WarGames

WarGames (1983) is John Badham's sci-fi thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Teenage computer whiz David Lightman, hunting for games that haven't hit stores yet, dials random modems and stumbles onto something he shouldn't have.

Matthew Broderick plays David. The system he reaches offers to play, so he picks "Global Thermonuclear War" — never guessing he has tapped straight into a Pentagon war machine called WOPR. The simulation trips real protocols. Soviet missiles bloom across NORAD's screens, the brass scrambles to full alert, and the only person who knows it's a game is a kid the FBI is now chasing. His classmate Jennifer (Ally Sheedy) sticks with him, and the reclusive scientist who built the computer (John Wood) may be the one man able to shut it down.

Released at the height of the Cold War, the film hit a raw nerve: nuclear dread and an early fear of thinking machines, earning three Oscar nominations. The computer's closing verdict — "the only winning move is not to play" — long ago passed into common speech. Stream WarGames (1983) online on iFILM.