Ask HN: Which movie(s) best represent hacker culture for you?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31064488

by herodoturtle • 4 years ago

29 63 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

'hacker' in the same context it's used in 'hacker news'

Havoc• 4 years ago

None really. I don't think it is something you can convey in hollywood audience mass market attractive format. So it must by necessity contain vast amounts of 3D animated interfaces to portray the hacking. At which point anyone serious about hacking culture is laughing.

"The Social Network" while not true hacker culture (more vc/startup) I think bridged that impossible gap as best as can be I think. Still totally cringey but I think it was a credible attempt at an impossible task

gregjor3• 4 years ago

The Social Network may be reasonably accurate but it doesn’t portray a culture. It’s the story of a handful of people scrambling to make money from an unexpected success, and a single-minded antisocial programmer who falls backwards into vast wealth and power. The personality traits depicted and maybe exaggerated in the movie may be common but they don’t form a culture — rather they are formed by a culture of predatory capitalism and legal maneuvering. American Psycho is the same story as satire, with more knives and less PHP.

jlund-molfese• 4 years ago

Silicon Valley is a TV show, not a movie, but it seems to get pretty close to representing the evolution of a startup for a series which appeals to a lot of people. It's less focused on hacking as a plot device than, say, Mr Robot, and more focused on the business side of running a software company (so the technical details as explained by characters ring a little flat).

ThePhysicist• 4 years ago

To me this has nothing to do with hacker culture. Hacker culture in the broadest sense means doing creative work with technology, I would not identify that with startup culture as many hackers have strong aversions against startups.

asiachick2• 4 years ago

I found Silicon Valley looked nothing whatsoever like my experience in SV. It was exaggerated in the extreme at best or at worst just outright made up. Then again I only have my experiences to compare to. Maybe others it matched their's exactly.

h2odragon2• 4 years ago

"October Sky"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Sky

Learning for the joy of it, even in the face of opposition.

gregjor3• 4 years ago

There’s no “hacker culture.” The movies are fantasies. Programmers in cubicle farms and at standing desks in home offices writing code for money are not a culture. A side project isn’t hacking. The people who do what used to be called hacking are criminals.

The definitions of “hacker” offered by Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond — two people devoid of what we usually mean by “culture” — use the term to describe curiosity, fun, and inventiveness, which English already has good words for.

postpawl• 4 years ago

There's a good wikipedia article about the history of the use of the word "hacker" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_culture#Uses

gregjor3• 4 years ago

Yeah I’m old enough to remember when “hacker” meant someone who broke into computers they weren’t supposed to get into, before it was a Federal crime.

Now it mainly refers to faux ironic stickers on MacBooks.

rg1113• 4 years ago

pg's essay titled "The Word Hacker" [0] is also a nice read.

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html

coolhoody2• 4 years ago

The most knowledgeable hackers were consulted for 'The Matrix' (0-day SSHv1 CRC32 scene), 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' (a surprising homage to the actual PWN Phone, some micro details only a hacker would know, etc).

But these are more of side devices. No movie captures the culture as such — neither the original meaning, nor the illegal, nor the current business.

'The Social Network' attempted to take on a particular narrow aspect of it, and while the results are mixed, it did capture some of the real vibe.

TV — of course 'Silicon Valley', since it was already mentioned. The 'jerking off' algorithm was researched by a real team, and some of the members are here.

PaulHoule• 4 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakers_(1992_film)

coolhoody2• 4 years ago

Love your taste. The earliest is probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Millions

telesilla2• 4 years ago

Yes, Sneakers. Their love of tech, comraderie based on ability. Sure leads down a Hollywood path but it has some great moments and (some) real characters.

Primer might be another good one. I certainly enjoyed it immensely and found it superbly technically excellent.

smrtinsert• 4 years ago

It's subtle but them working together late at night on something technical in a quiet office really nailed it for me. It wasn't always the over the top extreme compensation driven atmosphere it is today.

pyuser5833• 4 years ago

Yes, Primer! Have no idea what happened in that movie, but it was amazing.

It really gave a good reproduction of Silicon Valley corporate culture.

colund• 4 years ago

Mr Robot is somewhat interesting (at least season 1)

badrabbit• 4 years ago

Wow! Hackers (1995)!! No one else mentioned it.

What context is the use in "hacker news"? We see news of security research and attacks but also peope findinf ways to use technology in an unintended or non-obvious way.

The first movie (only?) that I have heard them mention the hacker manifesto is there. Nothing else comes close in spirit (although some do better in technical detail or good plotline).

I thought I won this argument with everyone a long time ago, I see there are those of you I have yet to convert.

pyuser5833• 4 years ago

Hackers was a good movie. But hacker culture is a bunch of overweight dudes.

And that’s not what mainframes look like.

kadoban• 4 years ago

Hackers is halfway realistic if you ignore anything that happens on a screen and remove the hollywood hotness bias.

prepend• 4 years ago

But increasing the memory duplexers is surely the solution to any hacking countermeasures.

jdmoreira• 4 years ago

I always thought Takedown was decent https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0159784/

This is based on Tsutomu Shimomura's account of the events that culminated in the arrest of Kevin Mitnick.

at least the tech was real and accurate as far as I remember but not about hackers in the true sense of the word.

If you want good non-fiction stories about true hackers I would recommend the book 'Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution'

Someone1234• 4 years ago

Takedown is a very good film, hard to get/see too.

That being said I’m not sure that’s what hacker refers to in HN.

yesenadam4• 4 years ago

Great quality version downloads fast with this torrent:

595C6CD6F529472BCB9BC0311DE9D67137C740E5

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yuppie_scum• 4 years ago

Grandma’s Boy and Office Space for movies.

Various aspects of The IT Crowd, Silicon Valley and Mythic Quest for TV shows.

aaaaaaaaata• 4 years ago

Gamer/nerd culture, perhaps.

tacorita158• 4 years ago

Real Genius (1985) is a pretty good one. Apollo 13 has some hardware hack stuff. Wargames (1983) a little bit. Hackers (1995) did a good job of capturing what it felt like online during the tail end of the HPA BBS thing. Halt and Catch Fire is a good TV show. Others have mentioned Silicon Valley, Office Space and Mr Robot. The best related thing I’ve seen lately is Apple TV’s Mythic Quest, lolling right now thinking about it. Watch all of these.

saltcured2• 4 years ago

Too many facets to this question...

to adolescent me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_Science_(film)

to middle aged me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space

But, in relation to HN? Perhaps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22 mixed with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizopolis

jmrm• 4 years ago

Thanks, now I'm gonna have some Oingo Boingo songs in my head for some time ;-)

saltcured2• 4 years ago

Amusingly, I meant to link to Real Genius, not Weird Science.

My memory seems to confuse these by way of the 80s-college-party scene trope and Oingo Boingo music as in Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School. I am still surprised that Dead Man's Party is not playing in the scenes with Val Kilmer...

runjake• 4 years ago

Growing up the hacker culture most resembled War Games for me.

After high school, it began to resemble The Loan Gunmen from X-Files and maybe a little Sneakers.

Later on, in the late 90s, it began to resemble Hackers, but I felt all out of place in that environment, with the wild hair, outfits, and theatrics.

Now, I don’t follow the culture, so I don’t know — probably Office Space? Few seem to have a deep understanding of anything, let alone many things.

ipaddr• 4 years ago

I believed it was like war games growing up. I knew it wasn't like hackers but still enjoyed it. I knew the takedown story and it didn't represent the whole community but presented a real slice from one person. Mr Robot is a show but played like a movie and represented a shared vision of what many secretly wanted until everything fell apart.

From my experience hacker culture is more like the movie: The King of Kong with all of the drama/bragging/pettiness of a high school musical fight.

Rebelgecko• 4 years ago

Depending on what you mean by hacker culture:

In the "unauthorized access" sense, Sneakers is great, especially with how they much they make use of social engineering. Pretty good from a technical perspective too- I think if you replaced the Mcguffin with a quantum computer that can break asymmetric crypto algos the plot would hold up just as well today (not coincidentally, Len Adleman, the A in "RSA", was a technical consultant).

On the "building something cool in a scrappy way" (aka engineering porn), I'd go with The Martian

tsuujin• 4 years ago

Sneakers is still one of my all time favorite movies.

h2odragon2• 4 years ago

I've sent an assistant around the Hamvention flea market lot looking for a "band widener." Nobody sells them cheap.

pyuser5833• 4 years ago

Lone Gunman. Except all the technobabble would be bluster and paranoid conspiracy theories.

Oh wait.

axismundi• 4 years ago

Pi, directed by Darren Aronofsky: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704

Also Halt And Catch Fire was decent: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543312

wj• 4 years ago

Yeah, not a movie but I feel like Halt and Catch captures the hacker ethos the best. I loved it.

cutler• 4 years ago

The Fifth Estate, Mr.Robot and Blackhat. For TV it's Silicon Valley.

stuxnet79• 4 years ago

Mr Robot for sure. I like Sneakers too but it was before my time. The Matrix, Ghost in the Shell and other similar works touch on "hacking" at its periphery - they simply use it as an instrument for social commentary and philosophical inquiry.

While I enjoyed Hackers (1995) it was also before my time so I don't know how well it was able to capture the mid 90s Dot Com Zeitgeist.

skadamat• 4 years ago

Mr. Robot hands down

tapatio• 4 years ago

Westworld

rg1113• 4 years ago

I really liked the TV series Halt and Catch Fire. It has a little amount of Hollywood nonsense around being "smart". But only very little.

I loved this and would recommend it to everyone on HN.

I also plan to rewatch it soon.

I really liked how the depict the culture.

auxym• 4 years ago

I agree, and was to note that I loved the soundtrack, too.

alamortsubite2• 4 years ago

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1973 contribution World on a Wire was ahead of its time. It's well worth a watch.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070904

alamortsubite2• 4 years ago

Another early one, Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation fits the bill.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071360

rg1113• 4 years ago

Hacker Culture, to me atleast is somewhat broad.

Here are some places where I found good representations:

1. Halt and Catch Fire: 70s/80s tech scene. Full stack hackers building products, companies. Depicts the hackers, code monkeys, visionary types, managers, financers- everyone. Also shows the transition of the business scene from analog to digital.

2. Westworld (Season 1 only) is brilliant. It depicts the ambition, the hubris involved in creating something new and grand.

3. The Travelling Salesman: P vs NP is solved. What are the implications, what are the uses, how will the State react? What is the role of the people imvolved?

4. Primer: Mind bending movie on time machine.

5. and 6. Imitation Game and A Beautiful Mind: I believe most people on HN will like these.

7. Agora is a hidden gem not many know about. It is anout Hypatia.

8. Dangerous Knowledge is a documentary about paradigm changing science. Godel, Turing, Boltzmann are covered.

9. Fractals is also a nice documentary with interviews from Mendelbrot.

10. Codebreaker is a mich more accurate biography of Turing that covers other aspects of his, not limited to his codebreaking and homosexuality.

11. Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz: very nice and left a deep impression in me.

____

I am yet to watch:

1. Hidden Figures

2. Stand and Deliver

3. I'm In

4. TPB: AFK

5. Pirates of Silicon Valley

6. Triumph of the Nerds

____

Harvard Professor Oliver Knill has a list and clips from movies where math appears: https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/mathmovies/

____

I came to know a lot of these movies through Kagi search and Reddit search. "Best movies for mathematicians and computer scientists" and similar searches.

jjice• 4 years ago

Pirates of Silicon Valley

Haven't thought of that movie in years. Not bad by any means, and I'd say it's worth the watch. Broad strokes Microsoft and Apple development, and stays entertaining. Not as deep as the Steve Jobs films (I always mess up the titles from the good and the bad one) from a few years ago, but still enjoyable.

ffhhj• 4 years ago

Moneyball: algorithm design and team management based on that algorithm.

Mr. Robot / Who Am I

asiachick2• 4 years ago

I found that part of Westworld repulsive. I've never seen a CEO nor a designer that could be as over the top as the CEO and designer characters in that show and keep their job.

herodoturtle2• 4 years ago

Awesome list, thanks for taking the time to write all this. Looking forward to watching some of these!

tejado• 4 years ago

Here in Germany, with the CCC, there are two movies that represents our hacker culture: „23“ and „Everything is one. Except for the 0“

yesenadam4• 4 years ago

Thank you! They both sound great.

23 (1998) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126765/

Alles ist eins. Ausser der 0. / Everything is one. Except for the 0 (2020) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11794022/

crate_barre• 4 years ago

Office Space.

Austin_Conlon• 4 years ago

The documentary on General Magic.

tlubinski• 4 years ago

The Billion Dollar Code tells the story about an artist and a hacker who build Google Maps before Google Maps. It plays in Berlin, Germany in the 90ies and I really liked the vibe of the whole mini-series. Also the combination of Art and Technology and getting the most out of current technology makes it a good "hacker" series.

tediousdemise• 4 years ago

The Matrix trilogy is an essential one for me.

yesenadam4• 4 years ago

Two good ones that haven't been mentioned so far:

In the Realm of the Hackers (2003) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1199631/

Revolution OS (2001) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308808/

herodoturtle2• 4 years ago

Nice finds, thanks.

Also Antitrust (2001).

Ask HN: Which movie(s) best represent hacker culture for you?

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