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The last day of school is a half day for us and it isn't one where my students are too engaged...
Last year I showed Hidden Figures and it went over pretty well. Many students were stunned by the lack of respect afforded to people of color in the '60s (and to this day).
Looking for suggestions for other school appropriate CS related movies (my classes are at high school level - US ages 14-18 more or less, but movies for any age range would be welcome).
The film follows a group of high school hackers and their involvement in a corporate extortion conspiracy. Made in the 1990s when the Internet was unfamiliar to the general public, it reflects the ideals laid out in the Hacker Manifesto quoted in the film: "This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch [...] We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. [...] Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity." Despite receiving mixed-to-negative reviews and failing at the box office upon release, Hackers has since achieved cult classic status.
Bicentennial Man is a 1999 American science fiction comedy-drama film starring Robin Williams, Sam Neill, Embeth Davidtz (in a dual role), Wendy Crewson, and Oliver Platt. Based on the novel The Positronic Man by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg (which is itself based on Asimov's original novella The Bicentennial Man), the plot explores issues of humanity, slavery, prejudice, maturity, intellectual freedom, conformity, sex, love, and mortality.
Indie Game: The Movie is a 2012 documentary film made by Canadian filmmakers James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot. The film is about the struggles of independent game developers Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes during the development of Super Meat Boy, Phil Fish during the development of Fez, and also Jonathan Blow, who reflects on the success of Braid.
The film, set and shot in Johannesburg, is about an artificially intelligent law enforcement robot captured and taught by gangsters, who nickname it Chappie.
The film's plot centers upon an experimental military robot that is struck by lightning and gains a more humanlike intelligence, with which it embarks to explore its new state.
It follows a solitary trash compactor robot on a future, uninhabitable, deserted Earth, left to clean up garbage. However, he is visited by a probe sent by the starship Axiom, whom he falls in love with and pursues across the galaxy.
It depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality, the Matrix, created by thought-capable machines (artificial beings) to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source. When computer programmer Thomas Anderson, under the hacker alias "Neo", uncovers this truth, he "is drawn into a rebellion against the machines" along with other people who have been freed from the Matrix.
In the year 2035, humanoid robots serve humanity, which is protected by the Three Laws of Robotics.
In no particular order:
Also, a website from one of our students: https://hackermovie.club/
Enjoy!
