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 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

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

| Jul 30, 2013

John Badham solders the pieces into a terrifically exciting story charged by an irresistible idea: an extra-smart kid can get the world into a whole lot of trouble that it also takes the same extra-smart kid to rescue it from.

| Mar 26, 2009

As tense and effective now as it was 25 years ago. The worry back then was more about Soviet missiles than about credit card identity theft, but good filmmaking techniques haven't changed.

| Mar 14, 2008

The first half has a sardonic edge to it, but the more seriously the movie takes itself the sillier it gets.

| Jan 26, 2006

As a premise for a thriller, this is a masterstroke.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 23, 2004

Like a video game once played, tends to disappear from one's memory bank as soon as it's finished.

| Aug 30, 2004

One of the first movies to make young and old alike sit up and notice that there was a brave, new world out there...

| Mar 10, 2003

Badham directs the whole thing with economy and pace.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 1, 2000