The Film: Joel O. Shapiro's 2005 film The Visionary
The Scientist: The 17 minute film explores the more Fellini-esque side of scientists Nikola Tesla, starting with him no-showing his acceptance of the Edison Prize in 1917.
What's Missing? The Visionary makes no attempt to be comprehensive, but a few more references to Tesla's extraordinary biography for those wanting to know more couldn't have hurt. The film focuses primarily on Tesla's tower, necessarily omitting for time much of his entertaining early life.
Verdict: If you're curious, sample the gorgeous cinematography of the film here. The Prestige will have to do for now.

The Film: The animated short Paprika, not to be confused with the 2006 feature length Japanese anime of the same name.
The Scientist: Albert Szent-Györgyi, who extracted Vitamin C from paprika in the early part of the twentieth century. He also saved Jews during World War II, so despite the cute animation, there's a big time story here.
What's Missing? To watch Paprika you'd think Szent-Györgyi was a paprika farmer in Hungary who happened to make a discovery. In reality he was a Cambridge grad with a long history of important science. But that's not the point in this child-oriented cartoon.
Verdict: Paprika is a fun YouTube, if a bit light on science. You can watch it in its entirety here.

The Film: Jim Berry and Fritz Michel's hospital short Semmelweis
The Scientist: Ignaz Semmelweis was a doctor whose genius idea that doctors should wash their hands is roundly frowned upon by a generation of obsessive-compulsives. A law school dropout, he found he could make an impact in early medicine.
What's Missing? Set in a Vienna hospital (right), the filmmakers even made a trip to get a few evocative exteriors. Still, Semmelweis's epilogue reveals that Semmelweis was beaten to death by guards in a lunatic asylum, a scene you never omit from a screenplay.
Verdict: Some of the production values scream "We shot this in Yonkers," but hey, they did shoot it in Yonkers. A fun and entertaining, if amateurish, look at nineteenth century science.

The Film: experimental documentary Great Stupidity and Profound Genius from director Benita Raphan, who last worked on a highly regarded Buckminster Fuller documentary.
The Scientists: The film profiles Helen Keller, Paul Erdos (right), and other great geniuses in a unique free flow of sound and image.
What's Missing? With echoes of Hollis Frampton's Zorn's Lemma, the film doesn't really make a convincing argument for how "stupidity" relates to genius, but it gets points for challenging Jesus' IQ and its compelling abstract visuals. The highlight is undoubtedly a ten year prodigy's explanation of how he solves complicated equations.
Verdict: It doesn't get less marketable than a short documentary, but Benita Raphan's fascinating tribute airs on The Sundance Channel from time to time. She's a promising young talent in the field, and you have to eagerly anticipate her next project.

Two neuroscience experts interviewed in Nature, Barbara Sahakian and Sharon Morein-Zamir, talked about mind performance-enhancing drugs for healthy people who aren't suffering from disorders like ADHD or Alzheimers. They say:

In academia, we know that a number of our scientific colleagues in the United States and the United Kingdom already use modafinil to counteract the effects of jetlag, to enhance productivity or mental energy, or to deal with demanding and important intellectual challenges.

And, apparently, so are professors.

Professor's little helper [Nature Commentary]