Celebrate Pi Day With These Mathematically Perfect Movie Picks
3.14159… wait, what’s next? Let’s leave it to the gifted and famous mathematicians in the world. Movies can make you laugh and cry, but there is a place for movies that honor the important mathematicians in history, gifted children, or just revolve around math. Pop Culture Planet contributor Paola Cardenas breaks down the movies to celebrate Pi Day.
Hidden Figures
Hidden Figures tells the amazing story of three brilliant African American women at NASA who were the brains behind the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit. Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) achieved something that changed the world by calculating the proper trajectory from the earth to the moon using the Euler’s method.
Hidden Figures is on Disney+.
The Man Who Knew Infinity
Based on the 1991 book by Robert Kanigel, The Man Who Knew Infinity centers on the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel). Living in poverty and working blue collar jobs, Ramanujan excels in mathematics so much so that his co-workers take notice — and so does famous mathematician G.H Hardy (Jeremy Irons) at The University of Cambridge. Serving as a mentor, Hardy pushes Ramanujan to become a theoretical mathematician despite the declining health, living conditions, and racism experienced by Ramanujan.
Gifted
This Chris Evans and Mckenna Grace led film might have shown up on your TikTok feed once. Gifted tells the story of single man Frank Adler raising his young niece Mary in Florida. Mary attends a normal school and shows off her mathematical abilities using the Trachtenberg Method. Impressed by her performance, her teacher decides Mary should attend a private school for gifted children. Due to unfortunate family history, Frank decides not to. However, when his mother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) comes into the picture, she threatens to separate the two.
The Imitation Game
When Britain declares war on Germany in 1939, intelligence agency MI6 recruits Cambridge alum Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) to decode German messages using the Enigma machine. Though Turing and his team were successful, they faced difficult decisions to make moving forward. Marriage, a soviet spy, and a career-ending secret all fall on Turing’s life.
A Beautiful Mind
Based on a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman and biography by Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind follows the life of mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr (Russell Crowe). His high intellect challenges his reality as he takes on a classified assignment for the Department of Defense. He must look through patterns in magazines and newspapers to prevent Soviet plans. Obsessing over the project, he starts to believe he’s being followed and hallucinations start to take over his life.
Moneyball
Who knew baseball could involve math? In Moneyball, general manager of the Oakland A’s Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) decides to reinvent his entire team for 2002 while facing a tough budget of $41 million. With the help of assistant general manager and Yale economics graduate Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), they build a team using a sabermetric approach in scouting and analysis. Through criticism and skepticism, the two set off to change the way the game is played for years to come.
Moneyball is on Netflix and AMC+.
The Theory Of Everything
The Theory Of Everything is a biographical romance film about Cambridge University student and future physicist Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne). He falls in love with literature colleague Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones). When he learns he has a motor neuron disease and two years left to live, Hawking and Wilde defy the odds to achieve ground-breaking accomplishments in medicine and science including theories on black holes. As his condition worsens, their romance becomes shifty, but Hawking perseveres.
