I'll focus on older nerdy films and I'll stay away from the blockbusters that you're probably already familiar with (e.g., Back to the Future, The Matrix, The Fifth Element, Men in Black, Ghostbusters).

80's cheese:

- Real Genius (Val Kilmer, et al. -- eminently quotable, fun)
- The Wizard of Speed and Time (pretty much the ultimate obscure animation nerd film)
- Buckaroo Banzai's Adventures in the 8th Dimension (less obscure, more awesome)
- Spaceballs (Mel Brooks parodies Star Wars)
- The Princess Bride (easily the most quotable nerdy chick film ever)
- Tron (does it get any nerdier than Tron?)
- Wargames (okay, Wargames comes close to Tron in nerdiness)
- They Live (aliens have taken over, and only a pro-wrestler with cool sunglasses can see them)
- The Hidden (aliens take over human bodies and drive fast sports cars)
- This is Spinal Tap (mock documentary of an 80's heavy metal band)
- Little Shop of Horrors (less nerdy, great for singing along -- some argue it should be treated like the Rocky Horror Picture Show, with costumes and everything)
- Battle Beyond the Stars (cheesy, 80's b-film, trying to ride on Star Wars's coattails. Poorly.)
- Deathrace 2000 (lots of carnage; pairs well with "Speed Racer")
- Robocop (still entertaining)

Classic cheese:

- Sleeper (Woody Allen -- though not everybody gets into Woody Allen's style of humor)
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (possibly the best of the Python films)
- Young Frankenstein (arguably Mel Brooks's best film)
- Duck Soup (the Marx brothers at their best -- very funny)
- Dr. Strangelove (or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb)


More "serious" nerdy films:

- Gattaca (crazy future where DNA testing is mainstream and ubiquitous)
- Brazil (dark future where the faceless, nameless bureaucracy runs the show, also directed by Gilliam -- get the director's cut if you can)
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (holds up surprisingly well, as opposed to, for example, E.T.)
- Blade Runner (Harrison Ford in a Phillip K. Dick mind-twisting short story adaptation done properly -- get the director's cut if you can)
- Total Recall (Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Phillip K. Dick mind-twisting short story adaptation done not quite as well as Blade Runner)
- Akira (Japanese post-apocalyptic anime)
- The Abyss (aliens living below our oceans -- only show if you can get the director's cut)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (trippy but brilliant)



And you might as well include a comedy zombie film two-fer at some point:

- Shaun of the Dead (brilliant rip on the whole zombie film genre)
- Army of Darkness (third in the Evil Dead series)


Honorable mentions:

- Mars Attacks! (genius nerdy material if ever there was)
- Wallace and Grommit (three original animated 30-minute shorts plus a later feature-length film)
- Run Lola Run (a German film with great techno music; what if you had three shots to do something over?)
- Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (see Keanu Reeves in the only role he actually plays well: a stoner kid on a wild ride)
- Clerks (the original Kevin Smith slacker film, pairs nicely with Bill & Ted's)
- Heavy Metal (animated, not particularly good but still a classic; best paired with the South Park episode, "Major Boobage" that parodies it)
- Starcrash (never seen it, but any film that has David Hasslehoff with a light saber...)
- THX 1138 (George Lucas's original sci-fi film, something of an Orwellian dystopia, pairs well with Brazil or maybe Logan's Run)
- The Last Starfighter (a trailer-park kid turns out to be great at a videogame which was actually training him to be a space pilot... *sigh*)



When I was an undergrad, we'd do double-feature film nights in one of the bigger auditoriums, generally going for pairings that had something vaguely in common. Example: we paired "They Live" with "Looker", since both films have subliminal mind control as central themes in their plot. You could similarly build a whole series around Phillip K. Dick-esque brain twisting, whether using classics like "Blade Runner" and "Total Recall", or more recent films like "The Truman Show" and "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Recall and Sunshine, for example, both feature brain-memory modification devices. Run Lola Run and Groundhog Day both have the protagonist reliving the past and trying to get it right.