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A 1995 movie about a small group of [[Playful Hacker|underground computer hackers]] who discover a scheme being run by the security chief of a large corporation. In a prologue flashback, lead character Dade Murphy, age eleven, is found guilty of crashing 1,507 computers. Fast forward seven years, where his mother has just moved both of them to New York. Dade, reluctantly at first, falls in with a new hacking crowd. One of the hackers breaks into a supercomputer where, in a [[Contrived Coincidence]], he downloads a virus/worm program that the aforementioned evil security chief is using to steal many millions of dollars. In response, the security chief tries to frame the hackers for both the theft and a planned environmental disaster. Thanks to assistance from hackers world-wide, our heroes manage to prevent the disaster, clear their names, and Dade gets the girl.
 
''Hackers'' is known for referencing top-of-the-line computers of the time (now [[TechTechnology Marches On|horribly, horribly outdated]]) and [[Hollywood Hacking|unrealistic depictions of hacking]], but it nevertheless remains quite entertaining. It's also notable as one of the earliest roles for [[Angelina Jolie]]. While real computer hackers will sneer at the movie in public (except for those who find the [[Did Not Do the Research]] to be funny as HELL), secretly they desperately wish that it were true: it's a world where hackers are slim and trendy, hackers save the world from evil corporations, and most importantly, Angelina Jolie ditches her jock boyfriend for a hacker.
 
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* [[Anti-Hero]]: Our heroes are, after all, guilty of numerous computer crimes, many victimless and harmless, others not so much. They're just not nearly as malicious as the bad guys.
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* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]]: Phreak's last appearance was his phone call to Acid Burn, and he's never mentioned directly.
* [[Wrongful Accusation Insurance]]: {{spoiler|Although the heroes stopped the tankers from capsizing and exposed Plague's embezzlement scheme, they had to trash a supercomputer to do it. Apparently, the FBI didn't bother prosecuting them for that.}}
** {{spoiler|1=[[Fridge Brilliance]]! Not only had "The Plague" been plotting to steal millions of dollars and cover his tracks with a global environmental and economic catastrophe - '''[[Police Are Useless|he'd used the Secret Service as his henchmen in the process!]]''' And the Secret Service had been attempting to spin the arrests into a hacker [[Witch Hunt]] on national television when Cereal [[Do Not Adjust Your Set|exonerated them to the entire planet]]. They had caught the heroes moments too late to keep them from [[Saving the World]]. The Secret Service's own personal D-Day had just become [[Scandalgate|the new Watergate]]! Imagine that the FBI had arrested Woodward and Bernstein for treason, then attempted to spin it into restart the McCarthy trials just as others released the papers exposing Nixon - actually it's worse, Nixon was President, The Plague was a (falsely) rehabilitated crook! This is about the only way to justify Wrongful Accusation Insurance - smear the cops so badly that if they try to hold you the public will either laugh or lynch them. Agent Richard Gill, hardass agent in charge of the operation, screamed '''''[[Precision F-Strike|"SON OF A BITCH!"]]''''' for a reason.}}
 
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[[Category:Films of the 1990s]]
[[Category:Hackers{{PAGENAME}}]]
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