Movies Based in Math

1. A Beautiful Mind

This is a 2001 American biographical film which is based on the life of American mathematician and Nobel Laureate in Economics John Nash.

John Nash was best known for his work in furthering game theory which is the study of devising a winning strategy in the game of life, when you do not know what your competitors are doing, and the choices are limited.

This concept is highlighted in one of the scenes in the movie as well. The Prisoner's Dilemma is a classic example of game theory.

The main concept behind John Nash’s equilibrium in game theory is a stable state in which no player can gain advantage through a one-sided change of strategy assuming the others do not change what they are doing.

2. The Theory of Everything

A 2014 biographical film, this is set in the University of Cambridge which revolves around the life of the famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. It was adapted from the 2007 memoir titled ‘Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen’ by Jane Hawking, Stephen Hawking’s ex-wife.

The film is about Hawking’s ambitious study of time while dealing with a motor neuron disease. It delves deep into the concepts of physics and mathematics while also understanding Stephen Hawking’s life on a more personal level.

3. Good Will Hunting

This is a film is about Will Hunting, a genius mathematician who despite his exceptional intelligence works as a janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.

He solves difficult mathematical problems while facing an emotional crisis and subsequently takes help from psychiatrist Dr. Sean Maguireto, who helps him recover.

The math problems in the film are complex and range from functions and matrices to vertices and graphs.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing in 'The Imitation Game' (Photo: Youtube trailer screenshot)

4. Moneyball

An inspiring sports film about the real-life underdog hero Billy Beane who was a baseball general manager, and Peter Brand, an economics graduate. The two characters challenge convention as they try to form a competitive sports team using math and computer-based methods.

Billy Beane decided to base his drafting of position players on the math concepts of statistics and predictive analysis.

He used sabermetrics, the empirical analysis of baseball, to evaluate his potential roster of players and analysed the data of individual players to identify statistics that predicted how many runs a player would score.

Using this strategy, Beane was able to develop a highly successful team despite a tight budget.

5. The Imitation Game

This film is based on the life of brilliant British mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing. The film revolves around Turing who led a code-cracking team to aid the allies during World War II and successfully helped shorten the war and save millions of lives.

The movie is an inspiring story filled with numbers, complex mathematics and lots of puzzle-solving as Turing tries to crack the enigma code, a Cipher device used by the German military with help from fellow mathematicians.

Katherine Jonson (Taraji P Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) - brilliant African-American women working at NASA -- portrayed in 'Hidden Figures'. (Photo: Youtube trailer screenshot)

6. Hidden Figures

This Oscar-nominated movie follows the true story of three female African American mathematicians working in NASA, who played a pivotal role in astronaut John Glenn's launch into orbit while also dealing with racial and gender discrimination at work.

The movie uses the concept of geometry for space travel while figuring out the paths for the spacecraft to orbit Earth and land on the Moon.

The movie also highlights the centuries-old math technique of Euler’s method which is used for approximating solutions to certain differential equations

7. Interstellar

A 2014 science-fiction film directed by Christopher Nolan, which uses math and physics concepts of time, gravity and relativity to take the audience through its complex narrative.

The movie follows a team of explorers attempting to ensure humanity’s survival by traveling through a wormhole in space.

In the film, the ultimate saving of humanity depends on a mathematical equation, that is supposed to solve the "gravity problem" which essentially prevents the escape of any meaningful number of human beings from Earth’s atmosphere.

8. The Man Who Saw Infinity

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Mathematics in movies can inspire us and help us understand life a little better. And while you’re watching these movies, you might realize that there might be a hidden mathematician in you waiting to be discovered!