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Ask YC: What are the best movies, short films, documentaries about the computer industry?

5 points by dustineichler ↗ HN
So, what have you seen? This really isn't a rapid growth category on Netflix, but it should be. They're some really good films out there. Maybe someone will take note. Fandom allowed.

13 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 93.5 ms ] thread
dustineichler
1. Wargames. 2. Pirates of Silicon Valley. 3. Aardvark (cool documentary)
rsa
Antitrust
vikas5678
Code Rush, that documentary about Netscape right before it was sold to AOL. Thats a nice one.
timr
startup.com
nikiscevak
+1 for Startup.com + War Games. Aardvark is lame.
rantfoil
"The Machine that Changed the World", an early 90's PBS documentary that changed my life when I was 12. After seeing that 5 hour special, I knew I would work with computers for the rest of my life.
alaskamiller
Startup.com was lame, it moved slow and had no point. I never did care at the end that their website blew up considering they never really explain why it blew up.

E-Dreams conversely was a better documentary in the same vein but harder to find. It talked about the rise and collapse of Kozmos.

Aadvark is lame. It's just a bunch of kids being hyper that they're working in New York with fancy schmancy big screen LCDs.

PBS also did a lot of features back in the 90's. Code Rush as someone mentioned and Revolution OS are both good to take a look.

In Search of the Valley http://www.stage4.co.uk/film/dvd_offer.php is also worth a look. The filmmakers examined why Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley and talked with quite a few well known people.

neilc
I thought Startup.com was worth watching primarily because it was pretty entertaining (e.g. how easy it was to get funding during the Boom; how much of a scam artist that Kaleel guy is). Watching the company collapse was instructive -- they didn't focus on making something people wanted. It was also interesting to see how badly they mishandled conflict among the founders, and how they were able to blow through so much money so quickly.
ivank
The Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires