Slide Show: 10 Movie Scenes Of Authentication Worth Rewatching

Since nearly the time of the talkies, there has been no bigger champion of authentication than Hollywood writers and directors. Whether its speakeasy bouncers looking for the right password at the door or some crazy villain or hero ripping out appendages or eyes to fool a biometric scanner, authentication systems prove to be useful tools for writers moving the plot along and injecting a little verisimilitude into the story. However they're used and however wildly inaccurate they may be, these fictional authentication scenes are great fun to watch for security pros who use authentication in real life. And sometimes the scenes in older movies that seemed silly in a bygone era have proven more than a little prescient, sometimes prophesying innovations and other times perhaps even inspiring tech innovators who brought fiction into the realm of reality.

In this spy romp, CIA agent Miles Kendig, played by Walter Matthau starts his campaign to get out of the spy game and upset the bureaucratic apple cart with a tell-all book by committing a classic insider attack. He uses his current ID badge in video system that matches his face with his picture in front of a door guard to enter a CIA records repository and steal a file on himself.

Courtesy: Edie & Ely Landau Inc./The Criterion Collection