My favorite movie, physics or otherwise, is October Sky, the true store of kids who wanted to better themselves through the study of engineering and physics.

My chapter of the SPS watched The Core to laugh at the Hollywood physics. It's not really a movie you can take seriously like Contact, but still worth a mention in my mind.

Sunshine has Cillian Murphy playing a physicist on a space ship on a doomed mission. However, there is also Primer which is an amazing time travel story.

This is sort of a "cult classic" ... Val Kilmer before Batman, dry ice sledding in the dorm, and a giant laser. What could be more fun?

I think I would put "Contact" here...mainly because I love how Jodie Foster comes across as a serious accomplished scientist who worries about finding a "killer dress"...but I reserve the right post an addendum!

NSF Program Director (on assignment from the AIP and the Society of Physics Students to serve as the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program Director at the National Science Foundation)