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. Matthew Broderick plays the high-school kid who accidentally hacks into the Pentagon and starts playing what he thinks is a computer game called Global Thermonuclear War. Only he's inadvertently pushing the world toward destruction for real. Broderick is impressive in only his second screen role, while strong support comes from Dabney Coleman as the defence specialist trying to avert the impending nuclear holocaust and John Wood as the war game's reclusive inventor. Director John Badham laces the suspense with just the right amount of invigorating humour, keeping the preachy sentiment to a minimum. Hugely enjoyable and worryingly thought-provoking, this cautionary tale has lost none of its edge, despite the somewhat dated technology on screen.

High school student David Lightman has a talent for hacking. But while trying to hack into a computer system to play unreleased video games, he unwittingly taps into the Department of Defense's war computer and initiates a confrontation of global proportions. Together with his friend and a wizardly computer genius, David must race against time to outwit his opponent and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.