Random Most Ridiculous Movie Hacking Scenes (14 items)

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  (#8) Hackers

  • Angelina Jolie, Felicity Huffman, Jonny Lee Miller, Penn Jillette, Marc Anthony, Matthew Lillard, Lorraine Bracco, Alberta Watson, Jesse Bradford, Wendell Pierce, Fisher Stevens, Renoly Santiago, David A. Stewart, Michael Gaston, Ravil Isyanov, Sam Douglas, Ricco Ross, Jeff Harding, Liam Ferguson, John H. Tobin, Olegar Fedoro, Naoko Mori, Laurence Mason, Tony Sibbald, Michael Potts, Liza Walker, John Bair, Paul Klementowicz, Ralph Winter, Eric Loren, Jennifer Badger, Kal Weber, Walter Lewis, Richard Ziman, Don Hewitt, Mick O'Rourke, Ethan Zane Browne, Kimbra Standish, Peter Y. Kim, Mike Cicchetti, William DeMeo, Max Ligosh, Johnny Myers, Christo Morse, Bob Sessions, Kevin Brewerton, Gary Howard Klar, Nancy Ticotin, Rawleigh Moreland, Raquel Mondin, Jeb Handwerger, Denise George, Darren Lee, C.J. Byrnes, Annemarie Lawless, Blake Willett, Terry Porter, Melissa Barkan, Steven Angiolini, Felix Santiago, Bill Maul, Richard Purro, Yoshinori Yamamoto, Mitchell Nguyen-McCormick, Joseph Lloyd, Thomas Hill, Roberta Gotti, Jennifer Rice, Enzo Junior, Douglas W. Iles, Kristin Moreu, Christopher Waller

  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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  (#3) The Core

  • Hilary Swank, Stanley Tucci, Aaron Eckhart, Alfre Woodard, Richard Jenkins, Shawn Green, Bruce Greenwood, Delroy Lindo, nm0702809, Tchéky Karyo, Rekha Sharma, Glenn Morshower, Matt Winston, Jeffrey Gold, Hrothgar Mathews, Vanna Bonta, Fred Ewanuick, Christopher Shyer, Rick Kain, Anthony Harrison, Alec Medlock, Nathaniel DeVeaux, Alonso Oyarzun, Pamela Martin, Fred Keating, John Shaw, Ray Galletti, Chris Humphreys, Claire Riley, Alejandro Abellan, Robert Manitopyes, Laurie Murdoch, Eileen Pedde, Dion Johnstone, Michael St. John Smith, Tom Scholte, Priscilla Poland, Nicole Leroux, Bart Anderson, Jennifer Spence, Marke Driesschen, Lenie Scoffié, Justin Callan, Angelica Hayden, Robert Paul Lewis, Greg Bennett, Nickolas Baric, Ming-Tzong Hong, Ermanno De Biagi, Monique Martel, Marcello Laurentis, Roberto Roberto, Costa Spanos, Rosa Di Brigida

  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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  (#11) Skyfall

  • Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Marlohe, Albert Finney, Jarah Mariano, Ben Whishaw, Wolf Blitzer, Helen McCrory, Elize du Toit, Huw Edwards, Ola Rapace, Michael G. Wilson, Roger Yuan, Rory Kinnear, Tom Wu, Anthony O'Donnell, Dave Wong, Nicholas Woodeson, Greg Bennett, Lee Nicholas Harris, Milorad Kapor, Selva Rasalingam, Chris Cowlin, Paul Venables, Daniel Harland, Russell Balogh, Ian Bonar, Joanna Jeffrees, Santi Scinelli, Eddie Ruben, Carol Cummings, Christopher Sciueref, Duncan Meadows, Senem Temiz, Jens Hultén, Duncan Casey, Ben Loyd-Holmes, Tonia Sotiropoulou, Liang Yang, Darren Lynch, Kammy Darweish, Shaun Lucas, Michael Pink, Martin Poole, Beatrice Curnew, Khan Bonfils, Neil Alexander Smith, Kris Dillon, Joe Cameron Brown, Neve Gachev, Burt Caesar, Amber Elizabeth, Benjayx Murphy, David Frost, Crispin Letts, Mayo Oliver, Stuart Mulcaster, Chooye Bay, Craig Izzard, Hannah Stokely, David Gillies, John Hodgkinson, Mihai Arsene, Adebayo Bolaji, Simon DeSilva, Eric Michels, Enoch Frost, Luke Howard, Shane Nolan, Katherine Elizabeth McLean, Sid Man, Gregg Wilson, Jim Conway, Glenn Webster, Jake Francis, Alan Low, Joss Skottowe, Wayne Anthony Gordon, Yennis Cheung, Ross Waiton, Dominique Anne Jones, Harry Kershaw, Tank Dong, James Adkin, Elia Lo Tauro, Orion Lee, Jake Fairbrother, Amir Boutrous, Oliver Johnstone, Angela Tran, Dion Williams, Daniel Adegboyega, James Li, Nicholas Goh, Kurt Egyiawan, Gordon Milne, Kenneth Hazeldine, Bill Buckhurst, Peter Basham, Yusei

  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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  (#14) WarGames

  • Matthew Broderick, William H. Macy, Ally Sheedy, Michael Madsen, Dabney Coleman, Maury Chaykin, John Spencer, Barry Corbin, John Wood, James Tolkan, Art LaFleur, Jason Bernard, Michael Ensign, Eddie Deezen, Alan Blumenfeld, Dennis Lipscomb, Drew Snyder, Kent Williams, Stephen Lee, Frances E. Nealy, Michael Adams, Tom Lawrence, Stack Pierce, William Bogert, Billy Ray Sharkey, Juanin Clay, Joe Dorsey, Jesse D. Goins, Irving Metzman, John Garber, Lucinda Crosby, Charles Akins, David Clover, Paul V. Picerni Jr., Brad David, Erik Stern, James Ackerman, Frankie Hill, Gary Bisig, Edward Jahnke, Susan Davis, Glenn Standifer, Duncan Wilmore, Howie Allen, Martha Shaw, Gary Sexton, Jim Harriott

  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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  (#5) Weird Science

  • Robert Downey Jr., Kelly LeBrock, Bill Paxton, Anthony Michael Hall, Kym Malin, Michael Berryman, John Kapelos, Wallace Langham, Steve James, Judie Aronson, Vernon Wells, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Robert Minkoff, Robert Rusler, Ivor Barry, Chino 'Fats' Williams, Phillip Borsos, Renee Props, Pamela Gordon, Suzanne Snyder, Rick Le Fevour, Britt Leach, Kevin Thompson, Joe Gieb, Prince Hughes, Jennifer Balgobin, Rock A. Walker, Fred D. Scott, Johnny Timko, Jill Whitlow, Mary Steelsmith, Darren Harris, Anne Bernadette Coyle, Mikul Robins, Todd Hoffman, D'Mitch Davis, Vince Townsend Jr., Suzy J. Kellems, Barbara Lang, John Simone, Theodocia Goodrich, Jeff Jensen, Alison Carole Lowe, Robin Frohman, Doug MacHugh, Michael Cramer

  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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  (#10) Firewall

  • Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Alan Arkin, Virginia Madsen, Robert Patrick, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Carly Schroeder, Robert Forster, Jimmy Bennett, Ty Olsson, David Lewis, Eric Keenleyside, Brenda Crichlow, Ona Grauer, Kett Turton, Vince Vieluf, Zahf Paroo, Ken Tremblett, Beverley Breuer, Matthew Currie Holmes, Andrew McNee, Jennifer Kitchen, Kevin Mundy, Vincent Gale, Candus Churchill, Elizabeth Thai, Levi Woods, Finn Michael, Richard Hendery, Pat Jenkinson, Lovena Fox, Joe Richards, Susan Skemp, David Wills, Gail Ann Lewis, Joani Bye, Sue Leonard, Marcus Mosely, Catherine St. Germain

  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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