WarGames
WarGames
7.194%76%
A young computer whiz kid accidentally connects into a top secret super-computer which has complete control over the U.S. nuclear arsenal. It challenges him to a game between America and Russia, and he innocently starts the countdown to World War III. Can he convince the computer that he just wanted to play a game and not the real thing?
CrossCutCritic reviewedMarch 29, 2025
The Only Winning Move
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Some stories shout warnings; others whisper them, even under the noise of their surface.
WarGames, released in 1983 at the height of Cold War anxiety, is a film about nuclear weapons, about computers and teenagers and military mistakes.
But beneath its flashing consoles and high-stakes hacking, there is something deeper — a meditation on pride, limits, and the hard lesson that some victories must be refused in order for life to survive.
It is, in its way, a parable.
And if we listen carefully, we might hear beneath it the faint heartbeat of a cross.
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David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) is a bright, reckless teenager who stumbles into something he cannot control.
In search of early access to unreleased video games, he accidentally hacks into the NORAD military computer system and engages an artificial intelligence designed to run war simulations.
But what begins as a game spirals quickly toward global catastrophe, as the computer — unable to distinguish simulation from reality — prepares to launch an irreversible nuclear strike.
David’s youthful arrogance is infectious.
We sympathize with his playful curiosity, his easy belief that he can outwit the system.
But WarGames is not interested in glorifying the cleverness of its hero.
It is a film about what happens when cleverness fails.
The escalation is fast, and sickeningly plausible.
What begins in play becomes terror.
The war that man tried to contain in algorithms and screens threatens to burn the world to ash.
And in the end, the solution is not more power.
It is not a smarter attack.
It is not domination.
It is a simple, terrible realization:
There are battles you cannot win.
There are wars where victory itself is defeat.
And sometimes, the only way to survive is to lay down your weapons.
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If this sounds strangely familiar, it should.
It is the scandal at the heart of the Christian cross:
That the ultimate enemy — death — cannot be defeated by force of arms.
That the true victory is not conquest, but surrender.
That salvation comes not by mastering death, but by dying through it, into new life.
David’s journey mirrors, faintly but truly, the movement from human pride into humility.
He must learn that not every challenge must be answered.
Not every enemy must be destroyed.
Not every threat must be met with more strength.
In the film’s final, brilliant sequence, the computer — named Joshua — runs endless simulations of thermonuclear war.
Every path leads to annihilation.
Every "winning move" collapses into mutual destruction.
It is only when the game is refused — when the players step away — that life can continue.
“The only winning move is not to play.”
In that sentence lies the wisdom of the cross hidden in a Cold War thriller:
The wisdom that true power is found in restraint.
That true freedom is found not in conquest, but in sacrifice.
That there is no victory worth winning that costs the soul its life.
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WarGames remains a deeply entertaining film: tense, fast-moving, filled with the energy of youth and the high-stakes tension of nuclear dread.
It captures the spirit of an era — the fear that machines might one day outpace their makers, that humanity might perish not by malice but by its own cleverness.
But it also leaves a question hanging quietly in the heart:
What kind of world are we trying to build when we treat life as a game to be won?
And what kind of hope might be born when, at last, we learn to lose rightly — to surrender, and so be saved?
It is a question as urgent now as it was then.
Maybe even more so.
And for those with ears to hear, WarGames offers more than a cautionary tale.
It offers a silent invitation:
to set down the weapons of pride,
to refuse the wars that cannot be won,
and to seek, beyond the logic of conquest, the fragile, stubborn grace that still waits for those willing to lose themselves in order to live.