While it’s a pretty safe bet that Macs are starring behind the scenes of Hollywood’s greatest creations, Apple’s presence is strong on the other side of the camera, too, as PowerBooks, iPods, Cinema Displays and iPhones appear alongside Academy Award winners, sultry starlets and B-movie hacks. Over the years, Apple’s chic style has caught the eye of more than a few set designers, directors and writers, making for some memorable moments:

 

 

10. Meet the Fockers: Just about every character uses a Mac in this flick, but the best setup can be found in Jack Byrnes’ secret RV room, where he has a giant Cinema Display mounted with an iSight. We’re not sure what kind of computer he was using, but it’s probably a dual 2.5 Ghz Power Mac G5 --- the top of the line at the time.

 

 

9. Hot Fuzz: When Sgt. Nicholas Angel tours his new digs in Sandford, he is horrified to find a terribly inadequate staff and antiquated equipment, capped off by the chime of a mid-1990s Mac powering up (by pressing a button on an ADB keyboard, no less). It’s tough to pinpoint exactly which Mac family the computer is from, but they stopped making the keyboard in 1998.

 

 

8. Monsters, Inc.: Apple has a long history of hiding fun little Easter eggs in its products, and Steve Jobs has continued that tradition as CEO of his other company. Many of Pixar’s films contain scattered Apple references, but the coolest has to be from Monster's Inc. Near the end of the film, Mike is admiring his and Sculley’s picture on the cover of Business Shriek; on the back is an Apple-ish ad with the tagline “Scare Different.” What it’s advertising is anybody’s guess.

 

 

 

7. Jurassic Park: Before all heck breaks loose, the dinosaurs are kept secure by a bank of Macintosh Quadra 700s; you can see a few of them in the control room and even hear a familiar chime when the entire system is rebooted. Remember: it was human error that brought the park down.

 

 

6. Final Destination 2: Right after purchasing a brand new Apple computer, lottery winner Evan Lewis sets off a fiery chain reaction by accidentally microwaving a refrigerator magnet with his leftover Chinese food. The scene ends with a fire-escape ladder impaling him through the right eye, but the real tragedy here is the unopened iMac G4 that burns in the fire.

 

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5. Austin Powers in Goldmember: About six months before Mini Me appeared with Yao Ming in the new aluminum PowerBook ad, Austin Powers used his Titanium PowerBook G4 to demonstrate the Internet to Foxxy Cleopatra, who was transported from 1975 in a time machine built by Dr. Evil. And just for good measure, the time circuits were all hooked up to an Apple Pro Keyboard.

 

 

4. Forrest Gump: In September 1978, Mr. Gump finds a letter from Apple Computer, Inc. in his mailbox: “Lieutenant Dan got me invested in some kind of fruit company. So then I got a call from him, saying we don't have to worry about money no more.” (Incidentally, Apple didn’t go public until December 1980, so perhaps Lt. Dan was a venture capitalist?)

 

 

3. Zoolander: In possibly the most disturbing scene involving a Mac in the history of cinema, Hansel foolishly tosses a tangerine iMac from a DJ booth to reveal 30 years worth of assassination plots contained therein. Of course, we know a FireWire cable and Target Disc Mode would have worked a little better.

 

 

 

2. American Pie: When Jim, Kevin and Paul spy on Nadia while she changes clothes after ballet practice, they’re watching live video using NetBot, a fictional Classic app running on a very real Power Mac and what appears to be OS 8.5. NetBot? This one time, at band camp, I downloaded QuickTime.

 

 

1. Independence Day: When David Levinson accompanies Capt. Steven Hiller to infiltrate the alien mothership armed with a bomb and a computer virus, only the latest PowerBook will do --- so new, in fact, that it wasn’t even named yet. Take a close look at the computer in the film, and you’ll see “PowerBook XXXX.” By the time the film was released in 1996, it was flying off shelves as part of the 5300 series, with enough processing power to save the world.