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Most Wanted: Teen Hacker, a four-part HBO Max documentary, delves into one of the most remarkable stories of digital crime ever recorded. It examines how a Finnish teenager, Julius Kivimäki, working from his bedroom, wreaked havoc across continents with hacks so audacious that they drew the ire of the FBI, major corporations, and law enforcement agencies worldwide.
This isn’t just a recitation of online havoc. This is the image of a teenager who recklessly blurs the line between virtual horseplay and real-world harm — and whose victims are still reeling through the fallout. The documentary not only promises to tell of his rise to notoriety, but also explores the bigger questions about the fragility of a digital world in which a teenager could hold global systems to ransom.
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Most Wanted: Teen Hacker – Release date and streaming details
The first episode of the documentary is set to release on September 5, 2025, on HBO Max, with each episode releasing weekly throughout the month. All four episodes will be available globally and in various territories of the USA, Europe, Latin America, Australia, and Southeast Asia. The worldwide release makes the documentary accessible to viewers everywhere.
The series is being framed as a Max Original and therefore receives the full weight and marketing push of the platform. In opting to roll out episodes on a staggered weekly basis rather than in one go, HBO Max is betting none of us will be able to resist following the chilling tale in real-time, allowing chatter to persist over social media and in news outlets for a number of weeks.
Most Wanted: Teen Hacker – Cast and production team
HBO Max's new docuseries, Most Wanted: Teen Hacker, dives into the shocking true story of Julius Kivimäki – the cybercriminal who forced a plane landing, shut down PlayStation, & orchestrated SWAT attacks. You won't believe it! 👇
The film is directed by highly regarded Finnish filmmaker Sami Kieksi, whose track record of producing socially aware, character-led narratives creates the backdrop for this film. Joining hands with Joni Soila, a veteran journalist and documentary producer, the documentary guarantees a deep, layered story that combines investigative rigour with human depth. With their creative vision and journalistic approach, they shape the story into more than just a crime tale, it becomes a story of culture and psychology in action.
The interviews are the backbone of Most Wanted: Teen Hacker. Among those who will share their story on the show will be FBI agents, SWAT team members and cyber-security experts — as well as the victims who came face-to-face with the nightmare of the hacker’s actions. Some international hackers also offer their thoughts on his methods and what motivated him. Crucially, the series features commentary from the hacker, Julius Kivimäki – better known as his new name, Aleksanteri Kivimäki from prison.
Even after being tried as a teenager in Finland, where he was convicted of tens of thousands of cybercrimes, Kivimäki bragged online about his light sentence, calling himself “untouchable.” He later returned to the scene as the mastermind of the Vastaamo psychotherapy centre data breach, which resulted in the leaking of personal medical records of thousands of patients in a large extortion scheme. His arrest in 2023 put an end to years of escapes, but his story lives on as a warning about the unsupervised reach of digital crime.
Talking to Variety about the documentary and its storytelling, Pil Brandstrup, group VP, original production networks and streaming, Warner Bros. Discovery Nordics, said:
“This documentary series is a powerful example of Nordic storytelling with global relevance. Most Wanted: Teen Hacker explores a critically important topic cybercrime that affects us all, yet remains unfamiliar to many. With the access to the Finnish hacker, victims around the world, top cybersecurity experts, and even a former FBI agent, the series presents a gripping, multi-perspective narrative."
Most Wanted: Teen Hacker – Who is Julius Kivimäki?
At the core of Most Wanted: Teen Hacker is the remarkable account of Julius Kivimäki, whom the FBI has described as "the most dangerous hacker" in the world. His exploits began at the tender age of 14, quickly progressing from hacking websites to cyberattacks that upended the lives of millions. Among his most infamous acts was a 2014 assault on Sony PlayStation and Xbox Live that knocked the gaming networks offline on Christmas Day.
His exploits in the digital world often crossed into the physical one. Kivimäki made an American Airlines plane with a Sony executive aboard make an emergency landing by threatening to blow it up. He conducted swatting hoaxes, in which a phoney report of a hostage-taking brought a tactical police assault, among which one was directed at the family of an F.B.I. agent. These actions showed a chilling awareness of how digital provocations could result in real-world loss of life.
Most Wanted: Teen Hacker aims to be more than a documentary, mixing firsthand accounts, deep investigation, and the voice of the hacker himself. It’s a chilling meditation on how the unchecked digital activities of one high-school teenager revealed the brittleness of our modern systems and altered the discourse on cybersecurity forever.
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