Top 10 Oscar contenders for best tech movie

It’s the biggest night in Hollywood on Sunday, as the stars of the screen gather to celebrate the Oscars and find out who’s in favour with the judges this year – or whose film studio has the biggest schmoozing budget.

To mark the ceremony, we decided to put together our list of films that we think deserve an Oscar for being the best tech movies of all time. So we scoured the movie archives and our favourite cinema moments for those films that not only have technology at their heart, but are also excellent, entertaining or just plain quirky examples of the film-makers' art.

Here's what we came up with but if you disagree, feel free to email or post your comments of ones you think we've missed, and good luck to all the Oscar nominees on Sunday.

10. Weird Science
Weird Science was just that – plain weird. This 1980s comedy can perhaps be seen as a kind of modern era version of Frankenstein, with the mad scientist role replaced by a pair of callow youths intent on creating themselves the ultimate virtual girlfriend on their home computer.
 
Although pre-dating the web age, Weird Science foreshadows today’s cyber security issues as the protagonists hack into a US government computer system in order to boost the processing power at their disposal. Just as they hit execute on their simulation, a lightning strike on the house bizarrely causes it to be incarnated in the form of actress and model Kelly LeBrock, with hilarious consequences.
 
The rest of the film descends into a comedy farce, but the film is notable for presaging virtual simulations and cloud computing through the use of online computer resources to meet their needs.
 
Of course, the most memorable part is the bizarre scene in which the two youths sit with bras on their heads while they prepare to simulate their fantasy girlfriend on a primitive Memotech MTX512 home computer.