Best Geek Movies. Ever.

This list was inspired by this post, which while being a noble attempt, ended up being incomplete and just… wrong (ie: Repo Man? What??)

After consulting with my geeky friends and having a bit of cred myself*, here’s my version of the Ultimate Geek Movies you need to watch, along with methodology and explanation along the way. While not being expressly numbered, they are arranged in approximate order of essentialness. I’ve also tagged them to represent their themes:

AG: About geeks
FG: For geeks (features topics of interest to geeks)
GP: Geek philosophy

“Geek” is a term that’s debated and open to interpretation (see the Wikipedia article). While “geek” has come to mean anyone with a particular passion for something, including a great deal of specific knowledge, for these purposes we’re considering “geeks” to refer to people who are passionate about technology, especially as it relates to computing. While “nerd” is often used interchangably, it usually more specifically refers to the practical application of such specific technical knowledge (refer to Revenge of the Nerds), while “geek” could refer to those with a theoretical or philosophical approach (see The Matrix, where the protagonist (although a programmer in his simulated life) does not rely on any technical skill to makes him “The One”).

Blade Runner (Original / Director’s Cut) FG GP
Preceding the recent version of Battlestar Galactica‘s Cylons, the world of Blade Runner had Replicants–cyborgs resembling humans and referred to derogatively as “skin jobs” (and BSG gave the movie a tip of the hat when Anders also refers to the humanoid Cylons as “skin jobs”). There’s a bit of internal debate about which version–the director’s cut or original–is the superior. Proponents of the director’s cut see the dream sequence at the end of the director’s cut as more relevant, and argue that voice-overs in the original version are “tacked on” to dumb it down for a mainstream audience, and are an afterthought and stylistically at odds with the film. These voice-overs in the original are done in a film noir style, but modern audiences have tended to see such a dramatic technique as either cheesy or dated. I’d vote for the original version, as I see the noir-esque stylings more than just authentic–they add in an interesting way to the thematic arch suggested by the end of the movie.

The Matrix GP FG AG
In this sci-fi film, the future is a world where humans have been subjugated by artificial intelligences to serve as “batteries” for the simulated reality called the Matrix, in which the humans think is objective reality. Neo, the protagonists, questions the nature of the Matrix and eventually wakes up in a pod and his cybernetic connections are severed, releasing him into actual reality.

Pi AG GP

2001: A Space Oddysey GP
A genuinely epic Sci-Fi film by Stanley Kubric based on Arthur C. Clark’s novel, and including classical scoring, the film speaks to the whole history of humanity’s relationship with technology, culminating at its eventual production of an Artificial Intelligence that becomes self-aware.

Primer AG FG GP
The high ranking of the stellar-yet-low-budget Primer comes not just from its documentary / home movie look and authentic portrayal of technological startups (the main “experiment” is literally started in a garage in California), its exploration of theoretical physics and the corresponding ethical dilemmas–you actually have to be fairly intelligent to even begin to follow this convoluted plot based around targeted time-travel to positively affect future events.

War Games

12 Monkeys

Gattaca

Soylent Green

Tron

Star Wars

Lost Children

Honorable mention:
Logan’s Run

Sneakers
While some may argue that it’s not of high enough caliber to make the list, it still is a much less lame version of Hackers, (albeit where the actual technology used is sometimes laughable in its antiquity–phone cradle modems, for instance), this movie features a rogue band of con artists, hackers, and social engineers who team up for the ultimate heist.

Revenge of the Nerds
Again, while this one is primarily a juvenile comedy directed towards teenage males, the theme of oppressed, socially-challenged yet highly intelligent young adults who are able to prevail through their intelligence and technical skills is worth noting. And there’s a great musical sketch that’s so 80s.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai
Again, another goofy comedy, but this one has the hilarious concept of a genius brain surgeon-rock star-physicist who saves the world from an alien invasion. Isn’t that what we all secretly wish we could be?

Real Genius

Weird Science

Brazil

Brave New World
While this Aldous Huxley novel-based vision of the future is intriguing, it seems a bit dated at this point, as this potential future hasn’t come to pass, putting it solidly under the “Honorable Mention” category.

Total Recall

The Fifth Element

THX 1138

Dishonorable Mention:
Hackers
The Manhattan Project
Johnny Mnemonic

Methodology

* Being a onetime computer science major, running a geek fashion store, and being versed in contemporary computing technologies give me a bit of cred for this, but I also relied on the opinions and suggestions of these fellow geeks: Scott Arciniegas (college-level comic book class instructor and geek culture expert), Chris Maly (comics & sci-fi bastion of knowledge), Skip Sneeringer (WoW / sci-fi enthusiast), Dan Brown (Fark.com mini-celebrity / sci-fi & internet media connoisseur), and Daniel Lackey.