Recommendations for “Hacker Fiction” Films?

I think "Sneakers" from 1992 is also a popular hacker movie. However, the aesthetics are very much unlike Hackers; it's much more realistic, though (not 100%, but a lot).

If you're interested in the "hacker genre" of movies (or its history or various interpretations), imho both Wargames and Sneakers are worth a watch. I personally like Sneakers more.

Not fiction, but based on true events.

Netflix series - Billion Dollar Code. The Google Earth court case fought by the a couple of German hackers https://www.netflix.com/in/title/81074012

AMC TV series - Halt and Catch Fire. Follows some players in the 80s technological revolution that lead to information society. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543312/

Apollo 13. When Apollo 13 sustains hazardous damage mid-orbit, NASA works to devise a plan to lead the spacecraft back to Earth and spare the lives of the astronauts on board. https://www.amazon.com/Apollo-13-Tom-Hanks/dp/B001JI5DRC

Not a film but Mr Robot is probably the most accurate portrayal of hacker fiction so far

Some of your preferences are ticked by the film "23"( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_(film) ).

Based on a real story with some addition of KGB and cocaine.

If you like the combination of math, hacking, and madness, check out Pi (1998). It's a bit disturbing, but sounds like it might be up your alley. It's a filmmaking masterpiece.

War Games is old, but it's definitely a worthwhile film to watch. I watched it with my 10yo during lockdown times, and it held up pretty well. It's also a good film to watch to put some of the movies that followed it in perspective. Everyone who made a hacker film after War Games was aware of that movie.

Snowden is a pretty good movie (though it takes some artistic liberties).

Enemy of the State - though an all pervasive surveillance state fortunately remains fiction (tongue firmly in cheek).

Max Headroom

Both the original film '20 Minutes into the Future' and the US drama series. All very 80s cyberpunk. Mega corps and dystopia

Serial Experiment Lain

Lain explores 'The Wired' communication network and reality and the digital bleed together.

Strange Days

Noir styled look at abuse of power. A black market seller of recording of people emotions and memories tries to uncover who committed a murder.

Cyberpunk documentary

I know you said no documentaries but this covers many of the films and TV shows mentioned

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/sttm8Q9rOdQ

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/0VoX3vr6CCM

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/KczJNtexinY

Takedown (2000)

Based on the book by Tsutomu Shimomura. It's the story of how Kevin Mitnick was captured. All the tech/hacks in the movie are real as far as I remember.

Not a good answer I guess, but I was reading your question and couldn't think of anything else but the game EXAPUNKS from Zachtronics (https://www.zachtronics.com/exapunks/)

A decent list of films

https://github.com/k4m4/movies-for-hackers

Swordfish - extremely stylized with lots of early 2000s techno but definitely worth a watch.

Pirates of Silicon Valley. Good portrayal of Jobs and Gates as nerds with big ideas but shady ways to accomplish them.

Sort of near the edge of what you are asking for but Live Free and Die Hard has a lot of hacking (though a big absurd, like anything with a battery can be hacked) but still exciting.

+1 for Wargames

The original "La Femme Nikita" TV series had quite a few episodes with realistic hacking in them, although they didn't show all the difficult work behind the hacks that made them available on-demand. Sometimes they stepped over the realism line, but most of it was quite plausible.

Nothing beats "Hackers" (1995) imo. Since you've already seen that, I think you've already experienced the best we have to offer, unfortunately.

In terms of books, I liked Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon". It was written in 1999 and really captures the 90s startup culture, and has some cool hacker scenes. The detail is good too, where the author even explains the specific unix commands that are being executed in some scenes (such as grep).

Ex Machina is a 2014 science fiction film directed by Alex Garland. A computer programmer is employed by a billionaire to assess whether a human-looking robot is sentient. Maybe not quite a 'hacker' theme.

Although the film is highly rated, I found the premise more intriguing than what the film delivers. For me, the film was OK, not great. But I encourage you to watch and make up you own opinion.

Garland has also written and directed a 2020 TV series was Devs, which I haven't seen. For anyone's seen it - is it any good?

There was an awesome talk at HOPE this year about the portrayal of hackers in the media. There's a full list of the movies they discussed here: https://twitter.com/JohnDunlap2/status/1551364796951547905

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

You may like Takedown (2000) and Antitrust (2001) a lot more than Hackers. Takedown, sometimes referred to as Hackers 2, has nothing to do with the Hackers movie (which in my opinion is pure crap that became popular only thanks to a young Angelina Jolie in it) and tells the dramatized but true story of Kevin Mitnick and how he was captured.

I like Die Hard 4, which is a decent action flick with Timothy Oliphant playing a rogue hacker ripping off the US government.

Avalon (2001) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0267287/

Seems like you know about, yet haven't watched War Games yet. Definitely an older one, but arguably one of the best — would highly recommend giving it a go.

60s mainframes, but Hot Millions has brilliant performances by Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith, Bob Newhart, and Karl Malden. The denouement is utterly ecstatic.

Takedown, the kevin Mitnick story was a cool watch. Also Blackhat was another good one. Another favorite of cheesy old 80's films is Prime Risk.

Some Hacker Movies that are not mentioned yet that (kind of) match your description:

The Net, Matrix, Code Rush (a documentary)

There is a German movie called "Who AM I" that is been recommended for hacker-esque films.

Not a movie, but a series: I think you could enjoy "Halt and Catch fire".

IT Crowd.

Silicon Valley.

Person of Interest.

Billion Dollar Code is pretty good, and completely fictional

"The Undeclared War" — series on Peacock

The thirteenth floor (1999)

Tron!

And you really should watch War Games and 23.

Real Genius.

Matrix ? Cube ?