone or the net is, Dale Hassman. He had previously sent her a program with a technical glitch that she had to see through.
But she discovers some secret information on this disk. And then things take a wrong turn, and her identity is erased forever.
2. Open Windows (2014).
- Director: Nacho Vigalondo
- Composed by: Jorge Magaz
- Cast: Elijah Wood, Sasha Grey, Neil Maskell, Adam Quintero, Ivan Gonzalez.
- IMDb rating: 5.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes– 43%
- Platforms available: buy or rent it from Google Play
Jill is an actress, and she refuses to have dinner with her fan named Nick. He won a date via an online contest. But then Chord, Jill’s campaign manager, helps him to reach out to her through his computer. But later, he realizes that he is only a puppet and that Chord has been using him to get to the star himself.
1. Blackhat (2015)
- Director: Michael Mann
- Writer: Morgan Davis Foelh
- Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tang Wei, Viola Davis, Ritchie Coster, Leehom Wang.
- IMDb rating: 5.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 32%
- Platforms available: Buy or rent it from Google Play
An extremely talented computer hacker, Nick Hathaway, had gone astray. But gets out of a 15-year prison sentence when a computer code generated by him faces a severe malfunction leading to an attack on the nuclear power plant located in China. This opportunity will let him reunite with his old friend and will put a great fix in front of him.
These 30 movies are wisely picked and arranged in order of the best hacking movies of all time. The hacker community is by far the largest as of now. And probably that’s the reason why we have so many hacker movies. They create awareness amongst the people but also end up giving ideas to the young hackers.
Computer hacking is one of the greatest issues these days. And that makes the complex computer system to be very easy to tackle. The dark secrets lay hidden behind these activities. Some are way too harsh to reveal, whereas some are informative too.
Hacking films will leave you in awe of the advancement of technology, but the entire country or the whole world suffers if it goes wrong by any chance. And nothing remains out of reach. From government computers to government surveillance methods, the weather satellite or the traffic control systems, all have a way to be decoded.
