One of the earliest hacker films, War Games sees a young Matthew Broderick as David Lightman, who inadvertently hacks into a military supercomputer WOPR (War Operation Planned Response) whose programme is designed to simulate possible outcomes of nuclear war. Lightman thinks its all a harmless game and has WOPR, or Joshua as its calling itself, run a simulation that inadvertently causes a global nuclear scare, military deployment and almost triggers World War III. Well done Lightman. Luckily WOPR is tricked into playing tic-tac-tow against itself, which naturally teaches it war is futile and makes it back down settling for a nice game of chess instead. The film's a great example of how the culture of gaming and hacking was perceived in the early eighties, predating the trend of hacker films that appeared in the '90s by almost a decade.
