Does a hacker protagonist immediately make a movie cyberpunk? Can a movie be cyberpunk if it takes place in the modern day?
I had an online argument once with someone who thought Sneakers wasn’t just a cyberpunk movie but essential viewing for the cyberpunk genre. I don’t consider Sneakers to be cyberpunk, or even a very good movie, so that argument was crazy to me. But maybe I was being too much of a gatekeeper; maybe other people consider Sneakers to be cyberpunk.
At least WarGames had a curious high schooler hacker rather than a bunch of old guys in suits hacking, but I wouldn’t really consider either movie to be cyberpunk. Are they cyberpunk-adjacent though? Are cyberpunk fans likely to enjoy WarGames or Sneakers?
Here’s a trailer for WarGames. You can watch it on Max. Fun fact: when Ronald Reagan watched WarGames, he asked his staff whether something like that could actually happen. They looked into it and came back to say “The problem is much worse than you think.” This led to the creation of the first National Security Directive regarding computer security.
Here’s a trailer for Sneakers. I’m not aware of any presidents having watched this movie. I don’t think it’s streaming anywhere either.
Cyberpunk requires, and neither of these movies has,
This is like saying ‘pancakes require water and butter’.
You’re not wrong, but you’re so reductionist that you’re also very much not right.
Cyberpunk has a lot more to do with the conflict between hackers and The Establishment™, where the conflict very much occurs in a dystopian future or under dystopian circumstances than it does any specific type of technology used to tell the story you want.
Please read more than Gibson’s books and play CP2077 before reducing an entire genre to two “required” bullet points.
I mostly agree except pancakes don’t strictly require butter. You can use other oils.