The Codebreaker (2021)

The remarkable tale of Elizebeth Smith Friedman unfolds in The Codebreaker (2021), a woman who reshaped the world of cryptology during the tumultuous first half of the 20th Century. Born the youngest of ten children, Elizabeth was a fervent intellectual who yearned to escape her mother's fate, hampered by familial responsibilities. Despite her father's resistance, she persuaded him to finance her college education where she immersed herself in the realms of English literature and Greek. After a brief stint in teaching, Elizabeth ventured to Chicago in a quest for better opportunities. Unsuccessful in securing work, she found herself entranced by a 1623 copy of Shakespeare's First Folio at the Newberry Library. This fascination led her to the wealthy industrialist, George Fabyan, who was convinced the Folio held a concealed message proclaiming Francis Bacon its true author. He invited Elizabeth to his scientific hub, the Riverbank Estate, where she partnered with the geneticist William Friedman. Their collaboration, while failing to uncover secret messages in the Folio, revolutionized the field of codebreaking, transforming it from mere conjecture to a systematic study of letter frequencies. As the U.S. plunged into the First World War, the nation was unprepared for the complexities of codes and intelligence. With the advent of radio, secret messages were now vulnerable to interception. Elizabeth, with her unique expertise, was called upon to provide her services, and she later aided the Coast Guard in cracking the codes of rum runners during the Prohibition era. With the onset of the Second World War, Elizabeth faced new challenges. Despite working under a man less versed in the intricacies of modern cipher machines, she rose to prominence, using her cryptology mastery to dismantle a network of South American Nazi spies who were compromising U.S. supply ships. Yet, bound by an oath of secrecy, Elizabeth's heroic contributions remained unrecognized and were instead claimed by J. Edgar Hoover. It was not until 2008, when her role was finally declassified, that the world became privy to the astonishing feats of this ground-breaking crypto analyst.

The Codebreaker is a documentary movie featuring Kate Burton and directed by Chana Gazit.

The Codebreaker is currently streaming for free (ad-supported) on Kanopy and it's also available on Hoopla.

It is also possible to buy The Codebreaker on Amazon Video.