Which movies and TV shows have the best representation of science and math?

[oldunion]

Id like to compile a list of good science/physics/mathematics/ or "movies that make you think" type films. Please add to my small list:

the arrival
independence day
k-pax
the bbc space series with sam neil
event horizon
a beautiful mind
supernova

 

[LURCH]

Cinema:
-OutBreak/The Adromeda Strain
-Pi
-When Worlds Collide
-Any Irwin Allen Natrural Disaster Film (and the "Airport" series; to a lesser degree)

T.V.:
-Connections w/ James Burke
-Blue Planet
-Angry Planet (Discovery Channel)
-Secret Weapons (don't bother with "Fututre Fighting Machines" on Tech TV; they show advanced weapons systems, but give little or no information on their inner workings)
-Nature
-Living Planet (BBC Miniseries; really top-shelf)
-This Saturday either the Discovery or Learning channel will do a bit of scifi they're calling "Alien Planet". Purely speculative exobiology, and I don't expect the ideas (or even the science) to be very good, but might be a good trigger for further thought.

 

[zoobyshoe]

October Sky

 

[hypnagogue]

Contact. Also The Matrix, even if it's heavy on the fiction side of things and could only make this list tangentially.

 

[DaveC426913]

Id like to compile a list of good science/physics/mathematics/ or "movies that make you think" type films. Please add to my small list:

the arrival
independence day
k-pax
the bbc space series with sam neil
event horizon
a beautiful mind
supernova

IMO, any movie that exhibits bad science, even if it has some good science, needs to be disqualified. If not, it will lead viewers to the fallacious conclusion that all the science they see in that movie is accurate.

This disqualifies 'Independence Day' and 'Event Horizon' at least which are horrible in their depiction of science.

However, I would definitely put '2001: A Space Odyssey' on that list, if not at the top. Some old-timers like to play a game called 'Find a physics error in the movie'. It is not easy to do. Almost every detail of the movie is accurate - from orbital motion to vacuum of space - and it was released in 1967! Before we landed on the Moon!

 

[fourier jr]

good will hunting
pi

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

Gattaca?

This is a sentence written to get my message above the minimum number of characters allowed. It serves no other purpose so don't bother reading it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

However, I would definitely put '2001: A Space Odyssey' on that list, if not at the top. Some old-timers like to play a game called 'Find a physics error in the movie'. It is not easy to do. Almost every detail of the movie is accurate - from orbital motion to vacuum of space - and it was released in 1967! Before we landed on the Moon!

2001 is a great film, but is still essentially science fiction, Hal being the most fictional element. The only films mentioned that don't play fast and loose with any science are October Sky and A Beautiful Mind.

 

[Artman]

My good list:

Apollo 13
The Right Stuff
October Sky
The Dish


My fun science (fiction) movie list:

First Men In The Moon
Galaxy Quest
Space Cowboys


Just a few for now.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The Dish (Never heard of this one, so I looked it up):

Australia's involvement with the 1969 Apollo moon mission arrived with an unexpected wallop when its radio telescope in rural Parkes was elevated fron the Southern Hemishpere's backup broadcaster to primary broadcaster of Neil Armstrong's "one giant leap for mankind'. It is a modern wonder that the ten-year-old multibillion-dollar program became solely reliant on an untested crew based in a sheep paddock to capture this priceless moment in history."

DVD & Video Guide, Martin & Porter, 2004

 

[RichRobX]

well whatever you do get rid of "the bbc space series with sam neil" its complete rubbish, it's one of these science programmes that spend a lot of time telling you a load of nothing. They simply dazzle you with pretty pictures to convince you that you're learning something.

 

[FredGarvin]

The Dish is a fantastic movie. Very good. So is October Sky.

I have to agree that most science movies are crap and are junk science at best. If we're including those movies then I'd add Real Genius.

 

[Chi Meson]

Feynman fans would like "Infinity." It's more about Feynman than about physics, but it does have some episodes from "Surely your Joking." It does hane more physics than "October sky."

Oh, the movie stars Matthew Broderick; it's also his directing debut.

 

[Danger]

'The Arrow' for both a touch of aeronautical engineering and a lot of history.
My favourite 'Charly'.
I can't remember the name of it, but there's a really good one out there detailing the Los Alamos project. I think it might have been a 2-part miniseries.

 

[Artman]

The Dish (Never heard of this one, so I looked it up):

Australia's involvement with the 1969 Apollo moon mission arrived with an unexpected wallop when its radio telescope in rural Parkes was elevated fron the Southern Hemishpere's backup broadcaster to primary broadcaster of Neil Armstrong's "one giant leap for mankind'. It is a modern wonder that the ten-year-old multibillion-dollar program became solely reliant on an untested crew based in a sheep paddock to capture this priceless moment in history."

DVD & Video Guide, Martin & Porter, 2004

This movie is a hoot. It actually makes my fun list too.

TV science shows:

House
Numbers

 

[FredGarvin]

'The Arrow' for both a touch of aeronautical engineering and a lot of history.
My favourite 'Charly'.
I can't remember the name of it, but there's a really good one out there detailing the Los Alamos project. I think it might have been a 2-part miniseries.

The Arrow...my Dad would be proud of you! That's coming from a huge Avro Arrow fan BTW.

The movie you may be thinking of is Fat Man and Little Boy.

 

[oldunion]

forgot to add hawkings series on the history of the universe.

whereas space with sam neil is not the most information based material, there is something to be learned from everything, even mistakes and non-information-abstractly.

 

[faust9]

Ahhh what could be more enjoyable than a move about moon travel:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092546/

Aside from that I put my money on Real Genius, Project X, The Manhatten Project, and Re-Animator.

Good stuff.

 

[gravenewworld]

The Cube
The Cube 2: HyperCube are both funny

 

[Danger]

The Arrow...my Dad would be proud of you! That's coming from a huge Avro Arrow fan BTW.

I thought you were a Yank? I've never met one who ever heard of the Arrow, and the ones that I told about it called me a liar. As a lot of my friends here say, "Don't even get me started on the Arrow." We're all madder than a raped nun about that, and it's a mad that will never go away. June Callwood swears that she heard the unmistakeable sound of J75 engines leaving the base when the fleet was grounded. We still hold out hope that it was ditched in Lake Ontario and is just waiting for us to find it and put it back in the air. If you can get your hands on the Arrow movie, do so. It's a CBC production available on tape.
By the way, where the hell were you when we were trying to find out the weight of a JT9D in GP?

The movie you may be thinking of is Fat Man and Little Boy.

That's the one! Good flick.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The movie you may be thinking of is Fat Man and Little Boy.

Great movie! And I think Laura Dern is hot! Which is kind of weird since I really liked her dad, Bruce Dern, esp in Silent Running, which is worthy of mention.

Here is some older stuff with a few other notables:

Things to Come, based on the H.G Wells novel is a classic.

Metropolis, by Fritz Lang, is another classic

Mind Walk and the sequel My Dinner With Andre, send most scientists into seizures, followed immediately by coronary failure, and ending with their heads exploding, but it is a fun movie for philosophical types; especially with a few physicists in the room.

I thought Spielberg's Taken was great for a TV Sci-Fi mini-series [for entertainment only of course, with no real science]

Also from the ET genre, The day the Earth stood still.

Also from TV, the new Outer Limits has some very creative writing.

I also liked
THX 1138.
Westworld

oh gosh, there are many others but more later perhaps.

The best introductory physics series made for entertainment that I've ever seen is The Mechanical Universe series, put out by Cal Tech.

 

[faust9]

Great movie! And I think Laura Dern is hot! Which is kind of weird since I really liked her dad, Bruce Dern, esp in Silent Running, which is worthy of mention.

Here is some older stuff with a few other notables:

Things to Come, based on the H.G Wells novel is a classic.

Metropolis, by Fritz Lang, is another classic

Mind Walk and the sequel My Dinner With Andre, send most scientists into seizures, followed immediately by coronary failure, and ending with their heads exploding, but it is a fun movie for philosophical types; especially with a few physicists in the room.

I thought Spielberg's Taken was great for a TV Sci-Fi mini-series [for entertainment only of course, with no real science]

Also from the ET genre, The day the Earth stood still.

Also from TV, the new Outer Limits has some very creative writing.

I also liked
THX 1138.
Westworld

oh gosh, there are many others but more later perhaps.

The best introductory physics series made for entertainment that I've ever seen is The Mechanical Universe series, put out by Cal Tech.

LOL---The outer limits. Your mentioning of this brought my favorite line of all time to the fore: "Your ignorance makes me ill and angry!"

Not only did the ignorance of humans make David Ill but it also angered him. Image that.

That is a classic line. Use that in a bar or at work or with your significant other when you are feeling squirrely.

Thanks for the giggle.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

LOL---The outer limits.

Was that from the new series? The old one was really hokey, but I think some of the new ones are pretty good for a TV series.

 

[Physics is Phun]

The Cube
The Cube 2: HyperCube are both funny

and now "Cube 0" the prequil. Just came out a month ago or so.

I will also second
Contact
Good Will Hunting (although more of a drama than something that stretches your mind about math and science)
The Arrow (but it is 3 hours long)

 

[Evo]

Ivan, Silent Running is an old favorite. The Day the Earth Stood Still is a classic...klaatu barada nikto

 

[Grogs]

Ivan, Silent Running is an old favorite. The Day the Earth Stood Still is a classic...klaatu barada nikto

No, no, it's 'klatu barada n<cough>' I guess that answered the question of 'What would happen if the hero forgot the secret password.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ivan, Silent Running is an old favorite. The Day the Earth Stood Still is a classic...

Dern was so cool; a nerdy kind of cool.

klaatu barada nikto

Believe it or not, I saw this for the first time about a year ago.

Am I the only one who liked the new Outer Limits?
I'm betting that most people haven't seen it. Some of the stories are really creative. I don't watch many movies anymore since I usually get the idea within the first half hour. So many ideas have been used so many times that they get easy to see coming. But OL came up with some good stuff. Not all episodes were great, or even good, but some were quite excellent.

Did anyone here watch Taken?

 

[Danger]

Am I the only one who liked the new Outer Limits?

Are you kidding?! Alissa Milano naked! Of course I liked that show! I thought that this was supposed to be about scientifically accurate shows, so I haven't been counting pure fiction.

Did anyone here watch Taken?

Yup. It was really good.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The good science part sort of evaporated before the end of the first post.

 

[Danger]

The good science part sort of evaporated before the end of the first post.

In that case, I must mention Barbarella.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Are you kidding?! Alissa Milano naked!

I had to think about this...hmmm...which episode was that? OH, HER! YES!

 

[stoned]

one of my favourites is "dark star". check it out guys.

 

[Danger]

I had to think about this...hmmm...which episode was that?

I still get a little twitchy whenever I see a butterfly.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Am I the only one who liked the new Outer Limits?

I have seen most of the new ones. You're right, they are creative.

Did anyone here watch Taken?

Yeah, I saw the whole thing. Some parts were really good. but Spielberg being Spielberg couldn't get himself all the way over into how dark that series should have been, given the subject matter. I kept thinking Cronenberg would have been a better director.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

In that case, I must mention Barbarella.

Start talking like that and I'll throw in Earth Girls are Easy!

Hey, for anyone interested, I noticed one day the writer for I think three of the Original Twilight Zone episodes was Earl Hamner - the real John Boy Walton.

 

[Danger]

one of my favourites is "dark star". check it out guys.

I've seen it. I wish I had a copy. Love that bomb.

Also, although I've only had the chance to see it 2 or 3 times, the Red Dwarf series was great.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Start talking like that and I'll throw in Earth Girls are Easy!

...Gina...droooooooooooolllllllll...Davis...droooooooooollllll

 

[Danger]

Start talking like that and I'll throw in Earth Girls are Easy!

I do own that one on tape. It was a gift.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yeah, I saw the whole thing. Some parts were really good. but Spielberg being Spielberg couldn't get himself all the way over into how dark that series should have been, given the subject matter. I kept thinking Cronenberg would have been a better director.

I can see that. It had a dark side but it could have been much darker. WEre there too many warm and fuzzies for your tastes? Still, the story definitely kept my attention. In fact Tsu doesn't even like this sort of stuff but she watched the whole thing twice I think.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I still get a little twitchy whenever I see a butterfly.

You get butterflies when you see butterflies?

 

[Danger]

Of course, we can't omit 'Rocky Horror'.

I don't know if this counts, because they're not mainstream. I have 2 tapes from the 'Strike Force' series: 'Test Pilot' and 'Air Battle'. They're short documentaries.
You might like the cover quote from 'Test Pilot':

About 1,000 gallons of liquid oxygen, 1,200 gallons of anhydrous ammonia and 800 pounds of hydrogen peroxide got together and did their chemical thing. It was pretty violent activity for a moment or two. It was like being in the sun.
-Scott Crossfield

 

[zoobyshoe]

I can see that. It had a dark side but it could have been much darker.

It wasn't dark in a proper way. The dark characters just came off as sociopaths, which is disturbing. Cronenberg can do dark. Even better is M. Night Shyamalan. Take Signs. It had all the strong family elements Taken did, but without this surface, saccharine thing Spielberg does.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It wasn't dark in a proper way. The dark characters just came off as sociopaths, which is disturbing. Cronenberg can do dark. Even better is M. Night Shyamalan. Take Signs. It had all the strong family elements Taken did, but without this surface, saccharine thing Spielberg does.

I like Speilberg, but how many times can we watch a crowd of awestruck bystanders with brightly lit faces stare in amazement at the phenomenal?

That reminds me a bit of Independence Day. It was a fun movie, but it could have been a good movie. Instead, every time the writers had a chance to make things interesting, instead we get ole what's his name acting cool and smoking cigars.

 

[FredGarvin]

I thought you were a Yank? I've never met one who ever heard of the Arrow, and the ones that I told about it called me a liar. As a lot of my friends here say, "Don't even get me started on the Arrow." We're all madder than a raped nun about that, and it's a mad that will never go away. June Callwood swears that she heard the unmistakeable sound of J75 engines leaving the base when the fleet was grounded. We still hold out hope that it was ditched in Lake Ontario and is just waiting for us to find it and put it back in the air. If you can get your hands on the Arrow movie, do so. It's a CBC production available on tape.

I have the Arrow movie on video tape. We taped it when it was shown on CBC. My whole family is Canadian. I was the first to be born in the states. My Dad is an avid aviation buff/historian. The Arrow story has been my "boogie man" story for as long as I can remember. What an absolute awsome piece of aviation engineering. I would give my left arm to see one fly again. The story around it's demise is so heart breaking. My Dad has a photo hanging on his wall of the Avro flightline on the day they started hacking up the airframes. I agree that it is a mad that will never go away. I am convinced the US had everything to do with it's end and Diefenbaker was a complete and utter idiot. Who knows where Canada's aerospace industry would be now if it had kept going.

By the way, where the hell were you when we were trying to find out the weight of a JT9D in GP?

I saw that thread. I actually could not find a weight in any of my references, so I didn't think I should chime in. I am still looking though.

 

[alexandra]

The Dish (Never heard of this one, so I looked it up):

Australia's involvement with the 1969 Apollo moon mission arrived with an unexpected wallop when its radio telescope in rural Parkes was elevated fron the Southern Hemishpere's backup broadcaster to primary broadcaster of Neil Armstrong's "one giant leap for mankind'. It is a modern wonder that the ten-year-old multibillion-dollar program became solely reliant on an untested crew based in a sheep paddock to capture this priceless moment in history."

DVD & Video Guide, Martin & Porter, 2004

Like many Australian movies, this is a pretty off-beat one. I really enjoyed it (PS: I currently live in Australia so may be biased).

 

[Chi Meson]

Someone already mentioned "Silent Running." Did "Outland" already get mentioned? BOth are good in that they portray silent explosions in space.

 

[Danger]

Who knows where Canada's aerospace industry would be now if it had kept going.

And think where NASA wouldn't be. The whole bloody space programme was put together by Avro engineers who had to move to get work. (And the Germans, of course.) I saw some guy claiming to have designed the Apollo LEM specifically for NASA. How'd he get away with that, when it was already on the drawing board to be launched from Arrow?

I saw that thread. I actually could not find a weight in any of my references, so I didn't think I should chime in. I am still looking though.

You'd still have a head start over the rest of us. I was just taking what I thought was an educated guess based upon size and materials. Somehow 4 tons just feels wrong to me.

 

[Danger]

Someone already mentioned "Silent Running." Did "Outland" already get mentioned? BOth are good in that they portray silent explosions in space.

Of course, 'Outland' also shows a guy carrying a shotgun inside a pressure dome...

 

[Chi Meson]

Of course, 'Outland' also shows a guy carrying a shotgun inside a pressure dome...

Why? Is it a bad idea to shoot firearms at windows when inside a space colony?

 

[Danger]

Why? Is it a bad idea to shoot firearms at windows when inside a space colony?

'Bad' is such a moralistic term. Perhaps 'ill-advised' is more appropriate. Sort of like poking a tiger with a stick, or teasing Moonbear on a bad day.