Any good philosophical movies?

[Ben]

I need to watch a good movie. I love The Matrix, Waking Life, Donnie Darko, etc.

 

[Beat Mango]

I Heart Huckabees.

 

[BigApplePi]

Pi.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980724/REVIEWS/807240303/1023

 

[Vegard Pompey]

Existential films:
Synecdoche, New York
Kairo

On human nature and morality:
Dogville
A Clockwork Orange
There Will Be Blood

A few obvious ones, as it is a bit difficult to draw a distinction between what's a philosophical film and what isn't. You can probably find a philosophy in anything.

 

[flow]

I second the I Heart Huckabees recommendation. Also, Lost in Translation.

 

[durentu]

when nietzsche wept

 

[oldspice]

Yeah, Waking Life, Pi, and A Clockwork Orange are great.

My recommendation:

2001: A Space Odyssey

 

[Anthile]

Every film Tarkovsky has ever made, especially Solyaris and Stalker.

 

[420MuNkEy]

The Fountain (2006) - By the same director (Darren Aronofsky) as Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Wrestler

 

[Polaris]

Whitnail and I

Absolute classic.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

Oh, totally forgot about Stalker. That one's great too.

 

[Ben]

ah yeah, Pi, the fountain and clockwork orange are all awesome. never seen I heart huckabees though. I'll give it a try, as well as all the other movies that have been suggested. thank you!

 

[RedLoki]

Top Secret!

It's a philosophical comedy. It's source of comedy is doing everything in it's power to question reality in a very very funny way. Never assume any truths the movie might dangle in front of you. And many of the times it's the subtle truths you take for granted. A lot of role reversal too (i.e., in the background you see a statue of a pigeon. Then people flying down to pee on it)

 

[Saeros]

- Being John Malkovich
- the matrix
- i, robot

 

[emptiminded]

Ingmar Bergman movies are extremely satisfying (philosophy, psychology, religion, death, family relations and many more themes are there).
Personal favorites:

the Seventh Seal - 1957 (crusader is back from holy conquests to sweden to find that his country is severely afected by plague; he plays chess with death; his faith in god is diminishing as he sees so many injustice around)

Persona - 1966 (amazing avant-garde, extreme close-ups showing emotions, MUST see)

wild strawberries - 1957 (contemplation of existence)

through a glass darkly - 1961 (god is nothing more than crawling spider)

cries and whispers - 1972 (family life, empathy, selfishness, jealousy..)
----
amazing B/W movies

 

[zackp24]

I second Stalker.

Also, Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders) and if you like violence with your philosophy Izo (Takashi Miike).

 

[Anthile]

- i, robot

Excuse me while I'm having a seizure over here.

 

[exegesis]

I second Stalker.

Also, Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders) and if you like violence with your philosophy Izo (Takashi Miike).

Good choices.

 

[BigApplePi]

One can take many movies and try to hang a philosophical meaning to them but "My Dinner with Andre" comes to mind as a deliberately philosophically oriented film.

 

[own8ge]

Cloud Atlas is by far my number 1 philosophical movie.

Other philosophical movies:
Timecrimes
God Bless America

 

[exegesis]

Jaume Balagueró's The Nameless

 

[BigApplePi]

"Monty Python's The Meaning of Life." Begins with a satire on religion. Here is a review:

"Storyline

Why are we here, what's it all about? The Monty Python-team is trying to sort out the most important question on Earth: what is the meaning of life? They do so by exploring the various stages of life, starting with birth. A doctor seems more interested in his equipment than in delivering the baby or caring for the mother, a Roman Catholic couple have quite a lot of children because 'every sperm is sacred'. In the growing and learning part of life, catholic schoolboys attend a rather strange church service and ditto sex education lesson. Onto war, where an officer's plan to attack is thwarted by his underlings wanting to celebrate his birthday and an officer's leg is bitten off by presumably an African tiger. At middle age a couple orders 'philosophy' at a restaurant, after which the film continues with live organ transplants. The autumn years are played in a restaurant, which, after being treated to the song 'Isn't It Awfully Nice to Have a Penis?'"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085959/

I especially liked the restaurant skit where the waiter helped out with the menu. Instead of food, one selected dinner conversation from philosophical topics. Funny.

 

[DIALECTIC]

Moon (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twuScTcDP_Q

 

[Puffy]

Jodorowsky films if you're into more occult/ esoteric symbolism. Particularly, The Holy Mountain, and El Topo, though the images are entertaining in themselves:

Cmon, Surrealist Westerns, ftw.

I second Stalker, and Synecdoche, New York. Both great films.

 

[Reluctantly]

I really liked Cube. The way each character tried to make sense of everything and how they treated one another based on that was interesting. When the ending came, it became apparent to me that the Cube was an allegorical tool to bring about the individual philosophies of each person. The irony and what I loved most of all was how the cube worked against those philosophies; to be without a philosophy ... seemed to be the point ... to beat the Cube right from the beginning, without having to get out.

 

[Jennywocky]

Cloud Atlas is by far my number 1 philosophical movie.

it's a great movie, IMO, but people seem to either love it or hate it.

I think The Box (by the same director as Donnie Darko) is an interesting exploration of existentialism in a commercial market, but that's another movie that critics either loved or hated.

And then we have Primer, where most people will need to read one of the online guides afterwards in order to get an idea of what the hell happened... but boy is that a dizzying ride. Things are trackable until about 60% of the way through, then it gets a little crazy.

Others have mentioned Aronosfky, and I agree... even his lesser-quality movies are still typically better than most of the other stuff out there. The Fountain is flawed but still worth a few viewings, for example. and I need to watch Pi again, it's been years since I've seen it.

Moon was mentioned and I'll second that; Source Code is the director's second venture, and it's another movie worth watching IMO.

 

[Puffy]

Romero's Dawn of the Dead just for the funny tongue-in-cheek commentary on consumerism (and cannibalism...)

 

[Absurdity]

I couldn't stand The Fountain. It tried way too hard.

As far as suggestions, I really liked Watchmen a lot, especially how each character represented a different ethical perspective and navigated the grim dystopia sliding toward apocalypse in their own way.

 

[Jennywocky]

I really liked Cube. The way each character tried to make sense of everything and how they treated one another based on that was interesting. When the ending came, it became apparent to me that the Cube was an allegorical tool to bring about the individual philosophies of each person. The irony and what I loved most of all was how the cube worked against those philosophies; to be without a philosophy ... seemed to be the point ... to beat the Cube right from the beginning, without having to get out.

Oh you mean it terms of what the final solution ended up being, versus all the strategies people were using to figure out how the prison of cubes essentially worked? That was actually rather ironic.

aside from philosophy, it had one of the greater horror flick openings I've seen... poor guy.
There's a copy of the film here: http://www.maniavid.com/video-link-cube-1997-10

 

[Puffy]

I couldn't stand the Fountain. It tried way too hard.

As far as suggestions, I really liked Watchmen a lot, especially how each character represented a different ethical perspective and navigated the grim dystopia sliding toward apocalypse in their own way.

Interesting. I'm glad the film got to you, as the original graphic novel is one of my favourite books. I didn't like the film too much, but I think it was the usual thing of having the book to compare it to. The director translated the characters well, but not the structural complexity of the comic form.

I liked The Fountain the first time I saw it, and actually own the comic-book adaptation of it (Aronofsky was struggling for money and so was going to release it in that format originally for a while.) But it didn't hold up to multiple viewings for me. The film score is really good, I also get simultaneously a little irked by how obviously it's trying to manipulate you. Reminds me of church music in that sense. Aronofsky's an all round good director, though I don't feel he's surpassed Pi or Requiem For a Dream.

 

[Jennywocky]

Interesting. I'm glad the film got to you, as the original graphic novel is one of my favourite books. I didn't like the film too much, but I think it was the usual thing of having the book to compare it to. The director translated the characters well, but not the structural complexity of the comic form.

yeah, the book is one of my favorite graphic novels ever, and I hated the movie so much I couldn't get more than 20 minutes into it. That's one of Snyder's problems; it worked very well for him to do Sin City and literally cannibalize the graphic novel by Frank Miller, even visually, but he didn't know what to do with Watchmen. It really needed a different director.

I'm looking forward to his version of Superman because I know he can handle visuals but has trouble with story and screenwriting, and Nolan and Goyer handled the story elements... so hopefully it will be best of both worlds.

I liked The Fountain the first time I saw it, and actually own the comic-book adaptation of it (Aronofsky was struggling for money and so was going to release it in that format originally for a while.) But it didn't hold up to multiple viewings for me. The film score is really good, I also get simultaneously a little irked by how obviously it's trying to manipulate you. Reminds me of church music in that sense. Aronofsky's an all round good director, though I don't feel he's surpassed Pi or Requiem For a Dream.

I like the score, especially the closing credits -- definitely sets a mood. I've only watched the movie once, online, and got it on Bluray to watch some more. I think my only issue is with the ending, where I wasn't really clear what happened in regards to the tree and the nebula, etc., but eventually figured it all out. I appreciate that Aronofsky was willing to take a risk -- the movie definitely is not conventional (although his stuff typically is not anyway). Still, the Fountain wasn't ever going to be a commercial success, it seemed more to just be something he was doing for himself.

I haven't watched Requiem for some years but picked it up for $10 at Best Buy a few weeks ago. I've seen The Wrestler more recently, and Black Swan is one of my favorite movies ever; so I want to watch Requiem again and compare.

 

[exegesis]

David Cronenberg's Videodrome or Crash based on a J.G Ballard novel.

 

[Puffy]

^ Hehe, yeah, I think we've spoken about Watchmen before.

I remember the soundtrack to the Dr. Manhattan chapter standing out to me, but then it was the Phillip Glass piece originally used in Koyanisqaatsi, so not so original. It was more that the music there is about a kind of materialist apocalypse, and I thought it worked okay with Manhattan as a character.

I think Terry Gilliam originally wanted to do the film and was dissuaded by Alan Moore, which is a shame. A film was bound to happen so it may as well have gone to someone who is used to thinking outside the box. I've always felt like Watchmen's a novel you have to spend time with because of the detail, and it's hard to convey that in film.

Have you seen Roman Polanski's Repulsion, Jenny? I think it was a strong influence on Black Swan. It's different, older and more suppressed in tone, but it's a pretty decent film.

 

[Brontosaurie]

2:nd Bergman and jodorowsky. also Slacker and Before Sunrise by Richard linklater

for cringe: mindwalker

 

[exegesis]

Enter the Void.

 

[Jennywocky]

I remember the soundtrack to the Dr. Manhattan chapter standing out to me, but then it was the Phillip Glass piece originally used in Koyanisqaatsi, so not so original. It was more that the music there is about a kind of materialist apocalypse, and I thought it worked okay with Manhattan as a character.

Interesting. I fell asleep before that point, unfortunately... lol.... literally. I mean, I just zonked off and never kept watching.

I think Terry Gilliam originally wanted to do the film and was dissuaded by Alan Moore, which is a shame. A film was bound to happen so it may as well have gone to someone who is used to thinking outside the box. I've always felt like Watchmen's a novel you have to spend time with because of the detail, and it's hard to convey that in film.

It definitely to me seems to be a hard story to translate because the art and panels and words are all interlocked themselves -- the story maximizes use of its original medium. So any shift to movie form would involve some kind of transformation to take advantage of that medium. (Which is why he did better with a linear story like Sin City.)

Cloud Atlas is a good example of very structured storytelling in its original medium that had to change to take advantage of the new medium (film). The original book is in a kind of chiastic structure -- six stories that run in the pattern ABCDEFEDCBA. (Only the sixth narrative, F, is told in its entirety, while the overall narrative funnels from A to F and then back out to A.)

This wouldn't work in a movie because you'd forget the characters, and film has a great advantage in being able to show links through imagery, music, AND word simultaneously. So the movie actually is more of an ever-tightening spiral, where there is an initial period of stabilizing each story, showing its connection to the prior one, and then it basically spins through them all again and again, using the imagery much as Gibbons did in Watchment actually, to create ties between them. (For example, we go from the 1849 narrative where the ex-slave runs across a mast boom directly to a snippet of the futuristic Somni-451 story where they are running across a makeshift bridge between two tall buildings.)

Sorry, geek moment .... but it's really interesting to watch a story being told as well as possible in two different mediums, and seeing what can be maintained and what must be changed for better effect. Translations can be difficult, especially when the source material was so dependent upon its own structure.

Getting back to Snyder for a moment, I wonder what people think about Sucker Punch. There's definitely a philosophical structure there, but it's so layered upon layered that critics are thorougly confused on what he's trying to say. Snyder took some pretty hard hits over inherent sexism in his work, but such a reading might not go deeply enough to see through various levels of disguise that Snyder either planned or else bungled in such a way that he found something meaningful.

Have you seen Roman Polanski's Repulsion, Jenny? I think it was a strong influence on Black Swan. It's different, older and more suppressed in tone, but it's a pretty decent film.

No, I haven't, but I will take note of it. I haven't seen much Polanksi, except for maybe Rosemary's Baby (and I know about his personal life dramas from Sharon Tate to the extradition issues), but I'll have to check this out. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Puffy]

It definitely to me seems to be a hard story to translate because the art and panels and words are all interlocked themselves -- the story maximizes use of its original medium. So any shift to movie form would involve some kind of transformation to take advantage of that medium. (Which is why he did better with a linear story like Sin City.)

Cloud Atlas is a good example of very structured storytelling in its original medium that had to change to take advantage of the new medium (film). The original book is in a kind of chiastic structure -- six stories that run in the pattern ABCDEFEDCBA. (Only the sixth narrative, F, is told in its entirety, while the overall narrative funnels from A to F and then back out to A.)

This wouldn't work in a movie because you'd forget the characters, and film has a great advantage in being able to show links through imagery, music, AND word simultaneously. So the movie actually is more of an ever-tightening spiral, where there is an initial period of stabilizing each story, showing its connection to the prior one, and then it basically spins through them all again and again, using the imagery much as Gibbons did in Watchment actually, to create ties between them. (For example, we go from the 1849 narrative where the ex-slave runs across a mast boom directly to a snippet of the futuristic Somni-451 story where they are running across a makeshift bridge between two tall buildings.)

Sorry, geek moment .... but it's really interesting to watch a story being told as well as possible in two different mediums, and seeing what can be maintained and what must be changed for better effect. Translations can be difficult, especially when the source material was so dependent upon its own structure.

Getting back to Snyder for a moment, I wonder what people think about Sucker Punch. There's definitely a philosophical structure there, but it's so layered upon layered that critics are thorougly confused on what he's trying to say. Snyder took some pretty hard hits over inherent sexism in his work, but such a reading might not go deeply enough to see through various levels of disguise that Snyder either planned or else bungled in such a way that he found something meaningful.

Hehe, I find Snyder has been shadowed a little bit by 300 (he's making a 300 2 (how will they title that!?) at the moment I think). I remember when I was studying history in college, our lecturer decided to take us to see it. He gave us this elaborate lecture on the history of the battle beforehand, then of course: giant trolls, Persian ninjas, etc. I think I heard him say "for fuck sake" under his breath.

At a different performance a friend went to, someone stood up in the middle of the film and said "this film is shit." Of course, the youth sitting behind her stood up and said "no, this is sparta!" and booted her in the back. They got kicked out. He makes entertaining films, just not sure he's the guy I would have picked for something like Watchmen. ^_^


I've seen Cloud Atlas. That's interesting to know the original structure, as I didn't know it was based on a novel, and it confused me a little in honesty. The opening 20 minutes where it's introducing the story archs was quite disorientating, but I got into the flow of it after a point. There were certain transitions, like where it's changing between the guy on the mast and the people on the bridge, that felt a bit rough. It didn't feel like the content was meaningfully related, more superficially, unlike something like Watchmen, where each transition creates quite interesting juxtapositions.


I think the film suffered from having too many directors. I eventually could work out what bits Twyker had worked on, and what the Wachowski's had. They have quite different styles, and I'm not sure it really fit. I found myself notably liking certain archs (mostly those Twyker worked on) and getting tired with others. (I really liked the old couple's arch, where they're escaping the home: I thought they had a lot of life and character. Weaving did a great job as the nurse to. )


For the purposes of this fine philosophy thread I'd be interested in hearing people's takes on its philosophy, I guess.

 

[Jennywocky]

　

Hehe, I find Snyder has been shadowed a little bit by 300 (he's making a 300 2 (how will they title that!?) at the moment I think). I remember when I was studying history in college, our lecturer decided to take us to see it. He gave us this elaborate lecture on the history of the battle beforehand, then of course: giant trolls, Persian ninjas, etc. I think I heard him say "for fuck sake" under his breath.

ROFL!!!! Okay, that would be hilarious!

I haven't seen it. I have the Frank Miller book but was a bit bored by it -- sometimes he seems to recycle his own work. His earlier stuff in Daredevil, TDKR, Sin City, and the Wolverine limited from years back are my favorite work by him.

At a different performance a friend went to, someone stood up in the middle of the film and said "this film is shit." Of course, the youth sitting behind her stood up and said "no, this is sparta!" and booted her in the back. They got kicked out. He makes entertaining films, just not sure he's the guy I would have picked for something like Watchmen. ^_^

I'm not even sure how he ended up doing it. It was bounced, as is typical, from director to director and somehow with him it stuck. The studio obviously had no <blanking> idea what the book was about.

I've seen Cloud Atlas. That's interesting to know the original structure, as I didn't know it was based on a novel, and it confused me a little in honesty. The opening 20 minutes where it's introducing the story archs was quite disorientating, but I got into the flow of it after a point. There were certain transitions, like where it's changing between the guy on the mast and the people on the bridge, that felt a bit rough. It didn't feel like the content was meaningfully related, more superficially, unlike something like Watchmen, where each transition creates quite interesting juxtapositions.

　
I just rewatched it this weekend, and will watch it again when the Bluray comes out next week. It's a lot more intelligible on the second pass, honestly. There is just too much going on to catch it all the first time.
　
Essentially there are "souls" in the movie, and you can track them by the actors who play them, regardless of time period. Karma is working, and regardless of what gender, race, or age the character is, the character's choices impact later outcome. This is why the same 6-7 actors perform in various roles of gender, race, and age througout the movie... and why complaints about not hiring Asians for the Asian segment is kind of silly -- the whole premise of the movie demands that all the actors play whites, blacks, and Asians, and the two female Asians in the cast themselves play Latino, white, and male characters.
　
Hanks' soul is one of the more struggling souls in the story -- sometimes he does good, sometimes he does bad, and finally in the sixth narrative (where he plays Zachry, beset by Kona cannibals) he makes a definitive choice to sacrifice and take a risk, rather than choosing what is convenient or safe... a huge choice for him considering he is tormented in that narrative by an act of horrible cowardice that ends replaying in a redemptive way for him later. [Note the gem around his neck that is choking him when the cannibal tries to kill him, in the necklace that then breaks off -- and it resembles the buttons he was stealing from the lawyer back in the first narrative. Greed and self-interest is one of the flaws of his soul, but he overcomes it here and it stops choking him. There are little details like that throughout the movie, to tie things together.]
　
Two souls that do well are the lawyer and his wife Tilda (both white) from the first narrative. They come to be abolitionists in that story, as Autua the black ex-slave saves the lawyer's life; and this plays out when the two lovers meet again in the Somni-451 storyline, both Asian now, and are willing to lay down their lives in the need to proclaim truth and liberate the culture from its enslavement of replicants. The culture eventually dies, but Somni's words resonate through the ages, leaving her worshiped as a goddess in Zachry's narrative.
　
An example of a soul gone bad is Hugo Weaving's. He starts out as a nasty slave-owner, a representative of the system, in the first narrative, does lots of crappy stuff in the other narratives regardless of gender or race, and finally plays the bicameral voice of the anti-God in Zachry's mind in the last narrative.
　

I think the film suffered from having too many directors. I eventually could work out what bits Twyker had worked on, and what the Wachowski's had. They have quite different styles, and I'm not sure it really fit. I found myself notably liking certain archs (mostly those Twyker worked on) and getting tired with others. (I really liked the old couple's arch, where they're escaping the home: I thought they had a lot of life and character. Weaving did a great job as the nurse to. )

　
It didn't really bother me. I think the only real leap is when the Wachowski's went all Matrix-y on the Somni piece, it has a lot of action and I don't think the book focused on that. However, if you read the book, all six narratives have the same settings as the movie's, and all have the same varying tonal shifts. The 1973 piece really is like a noir detective film, the Somni piece is scifi, the old people's story is tongue-in-cheek, the last piece I think uses stylized language like Burgess in Clockwork Orange, etc. It's all right out of the book. So the directors actually modeled all that after the book itself.
　
The Cavandish escape is just a pretty hilarious segment altogether, starting with Hanks' response to one of his most outspoken critics (that was pretty awesome!) to the final fight scene in the pub.
　

For the purposes of this fine philosophy thread I'd be interested in hearing people's takes on its philosophy, I guess.

Well, thematically, it's about karma and the (d)evolution of particular souls. It is also about the infinite nature of love and how when two souls together, they will find each other regardless of their station or situation. It is about the oppressive order of the system, which seeks to repress and control in favor of a few, vs the truth which is about being oneself, treating EVERYONE as human regardless of race, gender, or age (ask Lana Wachowski about that, I think her transgender experiences are reflected throughout that theme). And finally, it's about us all being drops in a big ocean, thus infinitessimally tiny and yet without drops, the ocean would not exist -- about being part of the celestial orchestral with our narratives weaving in and out of each other's, unable to exist without the others, creating something magnificent.

It felt like The Fountain to me in some respects, at least with the sense of enduring love and the entwining of life.

My favorite segments are the 1936 segment with the young gay composer (Ben Whishaw, what a beautiful guy) and the Somni section, since they resonate the most with me.

 

[wonkavision]

One can take many movies and try to hang a philosophical meaning to them but "My Dinner with Andre" comes to mind as a deliberately philosophically oriented film.

Jodorowsky films if you're into more occult/ esoteric symbolism. Particularly, The Holy Mountain, and El Topo, though the images are entertaining in themselves:

Cmon, Surrealist Westerns, ftw.

I second Stalker, and Synecdoche, New York. Both great films.

the Seventh Seal - 1957 (crusader is back from holy conquests to sweden to find that his country is severely afected by plague; he plays chess with death; his faith in god is diminishing as he sees so many injustice around)

David Cronenberg's Videodrome or Crash based on a J.G Ballard novel.

2:nd Bergman and jodorowsky. also Slacker and Before Sunrise by Richard linklater

Yes, all of these.

(Interesting....Puffy and I have very similar tastes. I've noticed from several threads. Probably Brontosaurie as well.)

My favorite Cronenberg film is now Cosmopolis. Used to be Videodrome.

And my favorite Linklater film is Waking Life.

Oh, and my favorite Bergman film, after The Seventh Seal, is The Magician.

These all have markedly philosophical themes.

Oh, and I would add to the list:

The Trial (based on Kafka, 1962, Orson Welles/Anthony Perkins version)

The Trial (1993, Kyle MacLachlan/Anthony Hopkins version)

Kafka (1991, Jeremy Irons/Director: Steven Soderbergh)

Solaris (1972, Tarkovsky)

Solaris (2002, George Clooney/Soderbergh)

My all time favorite "philosophical film": A Clockwork Orange, ftw.

 

[wonkavision]

Oh, I'd add Barton Fink to the list as well.

Also, a very underrated film I would consider philosophical is Masked and Anonymous.
Starring Bob Dylan (yes...Bob Dylan), Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Luke Wilson....plus, an interesting cameo from Val Kilmer.

Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319829/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

 

[Jennywocky]

Solaris (1972, Tarkovsky)

Solaris (2002, George Clooney/Soderbergh)

My all time favorite "philosophical film": A Clockwork Orange, ftw.

I need to watch the earlier version of Solaris; I really enjoyed the latter one, which had some great actors involved.

Saw Clockwork Orange back in college for my film class. I need to see it again, I just remember the wonderful disparity between action and music.

 

[wonkavision]

I need to watch the earlier version of Solaris; I really enjoyed the latter one, which had some great actors involved.

The Tarkovsky version is REALLY long --damn near 3 hours! And it's very dreamy/vague/abstract, much more so than the Soderbergh version--so be warned!

 

[BigApplePi]

"The Princess Bride" has a famous scene with a satire on logic. Loved it. There are more philosophical issues in this film, but I'd have to see it again to note them.

 

[Hawkeye]

Top Gun - a man's struggle with his own homosexuality

 

[Jennywocky]

Top Gun - a man's struggle with his own homosexuality

My mind... unraveling....

 

[BigApplePi]

"I was an MBTI for the FBI." B-rated movie about an INTP who tries to apply the MBTI for domestic purposes. We are waiting for the sequel, "I was an MBTI for the CIA."

 

[Hawkeye]

The Never Ending Story
Full Metal Jacket
Blade Runner
Gattaca
A.I.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The Truman Show
Ghost in the Shell

 

[C.Hecker88]

This may not be the right place, but 2001: A Space Odyssey? That was a deeply, err... deep film.

 

[Tempus]

Not so much philosophical, but have been watching Adrien Brody. Such as The Experiment and Detachment

 

[travelnjones]

I couldn't stand The Fountain. It tried way too hard.

As far as suggestions, I really liked Watchmen a lot, especially how each character represented a different ethical perspective and navigated the grim dystopia sliding toward apocalypse in their own way.

There was a scene in it that pissed me off. They had Mogwai playing with some weird moving through the cosmos of death and rebirth thing gowning. I seem to be a rip off of better work. It specifically seem to be the hyperspace bit of 2001 sync'd up to Pink Floyds Echoes. Which people have been doing on youtube for years. seemed cheap.

Stalker slow but awesome.

You may check out some of Hal Hartleys work. its more interpersonal but has weird bits of philosophy. No Such Thing would probably be the right one to start with.