Long before students met a chatbot, most of them had met artificial intelligence in the movies. AI movies have shaped how the public imagines intelligent machines, from the menacing to the helpful, and they remain one of the easiest ways into a classroom conversation about what AI can do, who controls it and what could go wrong. One film from 1983 shows how powerful that influence can be.
WarGames: the movie that reached the White House
In WarGames, directed by John Badham and released in June 1983, Matthew Broderick plays David Lightman, a high school student who hacks into his school’s computer to change his grades. He then stumbles into WOPR, short for War Operation Plan Response, a U.S. military supercomputer that runs nuclear war simulations. Thinking he is playing a game called “Global Thermonuclear War,” David sets off a simulation that WOPR treats as real, and the country moves toward a nuclear launch. The film resolves when the machine learns, through endless games of tic-tac-toe, that some games cannot be won.
The movie’s influence went far beyond the box office. President Ronald Reagan watched it at Camp David the day after its release and, a few days later, asked his advisers whether something like it could really happen. General John Vessey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported back that “the problem is much worse than you think,” according to Fred Kaplan’s history of cyberwar, Dark Territory, as MEL Magazine recounted. In September 1984 Reagan signed NSDD-145, the national policy on the security of telecommunications and computer systems, widely described as the first presidential directive on computer security.
WOPR was not the first AI on screen. It joined a line that runs from the robot in Metropolis (1927) through HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and the defense supercomputer in Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), as histories of AI in film note. What made WarGames different was its ordinary setting: a teenager, a bedroom computer and a phone line.
What WarGames still teaches
The film raises questions that are now part of real debates about AI:
- Human oversight. WOPR cannot tell a simulation from reality, and the crisis follows from removing people from the decision. Today’s discussions of AI in high-stakes systems keep returning to the same principle: keep a human in the loop.
- Security. David gets in through a guessed password and a back door left by a programmer, the same basic weaknesses behind many breaches today.
- Responsibility. The film asks who is accountable when an automated system acts: the programmer, the military that deployed it, or the student who started it.
A real event makes the same point about automation. On May 6, 2010, the “Flash Crash” sent U.S. stock indexes down sharply within minutes before they recovered. Federal regulators found it was set off when an automated program sold a huge number of futures contracts “without regard to price or time” into a thinning market.
AI movies since WarGames
Later films have shown AI in many lights:
- The Terminator (1984): Skynet, a defense system that turns on humanity.
- The Matrix (1999): machines that keep people inside a simulated world.
- Iron Man (2008): J.A.R.V.I.S., a helpful assistant that extends a person’s abilities. See How Iron Man’s AI Technology Is Shaping Education.
- Her (2013): an AI companion and the emotional bond a man forms with it.
- Ex Machina (2014): a test of whether a machine can be conscious, and who is really being tested.
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015): an AI built to protect people that decides they are the threat.
Do movies shape what people think about AI?
Americans are wary. In a 2025 Pew Research Center survey, 50 percent of U.S. adults said they were more concerned than excited about AI’s growing role in daily life, up from 37 percent in 2021. It is tempting to blame science fiction, but the research is more cautious. A national panel study published in 2022 found that watching science fiction was only conditionally related to changes in support for AI, while following technology news was a stronger influence. That is itself a useful lesson for students: stories shape impressions, but they are not the only influence, or the most reliable one.
Teaching AI ethics through film
Films give students a shared story to argue about, which makes abstract questions concrete. Teachers can use them for:
- Debates on AI decision-making: Should AI ever control weapons, medical decisions or financial trading?
- Fact and fiction comparisons: Which parts of a film reflect how AI really works today, and which are invented?
- Case studies: Pairing a film with a real event such as the Flash Crash, or with a current school or district AI policy.
- Writing tasks: Comparing how two films from different decades portray AI, and what that says about their time.
For younger students, the Computer Science Teachers Association has published a six-day unit built around the animated film Ron’s Gone Wrong, piloted with sixth graders, in which students discuss AI, privacy and access and then draft a mock school AI policy. Check each film’s rating against your district’s policy before showing it; several on the list above are rated R.
AI movies will not teach students how AI works, but they can teach students to ask the right questions about it. For the wider picture of AI in schools, see edCircuit’s guide to AI in education.
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