The Top 10 Best Movie Hackers

These Movie Hackers Prove the Keyboard is Mightier Than the Sword

Get ready to jack into the mainframe, because this week I’m counting down the top 10 best movie hackers of all time. Every good action movie team needs a computer expert, and any of them would be lucky to have one of these keyboard warriors handling their tech. Full disclosure, I’m not the most tech-savvy person in the world, so I can’t personally speak to the accuracy of the frantic keyboard mashing of these movie hackers, but I did my best to include both realistic and unbelievable characters, so long as they’re memorable. The rules for this list are: 1) No cyborgs, androids, or artificial intelligence, and 2) Only one character per feature-length movie (sorry, Hackerman). There’s no firewall that these characters can’t break, no electronic secret they can’t uncover, no embarrassing photo they can’t leak. In our digital world, they are as gods; Gods with poor social skills who mostly speak in cliches, but gods nonetheless. So, get ready to overclock your processors, because this list of movie hackers is ready to be decrypted thanks to a backdoor exploit in the… I dunno… Megabytes?

10. David Lightman- WarGames

All things considered, movie hackers haven’t been around for that long, because computers really haven’t been around for that long. Most of the early ones were pencil-neck geeks who would throw a bunch of tech jargon at the hero before being told to “speak English.” One of the first truly memorable movie hackers was David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) from the 80s nerd cult classic, WarGames. The fresh-faced high-schooler accidentally hacks into a military system connected to NORAD while searching for a video-game country. In typical “boys-will-be-boys” fashion, David boots up an artificial intelligence named WOPR to play some of those titular war games, only to learn too late that WOPR is playing for keeps. There’s no arguing that David wasn’t one of the best early movie hackers and while we still love him dearly, the guy was at his peak back when dial-up was cutting-edge tech. Compared to the rest of the movie hackers on this list, his “Skillz” are dated. 

9. David Levinson- Independence Day

Pshaw, human systems are for total noobs. True movie hackers are all about that alien technology, yo! David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) is a bit more like what you’d expect a typical tech geek to be like. He’s disorganized, easily distracted, droll, and a bit of a spaz. Still, he’s the only character on this list of movie hackers who stopped an alien invasion. He’s not only responsible for engineering a virus to destroy an alien operating system, but he’s the only guy on the planet who intercepted and decoded their communications. Tack on the fact that he saved the president and pretty much all of humanity as well along the way, and David is definitely one of the more impressive movie hackers of all time. So, why isn’t David higher up on this list? Well, because he also appeared in Independence Day: Resurgence. It just goes to show movie hackers are capable of good and evil.

8. Stanley Jobson- Swordfish

Hold on to your butts, because up next we’ve got Hugh Jackman as uber-hacker extraordinaire, Stanley Jobson. The character gained infamy as a hacktivist who broke into the FBI and implanted a virus to set back the development of the early snooping software, Carnivore. This got him into a bit of trouble, including being prohibited from accessing the internet or a computer while he’s on parole. Jobson’s exploits get the attention of mysterious villain, Gabriel Sheer, who wants Stanley to create a “multi-headed worm” he dubs “a hydra.” Although Stanley is supposed to be staying far away from computers, he takes the job thanks to a little convincing by a $10 million paycheck and a gratuitous topless scene featuring Halle Berry. Also, you’ll notice that Stanley Jobson is the first of many movie hackers on this list who is ridiculously good-looking.

7. Nine Ball- Ocean’s Eight

Gasp! A woman on a list of movie hackers!?! Considering that the very first computer programmer was a woman, I think it’s safe to say we’re going to see a few ladies on this list. First up is Rihanna’s character from the delightful heist flick, Ocean’s Eight. These days, Tech guys- er, people are more important than ever when it comes to putting together your crew for a big score. Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) knows this better than anyone, which is why she turns to Leslie AKA Nine Ball, a hacker who understands that the biggest flaws in security systems are the people. She exploits this “flaw” in the Met’s security server by creating an ironic dog-filled trojan website to lure in a doggo adoring employee at the museum. Her skills go beyond tricking idiots into deactivating their firewalls, but Nine Ball prefers to work smarter, not harder. 

6. Luther Stickell- The Mission: Impossible Franchise

Ethan Hunt might be one of the best movie spies of all time, but even he needs an I.T. guy to save his butt every once in a while. At first glance, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) doesn’t seem like your typical computer nerd (this is the same guy who played Marsellus Wallace, after all). However, he quickly proves himself to be exactly the guy you want in the chair when you’ve got an impossible mission that needs doing. Not only is Luther capable of pulling off “The Mount Everest of hacks”, but he’s a guru when it comes to all things technical, an all-around genius, and has even given Ethan a little back up in the field from time to time. Luther is so good, he’s one of the few characters to have appeared in every single Mission: Impossible alongside Ethan. Needless to say, he’s definitely one of the best movie hackers of all time.