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Part delightfully tense techno-thriller, part refreshingly unpatronizing teen drama, WarGames is one of the more inventive -- and genuinely suspenseful -- Cold War movies of the 1980s. Read critic reviews
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Watch WarGames with a subscription on Max, rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, or buy on Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home.
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WarGames videos
WarGames: Official Clip - David & Jennifer Kiss
WarGames: Official Clip - Joshua Searches for Launch Codes
WarGames: Official Clip - Tic Tac Toe With Joshua
WarGames: Official Clip - It's a Bluff
WarGames: Official Clip - DEFCON 1
WarGames: Official Clip - Shall We Play a Game?
WarGames: Official Clip - Asexual Reproduction
WarGames: Official Clip - The Only Winning Move
WarGames: Official Clip - He's Gonna Start a War!
WarGames: Official Clip - A Lesson in Futility
WarGames: Official Clip - Hacking the School
WarGames Photos
Movie Info
High school student David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) unwittingly hacks into a military supercomputer while searching for new video games. After starting a game of Global Thermonuclear War, Lightman leads the supercomputer to activate the nation's nuclear arsenal in response to his simulated threat as the Soviet Union. Once the clueless hacker comes to his senses, Lightman, with help from his girlfriend (Ally Sheedy), must find a way to alert the authorities to stop the onset of World War III.
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Rating: PG
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Genre: Mystery & thriller, Action, Drama, Sci-fi
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Original Language: English
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Director: John Badham
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Producer: Harold Schneider
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Writer: Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes
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Release Date (Theaters): original
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Release Date (Streaming):
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Runtime:
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Distributor: MGM/UA Home Entertainment Inc., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corp.
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Production Co: Metro Goldwyn Mayer
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Sound Mix: Surround
Cast & Crew
News & Interviews for WarGames
Critic Reviews for WarGames
Audience Reviews for WarGames
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WarGames is just a fun, tense, well-paced thriller and slice of early 1980's cold war Americana. Really well cast, with super likeable young stars Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, matched up against always perfectly smarmy Dabney Coleman with a dash of Barry Corbin's military moxie. This movie belongs in a time capsule of 1980's classics. The music is well done, the supporting cast is terrific. It even feels somewhat plausible that a young, gifted underachiever could accidentally hack into the U.S. military computer to play a fantasy wargame, and instead almost start world war III. Nothing was more terrifying at that time than the prospect of WW3. This is simply an underrated, enjoyable thriller that helped launch both Broderick and Sheedy, and is better than several other cold war thrillers of that era. I never get tired of watching Broderick outsmart federal officials with his ingenuity.
mark h Super Reviewer -
This is such a great film. It's pretty cheesy at times (it was made in the 80s after all lol). But WarGames is still a great film...great premise, story, and pacing. The cast is pretty good, as are the special effects for their time. This is also kind of random, but I like this film for its significance to the modern classic book Ready Player One. Unrelated really, I know, but I still appreciate the tie-in. Anyway, check this out.
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Even though outdated and preposterous by today's standard, Wargames featured a solid cast, well written story. sensible direction and brilliant acting from 80s movie stars like Broderick and Sheedy.
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A teenage computer hacker accidentally starts a World War III simulation with a military supercomputer. In the oeuvre of "the machines are winning" films, like Dr. Srangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb or The Terminator, Wargames ranks among the best of in this genre. If that's not enough, in the oeuvre of Cold War era peace films, like Fail Safe and The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, Wargames's message fits witth the best of these as well. Without being terribly preachy, the film deftly expresses these two sentiments -- the over-determination of technology on our lives and the stupidity of Cold War era foreign policy. Particularly, "I was going to learn to swim" was a very nice touch. Matthew Broderick was such a great actor in his younger days. He was so understated. His work was similar to a young Dustin Hoffman, and while his recent work has fallen off slightly, it's always great to revisit Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Biloxi Blues, and this film, Wargames to see how great he was. I found the plot predictable, and the bit with Falken and the helicopter was too deus ex machina for my tastes. Overall, this is a very good film about concepts that remain relevant today.
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