A listing of philosophically provocative films
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Directed by Stanley Kubrick): Sixty years on, this prophetic cold-war epic of human versus machine intelligence could not be timelier. Released in the run-up to Apollo 11 but launching itself from the “Dawn of Man,” it is a frontal assault on the myth of technology as panacea. Here instead, technology […]
2001: A Space Odyssey Read More »
Saving Private Ryan (1998, directed by Steven Spielberg): In addition to being an action movie set in World War II, this film is a meditation on the nature of war and morality. It displays conflicts between four perspectives: that of the individual soldier, who wants to get home alive; that of the member of a
Saving Private Ryan Read More »
Vertigo (1958; directed by Alfred Hitchcock): Vertigo is Hitchcock’s best film, ranking #1 in the Sight & Sound critics’ poll of the ‘best movies ever made.’ It is the third of Hitchcock’s films dealing with deception. Rebecca and Suspicion portrayed a person’s deception by others. Vertigo deals with self-deception. The retired policeman, Scottie, is plagued
Tree of Life (2011; directed by Terrence Malick): Malick’s film is the only one I know in which the origin of the universe, and of life is rendered in visual poetry. What he pulls off here is creating a feeling for the universe, its immensity, and our very place in it. And not only that,
Memento (2000; directed by Christopher Nolan): Ostensibly Memento is a film about a man with a brain injury that renders him unable to form new memories who sets out to get revenge for the murder of his wife. The protagonist of Memento relies on external resources in place of his memory to function. For instance,
L’Année dernière à Marienbad[Last Year at Mariebad] (1961; directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet & Alain Resnais, French with English subtitles.): Philosophers like Descartes took solipsism the view that I might be the only mind in the world – seriously enough to try to argue against it. Enter Marienbad and you’e in such a world, in a
L’Année dernière à Marienbad [Last Year at Marienbad] Read More »
Breaker Morant (1980; directed by Bruce Beresford): In 1902, several Australian soldiers in the British army’s struggle in the second Anglo-Boer War were court-martialed for murdering a civilian and captured enemy combatants. It was one of the first trials for war crimes in British history, complicated by the fact that the Australians were often used
Blade Runner 2049 (2017; directed by Denis Villeneuve): Blade Runner 2049 is the long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott’s (1982) Blade Runner. Set 30 years after the events of the original film – Blade Runner 2049 charts the efforts of K (a NEXUS-9 replicant) to find and ‘retire’ a child born of a replicant mother (Rachael)
Blade Runner (1982; directed by Ridley Scott): On the surface Blade Runner, appears to be just another dystopian sci-fi film loosely modeled on the formula established in Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, Frankenstein: artificial humans (in this case, called “replicants”) are created who become unhappy with their lot, and so seek out their human creator, demanding
Alien3 (1992: directed by David Fincher): Alien3 is Fincher’s first film, and its famously troubled production and mixed reception have contributed to its being relatively neglected amongst the sequels spawned by Ridley Scott’s original masterpiece. In fact, it constitutes a fascinatingly disruptive continuation of the life story of Flight Lieutenant Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney
