At its peak, one company controlled nearly half the global smartphone market. Within a few years, it controlled almost none of it.

BLACKBERRY (2023) tells the story of Research In Motion, the Waterloo, Ontario company that created the first smartphone. Mike Lazaridis is the engineer with the idea, a device that could send email over a pager network. He has no interest in boardrooms or deadlines. Jim Balsillie is the businessman who forces his way into the company, fires people, breaks rules, and turns Lazaridis's invention into a product that Wall Street and Washington both carry in their pockets.

Jay Baruchel plays Lazaridis as a man who wants to create something good more than he wants to win. Glenn Howerton plays Balsillie as pure appetite, a man who lies to secure funding and threatens his way through negotiations. Matt Johnson, who directs and co-wrote the film, also plays Doug, Lazaridis's oldest friend and collaborator.

The film moves fast, shot handheld on grainy film stock that makes 1996 Ontario look almost like a documentary. It ends on a moment everyone in that Waterloo office knew was coming but could not stop.