Matthew Lillard's 1995 cyber-thriller "Hackers" is now streaming for free, giving fresh audiences the chance to revisit a film celebrated for Lillard's gloriously chaotic performance. Directed by Iain Softley, the movie follows a group of teenage hackers framed for a corporate embezzlement scheme after stumbling upon a dangerous computer program, and it has endured as a cult favourite thanks to its distinctive characters and vivid, if wildly dated, vision of the early internet.

Lillard plays Emmanuel Goldstein, aka Cereal Killer, the group's conspiracy-obsessed, slang-spouting burnout, who gets a standout moment exposing a $25 million corporate theft via a hijacked television broadcast. He stars alongside Jonny Lee Miller as Dade Murphy and a young Angelina Jolie as Kate Libby, with Fisher Stevens as the villainous "The Plague". The article praises Softley's neon-drenched, monitor-lit visual style for capturing the mythic, lawless spirit of 1990s cyberspace rather than any realistic depiction of hacking, arguing the film's dated aesthetics only add to its enduring charm three decades on.