diff --git a/IPython/core/magic.py b/IPython/core/magic.py
index 51704c5..afd3f4c 100644
--- a/IPython/core/magic.py
+++ b/IPython/core/magic.py
@@ -1591,7 +1591,11 @@ Currently the magic system has the following functions:\n"""
         # Make sure that the running script gets a proper sys.argv as if it
         # were run from a system shell.
         save_argv = sys.argv # save it for later restoring
-        sys.argv = [filename]+ arg_lst[1:]  # put in the proper filename
+
+        # simulate shell expansion on arguments, at least tilde expansion
+        args = map(os.path.expanduser, arg_lst[1:])
+
+        sys.argv = [filename]+ args  # put in the proper filename
 
         if opts.has_key('i'):
             # Run in user's interactive namespace