[WarGames] is a standard ‘80s teens-in-peril and up-against-the-authorities tale, but one which, despite a strange side-trip to an Oregon island, really does a great job of building up the tension towards a thrilling finale.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 7, 2023

A clever if occasionally far-fetched adventure-thriller.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 14, 2023

WarGames is, in my book, a perfect motion picture.

| Aug 1, 2022

WarGames kicks off with an exciting sequence...

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 10, 2020

Like a man drawn to the edge of a cliff by the lure of the abyss below, we're secretly obsessed by the apocalypse. Moralists may claim that WarGames is more exploitation than warning, but it's still an exciting, giddily entertaining movie.

| Jan 1, 2020

The movie is a spectacle as well as a presumably pacifist proclamation. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Sep 6, 2019

The chase sequences with government agents are tame but the film builds to a tense (and witty) conclusion at the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker in Colorado Springs.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 31, 2015

What keeps it remarkably fresh is an unpatronising approach to what is ostensibly a kids' thriller, and a set of ideas (remember when Hollywood used them?) that rightly consign all the cradle modems and dot-matrix printers to the margins.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 30, 2013

Slick and suspenseful, though a little heavy-handed.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 30, 2013

This inventive nail-biter is very much a product of its time -- blending the arms-race unease of the early 1980s with the beginning of the home-computer revolution -- but it still manages to both grip and entertain.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 30, 2013

Time might not have been kind to the look of WarGames, but with nuclear war still a very real threat, the picture's ability to manufacture suspense remains undimmed.

| Jul 30, 2013

It's far too simplistic for comfort -- and downright dangerous if it makes anyone think today's self-destructive forces will bow jovially out of sight as soon as we grown-ups loosen up a little.

| Jul 30, 2013

Classic humanist-didactic filmmaking, effectively presented as a thriller.

| Jul 30, 2013

Memory makes the heart grow fonder, even when you're blowing up the world.

| Original Score: B | Jun 5, 2013

As a Cold War message movie and cinematic descendent of Fail-Safe, WarGames examines the inherent danger in favoring technology's cool logic and situational calculations.

| Original Score: A | Aug 8, 2011

In many ways, John Badham's intriguing tale was prophetic.

| Original Score: B+ | May 11, 2011

Suspenseful Cold War tale with teen gamer in control.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 2, 2011

Although today it feels rather dated, especially with its technology, it is one of the better examples of the genre.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 17, 2010

In this sage satire, warfare is boiled down to the inanities of tic-tac-toe

| Jun 3, 2010

To me, the most enjoyable aspect of WarGames is when David is at work on his computer system. There's something wonderfully nostalgic about watching a guy play with such antiquated machinery and recognize that it was [once] considered state-of-the-art.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 30, 2009