Top 10 Movies Referenced in a Tech Workplace

Let me start off by saying that this is not a top geek movie list. People quote movies based on situations that come up using a recognizable line. While your fellow coworkers may all love Blade Runner and Serenity, they did not make it on this list. To understand those seemingly inside jokes the engineers in your office laugh at when someone quotes some movie, these are the movies to watch:

10. Spaceballs
Let's order from Pizza the Hutt! No, your coworker didn't just misspeak. You just heard a very lame reference to Spaceballs, a Star Wars spoof.

9. The Godfather
Perhaps your boss did something because he was "made an offer he can't refuse" by the head office.

8. The Matrix
What will it be for you? The red pill or the blue pill? While you decide, maybe I'll go download some more information straight to my head.

7. Dr. Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)
Be sure to wipe the whiteboard clean after a meeting, or "He'll see the big board!" And of course, "You can't fight in here! This is the war room!"

6. The Princess Bride
I don't think it's very "Inconceivable!" that this movie would show up on this list. I should hurry and get to the top five you say? "As you wish."

5. South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut
Pretty much any workplace I've been at, if Canada is brought up, someone mentions either flappy heads or starts singing "Blame Canada". These, along with "What Would Brian Boitano Do?", come from none other than the South Park movie.

4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
I have to say, on this list of movies, this is the one that somehow constantly gets referenced, yet I cannot pinpoint anything about the workplace that would trigger the references. I suppose "Tis only a flesh wound" could refer to a papercut, and maybe a task as a quest. But really, quotes come flying from this movie for just about anything. So through some "logical" reasoning, it must've been the fault of a witch!

3. Airplane!
Coworker spill a glass a water? He must have a "drinking problem". Surely I must be joking? Well, "I never joke, and don't call me Shirley."

2. Star Wars Trilogy
I cheated and put the whole series together on this one. But really, I don't see references to a single movie, but rather the set of movies. And how can references not be made, as I sit among servers called, "thedarkside", "naboo", "leia", "luke", etc. At a previous workplace, one coworker had a large figurine of Jabba the Hut covering half his tablespace!

1. Office Space
It's not surprising that the top references movie in a tech workplace is a movie about a tech workplace. If you come in looking bummed at the beginning of the week, don't be surprised if you hear, "Case of the Mondays?" At job fairs you see signs saying "No cubicles! No TPS Reports!" There's no escaping this movie.