Observational Studies: Films About Famous Scientists

Filmed in five countries over three years, the documentary delves into the heart of the locations while the surfers travel through them with a sense of open-minded awe. With never-before seen waves and some of the best surfers in the world contributing their art, passion and athleticism, this is as close to the experience of pioneering new coastlines as you can get without getting on a plane.

This film is a harrowing depiction of the real-life psychological study conducted in 1971. A group of volunteers is randomly assigned to be either guards or prisoners, and the experiment quickly spirals out of control as the guards become increasingly sadistic and the prisoners dehumanized. The film explores themes of power dynamics, abuse, and the role of ethics in scientific research. With a talented cast and powerful performances, it is a thought-provoking and emotionally charged experience.

Experimenter is based on the true story of famed social psychologist Stanley Milgram, who in 1961 conducted a series of radical behavior experiments that tested ordinary humans' willingness to obey by using electric shock. We follow Milgram, from meeting his wife Sasha through his controversial experiments that sparked public outcry.

In the 1910s, Srinivasa Ramanujan is a man of boundless intelligence that even the abject poverty of his home in Madras, India, cannot crush. Eventually, his stellar intelligence in mathematics and his boundless confidence in both attract the attention of the noted British mathematics professor, G.H. Hardy, who invites him to further develop his computations at Trinity College at Cambridge. Forced to leave his young wife, Janaki, behind, Ramanujan finds himself in a land where both his largely intuitive mathematical theories and his cultural values run headlong into both the stringent academic requirements of his school and mentor and the prejudiced realities of a Britain heading into World War One. Facing this with a family back home determined to keep him from his wife and his own declining health, Ramanujan joins with Hardy in a mutual struggle that would define Ramanujan as one of India's greatest modern scholars who broke more than one barrier in his worlds.

Left alone with two young daughters after the accidental death of her beloved husband Pierre Curie, Marie Curie faces her duties with greatest courage as a mother and a scientist. But science is primarily a man's world and Marie's audacity is not well seen by everybody. As she embarks on a passionate affair with the mathematician Paul Langevin, she provokes a huge scandal and the tabloids drag her name through the mud. Alarmed by all the malevolent headlines, the Swedish Nobel Academy, who wants to award her a second Nobel Prize (making her the first person ever to receive two), forbids her to drive to Stockholm to fetch her award.

This film tells the epic, true story of explorer Henry Bates' fascinating 11 year journey through the visually stunning and bio-diverse Amazon rainforest. As a young man, Bates risks his life for science in the 1850s.

A gripping historical drama directed by visionary filmmaker Christopher Nolan. Starring a brilliant cast, including Oscar-winning actors, the film explores the life and complex moral decisions of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant physicist behind the development of the atomic bomb. With Nolan's signature visual style and meticulous storytelling, the film explores the moral dilemmas and consequences of scientific breakthroughs. Prepare for a thought-provoking journey that challenges our understanding of power, morality and the human condition. This cinematic masterpiece will leave you amazed and thoughtful.

Called "Prok" as an adult (short for Professor Kinsey), Alfred Kinsey, Jr. (Liam Neeson) has been interested in biology since he was a child growing up in the early twentieth century, despite the criticisms of such being evil nonsense from his overbearing and devoutly Christian father, Professor Alfred Seguine Kinsey (John Lithgow). Prok goes on to become a biology professor at Indiana University, initially focusing on the study of gall wasps. But those studies, in combination with questions from his students, coming to terms with the needs of sex with his own wife, a former student of his named Clara McMillen (Laura Linney) (whom he calls Mac), and what he sees as the gross misinformation on the subject currently within popular belief makes him change his focus to human sexuality. Many of those gross untruths - as he sees them - are that oral sex and masturbation cause a slew of maladies, which are perpetuated by what is presented in the university's hygiene class taught by Professor Thurman Rice (Tim Curry). With the approval of faculty head Herman Wells (Oliver Platt), Prok starts teaching his own wildly popular marriage course, talking about sex in a straightforwardly academic fashion. When he sees that morals don't necessarily mirror sexual behavior, he decides to conduct a massive sex survey with the assistance of students Wardell Pomeroy (Chris O'Donnell), Clyde Martin (Peter Sarsgaard), and Paul Gebhard (Timothy Hutton). He faces the issue of the funding required for the survey and public and political response to this controversial, and oft seen as taboo, subject. But in conducting the survey, he and Mac also face the issue of their own sexuality in relationship to their marriage, and the emotional and cultural aspects behind it, such as the notion of love.

John Nash is a mathematical prodigy who achieves unparalleled and precedent-setting accomplishments with his work, but his research becomes increasingly complex and chaotic, until he is contacted by the government to perform highly confidential tasks. This incredible film, based on a true story, will show us the most amazing and heartbreaking resources of a brilliant mind.

A drama documenting the life and work of the theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking who, despite being diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21, has galvanized the scientific world with his ground-breaking work on the nature of the universe.

Alan Turing is a mathematician who during World War II contributes with the Allies to decipher a code used by the Nazis to communicate. In this way, Turing lays the foundations for the development of what in the future would be computers. At the same time, he faces persecution for his homosexuality and is prosecuted for it, at a time when this was considered punishable in the United Kingdom. A great historical drama that you will not forget and an overwhelming portrait of an important figure in history.