This is a list of feature films and documentaries that include
mathematicians, scientists who use math or references to mathematicians.
About mathematics
Films where mathematics is central to the plot:
21 (2008) – A group of current and former
MIT students, mostly mathematicians, and an algebra professor devise a
card counting scheme for success at
Las Vegas Stripblackjack tables.
The Bank (2001) – A mathematician discovers a formula to predict fluctuations in the
stock market.
Cube (1997) – Six people, including Leaven, a math 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.
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 after the death of her mother Diane, a mathematician. Mary's grandmother Evelyn (
Lindsay Duncan) and uncle have different ideas on how to raise her. Mary tells her grandmother she wants to solve the problem her mother was working on, the
Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem.[1]
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.
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.
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 (
John Hurt), 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 blackmailed into stealing a mathematician's code-breaking box.
Travelling Salesman (2012) – The US government hires four mathematicians to solve the most powerful problem ever to plague computer science (
P vs NP problem).
X+Y (2014) A teenage mathematical prodigy has difficulty understanding people, but finds comfort in numbers.
Mathematician biographical films
Biographical films based on real-life mathematicians:
Counting from Infinity:
Yitang Zhang and the Twin Prime Conjecture (2015) – A documentary film by
George Paul Csicsery about Yitang Zhang, a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire, working in complete isolation and making an important breakthrough towards solving the
twin prime conjecture.
The Imitation Game (2014) – British mathematician
Alan Turing (
Benedict Cumberbatch), a pioneer in digital computing and artificial intelligence, is tasked with cracking Nazi Germany's Enigma code that would help the Allies win World War II. A new adaptation of the play "Breaking the Code".
The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015) – The true story of Indian mathematical genius,
Srinivasa Ramanujan (
Dev Patel), who develops numerous properties of infinite series as a clerk in India before writing to Cambridge mathematicians who invite him to UK. Directed by Matthew Brown[4]
Secrets of the Surface The Mathematical Vision of
Maryam Mirzakhani (2020) – A documentary film by
George Csicsery about the Fields medalist and Iranian national hero.
Straw Dogs (1971) – David Sumner (
Dustin Hoffman) is an American mathematical physicist who moves to England, where he and his wife are violently harassed by locals.
Tall Story (1960) – A college physics and mathematics whiz is also the star basketball player, partly because he has devised equations for making baskets.
^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.