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What's Gettin' Hacked? Grazer One, a destructive and top-secret military satellite.
How Long Does It Take? About two seconds to add the gigabyte of RAM mid-hack.
What's His Hacking Style? Former US government computer programmer Travis Dane hijacks a train headed from Denver to Los Angeles. Dane, like most '90s movie villains, had been fired by the government due to his increasing "mental instability." He uses a portable computer powered remotely by an Apple Newton to regain access to Grazer One from a moving train. In the midst of the encryption action, he adds a gigabyte of RAM, which in reality does nothing to help him break the code faster.
Good thing Steven Seagal is also on board the train to save the world by shooting Dane's computer.
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What's Gettin' Hacked? The world's best hacker, Stanley Jobson, has one minute to infiltrate the Department of Defense's secure server while being... distracted.
How Long Does It Take? 1 minute, 7 seconds.
What's His Hacking Style? Stanley is forced to hack into the Department of Defense's server with a trigger to his head and a woman unzipping his pants in a slightly nonconsensual manner. While bad guy Gabriel, played by John Travolta with blond highlights and a soul patch, and his cronies watch, Stanley sloppily and nonsensically smashes his fingers against the keyboard of the strangely shaped laptop he's been given while strings of numbers and letters scroll across the screen.
While the data sequence may look technical, professional hackers who've analyzed the scene say it's a massive mess.
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What's Gettin' Hacked? The cell phone belonging to geophysicist and protagonist Josh Keyes.
How Long Does It Take? 39 seconds.
What's His Hacking Style? This is the ultimate Hollywood hardware hack. Anti-authority hackster Rat, played by DJ Qualls, impresses his captors by using a gum wrapper as a conduit to blow into Keyes's phone, somehow granting it "free long distance for life." The trick succeeds, and Rat gets to work on saving the planet, one mouse click at a time. What else would you expect from a movie about scientists who travel to the inner core of the planet to figure out why it's no longer rotating?
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What's Gettin' Hacked? Programmer Gus, played by comedy legend Richard Pryor, hacks his company's financial system in order to siphon off unaccounted for half-cents from paychecks.
How Long Does It Take? 34 seconds.
What's His Hacking Style? Gus infiltrates the system with ease by using the command "OVERRIDE ALL SECURITY." Considering he works for a multinational corporation named Webscoe, this seems a little unrealistic. It only takes a few keystrokes for him to amass the extra funds. He then employs a bulky stylus with a long, curled cord to work some touchscreen wizardry.
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What's Gettin' Hacked? High school nerds Gary and Wyatt siphon power from a large government computer system in order to give Wyatt's wimpy PC a boost.
How Long Does It Take? 41 seconds.
What's Their Hacking Style? These characters in a John Hughes rom-com have hatched a plan to design and bring to life their own dream woman. By connecting a doll to electrodes and creating a power surge, their woman, Lisa, is born. First, they contend with the administrator of the local government computer system after inserting an unmarked '80s floppy disk into Wyatt's computer and dialing into the system. Navigating an absurd series of colorful 3D portals, Wyatt gains access to the system, funneling its power into his weird science project.
It's true that hacking into bigger computer systems to exploit their strengths is common practice, but the visual elements depicted here are unreal and silly. On top of the somewhat questionable physics of creating a live human-looking woman out of a toy doll through "computerousness."
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What's Gettin' Hacked? Computer programmer and systems analyst Angela Bennett puts her skills to use, helping a remote client with a pesky virus.
How Long Does It Take? 54 seconds.
What's Her Hacking Style? It's '90s all the way. Using floppy disks and multi-window executables, Angela swipes and types as she destroys a strange virus that does something no virus actually does: melts the images on the screen. More of a debugger than a hacker, Angela celebrates her victory by ordering a pizza on the internet. While the pseudo-hacking here is questionable, The Net gets some cred for predicting online customizable pizza delivery.
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What's Gettin' Hacked? Frenzy the Decepticon boards Air Force One and uses its robotic transformation powers to hack into the military's encrypted, top-secret database system.
How Long Does It Take? 1 minute, 28 seconds before the military terminates the alien's connection, but it's able to download quite a few files after it breaks in.
What's Its Hacking Style? There's nothing realistic about tracking "hacking sounds," which a sound specialist at the Pentagon does when Frenzy gains entry. The visual display on the computer screen Frenzy is using, questionably located in the storage room of the president's personal airplane, is flashy and image-based rather than a long string of code. The red progress bar, denoting a race against the clock, adds drama to this big-budget action flick.
Is this ridiculous?- 1Optimus Prime649 Votes
- 2Bumblebee608 Votes
- 3Megatron483 Votes
- 4Ironhide591 Votes
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What's Gettin' Hacked? A 1986 Apple Macintosh that is somehow able to converse with computer files from 2286 containing the chemical formula for the famous Star Trek material transparent aluminum.
How Long Does It Take? 23 seconds.
What's His Hacking Style? Scotty acts like a bit of a fumbling idiot here with this quaint Apple model that's 300+ years older than his day-to-day equipment. He tries to verbally command the computer to no avail, then tries to speak into the mouse, until he's patronizingly instructed to use the keyboard. He then launches into a two-finger typing technique that rapidly accelerates and magically enters the correct commands to engage a series of screen pop-ups and data about the transparent aluminum. Cut him some slack, though. The '80s were a weird time for technology.
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What's Gettin' Hacked? Dade "Zero Cool/Crash Override" Murphy decides to hack into his local television station's automated scheduling system as an 18th birthday present to himself. His objective: Change the regularly scheduled prejudiced talk show to an episode of The Twilight Zone.
How Long Does It Take? 2 minutes, 12 seconds.
What's His Hacking Style? Dade resorts to social engineering to get what he wants, calling in to the TV station as "Eddie Vedder from Financing" to get the number off a modem. With the ever-critical modem number in his possession, he gains control of a robotic arm that physically shuffles the tapes around to his liking. While hacking TV stations was a real thing, it was more likely to be accomplished in the '90s through strong FM transmissions rather than remote computer hacking. Dade also crosses paths with a rival, Acid Burn, who also has access to the TV station's scheduling system.
Even though run-ins with other hackers are commonplace in these scenarios, the two engage in a very unrealistic code clash with the robotic arm while exchanging cheeky instant messages transmitted in large, flashy fonts lacking dialogue boxes.
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What's Gettin' Hacked? In order to store images of 10,000 bank account numbers, bank security specialist Jack Stanfield (Harrison Ford) uses his daughter's mp3 player as a storage device. This is a case of hardware hacking.
How Long Does It Take? 50 seconds to rig the iPod.
What's His Hacking Style? Firewall, a 2006 film that Ford may or may not even remember making at this point, centers around a group of high-end crooks targeting Jack for a large-scale scheme. Jack uses an iPod to transfer the bank account numbers demanded by his adversaries, explaining, incorrectly, "10,000 songs, 10,000 account numbers. It doesn't know the difference." This fast-and-loose logic does neatly sum up the half-baked tone of this scene.
From there, Jack and the man in charge of the plan, Bill, exchange jargon about "OCR programs" and various types of data while one of Bill's henchmen makes sure the iPod is ready for the file dump.
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What's Gettin' Hacked? Bond villain Silva hacks MI6's vast computer and technology systems while Q and Bond watch in horror.
How Long Does It Take? 55 seconds.
What's His Hacking Style? The scene unravels with the typical stylized Bond approach to espionage thrillers. Silva's hack is represented by visually stunning maps and graphs on large flatscreens, which isn't efficient for hacking, as they limit the amount of processable data at one time. The film does include references to polymorphic code, a real defense tool employed by hackers that changes whenever people try to gain access to it. Q also operates hex code to solve the "GRANBOROUGH" cipher, but this kind of binary coding language would not include these letters.
Even though the grandiose hack contest between Silva and Q is pure ocular spectacle, some of its tech aspects are legit.
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What's Gettin' Hacked? Lex, with the moral support of her brother Tim, is trying to hack into Jurassic Park's security system in order to save Alan and Ellie from a team of velociraptors.
How Long Does It Take? 57 seconds.
What's Her Hacking Style? The 3D visualizations on the computer Lex digs into in order to reengage the system are laughable by today's standards. The UNIX system computer, though, really existed, and there is a 3D filing system called a fsn. The fsn never really caught on, but its interface is similar to what viewers see here. While the jury is out on whether or not this scene depicts a true hack, it is probably the most realistic of Jurassic Park's computer sequences, and the one that inspired legions of young girls to become computer programmers.
Is this ridiculous?- 1King Kong106 Votes
- 2Lake Placid83 Votes
- 3The Lost World53 Votes
- 4Deep Blue Sea25 Votes
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What's Gettin' Hacked? In this sequel to The Matrix, Trinity hacks the power grid that controls the underground facility responsible for maintaining The Matrix. Neo must infiltrate the core of the facility in order to confront the Architect, creator of the artificial world.
How Long Does It Take? 18 seconds.
What's Her Hacking Style? Made in 2003, Trinity's scene involves use of a real hacking program, Nmap. This freeware tool basically scans computer systems for vulnerabilities before it strikes. There are no flashy graphics or silly sounds to accompany the hacking here: only straightforward code. Many real-life hackers rejoiced over the film's accuracy, even if it's a little on the fast side, although the British Computer Society warned users NOT to try this at home, because it's unlawful.
Is this ridiculous?- 1Morpheus239 Votes
- 2Neo276 Votes
- 3Agent Smith295 Votes
- 4Trinity154 Votes
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What's Gettin' Hacked? The grading records at David Lightman's Seattle high school.
How Long Does It Take? 53 seconds.
What's His Hacking Style? This young hacker, played by a charming Matthew Broderick, tries to impress his crush by dialing into the school's computer system in order to alter their grades. While the scene is filled with '80s phone and computer sounds, it isn't over the top or unrealistic in its portrayal of a teenaged home hacker using his personal rig to mess around with vulnerable operating systems and databases.
WarGames is hailed as one of the few films to get hacking in its early days right, and its release in 1983 caused the US government to assess its own technological weaknesses.
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Fact-checked by:Jason Bancroft
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Really Makes You Think
Want to feel smart, but don't want to read an actual book? Check out these lists of movies, TV shows, and other forms of entertainment that will get your mind wheels spinning.
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