For the sixth year in a row, Ragtag Cinema joins cinemas nationwide for Science on Screen®, a grant-funded program that pairs films with short presentations from local experts in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Science on Screen events will occur monthly at Ragtag Cinema from January through April 2026.
For this season, Ragtag Cinema has selected Life in the Digital Age as their theme. The Digital Age has its origins in the mid-20th century and is characterized by the rapid expansion of information technology and the internet, which subsequently led to socioeconomic transformations that have influenced how people live, communicate, work, and interact with knowledge. The four films presented in this series will explore how digital technologies have shaped daily life.
The series begins on Tuesday, January 27th at 6:00 PM with WarGames (1983). This screening will be accompanied by a presentation from Cindy Dudenhoffer, Teaching Professor and Associate Director of the School of Information Science & Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri. Dr. Dudenhoffer's presentation, "When the Game Plays Back: WarGames, AI, and Ethical Control," will examine WarGames as an early cultural case study in AI ethics, long before concepts such as alignment, accountability, and human oversight became central to public and scholarly discourse.
Science on Screen is an initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre with major support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Tickets and more information can be found at ragtagcinema.org.
Full Program
January 27, 2026
WarGames (1983) - A teenage computer nerd hacks into a military computer where he accidentally starts the countdown on World War 3 when he begins playing with war simulations.
February 24, 2026
You’ve Got Mail (1998) - A struggling independent bookseller and the owner of the corporate bookstore hate one another, but the two of them are engaged in an intense, anonymous Internet romance.
March 31, 2026
Searching (2018) - After his daughter goes missing, a father must uncover the secrets hidden within her laptop to find her in this hyper-modern thriller.
April 28, 2026
Tokyo Uber Blues (2021) - Unemployed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, filmmaker Taku Aoyagi becomes an Uber Eats rider and spends his days cycling through the empty streets of Tokyo.
Ragtag Cinema is an independent movie theater located on Hitt Street in Columbia, Missouri. The cinema is a project of the Ragtag Film Society, a nonprofit organization that uses cinema as a focal point to captivate and engage communities in immersive arts experiences that explore assumptions and elicit shared joy, wonder, and introspection.