Top Philosophical Movies
What do you consider the most philosophical movies and why? I ask this question because I recently changed satellite providers and have access to a bajillion movies and I need something of value to watch. A couple that come to mind are Being There and the Matrix.
Comments (75)
I was pleasantly surprised with Ex Machina - it's not perfect, but it does tackle some of big questions of philosophy of mind, like Mary's Room, connectionist theories of mind, A.I., and ethics in an age of science. It's one of my favorite recent movies.
Blade Runner is also really good.
(The Truman Show was also written by the writer-director of Gattaca.)
I guess Waking Life
I actually liked Youth Without Youth, but I'm not sure many did.
Stranger Than Fiction
Those are some with obviously philosophical content. I'm not quite sure what to say about the philosophical content of Magnolia, but it is an extraordinary, overwhelming masterpiece. (The Master is also interesting, also by P. T. Anderson.)
Besides Blade Runner, almost anything adapted from Phil Dick--he's kinda the gateway drug. (The Truman Show might as well be a Phil Dick adaptation. Minority Report. etc.)
Chris Nolan's other movies (The Prestige, Memento)
No, it most definitely did not. It was awesome, like the first film, and these are some of the reasons why:
I love this one so much. Her was also really, really lovely, to name a recentish one.
This one looks interesting.
Nice to meet another fan!
This thread's a little weird because we're mostly talking about sf or fantasy, and Gattaca's the movie I always reach for as coming closest on film to what sf is on paper. (People always used to say the original Solaris, but it's been many years since I saw that & I haven't seen the remake.)
I guess it's okay for something like philosophy to show up in movies mostly as these "what is reality?" sorts of puzzles. Gotta start somewhere.
There are ethical dilemmas in lots of movies; does that make them "philosophical"? I think Peter Weir's Witness might be. I feel stuck between wondering what could possibly count as philosophy and what could possibly not!
Wait really
2001 : A Space Odyssey, would be my first pick due to being all cozy with logical positivism, which simply became replaced with scientism.
What do you mean by this, Q? What's 2001 got to do with logical positivism and scientism?
Well, what I mean is that the people making 2001, Kubrick and Clarke (who closely worked together) in making 2001, believed that society embraced the progress produced by science and the desire to move out into space. Kubrick wasn't as positive and exuberant about space as Clarke was, and it's said that Clarke wept when he saw how silent and austere space was for the main characters in 2001.
For reasons all too obvious, that isn't true; but, one can dream?
It fits into my narrow logical positivist view on life.
It's about life, love, and joy from a Japanese perspective, through the lens of food.
Here's one such quaint but satisfying scenes:
Good call. There's a lot going on there.
P.S: I know that you're looking for the most philosophical movies, but I also know you're looking for satisfying philosophical movies. When I tried to think of a satisfying philosophical movie to suggest, all the ubiquitous candidates fell away and Tampopo jumped out at me as the most memorable. As a film with such humble philosophical aims, it's able to achieve masterful delivery.
A woman sets out to learn to cook the perfect bowl of ramen noodles...
Have you ever seen it?
or, alternatively, shows that you don't know what 'logical positivism' means.
Any movie that makes you think might be fit for the philosophical category. It makes commentary on human nature and evolution for sure. It's not extremely philosophical (indeed it's a psychological story) but I think it is satisfactorily so.
Maybe I missed the memo; but, does anyone else think 2001 is philosophical? I mean, Solaris was already mentioned; but, not 2001?
If you check any clip of 2001 in youtube, people are amazed in the comments section about how modern CGI for special effects pales over what Kubrick created.
I mean, the movie opens with the theme of Also Sprach Zarathustra by Strauss.
Anyway, where have I gone wrong in my interpretation of logical positivism?
'Logical positivism' is associated with a book called Language Truth and Logic, published in 1936 by A J Ayer, and still on the curriculum in many philosophy departments. It's basic argument is that in order for any proposition to be meaningful, it must be able to be validated with reference to some actual state of affairs. Therefore most or all metaphysics is simply nonsensical, and ethical discourse is likewise the expression of feeling, not the statement of anything that could be true or false.
It's hard to see how that relates to 2001: A Space Odyssey which would have to be considered one of the most metaphysical movies ever made!
I did send out a memo on that. Maybe it was eaten by a virus and transformed into a command to launch a nuclear strike on Sweden. Hope not.
Arthur C Clarke's story is somewhat dimmed by Kubrick's movie-making grandeur. Just watch it and don't try super hard to figure it out.
To be honest I'm not quite sure if sarcasm is the right word for this scene. This movie definitely has people taking themselves far too seriously, but it's hard to tell how far out it is by Japanese standards.
I looked into japan and sarcasm, and it turns out that it's harder to pull off because unless you're the social equal or better, then being sarcastic can be considered rude.
That said, in the scene I linked, I'm almost positive that he apologizes to the pork completely un-ironically and un-sarcastically! (tis a serious metaphor for love me thinks).
It is very philosophical. And also very telling of the age before the energy crisis and the 70's when our thoughts on the near future started to change from to something darker.
Above all, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrik truly wanted to portray a realistic reality. This is clear when you watch this interview just before the film's opening night. Clarke tells that their aim was to give "a mature treatment of the theme of space exploration". Not only was the aim of the film to portray the possible, but also the probable, as realistic as possible. If you listen to Clarke, you can understand just how philosophical this movie was. If you find 2001 interesting, the interview given back then is very interesting to watch (here only part 1).
In a way, the most closest modern counterpart of the 2001 scifi-movie would be Interstellar, which clearly tells how pessimistic we are of our own future now. That there just happens to be found a tucked away secret NASA capable of creating the most outstanding spaceships in a world where space flight is treated as a hoax might not be realistic, but the film has tried to get the physics correct. And here both films share a common ground of trying to portray something realistically ...with the knowledge of the time. At least when it comes to black holes. Above all, it's fascinating the comparison hear to Kip Thorne, and Arthur C. Clarke (who btw did have a degree in math and physics from King's College in London) and their thoughts on the films.
Because just have 40 years go and then look at Interstellar and judge how correct, or rather up-to-date it's science is then.
What do you mean by this? I'm wondering as that fact stood out the most for me during the film. There's obviously some reason to do so.
It's sad that 2001 never happened; but understandable. However, expecting people to move to Mars within my lifetime is something to be positive about.
It's sad that there haven't been monoliths guiding the evolution of the human race so we can become space babies?
Well, it's sad in terms of mankind not exploring space and seeking a new home out in space is what I meant. Sorry, confusion there. It's inevitable, so better sooner than later?
Yeah, the black monolith is just the representation of a dark movie screen from what I have heard.
I took the painstaking detail of making 2001 by Kubrick as an appeal to perfection and beauty, something strict, formalized, and true, which are many of the things logical positivism entail or value. I don't know, I just loved the movie from an aesthetic perspective.
I tend to value entertainment that is realistic, and the surrealism present in 2001 just made a huge appeal to me. Most entertainment nowadays is shit, sorry to say. That kinda leaves me with Discovery or National Geographic and some market analysis stations like Bloomberg. But, who cares, I don't even own a TV, haha.
Anyway, I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey when it came out - I would have been 15. Mind-blowing experience. It was 1968 - 'the year that changed the world'. That film was central to it. Still think it was an all-time great film.
Haha, my experience was near identical. I forget how old I was, but when I saw the movie I was glued to the screen. It was love at first sight.
I think the reason is understandable, at least in my opinion. And should we say by today's rhetoric: anti-science.
The World where "everybody is a farmer" tells about a future with out of control greenhouse effect and a globalization process that has gone awry and has become a post-truth society.
This is also a statement of the present dismal situation of NASA and of the American Space exploration in general. The last big things have been the Space Shuttle, basically a "cost-saving" Project started By President Nixon as he killed the Apollo program early, and then the ISS, which luckily happened as the US simply didn't have the resources to create a Space Station on itself. After that, the bigger projects and especially human space exploration hasn't gone anywhere. Mars-projects have been canceled or pushed into later dates since the 1970's (basically Werner von Braun was asking for a Mars mission in the early 1980's). Now it might be that the last astronaut that has been in the moon will die of old age before any new astronaut goes further than lower Earth orbit.
Hence the metaphor of a "secret NASA center" hidden away from the hostile anti-science society that doesn't tolerate such endeavours as NASA, and basically think's it a "big government hoax".
This scene from "Interstellar" sums up well of the social critique in the film:
???
If the teacher refers to "Apollo nonsense" and states that "the corrected version" now in textbooks are that the Apollo mission were fake and she believes this line, I think it's obvious. Or perhaps you are sarcastic?
And the dichotomy to 2001? Well, even if it doesn't depict ordinary life on Earth, the tone surely is different.
Even the former proponents of logical positivism admitted that they threw in the towel, and that LP has largely gone the way of the dodo. I understand that it is still on the curriculum in many philosophy departments, but so too no doubt is the cosmological musings of the pre-Socratics. That doesn't mean that anyone still believes it.
Plastic Jesus Ed Rush and George Cromarty 1957
(This favorite book, No More Plastic Jesus: Global Justice and Christian Lifestyle--about the church and wealth--came out in 1977. Still relevant, but inflation has to be figured in for the last 40 years. .
I don't care if it rains or freezes
Long as I got my plastic Jesus
Sitting on the dashboard of my car.
Comes in color, pink and pleasant,
Glows at night cuz it's iridescent
take it with you when you travel far.
You can buy a Sweet Madonna
Dressed in rhinestones sittin' on a
Pedestal of abalone shell
Goin' ninety, I'm not wary
'Cause I've got my Virgin Mary
Guaranteeing I won't go to Hell
Quoting jkop
Didn't see the remake. The Soviet original was by Tarkovsky, and I don't think it is one of his best. But those who liked that might also like his other philosophical sci-fi movie Stalker. I think of The Mirror as Tarkovsky's masterpiece, also Andrei Rublev, Nostalgia, The Sacrifice - they are not "philosophical" in the sense of having some intellectual puzzle or dislocation at the center of their narrative; more like spiritual and even mystical.
The first movie on that (alphabetical) list happens to be the one I thought to mention. Powerful stuff, as is most of Herzog/Kinsky work.
The Seventh Seal is quite philosophical (among others). With the Knight playing chess with death.
Bergman can have the deep phisophical ideas and metaphors in his stories and keep it together as great watchable movies. Unfortunately some of the worst films are done by those who have seen his films and think they can do a similar one.... and usually fail totally in everything.
Oh yeah, the new dark ages. :-( But the anti-intellectual life on Earth makes a great contrast to the depicted science and space travel. It reminds me of a quote of Bertrand Russell (from Why Men Fight):
Quoting Bertrand Russell
Quoting Luke
That's a great film made with little means.
Quoting SophistiCat
I tend to think that what sets a philosophical film apart from a poetic film is that the narrative arises from some intellectual puzzle or dislocation. For example, on the nature of the world, perception, or ethics.
Quoting ssu
The questions in Bergman's films seem more religious or psychological or poetic than philosophical (e.g. existential angst, dreams).
The Seventh Seal is one of my favorites. Wild Strawberries; Fannie and Alexander (vastly different films) were good, too; Winter Light about a pastor's existential crisis--(as one theologian noted, "The church was so dead that not even God showed up"). I've seen maybe 10 of Bergmans films and have forgotten most of them. Some of them were repellent.
Good art leads to reflections about life. Good cooking, Babette's Feast (Gabriel Axel, dir.) lead to spiritual renewal; Like Water for Chocolate, a film of 'magical realism" and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover--an absurd film but very good--may or may not have any "philosophical content but they were all compelling cinema experiences.
A great film (about anything, any style, any director, any cast...) like great music, great stage drama, a great book, a great conversation... great experiences in general have "philosophical content" in that they leave us wanting more of the good stuff.
Seen 'em. I do love Eternal Sunshine. Will definitely see more Tarkovsky. Thanks!
Agreed.. I wrote this earlier on the forum:
I'm reminded of 2001: A Space Odyssey. One can read many things into that movie. The name of the ship was Discovery.. And David Bowman- the intrepid human, does encounter the "alien" Monolith and whatever created its technology. In this encounter, Bowman experiences the dimensions of time, moving through his life and is transformed into the Space Baby. Perhaps a new dawn for humans, or perhaps just a big farce- a big thing signifying nothing. I think it might be the latter. We are simply instrumental beings striving for nothing.