Deep meaningful intellectual movie, makes you think on another level??

ahwelltryagain

This is probably very broad but can anyone suggest films that have an intellectual theme, something to really make you think about life etc. Something to broaden the mind or encourage you to see life from different perspectives. They are usually layered, with hidden meanings e.g eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, man on the moon, pursuit of happiness, a beautiful mind.. I want something for the oul noggin< think i've turned it to mulch with slap stick comedies lately

OldeCinemaSoz

one flew over the cookoo's nest

krudler

The Tree Of Life, you'll either love it or hate it though.

The Fountain, well worth a watch, the music is incredible too.

guitarzero

Its pretty pop culture but definitely one of the best films I've ever seen - Vanilla Sky. When I watched this I was totally floored. Simply fantastic, very emotional and quite a mind altering film in a few ways. It kinda crosses romance and surrealism in a pretty accessible way, this is your homework for the weekend.:)

johnny_ultimate

The entire Ingmar Bergman filmography should keep you busy for several months.

Prepare to emerge feeling rather despondent, seeing Spider Gods everywhere and wanting to move to the Faro Islands.

Goldstein

Tarkovskiy's Solyaris. Soderbergh's adaptation was admirable too but the 1972 film is an immense piece of art.

Whenever I watch any Michael Haneke film I always get the feeling that he's looking back at you. Every single aspect of each shot is so calculated and considered, he really is a master. Caché is my favourite of his.

Technocentral

Dude Where's My Car 2.

Sad Professor

Another vote for Bergman. He pretty much single-handly introduced metaphysics to cinema. God, death, love, identity - he dealt with it all, and without ever seeming pretentious. This combined with his remarkable understanding of human emotions and relationships made him a truly unique yet totally accessible cinematic voice. Nobody ever imitates Bergman because they don't want to fail and look stupid. There's plenty of films about existential angst, but nobody does all-out existential crisis like Bergman did. This might make him sound depressing, but his films are actually incredibly cathartic and life-affirming. I remember seeing The Seventh Seal and Winter Light when I was about 19 or 20 and they had a profound effect on me, both emotionally and philosophically.

ToadVine

Melancholia

Dermighty

krudler wrote: »

The Tree Of Life, you'll either love it or hate it though.

Very genuinely the worst heap of **** I've ever had the misfortune to lay my eyes on.

Until I saw Tree Of Life the worst movie I'd ever (ever!) seen was Be Cool.

I hated Tree of Life so much that every time it's mentioned I get angry that I supported it by paying for a cinema ticket instead of illegally downloading it.

Sindri

Sad Professor wrote: »

Another vote for Bergman. He pretty much single-handly introduced metaphysics to cinema. God, death, love, identity - he dealt with it all, and without ever seeming pretentious. This combined with his remarkable understanding of human emotions and relationships made him a truly unique yet totally accessible cinematic voice. Nobody ever imitates Bergman because they don't want to fail and look stupid. There's plenty of films about existential angst, but nobody does all-out existential crisis like Bergman did. This might make him sound depressing, but his films are actually incredibly cathartic and life-affirming. I remember seeing The Seventh Seal and Winter Light when I was about 19 or 20 and they had a profound effect on me, both emotionally and philosophically.

This ^. I couldn't have put it better myself, exactly what I was going to write.

Ingmar Bergman's films are great art.

Very little of the latter half of the 20th century qualifies as great art. All that comes to my mind now is (free form) jazz, Beckett and Ingmar Bergman.

He was simply an artist, a poet and a philosopher. He is the only director to have contributed on par with the great literary and artistic figures to the collective discipline of art. The greatest and most profound questions are explored in his films.

His films take Mortality, Love, the Human Psyche, the Female Psyche, Human Relationships, Meaning/Purpose and Existence and all the Professor referred to and he presents these concepts, difficult as it is, through the medium of cinema. He explores them so intimately you cannot help feel something profound. The slow zoom into a characters face, silence, stillness, colour saturation or a bleak sterile monochromatic representation of life that feels simultaneously numb and invigorating. Each shot is like a painting. The consistent intensity his films have have not been reproduced by any other director dealing with such concepts consistently.

You will also notice how his female characters are usually his most complete and most rounded which is very rare and something that would have been only possible in Sweden at the time. It is a luxury we are well afforded as he is the only director that comes to mind that dealt recurringly with the female psyche and female characters which is refreshing.

As an existentialist he is on par with Sartre and Dostoevsky.

He was one of the few directors to master the camera, though of course he was helped by his cinematographer Sven Nykvist.

If you're looking for some of his more profound work I'd try:

1. The Seventh Seal
   
2. Wild Strawberries
   
3. Persona
   
4. Cries and Whispers
   
5. Winter Light
   
6. Scenes From A Marriage

Here is his filmography.

johnny_ultimate

Id also recommend watching Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence and Persona in that order. The former three are a loosely thematic trilogy, but IMO Persona is the fourth part and what really brings them together. He made great films before and after, but that four punch combo is the one id use to justify him as my favourite director. Electrifying cinema.

Speaking of trilogies, the Three Colours trilogy hits grand themes of French identity while still being intensely psychologically engaging.

Sindri

From the Life of the Marionettes is very good as well.

It's one of his underrated works in my opinion.

kellso81

dogtooth

Certainly get you thinking!

Skinfull

Primer

Love this movie, multiple viewings required. Test of friends and time and life.

Tomk1

Infinity
www.imdb.com/title/tt0116635/
The early life of Richard Feynman, played by Mattew Broderick, only saw it once and just wow.

Roar

Last Action Hero. At one point there's a movie within a movie within a movie. Far out.

CricketDude

The man from Earth

Bodhidharma

krudler wrote: »

The Tree Of Life, you'll either love it or hate it though.

The Fountain, well worth a watch, the music is incredible too.

We park our car in the same garage, these are the first two that came to mind. Though I would add The Thin Red Line, I Heart Huckabees and 2001: A Space Odyssey to that list.

nyarlothothep

Roar wrote: »

Last Action Hero. At one point there's a movie within a movie within a movie. Far out.

It really makes you question the reality you live in. It was The Matrix before the Matrix. Same for Total Recall. I'll add Conan the Barbarian (1982) to the list. Its a very deep film beneath the fantasy action with sword weilding musle man exterior. And it has the biggest fck off epic score of any film ever made.

Otis Driftwood

Pi FTW.Awesome,mind bending stuff.

bnt

Two films that made me think about life, death, questions of motivation (why do we ever do anything?), and more, but go about it in very different ways:
- The Accidental Tourist starts with the death of a child, and shows the lives of those affected by the tragedy afterwards, and how they manage to put things back together, eventually.
- The Ice Storm, on the other hand, is about life before the death of a child; the various little failures, moral and practical, that set a tragic chain of events in motion.

It only just occurred to me that both films involve the death of a child, but aren't really about that. Instead, I think it's about how such a tragedy makes the characters rethink their lives - and that rubbed off on me, a little.

Sinfonia

ahwelltryagain wrote: »

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

On top of others mentioned, try some more Charlie Kaufman!

Being John Malkovich
Adaptation.
Synecdoche, New York

I'd recommend watching them in that order too: BJM to get you used to his mind, Adaptation.to get you used to his meta-ness (is that a word?); by then the ultra-mega-meta SNY should be less confusing :P

(I haven't yet watched Human Nature or Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, so can't comment on them, maybe someone else can...)

henryporter

Plenty of movies out there to stimulate the mind:
Short cuts by Robert Altman,
Paris Texas by Wim Wenders,
Fitzcarraldo by Werner Herzog
Melancholia by Lars von Trier
Moon by Duncan Jones
Russian Ark by Alexandr Sukotov
My Architect by Nathaniel Kahn

goose2005

For a real mind-bender, see "Meshes of the Afternoon" - it's only 15 mins. and well worth it.

DrumSteve

Dead mans shoes by shane meadows... I cant explain why it did. It just did.

Same with the fountain. brilliant film.

sxt

Michael Haneke as already mentioned .I read this blog about the film "Cache" recently , where I never saw so many hundreds of different interpretations to the films many questions! Trying to find this blog now!

David Lynch is a Master of this art as well ! ..

James T Kirk

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Conversations_About_One_Thing

Similar to films such as Magnolia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia_(film)

Deep, but not 'Bergman' deep.

Alan Arkin (as always) is fantastic in it.

ahwelltryagain

Sweeeet! Thanks for all those great suggestions! That's exactly the mindset I was going for! I kid you not, I will endevour to make my way through at least half of these in the coming months *takes notes* mucho's appreciatos!

WoollyRedHat

bnt wrote: »

Two films that made me think about life, death, questions of motivation (why do we ever do anything?), and more, but go about it in very different ways:
- The Accidental Tourist starts with the death of a child, and shows the lives of those affected by the tragedy afterwards, and how they manage to put things back together, eventually.
- The Ice Storm, on the other hand, is about life before the death of a child; the various little failures, moral and practical, that set a tragic chain of events in motion.

It only just occurred to me that both films involve the death of a child, but aren't really about that. Instead, I think it's about how such a tragedy makes the characters rethink their lives - and that rubbed off on me, a little.

The Ice Storm is a beautiful, magnificent film, that very little bad can be said about it.


I'll throw in Lost in Translation to boot, made me really think , and was more than just entertainment but a social commentary in a simple but beautiful level.

tunguska

Bladerunner
The tree of life
The thin red line
V for vendetta
No country for old men
Days of heaven
The conversation
Michael clayton
Lost in translation
Mc cabe and ms miller

Technocentral

Solaris (1972) and Crimes And Misdemeanors, on the surface a fine comedy but a very powerful ethical issue running along side it.

Arabella

It's not to everybody's tastes, but Tim Blake Nelsons's Leaves of Grass is another worth checking out. It is very funny in places and also very dark. It may not be as philosophically stimulating as some of the other films previously mentioned, but it is a good example of philosophy working through the medium of film.

ykt0di9url7bc3

Dark City

Riddle101

The Butterfly Affect. It's very well put together, and discusses the whole "What If?" scenario, that people tend to think about. But Butterfly Effect I think is great for making you think.

Proberly the only movie that I liked by Ashton Kutcher.

mikhail

Riddle101 wrote: »

The Butterfly Affect. It's very well put together, and discusses the whole "What If?" scenario, that people tend to think about. But Butterfly Effect I think is great for making you think.

Proberly the only movie that I liked by Ashton Kutcher.

I've highlighted the correct one. You seemed confused.

waltersobchak

Not sure if its already been mentioned but i think this deserves a mention
a film i could only watch once but still has me thinking 10 years later..

ImpossibleDuck

Wouldn't say deep, but American Beauty always makes me think about life...or, more importantly, how we go about living life.

ImpossibleDuck

One that's on T.V. at this very second: Into the Wild

losthorizon

Man with a Movie Camera dates from 1929 and is a silent Film. Don't let this but you off is it is a documentary on the running of a city from morning to night. Its a Soviet Film so you get to see some Great late 1920s Soviet era stuff as well. Stalin took a dislike to the director Vertov years later and he had to give up film making I think.

Brain Stroking

Sinfonia wrote: »

On top of others mentioned, try some more Charlie Kaufman!

Being John Malkovich
Adaptation.
Synecdoche, New York

I'd recommend watching them in that order too: BJM to get you used to his mind, Adaptation.to get you used to his meta-ness (is that a word?); by then the ultra-mega-meta SNY should be less confusing :P

(I haven't yet watched Human Nature or Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, so can't comment on them, maybe someone else can...)

Watched Human Nature recently. Very good film. More a quirky comedy though. Teaching mice table manners, i'll say no more

If you want films to make you think presented in a contemporary setting then Kauffman is your man. Love all his work.

Was scrolling down to see if anyone mentioned Synecdoche New York. Have seen it 5 times. The 5th viewing better than the ones before. Far more depressing than his other work though. We are all finite etc. But brilliant all the same

Technocentral

waltersobchak wrote: »

Not sure if its already been mentioned but i think this deserves a mention
a film i could only watch once but still has me thinking 10 years later..

Requiem For A Dream: Watched it recently on Netflix, hasn't aged too well imo, that frenetic editing and the noise that accompanies it gets on your tits, also not as daring and edgy as people seem to think it is, having said that Jennifer Connolly in it is probably the most beautiful woman to ever grace the silver screen worth watching again just for her (in the earlier scenes btw, not that unpleasantness later on)!

JP Liz V1

Inception

I'd recommend The Squid and the Whale and Pay It Forward

smashedhat

A couple of people have mentioned "Synecdoche, New York". Now it's a bit of a mess- it's very ambitious and pretentious. However, near the end there is a fantastic speech by the funeral priest. It stopped me with it's power and I've watched the speech so many times now. And the voice-over speech during last few minutes is equally fantastic- depressing, but brilliant. So yeah, definitely a film worth checking out. Being John Malkovich is much more accessible and enjoyable, some fantastic scenes.

OldeCinemaSoz

I fondly remember back in the day the younger lad
being a big man while i was at work decided to head down
to the local video shop for a double bill for the late friday night
(probably with MY money)...

and later presented his choice of films.



Now the first was ZABRISKE POINT which he proudly
proclaimed was something of an important film and while there
watching with the usual suspects and getting increasingly pissed
off with it was eventually ejected.

Being a bit of a joker and us being half cut only getting the
videos in after the old dear has gone up after THE LATE LATE,
the little bollox produces SS EXPERIMENT CAMP.

Which kept us up for hours with mirth and merryment!

grohlisagod

Okuribito (Departures)

Excellent touching film about the Japanese practice of embalming. Really got me thinking about life.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1069238/

Another would be The Sunset Limited. TV movie adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy play starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson. A discussion between two very different people about life and its worth.

e_e

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB4xlYKAVCQ&feature=watch-now-button&wide=1

A wonderful, strange and hypnotic movie that sums up the early 90s so well and contains so much food for thought. Amazing too that it only cost 20,000 dollars and is more interesting and creative than most movies 100+ times that budget.

Dermighty

Barney's version

Very thought provoking, one of my favourite films.

OldeCinemaSoz

I heard some TOTALLY rubbish 'zine rated Jack Nicholson's performance
in OFOTCN was the best of ALL TIME today... :rolleyes:

Personally speaking, CHINATOWN was his finest moment.

:cool:

charlie_says

The 1972 Solyaris.

One of those films that you just stare at the credits when it ends deep in thought. One of the best films I've ever seen.

Good thread!

Technocentral

charlie_says wrote: »

The 1972 Solyaris.

One of those films that you just stare at the credits when it ends deep in thought. One of the best films I've ever seen.

Good thread!

Astonishing film, helps if you see it on the big screen, for the first half an hour I thought it was boring then it hits you on a metaphysical level, had me thinking about it for the next month or so, amazing piece of work.