Film

Antitrust

A paranoid techno-thriller about a gifted programmer caught between ambition and conscience at a ruthless Silicon Valley–aping megacorp. It's early-2000s anxiety about monopoly power dressed in sleek suits and faster cars, with the earnestness of a story that genuinely believed the internet would change everything. For anyone who remembers when hackers seemed dangerous.

TMDb rating3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy tense, paranoid thrillers about young people walking into a corporate machine, the kind where the pleasure is in watching a decent person slowly realise how far the rot goes.

Skip it if you want a slick, fast-moving techno-thriller; this one takes its time with office life and its tech-world details can feel dated and a little broad.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a modest two-hour stretch of workplace unease, with the mood more brooding than breathless and the tension building gradually rather than in bursts.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Firm1993

A young lawyer discovers his prestigious firm is a front for organized crime. Sharp, paranoid, and immensely satisfying—the template for the 'ambitious person tricked into a dark world' thriller that Antitrust follows almost exactly.

But Runs two-and-a-half hours and some of the procedural business creaks a bit. Cruise's intensity can feel overwrought to modern eyes.

The Firm poster

Disclosure1994

Michael Douglas as a tech executive being framed and hunted by a powerful nemesis. Corporate paranoia, high stakes, slick direction, and the specific dread of knowing too much in a world where power protects itself.

But The sexual harassment plot element feels dated and muddled. Some of the thriller mechanics strain credibility even for the 90s.

Disclosure poster

Sneakers1992

Hackers hired to break into a security firm discover a conspiracy. It's lighter and funnier than Antitrust, but shares the same DNA: smart people outwitting systems, corporations with secrets, the thrill of clever misdirection.

But The plot gets genuinely convoluted in the final act. Some jokes land better with audiences who lived through that era.

Sneakers poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Antitrust

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Conversation1974

Both are about men drawn into systems of power through their technical skill, then realizing too late that they've become tools rather than agents. The guilt is the same.

Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert who records a conversation and becomes convinced he'll cause a murder. The ancestor of every paranoid thriller about technology and hidden knowledge. Coppola's masterpiece about watching, listening, and the guilt of complicity.

But Deliberate and slow-burn. No action sequences. The paranoia is internal and psychological rather than kinetic—some will find it static.

The Conversation poster
More like this (8)

The Insider1999

A whistleblower takes on a corporate giant and discovers how thoroughly the system is rigged against him. Methodical, infuriating, and powered by moral conviction. Shows what happens when conscience collides with institutional power.

But Nearly three hours of procedural cat-and-mouse. Lacks the thriller propulsion of Antitrust—it's about exhaustion, not adrenaline.

The Insider poster

Swordfish2001

Released the same year, same sensibility: a hacker recruited for something he doesn't understand, double-crosses piling up, and John Travolta doing menace. Style-heavy techno-thriller about being played by forces bigger than you.

But The plot holes are substantial and the movie knows it doesn't care. Feels thin on repeat viewings and the 'clever' twists collapse under scrutiny.

Swordfish poster

Blackhat2015

A convicted hacker released to catch a cybercriminal. Michael Mann at full expressionistic power—the action is sculptural, the paranoia is real, and it treats code and networks with genuine visual intelligence.

But Oblique and slow where Antitrust is propulsive. The geopolitical plot is labyrinthine. Some find it pretentious; the ending is abrupt and unsatisfying to many.

Blackhat poster

The Pelican Brief1993

A law student uncovers a conspiracy and becomes hunted by people with unlimited resources. Julia Roberts doing smart, scared, and resourceful. The machinery of power grinding toward you is terrifying when the system itself is your enemy.

But Conventional in its execution and the resolution is anticlimactic. Feels more like a setup than a genuine payoff.

The Pelican Brief poster

Enemy of the State1998

Will Smith hunted by rogue NSA agents using surveillance technology. Paranoid, propulsive, and genuinely prescient about what digital monitoring could enable. Treats technology as a weapon of control.

But The script gets tangled and the resolution is hurried. It wants to say something serious about surveillance but doesn't commit to the implication.

Enemy of the State poster

Unfriended2014

A supernatural thriller told entirely through computer screens—Skype calls, Facebook, Chrome tabs, desktop icons. It's a formally radical experiment in how digital spaces become the only space we inhabit, literally and figuratively.

But The gimmick is the whole movie; if it doesn't work for you, there's nothing underneath. Some find the screen-based format exhausting to watch for ninety minutes.

Unfriended poster

The Social Network2010

Both see Silicon Valley genius as a pathway to moral compromise. Zuckerberg and Hoffman are versions of the same person: brilliant, driven, and seduced by the power their skills provide until the cost becomes inescapable.

Sorkin's portrait of Mark Zuckerberg building Facebook in real time, scored like a thriller. Every scene is a negotiation, a betrayal, a grab for power. It understands Silicon Valley ambition as something morally unmoored and electrifying.

But It's a screenplay dressed as a film—talk, legal depositions, coding montages. If you want visual spectacle over language, look elsewhere.

The Social Network poster

Stalker1979

Structurally identical: a protagonist in a dangerous space controlled by hidden forces, moving deeper into a mystery he doesn't understand, learning that knowledge and safety are mutually exclusive. Both ask what you'd sacrifice to know a secret.

Tarkovsky's Soviet sci-fi poem about a guide leading two men into a forbidden zone toward a room that grants wishes. Hypnotic, mysterious, glacially paced. A meditation on desire, power, and what we're really searching for when we think we're searching for something else.

But Three hours of slow tracking shots, philosophical dialogue, and minimal plot. Some call it profound; others call it tedium. Not a thriller, not escapist, absolutely will test your patience.

Stalker poster

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Hackers, Pirates of Silicon Valley