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List of films about mathematicians

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This is a list of feature films that include mathematicians, scientists who use math or references to mathematicians.

About mathematics

Films where mathematics are central to the plot:

  • 21 (2008) – A group of MIT current and former students, mostly mathematicians, and a mathematics professor devise a card counting scheme for success at Las Vegas Strip blackjack tables.
  • The Bank (2001) – A mathematician discovers a formula to predict fluctuations in the stock market.
  • Cube (1997) – Six people, including Leaven, a maths student, awake in a deathtrap based on mathematical principles.
  • Fermat's Room (2007) – Three mathematicians and one inventor are invited to a house under the premise of solving a great enigma and told to use pseudonyms based on famous historical mathematicians. At the house, they are trapped in a room. They must solve puzzles given by the host, who calls himself "Fermat", in order to escape the slowly closing walls of the room.
  • Good Will Hunting (1997) – Janitor and super-genius Will Hunting (Matt Damon) begins to turn his life around with the help of psychologist (Robin Williams) and a Fields Medal-winning professor (Stellan Skarsgård).
  • I.Q. (1994) – Albert Einstein (Walter Matthau) helps a young man (Tim Robbins) pretend to be a physicist in order to catch the attention of Einstein's niece (Meg Ryan).
  • An Invisible Sign (2011) – Mona Gray (Jessica Alba) gives up everything important to her in life, except mathematics, as part of a "deal with the universe" to help restore her father (a mathematician) to health. Years later, Mona teaches the subject, and does her best to help her students contend with their own personal crises.
  • The Matrix Reloaded (2003) - The Architect (Helmut Bakaitis) reveals to Neo (Keanu Reeves) that his life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inside the Matrix.
  • Moneyball (2011) – Oakland Athletics baseball team's general manager Billy Beane attempts to assemble a competitive team using statistics.
  • The Oxford Murders (2008) – A Student (Elijah Wood) finds out about mysterious killings in Oxford and helped by a professor, they reveal the math patterns used by the killer.
  • Pi (1998) – A mathematician searches for the number that underlies all of nature.
  • Proof (2005) – A former student (Jake Gyllenhaal) of a recently deceased, brilliant mathematician (Anthony Hopkins) finds a notebook in his office containing a proof of an important theorem, but the mathematician's daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow) claims it is hers. The ensuing dispute is complicated by signs that she may have inherited her father's mental illness and a burgeoning romance.
  • Raising Genius (2004) – The film is about a boy (Justin Long) who locks himself in the bathroom to work out math equations on the shower wall.
  • Sneakers (1992) – An eclectic team is assembled to steal a code-breaking box developed by a rogue mathematician.
  • Travelling Salesman (2012) – The U.S. government hires four mathematicians to solve the most powerful problem ever to plague computer science.
  • Moebius (1996) – Topologists including a young girl make contributions to the subway system and other facets of reality in Argentina in this math film with a science fiction and surreal feel.
  • X+Y (2014) A teenage mathematical prodigy has difficulty understanding people, but finds comfort in numbers.
  • The Imitation Game (2014) – A new adaptation of the play "Breaking the Code", tells the story of how Alan Turing develops a machine to solve the codes of the German "Enigma", during World War II.
  • Gifted (2017) – Frank Adler (Chris Evans) is a single man raising a child prodigy - his spirited young niece Mary (Mckenna Grace) - in a coastal town in Florida. Frank's plans for a normal school life for Mary are foiled when the 7-year-old's mathematical abilities come to the attention of Frank's formidable mother, Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan), whose plans for her granddaughter threaten to separate Frank and Mary.

Mathematician biographical films

Biographical films based on real-life mathematicians:

Starring mathematicians

Films where one or more mathematicians play the main role, but that are not otherwise about mathematics:

Featuring mathematicians

Films where one or more of the members of the main cast is a mathematician:

References

  1. ^ Deborah Young (14 September 2015). "'The Man Who Knew Infinity': TIFF Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 24 February 2016. Brown's screenplay brings math into the dialogue often and without embarrassment.
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