25 Best Programming Movies Every Programming Student Must Watch!

Programming movies are an all-time addiction not only for programmers but also for kids of all ages.

As we all know movies are powerful in creating impressions in the people’s minds and also they are a bundle of inspiration, entertainment, and education as well.

Programming movies can really inspire programmers to code again.

Hats off to Hollywood for portraying movies based on stuff like technology, computers, programmers, etc.

So here goes a list of Top Programming Movies!!!!!!!!

Read it and choose your cup of tea from below mentioned list and give yourself a treat by watching out your favorite programming movie with a bucket of popcorn aside.

Perhaps, these programming movies are pretty sure to keep you on the edge of your seat throughout!

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Happy movie time!!! Enjoy!

1) The Social Network

2) Pirates of the Silicon Valle

3) Hackers

4) Jobs

5) Takedown

6) Untraceable

7) Sneakers

8) Snowden

9) The Matrix

10) Tron

11) Source Code

12) War Games

13) Blackhat

14) Ex Machina

15) The Fifth Estate

16) Antitrust

17) Office Space

18) Disclosure

19) We are legion

20) The Imitation Game

21) Primer

22) TPB AFK – The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard (2013)

23) In The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swart

24) Who Am I: No System is Safe

25) Code Rush

1. The Social Network

• Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella
• Director: David Fincher
• IMBD Rating: 7.7/10
• Rotten Tomato: 96%
• Metacritic: 95%
• Release date: 15 October 2010
• Box office: $224.9 million

The Social Network portrays the story of how Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook. Based on the novel The Accidental Millionaires by Ben Mezrich, the story starts when Zuckerberg is a 19-year old studying at the Harvard University. At the end of the movie, you are left wondering if Facebook really helps you make friends?

Critic Review: Link

2. Pirates of the Silicon Valle

• Cast: Noah Wyle, Anthony Michael Hall
• Director: Martyn Burke
• IMBD Rating: 7.3/10
• Rotten Tomato: 90%
• Metacritic: 84%
• Release date: 20 June 1999
• Box office: Not available

This drama film is based on Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. Set from 1971 to 1997, the movie takes you on an enthralling journey with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates as they usher in a new digital era with the development of the personal computer.

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Critic Review: Link

3. Hackers

• Cast: Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Fisher Stevens, Lorraine Bracco
• Director: Iain Softley
• IMBD Rating: 6.3/10
• Rotten Tomato: 33%
• Metacritic: 46%
• Release date: 15 September 1995
• Box office: 75 lakhs USD

Dade Murphy, a super hacker, created a destructive virus when he was just 11 years old. He’s then banned from using computers till he’s 18 years of age. Dade and his friends soon discover that there’s an even more evil virus called the Plague to create oil spills and put the blame on kids. Will the villain be unmasked and the virus destroyed?

Critic Review: Link

4. Jobs

• Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney, Josh Gad
• Director: Joshua Michael Stern
• IMBD Rating:5.9/10
• Rotten Tomato: 28%
• Metacritic: 44%
• Release date: 25 January 2013
• Box office: 4.21 crores USD

It’s the year 2001, and the movie opens with Steve Jobs going for an Apple Townhall Meeting. This movie charts Steve Job’s life from being a college dropout to becoming the founder of Apple.

Critic Review: Link

5. Takedown

• Cast: Skeet Ulrich, Russell Wong, Angela Featherstone, Donal Logue, Christopher, McDonald, Master P, Tom Berenger
• Director: Joe Chappelle
• IMBD Rating: 6.3/10
• Rotten Tomato: Not available
• Metacritic: Not available
• Release date: March 15, 2000
• Box office: Not available

Another programmer movie that’s based on real life. This action thriller movie tracks the pursuit of Kevin Mitnick, who is America’s most wanted hacker. It was released in 2000 in Finland. However, due to controversies, this movie came to the cinemas in the USA only in 2004.

Critic Review: Link

6. Untraceable

• Cast: Diane Lane, Billy Burke, Colin Hanks, Joseph Cross, Mary Beth Hurt
• Director: Gregory Hoblit
• IMBD Rating: 6.2/10
• Rotten Tomato: 16%
• Metacritic: 32%
• Release date: 25 January 2008
• Box office: 5.27 crores USD

Untraceable is a crime thriller movie set in Portland, Oregon about a serial killer. Special Agent Jennifer Marsh works in FBI cybercrime division. She comes across a website KillWithMe.com that streams a video of a cat being killed. Every time the website server is closed, immediately a mirror server comes up.

Critic Review: Link

7. Sneakers

• Cast: Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn
• Director: Phil Alden Robinson
• IMBD Rating: 7.1/10
• Rotten Tomato: 79%
• Metacritic: 65%
• Release date: 01 Jan 1992
• Box office: 10.52 crores USD

Released in 1992, this movie is about how an FBI fugitive Martin Bishop helps the National Security Agency find a computer stolen by the Russians. However, Martin’s former associate who was captured by the FBI steals and hides it. Will they recover the computer?

Critic Review: Link

8. Snowden

Snowden is a biological thriller based on The Snowden Files by Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena. One of NSA’s employees leaks the illegal surveillance techniques and thousands of classified documents to the public. The movie captures the aftermath of this incident.

Critic Review: Link

9. The Matrix

• Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano
• Director: The Wachowskis
• IMBD Rating: 8.7/10
• Rotten Tomato:88%
• Metacritic: 73%
• Release date: 31 March 1999
• Box office: 465.3 million USD

Thomas A. Anderson is an average programmer by day and Neo, a hacker by night. When the police find that Morpheus, a computer hacker who is branded as a terrorist has approached Neo, they start targeting him. Neo needs to fight against the super computer to stop the rebellion.

Critic Review: Link

10. Tron

• Cast: Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, Barnard Hughes
• Director: Steven Lisberger
• IMBD Rating: 6.8/10
• Rotten Tomato: 75%
• Metacritic: 58%
• Release date: 9 July 1982
• Box office: 5 crores USD

Tron is a sci-fi movie released in 1982. In this movie, a computer programmer, Jeff Bridges finds himself transported into a mainframe computer. He needs to interact with the programs and escape from the software world.

Also Read:

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• 21 Inspirational Movies Every Students Must Watch

Critic Review: Link

11. Source Code

• Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright
• Director: Duncan Jones
• IMBD Rating: 7.5/10
• Rotten Tomato: 92%
• Metacritic: 74%
• Release date: 1 April 2011
• Box office: 14.73 crores USD

Source Code is a science fiction time travel movie. The source code is a time loop program. The protagonist Jake Gyllenhaal find himself in different situations and each time, an event occurs, he is transported back to the source code. His mission is to discover a bomber.

Critic Review: Link

12. War Games

• Cast: Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Ally Sheedy
• Director: John Badham
• IMBD Rating: 7.1/10
• Rotten Tomato:93%
• Metacritic:77%
• Release date: 3 June 1983
• Box office: 7.96 crores USD

It’s a science fiction movie where the protagonist, David Lightman, who is a hacker finds that he has unknowingly accessed the War Operation Plan Response (WOPR). This supercomputer belongs to the US military and was programmed to predict the possible results of the nuclear war. Lightman finds himself stuck between reality and simulation. Will he be able to find his way out?

Critic Review: Link

13. Blackhat

• Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tang Wei, Viola Davis, Ritchie Coster, Holt McCallany, Yorick van Wageningen, Wang Leehom
• Director: Michael Mann
• IMBD Rating: 5.4/10
• Rotten Tomato: 32%
• Metacritic: 51%
• Release date: 8 January 2015
• Box office: 1.97 crores USD

A power plant in Hong Kong explodes. The New York Stock Exchange is hacked. Nicholas Hathaway, Agent Carol Barrett, and their Chinese counterparts team together to find out if these two seemingly different incidents are related. And if so, who’s the brain behind it?

Critic Review: Link

14. Ex Machina

• Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac
• Director: Alex Garland
• IMBD Rating: 7.7/10
• Rotten Tomato: 92%
• Metacritic: 78%
• Release date: 21 January 2015
• Box office: 3.69 crores USD

This sci-fi psychological thriller that explores the human-robot relationships. Caleb Smith is a programmer who wins a one-week stay at the home of Nathan Bateman, the CEO of Blue Book, a search engine company that he works for. There Caleb meets Ava, an android with AI capabilities. Caleb needs to evaluate Ava’s thoughts and actions. As emotions explore, the line between man and machine begins to blur.

Critic Review: Link

15. The Fifth Estate

• Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Brühl, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Alicia Vikander, Stanley Tucci, Laura Linney
• Director: Bill Condon
• IMBD Rating: 6.2/10
• Rotten Tomato: 36%
• Metacritic: 49%
• Release date: September 5, 2013
• Box office: 86 lakhs USD

The Fifth Estate is based on Inside WikiLeaks by Daniel Domscheit-Berg WikiLeaks by David Leigh and Luke Harding.

The movie explores the rise of the whistle-blower website – Wiki Leaks and the relationship between the founder Julian Assange and the techie activist Daniel Domscheit-Berg.

Critic Review: Link

16. Antitrust

• Cast: Ryan Phillippe, Tim Robbins, Rachael Leigh Cook, Claire Forlani
• Director: Peter Howitt
• IMBD Rating: 6.1/10
• Rotten Tomato: 24%
• Metacritic: 31%
• Release date: 12 January 2001
• Box office: 1.82 crores USD

Milo Hoffman is a computer genius who is trying hard to launch his start-up company. Gary Winston, a computer mogul enters the scene. Gary makes an offer to Milo for his start-up business idea. Will Milo be able to stand up to his inspiration and hero or fold down to his tempting offer?

Critic Review: Link

17. Office Space

• Cast: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Stephen Root, Gary Cole
• Director: Mike Judge
• IMBD Rating: 7.7/10
• Rotten Tomato:80%
• Metacritic: 68%
• Release date: 19 Feb 1999
• Box office: 1.22 crores USD

Office Space is a hilarious tale of a typical software employee. Peter Gibbons is one of those “unknown” employees working in a software company. He doesn’t like his job much and feels very demotivated. His girlfriend Anne encourages him to go for hypnotherapy treatment. What happens after the hypnotherapy treatment makes the rest of the movie.

Critic Review: Link

18. Disclosure

• Cast: Michael Douglas, Demi Moore, Donald Sutherland, Caroline Goodall, Dennis Miller
• Director: Barry Levinson
• IMBD Rating: 6.1/10
• Rotten Tomato: 59%
• Metacritic: 58%
• Release date: 9 December 1994
• Box office: $21.4 crores USD

Production line manager Tom works in a technology company founded by Bob Garvin. Tom expects to be promoted when Bob retires. But then Meredith, Tom’s ex-girlfriend gets the promotion. Meredith calls Tom to her office on pretext of a meeting and tries to force herself on him. But Tom refuses here advances. But the next day, he finds the Meredith has filed sexual harassment charges against her. A legal fight ensues and Tom legally wins his position.

Critic Review: Link

19. We are Legion

• Director: Brian Knappenberger
• IMBD Rating: 7.3/10
• Rotten Tomato: 75%
• Metacritic: 66%
• Release date: 19 October 2012
• Box office: $67.9 million

The movie traces the path of many pranksters who join together to form a complete global movement. This story of Hacktivists explores a whole range of “online” issues such as cyberattacks, web controllers, police brutality, copyright abuse, and online censorship.

Cast: Julian Assange, Aaron Barr, Anon2World, Anonyops, Stanley Cohen, Adrian Chen

Critic Review: Link

20. The Imitation Game

• Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Charles Dance, Mark Strong
• Director: Morten Tyldum
• IMBD Rating: 8/10
• Rotten Tomato: 90%
• Metacritic: 73%
• Release date: 28 November 2014
• Box office: 23.36 crores USD

Nock and Staehl, two policemen interrogate the mathematician Alan Turing after an apparent break-in. During the interrogation, Alan talks about working at Bletchley Park during the Second World War and the building of the Turing’s machine, which we now call computers. This movie is based on Alan Turing’s biography.

Critic Review: Link

21. Primer

• Cast: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan
• Director: Shane Carruth
• IMBD Rating: 6.9/10
• Rotten Tomato: 73%
• Metacritic: 68%
• Release date: 8 October 2004
• Box office: 8.42 lakhs USD

A science-fiction movie with elements of time travel. Two engineers, Aaron and Abe work on tech projects to supplement their income. One day, while working on an electromagnetic project, they discover the side effect of the time loop. They find out they can travel in time and play with the stock market.

Critic Review: Link

22. TPB AFK – The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard (2013)

• Cast: Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, Roger Wallis
• Director: Simon Klose
• IMBD Rating: 7.5/10
• Rotten Tomato: Not available
• Metacritic: Not available
• Release date: 8 February 2013
• Box office: Not available

This Swedish movie documents the life of the three founders of The Pirate Bay, which is an online digital content index. The founder’s Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm face a $13 million claims in a copyright infringement case. The movie follows their lives away from the keyboard.

Critic Review: Link

23. In The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swart

• Cast: Aaron Swartz, Cindy Cohn, Gabriella Coleman, Cory Doctorow, Peter Eckersley
• Director: Brian Knappenberger,
• IMBD Rating: 8/10
• Rotten Tomato: 93%
• Metacritic: 72
• Release date: 25 August 2014
• Box office: 48,911 USD

The movie documents the life and suicide of Internet’s own boy – Aaron Swart. Aaron was a programming prodigy and information activist. He played an integral part in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS and the website Reddit. However, his aggressive approach toward accessing information political activism lands him in legal trouble. The battle ended when he took his life at the age of 26.

Critic Review: Link

24. Who Am I: No System is Safe

• Cast: Tom Schilling, Elyas M’Barek, Wotan Wilke Möhring
• Director: Baran bo Odar
• IMBD Rating: 7.6/10
• Rotten Tomato: Not available
• Metacritic: Not available
• Release date: 25 September 2014
• Box office: 0.77 Crores USD

This German techno-thriller movie revolves around a group of computer hackers who want to achieve international fame. But the hackers are implicated of a murder and they need to use their computing skills to prove that they’re not guilty of the crime.

Critic Review: Link

25. Code Rush

• Cast: Scott Collins, Stuart Parmenter, Jamie Zawinski
• Director: 25 April 2000
• IMBD Rating: 7.3/10
• Rotten Tomato: Not available
• Metacritic: Not available
• Release date: March 30, 2000 (TV)
• Box office: Not available

This documentary movie released in 2000 is about the final part of the project when the Netscape engineers are working hard to make the source code of Mozilla ready for release. The documentary tracks the lives of the employees as they work against time to save their company, families, and jobs.

Critic Review: Link

Conclusion

Wow! I hope it was indeed a personal time for you to get immersed in your favorite programming movies. All these programming movies are not only fun but also informative too.

You can spend your leisure time wisely by watching the programming movies mentioned above. You can accompany your friends in your home theatres for a fun-filled movie watching time.

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