Facebook: The Movie or as it’s better known The Social Network is out very soon. The movie charts the rise of all-conquering Facebook, presenting the story of Mark Zuckerberg and friends as they seek to link the world together through Farmville and photos of last night’s partying. It’s a story of coding and legal wrangling, and making it into an exhilarating, sensational drama—which according to the reviews so far it is—is a feat in itself. But it does have The West Wing’s Aaron Sorkin scripting and David Fincher directing, so you’d hope those two could come up with a compelling film out of the scandals and conflicts that went on behind creating a social phenomenon that now has 500 million active users and has propelled Mark Zuckerberg to #35 on the Forbes rich list. So does this mean that at last, the computer-techie genre has come of age? Will tech culture people no longer be represented on screen by Hollywood as either futuristic dye-haired roller-blading cyber punks or fast-typing, socially inept nerdlings? Who can tell, but here are a few examples of how Hollywood’s treated hackers over the years.

Hackers

This is technie people as men and women from the future. Or the future as seen by the wardrobe department of 1990’s Hollywood. Influenced by cyberpunk subculture, its entertaining visuals are let down by its use of dated technology like floppy disks and an evil computer genius called “The Plague,” who probably has a copy of Bond Villainy for Beginners next to his coding manuals.

WarGames

This 1980’s cult classic sees Ferris Bueller as quick-witted computer nerd, David, who unwittingly hacks into a military supercomputer, inadvertently nearly causing World War III and the end of the world as he knew it. Not bad for a kid who bunks school.

The Matrix

The Wachowski bros riff off cyberpunk and hacker culture and mix it with some neo-noir, a dash of postmodernism, a module of philosophy, and a side of sci-fi. Computer hacker Mr. Anderson asks the question “What is the Matrix?” and before you know it he knows kung-fu.

The Net

Sandra Bullock plays a computer analyst, perhaps the first and only time a computer analyst has played the central protagonist in a Hollywood movie, who at the click of a mouse becomes embroiled in a conspiratorial plot involving cyberterrorists, floppy disks, and the wiping out of her identity. That’s how things were in 1995.

Weird Science

Quite simply one of the greatest movies ever. A teen comedy by the king of 80s teen cinema John Hughes, where two geek underlings fight back by Frankensteining their own woman using their computer, a Barbie doll, bras as hats, and hacked-power from a government computer. Wild parties, biker mutants, frozen grandparents, ballistic missiles, and the passage from geekhood to lady killers ensues.