Top 24 Technology Documentaries of All Time

Whistleblowers, startup wreckage, rogue code and machines that learned to win: these films show what screens have done to us.

1. 1
   General Magic

   2018 documentary on the 1990s Apple spin-off that dreamed up the smartphone decades too early.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Citizenfour

   Laura Poitras's Oscar-winning 2014 film shot in the Hong Kong hotel room where Edward Snowden revealed NSA mass surveillance.
   862pts
3. 3
   The Social Dilemma

   2020 Netflix documentary in which former tech insiders explain how social media is engineered for addiction.
   812pts
4. 4
   The Great Hack

   2019 Netflix documentary on the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the harvesting of Facebook data.
   756pts
5. 5
   The Inventor

   Alex Gibney's 2019 HBO film on Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos blood-testing fraud.
   611pts
6. 6
   Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine

   Alex Gibney's 2015 critical look at the life and legacy of Apple's co-founder.
   611pts
7. 7
   AlphaGo

   2017 documentary following DeepMind's Go-playing AI in its historic match against champion Lee Sedol.
   517pts
8. 8
   Indie Game: The Movie

   2012 documentary following the makers of Super Meat Boy and Fez through the stress of shipping a game.
   517pts
9. 9
   Revolution OS

   2001 documentary on the history of GNU, Linux and the free and open-source software movement.
   517pts
10. 10
    Triumph of the Nerds

    Robert X. Cringely's 1996 PBS series on the rise of the personal computer, featuring Jobs and Gates.
    402pts
11. 11
    We Steal Secrets

    Alex Gibney's 2013 documentary on Julian Assange and the rise of WikiLeaks.
    402pts
12. 12
    Coded Bias

    2020 film following MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini's discovery of racial bias in facial recognition.
    402pts
13. 13
    Startup.com

    2001 fly-on-the-wall film tracking a dot-com startup's rise and implosion.
    402pts
14. 14
    Silicon Cowboys

    2016 documentary on how Compaq took on IBM and helped build the PC clone industry.
    402pts
15. 15
    Do You Trust This Computer?

    Chris Paine's 2018 documentary on the promise and danger of artificial intelligence.
    402pts
16. 16
    The Internet's Own Boy

    2014 portrait of programmer and activist Aaron Swartz, co-creator of RSS and Reddit.
    402pts
17. 17
    The Cleaners

    2018 documentary about the Manila content moderators who decide what disappears from social media.
    402pts
18. 18
    Downloaded

    Alex Winter's 2013 documentary on Napster and the file-sharing revolution.
    402pts
19. 19
    iHuman

    Tonje Hessen Schei's 2019 documentary on artificial intelligence, power and surveillance.
    402pts
20. 20
    Terms and Conditions May Apply

    Cullen Hoback's 2013 investigation into what users give away when they click 'I agree'.
    0pts
21. 21
    Zero Days

    Alex Gibney's 2016 investigation into Stuxnet, the cyberweapon that sabotaged Iran's nuclear centrifuges.
    0pts
22. 22
    Print the Legend

    2014 Netflix documentary on the race to bring 3D printing to the desktop.
    0pts
23. 23
    Lo and Behold

    Werner Herzog's 2016 meditation on the internet, from its birth at UCLA to robots and solar flares.
    0pts
24. 24
    Deep Web

    Alex Winter's 2015 documentary on Silk Road, Bitcoin and the trial of Ross Ulbricht.
    0pts

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