WarGames (1983)
Is it a game, or is it real?
Director: John Badham · Writers: Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes
High school student David Lightman has a talent for hacking. But while trying to hack into a computer system to play unreleased video games, he unwittingly taps into the Department of Defense's war computer and initiates a confrontation of global proportions. Together with his friend and a wizardly computer genius, David must race against time to outwit his opponent and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.
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Trailer
Director
John Badham
Cast
Matthew Broderick
David Lightman 
Dabney Coleman
McKittrick 
John Wood
Stephen Falken 
Ally Sheedy
Jennifer 
Barry Corbin
General Beringer 
Juanin Clay
Pat Healy 
Kent Williams
Cabot 
Dennis Lipscomb
Watson 
Joe Dorsey
Conley 
Irving Metzman
Richter 
Michael Ensign
Beringer's Aide 
William Bogert
Mr. Lightman User Reviews (3)
Wanna play Global Thermonuclear War? It was with much interest to me to revisit this early 80s hacker piece armed with the knowledge of just how the advent of change in the computer world had evolved. With that in mind the film could quite easily be classed as a bit clunky due to the now almost Neanderthal toys, games and computers used in the movie, but casting aside the nostalgia feelings I had with it, it still hits the spot as both a poignant piece of interest, and a damn good thriller as well. Matthew Broderick is David Lightman, a young computer gamer geek who is something of a whizz kid on the PC. He can change his school grades and hack into various sites he shouldn't be even looking at. During one eventful sitting he hacks into a computer called Joshua and plays a game called Global Thermonuclear War, he harmlessly chooses to be The Soviet Union and proceeds to launch a nu…
Ally Sheedy, whatever happened to her. When I was a little kid, I mean REALLY little she was one of the few stars I could name...and then she disappeared save for a couple memorable appearances in Psych. It's a shame. Anyway, my fiance is a Millennial and I've been trying to introduce her and her friends to some classic films. This one was a fail. They sat through it, but really only to mock the technology. Mocking things that are old for being old is kind of one of their favorite things. So, despite that, the film made ripples in congress and the only other film that I recall doing that was JFK. It rewrote laws. And, it was extremely entertaining in the process, despite the fact that Matthew looked like more of a push-over than a computer geek. Not that it matters, he still played the part of a teen pretty well.
When the young computer whizz-kid “David” (Matthew Broderick) is showing off to his girlfriend “Jennifer” (Ally Sheedy) about how he can improve her grades and book them on a first class trip to Paris, he inadvertently dials a telephone number that wants to play a game. A game of thermonuclear war! Next day, the news is full of stories about the mobilisation of American defence capabilities and his phone rings again. It’s the computer, it wants to play and he’s just a little terrified. Not so afraid as he is about to get, though, when the FBI turn up and next thing he is in a top secret facility trying to explain to boffin “McKittrick” just how he accidentally tapped into a computer system that now seems to be trying to start WWIII - and nobody knows how to stop it. Can he come up with a solution before the increasingly exasperated “Gen. Beringer” (Barry Corbin) goes …
