Technology is something heavily featured in most people’s lives these days, but how many films with a tech-driven plot can you recall watching?
There’s actually a surprising amount of films out there for keen techies to enjoy. From commercially successful blockbusters to lesser-known cinematic works, here are six films that we think all tech fans should watch at least once in their lives.
Ex Machina
Programmer Caleb Smith works for Blue Book, a large search engine company. He wins the chance to stay at Blue Book CEO Nathan Bateman’s home and is tasked with interacting with Ava, a humanoid robot Nathan has built using artificial intelligence.
Nathan wants Caleb to determine how capable Ava is and, in no time at all, they discover that she can think for herself on a level that they never thought possible.
Primer
Winner of the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize in 2004, Primer follows Aaron and Abe, two engineers who work on tech projects in their free time to earn some cash in hand to supplement their regular incomes.
One experiment sees them attempting to reduce the weight of objects using electromagnetics. However, one of the side-effects causes a time loop, meaning Aaron and Abe have unwittingly brought about the capability of travelling in time.
Tron
This 35-year-old, science fiction film tells the tale of computer software engineer, Kevin Flynn, who finds out one of his colleagues has been stealing his work and, as revenge, attempts to hack into his computer system.
What he wasn’t expecting was to be transported into a digital alternate reality, where he must face a computerised version of his colleague and the Master Control Program.
The Matrix
A computer programmer by day and a hacker by night, Thomas Anderson – or Neo – finds himself a police target after being contacted by renowned hacker, Morpheus, who is closely watched by the government.
Neo is then awoken to the real world; a place where most of the population have been captured by machines, their minds stuck in an artificial reality: the Matrix. Does Neo have the power to change what he has found?
We Live in Public
This documentary details the life of Josh Harris, the founder of the first internet TV network, Pseudo.com, created in the late 1990s.
Harris achieved recognition in Silicon Valley, and became fascinated by the effects media and technology had on people. This documentary, made by Ondi Tmoner, spans more than a decade of Harris’ career, and explores the control the virtual world has over human lives.
Wargames
The 1983 sci-fi hit, Wargames, tells the story of David Lightman, a hacker who unintentionally grants himself access to WOPR – a supercomputer created to predict the consequences of nuclear war, owned by the American military.
Thinking he’s stumbled across an online game, he sets the WOPR to run a simulation. The only problem is, the computer can’t tell the difference between a simulation and the real world…
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