A tech-savvy thief roams a sprawling city using specialized skills to pull off robberies from his laptop through wardriving. When a dangerous criminal discovers his abilities, the thief is forced to hack a wealthy woman’s account and drain nearly a million dollars. A film by Rebecca Thomas, starring Dane DeHaan, Sasha Calle, Mamoudou Athie, William Belleau, Karina Gale, Cameron Lee Price, Gary House, Luz Ozuna, Brooke Burton, Thomas Cummins, Charan Prabhakar, Jason Ruffoni, Brando White, Joseph Perez, and Jeffrey Donovan.

Directed by American filmmaker Rebecca Thomas from a screenplay by Daniel Casey, WARDRIVER is a crime thriller about a hacker named Cole (Dane DeHaan), operating under the alias WRDRVR. Every night, Cole cruises the city with his laptop, targeting the payroll systems of retail shops and restaurants by exploiting vulnerabilities like outdated software, missing patches, and hard-coded keys.

Wardriving is the practice of driving around while using a laptop, smartphone, or other device to scan for and map nearby Wi‑Fi networks, often recording their locations, signal strength, and security settings. A “wardriver” typically uses a Wi‑Fi adapter, GPS, and scanning software to detect wireless access points in a given area. The collected data—network name (SSID), encryption type, and coordinates—can be saved to create maps of available or vulnerable networks. The activity itself is not always illegal everywhere, but it can be used offensively to find poorly secured or open Wi‑Fi and then exploit them for unauthorized access, data theft, or launching attacks.

Once a target is marked, he messages his associates to arrange a backdoor into the system. From there, he piggybacks onto the business’s Wi-Fi and spoofs employee credentials to slip inside undetected. With access secured, he transfers the money in small increments across hundreds of bank accounts scattered around the globe, making the funds nearly impossible to trace. His associates take their cut and funnel his share back to him by mail in bundles of prepaid cards in varying amounts.

When Oscar Watts (Mamoudou Athie), a doorman at Bambara Restaurant, learns from the manager (Charan Prabhakar) that the restaurant’s server was hacked and the entire payroll wiped out, he pieces together Cole’s true identity from CCTV footage.

Oscar tracks Cole down and confronts him physically before forcing him into an unlikely partnership, compelling Cole to help him siphon money from the checking account of a wealthy regular patron who dines at the restaurant every Friday night with her father.

Cole is initially reluctant, but when he digs into Oscar’s background and uncovers a criminal record marked by aggravated assault, armed robbery, and drug charges that already landed him prison time, he realizes he has no choice but to comply.

The following Friday night, Cole tails the woman home, breaks into her computer remotely, and drains her bank account as Oscar instructed. Afterward, Oscar forces Cole to join him and his crew at a local nightclub.

Through the haze of the night and weed, Cole ends up dancing with a mysterious woman who looks exactly like the woman they just robbed. However, when he wakes up the next morning in his own bed, he is left unsure if she was really there or if he was just hallucinating.

Curious, Cole searches for the name Sarah Miller online but finds nothing. He turns to his private chat, leaving a message asking if his hacker friend can dig up information on her. He then remotely accesses Sarah’s computer from home, hoping to find some answers.

At first he comes across nothing out of the ordinary, just a collection of everyday photos, but eventually he stumbles upon a suspicious password-protected .dmg file. He brute forces his way in and finds a single video clip of a young boy inside. He then pulls up Find My and manages to pinpoint her location at a small Chinese restaurant called Dragon Diner.

Digging further, Cole breaks into Sarah’s email and uncovers a troubling exchange between her and a man named Mark. In the messages, Mark holds Sarah responsible for something she insists she had nothing to do with. The tone is accusatory and unresolved, leaving Cole unsettled. It makes him question whether Mark is really Sarah’s father as Oscar led him to believe, and whether the money he stole might be the very thing that put her in this mess.

Compelled to see her for himself, Cole heads to Dragon Diner and finds Sarah (Sasha Calle) sitting alone with her order. He follows her home after she leaves. He parked outside, taps into her computer’s camera and microphone to listen in. What he hears is a tense confrontation with Mark (Jeffrey Donovan).

Sarah explains that she went to the bank to make her usual deposit only to be told by the teller that the account had been completely emptied. Mark refuses to believe her, convinced that she took the money herself. He gives her one week to return it in full, warning her that if she doesn’t, a man named Doug (William Belleau) will make her disappear.

🅟

@pradt

WARDRIVER 🛜
Hacking. Stealing. Surviving.
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A film by Rebecca Thomas, starring Dane DeHaan, Sasha Calle, Mamoudou Athie, William Belleau, Karina Gale, Cameron Lee Price, Gary House, Luz Ozuna, Brooke Burton, Thomas Cummins, Charan Prabhakar, Jason Ruffoni, Brando White, Joseph Perez, and Jeffrey Donovan.

WARDRIVER premiered at the Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival in Thriller section on 14 March 2026, where it won Audience Award for Best Thriller Feature. The film had a limited theatrical release in the United States on 20 March.

The Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival is an annual independent‑film and innovation festival held in the San Jose and Mountain View area of Silicon Valley, California. Founded in 1990 in San Jose, the festival has grown into a major international event and is produced by Cinequest, a nonprofit that also runs education programs and its own distribution label, Cinequest Mavericks Studio. It blends international cinema with cutting‑edge technology, art, and creative media, positioning itself as both a film festival and a broader “creativity” event. Cinequest showcases 300+ films and other works each year, including many world and U.S. premieres from over 40–50 countries, plus virtual‑reality (VR), augmented‑reality (AR), AI‑driven projects, and cross‑media experiences.