Top Ten Philosophical Films of All Time

For even more than ten (honorable mentions)

read the full original article at Mike Petrovich's Top Ten Lists and... blog HERE

The Seventh Seal (1957) Directed by Ingmar Bergman.  This Swedish film stars Max von Sydow as a man seeking answers about life, death, and the existence of God as he plays high stakes chess against the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague.

Solaris (1972) Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, this Soviet science fiction movie has a psychologist is sent to a station orbiting a distant planet in order to discover what has caused the crew to go insane.

Blade Runner (1982) by director Ridley Scott.  Harrison Ford plays a blade runner, who must pursue and try to terminate four cybernetic replicants who think a little too deeply about their existence and have stolen a spaceship to return to Earth and find their creator.

Gattaca (1997) Written and directed by Andrew Niccol.  Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman star in this futuristic sci-fi thriller in which genetically inferior man assumes the identity of a superior one in order to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel.

My Dinner With Andre (1981) Directed by Louis Malle, and written by co-stars Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, apparently playing themselves.  They share their lives over dinner at a New York restaurant. Gregory, a very talkative and probably insane theater director, tells Shawn tales of dropping out, traveling around the world, and experiencing the variety of ways people live. Shawn listens avidly, but questions the value of Gregory’s seeming abandonment of the pragmatic aspects of life.

I Heart Huckabees (2004) directed by David O. Russell.  Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman play “existential detectives” hired by a frustrated young environmentalist (Jason Schwartzman) who is trying to understand himself, the idea of identity, and the interconnectedness of the universe.  He fights corporate interests (Jude Law) trying to build a superstore while relying on help to investigate a series of strange coincidences.  Quirky and funny while making fun of taking BS seriously and debating nearly meaningless observations and insights as deeply philosophical.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Directed by Michel Gondry, with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet starring as a young couple despondent about ending their relationship – who undergo a procedure to have each other erased from their memories. But somehow not all the emotions are erased from their minds, and through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with.

Groundhog Day (1993) Directed by (and co-written by) Harold Ramis. A very popular romantic comedy starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, and Chris Elliott. Bill Murray plays a weatherman who finds himself living the same day over and over, initially confused, (Spoiler Alert) Murray soon tries killing himself in different ways every day in vain attempts to escape the cycle, until he finally accepts the opportunity to improve himself and grows to love someone else.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke.  Jay Weidner would have us believe not only that this is the most clearly *alchemical* movie of all time, but also that the set of this controversial movie was also used to fake the moon landings of NASA’s Apollo missions… (http://www.amazon.com/Kubricks-Odyssey-Secrets-Hidden-Films/dp/B004PF0FJM)  In Kubrick’s Space Odyssey, humanity in the year 2001 finds a mysterious black monolith buried beneath the lunar surface which beams a signal to Jupiter when astronauts dig it up.  With the intelligent computer H.A.L. 9000 in charge of a spaceship’s human crew, a ship sets off for Jupiter on a quest to find another alien obelisk.  Spoiler alert: the computer tries to kill off the entire human crew when it decides they are a threat to the very important top secret mission.

Fight Club (1999) Directed by David Fincher and based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk.  An insomniac office worker (played by Edward Norton), while looking for a way to change his life, crosses paths with a carefree and careless soap maker, (played by Brad Pitt) forming an underground fight club that evolves into something much, much more bizarre… Spoiler alert: The two main characters prove to alter egos of the same violent and deeply disturbed individual who suffers from far more than just insomnia.