Geek movies that should be in your queue
by Bascha Harris
This week’s office meme (pulled from digg, of course) has been the fifteen geek movies to see before you die. How do we stack up? Collectively, we’ve seen 14 out of 15. Pretty good for a tech magazine. In fact, one person (that would be me, thanks) has seen 14 of the lot herself, with the 15th (Brazil, in case you were wondering) already sitting in her Netflix queue. At #24.
In fact, almost everyone had seen at least half the films–and had their own suggestions. So we bring you the Red Hat Magazine geek movie addendum:
- Elephant’s Dream — The truly geek film–open source and made with all open source tools like Blender and Audacity.
- A Clockwork Orange - Kubrick. That’s all that needs to be said.
- The Empire Strikes Back - No Star Wars? Really?
- Pi - Dark and spooky. And all about math.
- Real Genius
- 2010 - Probably the most glaring omission. Where would we be without HAL?
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy - You can’t throw a rock in a room of geeks without hitting at least one Tolkien devotee, and Peter Jackson just might be the biggest fanboy of all.
- Bladerunner - Do androids dream of electric sheep? You bet they do.
- The Abyss - James Cameron should have stopped after he made this movie. Because Titanic? Not so much.
Also this week, we’ve been checking out the story of the Rural Development Foundation school in Andhra Pradesh, India. The BBC has a great profile of some of the students. Subscribe to their flickr photostream and you won’t miss an image.
And, really, we just like things that are pretty.
Speaking of pretty: if you have some extra time this weekend, and a blog that doesn’t look its best, perhaps its time to check out this list of beautiful WordPress themes (that you might not have seen yet).
February 12th, 2007 at 5:37 am
‘Explorers’ and ‘Sneakers’ are my additions.
February 15th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I’ve seen several of these. I’m proud to say I’m a geek :)
February 17th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
I haven’t seen a good movie since last year at Marienbad.
February 20th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
What about Wargames, The Matrix, or any of the Star Trek series (except maybe part 5 - The Final Frontier)? Also we can’t forget Shrek 2 where behind the scenes Red Hat Linux (http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2125356/linux-behind-magic-shrek) was the star of the show!
February 20th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Office Space. Definitely
February 20th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
You can’t really leave Dark Star or Silent Running out of the list if this is really about Geek movies. Here’ an alternative list:
Dark Star
Silent Running
Abyss
Blade runner
Alien
Aliens
2001: A space Oddity
Terminator
Predator
Andromeda Strain
The Thing
Dr Strangelove
Flight of the Phoenix (1965 version)
Planet of the Apes
If…
I’d be upset if I hadn’t seen any of these.
February 21st, 2007 at 1:56 am
Sorry but how can you have a top geek movie list without “Antitrust”?
Comes complete with MS/Bill Gates parody and Linux & Java on all the screen shots!
February 21st, 2007 at 9:03 pm
OFFICE SPACE!!! One of our favorites at work!!
February 23rd, 2007 at 2:27 am
How about Electric Dreams? It really was based on “Do androids dream of electric sheep?” and the Jeff Lynne tunes on the soundtrack are great.
February 23rd, 2007 at 8:34 am
Definitely Dr. Strangelove. I have to say that I don’t consider A Clockwork Orange a geek film. It’s more of a cult classic.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:05 am
Wow, I’ve seen *all* of the movies on the lists, and own at least half. I’d add Apollo 13, Gattaca, Napoleon Dynamite (maybe), and probably another half dozen where the scientist/geek/odd-man-out triumphs.
February 28th, 2007 at 11:13 am
I am probably dating myself but one of the first good SF XF films that should be on the list is Forbidden Planet. If you haven’t seen it, reserve it from Netflix.
February 28th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Contact. No Windows evident anywhere!
February 28th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Techie must sees from the last three Decades:
80’s: War Games
90’s: Sneakers
00’s: Enemy of the State
February 28th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
How about Colossus - the Forbin Project?
February 28th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Dennis, Electric Dreams really was not based on Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep. Also, why make a crappy version of the book a mere two years after Blade Runner?
I would add Demon Seed except I hate Julie Christie.
February 28th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Contact — A movie about SETI (pure Geek) and based on a book by Carl Sagan, perhaps the biggest Geek of all time! Also, I smile everytime I see the “Join the Unix Party” button on the PC at the VLA.
February 28th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Don’t forget serenity.
February 28th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
I agree with Jason - haven’t you heard of Antitrust? It’s a computer-geek movie with a “Real” story. The names of Linus Torvalds, Jon “maddog” Hall, and Miguel de Icaza appear in the credits, and credit is given to the entire “Open Source Community.”
February 28th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Ehh.
Weird Science
Back to the Future
And who could forget
Real Genius
I will get my coat
March 1st, 2007 at 12:03 am
All the movies above are great and I’ve seen alot of them. However, I’m very suprized that no one has mentioned The NET, Hackers, or Hackers 2: Takedown - granted may not be the best movies in the world but are purely for the geek nation. Along with Event Horizon for the horror flick geeks out there. On the notion of andriods what about Bi-centinel Man, I-Robot, and AI? As far as animation goes… Titan AE, the original Heavy Metal maybe?
March 1st, 2007 at 2:43 am
Where’s the penultimate late 20th century nerd?
I’d definitely recommend Woody Allens ‘Sleeper’.
And the VW? Well, you had to be there in the 70’s to get the full impact of that one. My all time favorite comic scene.
March 1st, 2007 at 3:18 am
Netflix is so 2002. Blockbuster Total Access FTW.
March 1st, 2007 at 3:36 am
check out the 64KB movie. Not a real movie but an amazing piece of work
March 1st, 2007 at 4:02 am
The Lawnmower Man 1+2.
March 1st, 2007 at 4:22 am
I saw “Clockwork Orange” 30 years ago and it was extremely scary and violent. I don’t see how that is geeky.
Star Wars was better than any of its sequels. Pi was good.
2001 was 2001 times better than 2010, which was a bore.
Bored of the Rings did not live up to the novels, which were great. But the movie wasn’t horrible.
Bladerunner: Great.
My faves: Matrix, 12 Monkeys, The Time Machine (or ANYTHING by HG Wells), Great Escape, Terminator I & II. But I’m not sure that I qualify as a geek. I’ve worked with computers all my life, but I don’t trust the bastards. Terminator I and Star Wars both prove categorically that the computers are going to take over the world and kill off humanity. So geeks better be careful about how much power they give to computers. Seriously.
March 1st, 2007 at 4:49 am
I’m surprised every response so far has left out one of my all time favorites “Brainstorm” with Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood.
This movie gives me feeling of “geek success” every time..
X.
March 1st, 2007 at 5:46 am
I also think that “Enemy Of the State” and “Sneakers” are the best. I also have “The Conversation” for it’s use of sound analysis tech even though it’s really dated.
March 1st, 2007 at 6:18 am
I agree with magical pig about Electric Dreams, great film and made by Richard Branson too! (Famous UK Entrepeneur, owns Virgin)
Maybe slightly off-centre but has anyone seen Flight of Dragons? Great cartoon from the 80’s which has the theme of science destroying fantasy. (Is better than it sounds honestly).
Was going to say 12 Monkeys but was beaten to it, how about Fifth Element (just a great film)?
Also loved Forbidden Planet when I first saw it as a lad.
Lastly, if you are talking about a Fantasy Theme like Lord of the Rings what about Hawk the Slayer, The Beastmaster and the Conan films.
March 1st, 2007 at 8:56 am
I can’t believe no one has mentioned “Grandma’s Boy”. Geek game designer gets the hot chick…
March 1st, 2007 at 1:12 pm
OMG, guys! HACKERS! I’ve seen it 20 times and will see it 20 more. I watch it on one screen while working on another. Seriously. First of all, it’s just cool. And NO, the effects are NOT dated, they are a wonderful vision of the future. Granted… they use real technical jargon from the 80’s or 90’s so THAT is funny… ‘wow’ graphics from dial-up connections. But that’s part of the greatness.
I am a serious geek who has loved my programming/hacking since I wrote my very first program in 1969 (I was a high school freshman). And I still love my computers. So.. I’m not kidding.
Plus it’s Angelina Jolie’s first movie, and as a teen actress she was pretty amazing. Lots of attitude in this movie. Bits remind me of the past excitement, bits of the potential, and bits of the geeky excitement.
March 1st, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Saw it three times in a row in the theater in ‘80 or ‘81 … Tron. Okay, I was stuck without a ride, but still enjoyed it third time around. Also, check out The Thirteenth Floor.
March 4th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Wow! You guys like all the movies I like. Scary! I like “No Time for Sergeants”. A little spit gets my computer working all the time!
March 11th, 2007 at 5:16 am
Last Year at Marienbad is a GREAT movie. It’s a shame you can’t buy it anymore.
May 10th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
You got a typo there. Hint: It’s 2001.
January 29th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I saw this really good movie once about a kid who starts working(or studying) at some prestigious tech school and he and his group of misfit techies are assigned to develop a $99 computer. They do so but the idea is stolen, and they have to redo the whole project and make it better so that they can still come out on top. I can’t remember the name or any of the major actors, I was wondering if anyone had seen it and could help me out.
January 31st, 2008 at 8:36 am
Josh–I haven’t seen it, but maybe The First $20 Million?
February 1st, 2008 at 12:28 am
Ruth - It was! (Thank god for Wikipedia) I should’ve remembered that Gary Busey’s son was in it. Now the challenge will be finding such an obscure movie for download. Thanks a bunch!