War Games (1983)

WarGames is a 1983 American Cold War science fiction film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham.

The film stars Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, and Ally Sheedy. The film follows David Lightman (Broderick), a young hacker who unwittingly accesses WOPR (War Operation Plan Response), a United States military supercomputer originally programmed to predict possible outcomes of nuclear war. Lightman gets WOPR to run a nuclear war simulation, believing it to be a computer game.

The computer, now tied into the nuclear weapons control system and unable to tell the difference between simulation and reality, attempts to start World War III.

The film was a box office success, costing $12 million and grossing $79 million after five months in the United States and Canada. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards. A sequel, WarGames: The Dead Code, was released direct to DVD in 2008.

During a surprise drill of a nuclear attack, many United States Air Force Strategic Missile Wing controllers prove unwilling to turn the key required to launch a missile strike. Such refusals convince John McKittrick and other systems engineers at NORAD that missile launch control centers must be automated, without human intervention. Control is given to a NORAD supercomputer, WOPR (War Operation Plan Response), programmed to continuously run war simulations and learn over time.

One of my all time favourites 8/10

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