Looking for movies where mathematics actually matters

[DanielH]

Hey everyone,

This might be a bit of an off-topic post, but I hope it fits here.
I’ve been thinking lately about how mathematics is portrayed in movies. I really enjoy films where math isn’t just a decorative detail, but actually plays a meaningful role - in the plot, in the characters’ thinking, or in the way problems are approached. Unfortunately, a lot of “math movies” either oversimplify things or turn mathematics into a vague stereotype.

I’ve already seen a few well-known ones, and while some are inspiring, others feel more symbolic than substantial.

Some movies I’ve watched so far:
A Beautiful Mind
Good Will Hunting
Pi
The Man Who Knew Infinity
Hidden Figures

A couple of them focus more on biography, others on atmosphere or psychological aspects, but I’m still looking for films where mathematical ideas feel central rather than incidental.
While searching, I also came across a few tag-based lists and articles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_about_mathematicians
https://bestsimilar.com/tag/1-mathematician

I’m not entirely sure how reliable these lists are in terms of quality or depth, so I wanted to ask here.
Are there any movies you would recommend where mathematics is treated with a bit more respect or realism? Maybe some lesser-known or underrated films?

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.

 

[Bandersnatch]

From the wiki's main list I recognise X+Y and Gifted.
Both are about gifted children, with interpersonal drama as the focus and maths as background.
The first one attempts to show the kind of thinking mathematics may involve, in one or two scenes, as the kids prepare for the olympiad.
The second has the kid 'doing maths', as a signifier for precocity, and as such is just a window dressing that could be replaced by any other discipline and not change the film.

 

[russ_watters]

I'll vote for The Imitation Game.

 

[jedishrfu]

The TV series NUM3ERS had math as the backdrop for each episode. Sometimes the math is a bit of a stretch since the writers first created the episode and then a math consultant suggested what math would be involved.

It was inspired by a real-life case in Toronto where a policeman versed in math used it to catch a serial killer using the notion that a killer won't kill in his own backyard. So spatially, the killings made a donut, and the killer lived inside the donut hole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_(Numbers)

Bottom line, though, is that films and TV shows always emphasize story over math and may, in fact, get the math wrong.

In the Wizard of Oz (1939), the Scarecrow gets a diploma to show he's smart, and he immediately recites the Pythagorean theorem wrongly.



In Good Will Hunting, the impossible math problem he solves on the blackboard is one any math undergrad familiar with group theory and combinatorics could solve. It would've been trivial for a math grad student, but definitely not a Fields Medal problem. The wikipedia article towards the end gets into the math mistakaes made in the movies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Will_Hunting

The Imitation Game is another great movie where I doubt the Aha moments in it actually happened. They simplified the math down to build a machine and it will find the answer whereas in reality it was a group effort and the machine was based on many math codebreaking principles and ideas from many people strung together to make the machine.

There's also the X+Y movie starring Asa Butterfield, based on a BBC documentary, about a young math genius who gets into the math olympiad, later learns Chinese in 6 months, marries a young Chinese girl, and brings her back to England.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X+Y

My favorite though was The Day The Earth Stood Still. I had watched it several times as a kid more interested in the UFO, robot and alien. While in college, it came on TV and I watched it again having just taken a first course in Differential Equations and noticed immediately the blackboard celestial mechanics equations that Klaatu modifies using a technique I had just learned. That really floored me. It likely had mistakes but they did it so well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still

Science consultant​

Samuel Herrick, an astrophysicist at UCLA, developed the equations on Prof. Barnhardt's blackboard. "Herrick reasoned that an equation related to celestial mechanics would be most appropriate, specifically an equation related to his own work on the "three-body problem" in astronavigation."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still#cite_note-Kirby-p80-81-19"><span>[</span>17<span>]</span></a>

I also really liked the movie "Gifted," as it portrayed a mother's struggle to pursue her career, cut short by having kids, by making them math prodigies. It struck home because I had a friend whose mother was instrumental in his progress. The ending was probably the best part, featuring the solution to a Millennial Problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifted_(2017_film)

My last example was a movie that I can't even remember the name of, where I spied a D'lembertian operator on the blackboard (it's the 4D Relativistic Laplace operator). I recognized it immediately since I was studying General Relativity from Wheeler's seminal book on the topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Alembert_operator

The Iron Man movie had some cool math and physics equations in the backdrop too but not much in the way of math.

 

[mcastillo356]

¿Maybe Jurassic Park? The novel and the movie mentions fractals and chaos theory.

 

[hutchphd]

I have a certain fondness for "The Big Bang Theory" television show and have been pleased not to have detected horrible gaffs when they do expound upon things in the Physics realm. Admittedly this is not very often which also inures to the benefit of show: there is no gratuitous "gee whiz" explanation of irrelevant stuff. A laudible effort overall.

 

[DaveC426913]

I have a certain fondness for "The Big Bang Theory" television show and have been pleased not to have detected horrible gaffs when they do expound upon things in the Physics realm.

Except, notably, when Leonard was wooing Priya and said: "This is the Starhip Enterprise orbiting 20 miles above the planet."

The gaff, of course, is that there is no way Leonard would have made such a mistake. Script-writers did him dirty.

 

[martinbn]

BBC Horizon 1995 - 1996 Fermat's Last Theorem.

 

[Klystron]

If television shows are allowed, Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" and James Burke's "Connections" follow collegiate mathematics quite well, as do many episodes of "NOVA".

WWII drama "Danger! UXB" (unexploded bomb) contained a suprising amount of engineering, math, physics and chemistry embedded in historical realism.

Edit: There are several new movies and TV series depicting skip bombing during WWII that I have yet to see. This 1955 exciting historically accurate war movie titled "Dambusters" contains scholarly lectures on trigonometry, geometry and a bit of fluid dynamics to explain surface tension.

 

[jedishrfu]

Danger UXB quote: Are you a man or a mouse?

I’m a mouse.

Or the other scene where the bomb guys were testing a remote operated fuse extractor and commenting from a distance how safe it was until BOOM! Knocked them off their feet.

 

[pinball1970]

"Mercury Rising" and "The Rain man" has a little bit of mathematics in there.

 

[gmax137]

Does comedy count? There is a "Simpsons" episode where Homer has written on a chalkboard
$$3987^{12}+4365^{12}=4472^{12}$$
Feel free to check with your calculator. Andrew Wiles may or may not have been amused.

 

[jedishrfu]

Wow, i wonder how the Simpsons writers learned of this.

I know the TV show NUMB3RS had a math prof from Caltech as a consultant. He would help select the math needed for an episode after reading the early drafts and then the writers would work it into the episode.

One episode stuck with me. It was based on Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle where Charlie Epps was brought to analyze prior gentlemanly bank robberies by the same crew.

He selects two target sites. The FBI stakes out both sites at the bank entrances. Sure enough the lead robber comes out, spots the agents and tips his hat sniper fire from multiple directions pin the team down and the robbers escape.

Somehow, the FBI determines that the crew is going after a Brinks truck carrying old Fed money to be destroyed. They hatch a plan to use a decoy truck and surround it, only for the robbers to pull out an RPG outgunning the FBI.

The crew changes sites and tactics based on the FBI response ala the observer effect changes the system.

Eventually, the FBI gets its crew.

It reminds me of a related weakness in humanity. We can predict and anticipate linear events but fail for exponential ones.

Its like people observing a volcanic eruption, landslide or tsunami from a distance thinking they are safe until it dawns on them too late that they need to run.

 

[jedishrfu]

Theres a youtube short on grade school math thats very funny. It’s about a teacher explaining to a first grader that his answer for 2+2 = 22 is wrong. He insists it’s right.

The parents come in and they too believe it’s 22. The pricipal tells the teacher to go along with it until she decides to retire and the fun begins.



And then there are the Abbott and Costello math scenes also on YouTube which were quite funny.

 

[pinball1970]

“The Man Who fell to earth” 1976

David Bowie’s character has “equations of basic” IIRC.

He sells these to create wealth to return home.

“K-PAX” 2001

The scene I remember is where the alien works out the trajectories of celestial objects in his head.

I cannot remember if there are any other maths parts.

 

[jedishrfu]

Yeah I really liked K-Pax and read both books after watching the movie.

Kevin Spacey as Prot and the Dude, Jeff Bridges as the psychiatrist was really memorable.

 

[pinball1970]

Yeah I really liked K-Pax and read both books after watching the movie.

Kevin Spacey as Prot and the Dude, Jeff Bridges as the psychiatrist was really memorable.

I had never heard of it till my friend told me to watch it. Great film.

 

[jedishrfu]

One thing these movies always gloss over is the relative slowness of light by galactic standards and the time dilation effects of someone leaving and coming back and all their friends and loved ones are gone.

 

[gmax137]

I like the scene where Kevin Spacey says "I had forgotten how bright it is on this planet"

Maybe not the exact words but...