The 10 Best Movies About Mobile Phones

Mobile phones are featured in practically every movie that’s made today because of the simple fact that they’re a normal part of our every day lives. In some movies, a really cool phone is prominently featured in enough scenes that you definitely notice the marketing. But there are only a few movies out there which really make the mobile phone an intricate part of the plot of the movie to the point where removing the phone would take something away from the story. These are the movies that aren’t designed necessarily to market a specific phone but are instead a representation (or misrepresentation) of the importance of the mobile phone in our culture.

Here’s a look at ten movies that are entirely or mostly about mobile phones:

1. One Missed Call.

This new release is a horror movie that makes you want to think twice about picking up your mobile phone when it rings. The plot of the movie is that the characters receive voice mail messages on their cell phones, messages from their future selves which inform them about the date, time and way that they are going to die. Since this is a horror movie, they do in fact then die in the same way that the message told them they would. Watch it late at night and then go home all alone and you’re not going to be able to avoid having some bad thoughts if you get a voice mail message during the night.

2. Chakushin Ari.

Leave it to the Japanese to beat the world to making a mobile phone horror movie. One Missed Call is actually just a remake of this movie which was made way back in 1993 when the average person wasn’t even carrying a cell phone. It’s no surprise that it didn’t get attention until the remake hit the mainstream movie-going audience this year, during a time when cell phones are far more ubiquitous. But the original version has the same basic plot and the movie simply couldn’t exist if you took the phones out of it.

3. I Got The Hookup.

This movie from back in 1998 is the story of two small-time crooks who are illegally selling boomboxes and other small electronics when they accidentally come upon a truckload of cell phones. They start selling them and make a whole lot of money, so much so in fact that they get the attention of the FBI. That’s where the plot thickens and the comedy begins but it couldn’t have gotten there without the discovery of those mobile phones.

4. Cellular.

In this movie, a woman is kidnapped and ends up locked in a room where there is a phone that’s been mostly destroyed. She manages to get it working well enough to contact a stranger via his cell phone and to tell him about her situation. He takes it upon himself to go to the police and get involved, knowing all the while that the phone connection could die any minute and that this could mean that she’s going to die along with it. He spends most of the movie trying to stay on the mobile phone with the woman.  The movie has been cited as a leader for the mobile phone industry in that it shows the ways that phones can be used to track information and to act as a safety device.

5. Pon (Phone).

This is a Korean movie which was released in 2002 and then was released in the UK a couple of years later. The plot of the movie is that a journalist must get a new cell phone after receiving threatening calls related to her work and the new cell phone that she gets appears to be haunted. A series of terrifying things happen in relation to the cell phone which causes the journalist to do some investigating. Through this investigating, she discovers that all of the previous owners of the cell phone died mysteriously. In other words, this is another horror film with the mobile phone at the center of the plot.

6. A Cinderella Story.

You wouldn’t think that a movie which is based on the old story of Cinderella would require a cell phone as part of the plot. If you didn’t see this Hilary Duff flick (and who could blame you if you didn’t?) then you wouldn’t know about the role the phone plays in the modern version of this ancient fairy tale. In this movie, a misplaced cell phone is at the center of the story. The modern Cinderella begins text messaging via this phone to a strange boy and they end up falling in love to complete the tale that we all know from childhood (with a modern twist).

7. Cell Call.

This was a little-known movie released in 2005 which is basically the story of a couple whose lives are changed by a cell phone call. The man is out driving around when he gets lost, his car dies and then he locks himself out of it. He calls his wife on the cell phone. She answers and heads out in her own car to try to find him but the mystery is that their connection gets worse and worse as she hunts him down.

8. Message in a Cell Phone.

This 2002 low-budget movie is all about a trio of young guys who notice a strange text message on the cell phone of a stranger sleeping near them outside a vacation resort. The kids end up taking the phone and getting in to trouble with the guy who owns it. The plot is about the fact that they need to decode the message that they saw in order to keep themselves safe from harm.

9. Hellphone.

This is a French movie that is described as being about a teenage guy who is obsessed with the use of his mobile phone. His goal is to use the phone to get a girl. However, as the name suggests, things don’t go quite as planned with the mobile phone in this story.

10. When A Stranger Calls.

This is a horror story with results that are predictable considering that the story has been told numerous times before. It’s your basic girl-gets-creepy-calls-on-phone-while-babysitting story. So technically it doesn’t need the cell phone for the story except for the fact that the whole reason that this girl is babysitting in the first place is because she went over her mobile phone minutes by a massive amount and needs to work to pay off that bill. With the horror that ensues, her parents will be sorry they didn’t just pay the cell phone for her.