Movies are always a great way to pass some time. And while the purpose of some movies is to kill some time, others make you think. Some movies make you laugh, some movies scare you, and then there are movies that make you think.
These movies try to make you ask yourself deep and meaningful questions. After the credits finish rolling, you are left with questions about life and purpose.
These movies often provoke conversation about morals, values, love, life, or overall life choices. Let’s take a look at some of the best movies that make you think.
Reader's Roadmap
Primer
There is a question among movie critics and movie fans, does anyone really understand the movie? It is one of the most complex and confusing movies are ever released. It serves as the quintessential example of a movie that makes you think.
The movie was directed with a small budget of only $7,000. But the man directing it holds a college degree in mathematics and worked as an engineer.
The movie speaks in realistic terms about lofty scientific concepts.
Upstream Color
The movie has a rather simple premise, a man and a woman are drawn together and entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. But as the movie progresses, identity becomes an illusion and the main protagonists struggle to assemble the loose fragments of their life.
The movie provides a sensual experience of poetic ideas but also provokes questions about existential doubt.
The Prestige
The movie starts with a tragic incident. After that, two-stage magicians in 1890s London engaged in a battle to create an ultimate illusion. In the process, they sacrifice everything they have to outwit each other.
Children of Men
This 2006 British American dystopian movie stars Clive Owen, Michael Caine, and Julianne Moore in the lead roles. It is a cerebral movie offering a perspective on the state of humanity near extinction.
It is a dark movie that makes you think about the power of faith and hope.
Memento
Most fans remember Christopher Nolan as the man who directed the Dark Knight. But Memento is another masterpiece film of the famous American director. With this movie, he tried to tell a detective story starting from the middle and working its way to the beginning.
In the end, fans get to experience this neo-noir thriller. Nolan and his choice to present the movie in non-linear fashion provide plenty of iconic scenes and a new ambitious concept of filmmaking.
This movie is a perfect example of Nolan’s work. He doesn’t merely present you with the movie. He forces the audience to engage with the film.
Timer
This movie has a great premise. When implanted in a person’s wrist, a timer counts down to the day when the person wearing it finds true love. But then the main protagonist faces a rare dilemma. Faced with a blank timer, she breaks the rules of the game and falls in love with a person who is not yet her soulmate.
The audience is left with a question what would you do if you have a clock counting down to the moment you meet your love?
Inception
Can you implant an idea in a person? Can you make someone believe that the thing he wants to do is something you implanted in his head?
This is another masterpiece by Christopher Nolan. In the movie, a thief steals corporate secrets through the use of dream-sharing technology. He then needs to plant an idea into the mind of a CEO. But his tragic past dooms the project.
Okja
The Netflix original movie follows Mija, a South Korean girl who has raised a special breed of super pig for the past 10 years.
This Netflix movie is all about the evils of mass farming and the meat industry. Basically, it is a documentary made as a Netflix film.
The Truman Show
Reality television has always been on top of entertainment. That is the subject of the 1998 movie, The Truman Show. Starring Jim Carrey as an insurance salesman, he has no idea that his life has been watched by millions around the globe by hidden cameras.
The movie still has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It won three Golden Globe awards and received many more nominations.
Being John Malkovich
This is definitely a weird movie. Produced by a major studio and released into theaters, the movie stars John Cusack in the lead character role. The plot of the movie leads to mistaken identities, many morally questionable sex acts, and more.
Essentially, the movie explores the nature of celebrity, identity, and personality.
Frequencies
What if physics determined the laws of attraction? This is one of the best scientific movies that make you think. The plot is about a parallel world where human frequencies determine luck, love, and destiny.
In that world, Zak, who is a young college student, must overcome science in order to love Marie, a woman that emits a different frequency from his own.
The movie makes the audience think whether things in life are determined by fate, free will, or a combination?
Open Your Eyes
The plot starts with a handsome playboy who finds himself in a mental facility. He cannot remember how and why he got there. All that he can remember is meeting the love of his life. But he got into a car accident that left him with scars on his face.
The movie is all about trying to find out where does reality ends and fantasy begins?
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Here is another movie with Jim Carrey in the leading role. He is joined by Tom Wilkinson, Gerry Robert Byrne, and Kate Winslet. It follows a couple as they navigate through a painful breakup. It asks a question we all have. And that is how to get over someone when painful memories still exist?
Lucy
The 2014 Hollywood movie stars Scarlett Johansson in the role of Lucy. She is a woman trying to unlock the parts of the brain that hold humanity back. We have heard that humans use only 10% of their brains.
This urban legend is the subject of this movie. Lucy begins to develop both physical and mental capabilities far over that 10%.
Scarlett Johansson was known as a comedy actor in the early 1990s and 2000s. But in the past few years, she has had some good movies.
Wild
The movie is a biographical adventure based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.
It follows Cheryl Strayed. After the loss of her mother due to cancer, she falls into a depressive state and begins to use drugs. She also takes part in anonymous sex trying to numb her pain.
12 Monkeys
This movie stars Bruce Willis in a leading character role and Brad Pitt in a supporting role. The latter got an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Jeffrey Goines. But he didn’t win the Oscar.
The movie deals with time travel. And we know that time travel has always been an interesting subject. Bruce Willis has to travel to the 2030s to gather information about a devastating plague released in the 1990s. When he gets back, he crosses paths with a manic mental patient, the one played by Brad Pitt.
This is one movie that not only fascinates you with time travel but also pushes you to question its merits.
Shutter Island
When one of the first things Google suggests is Shutter Island explained, you know you have a movie that makes you think. Directed by Martin Scorsese, the iconic movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, and Mark Ruffalo.
This movie helped DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley earn an Academy Award nomination. But Leo had to wait a bit to get his Oscar.
The movie is set in 1954, where a US Marshal investigates the disappearance of a murderer who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane.
While the movie is not a true story, there are elements of truth in the movie.
V for Vendetta
This dystopian thriller stars Natalie Portman and makes you think about propaganda, the power of government, political factions, and religious freedom.
It is a movie that makes people think no matter the age. It was amazing when it was released. And it is relevant and amazing to this day. What does overturning the powers that be truly mean? Guy Fawkes mask is a cult classic, and the movie will remain relevant for eternity.
The Master
The Master is an iconic film by Paul Thomas Anderson. The filmmaker offers the audience a movie with almost no satisfying narrative tricks. Joaquin Phoenix has his career-best performance in this movie. Some would say it rivals his portrayal of the Joker.
The movie dives into the subject of religion. It was supposedly based on the Church of Scientology.
Barton Fink
Many people say that this movie contains one of the best final shots in cinematic history. We won’t spoil it for you. But you have to watch it to understand. The final shot will remain in your mind for days and weeks afterward.
The plot follows a titular playwright who is going to Hollywood to write his first screenplay. When he gets there, he meets his mysterious hotel neighbor. But the movie quickly turns into absurd madness, leaving the audience questioning its own existence.
Gattaca
The classic sci-fi thriller from the 1990s stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. Back in the 1990s, the movie was a forward-thinking cerebral film exploring what would happen if we start playing God. Or in other words, experimenting with reproductive technologies.
The movie remains relevant today thanks to science still not reaching the plot of the movie.
The Matrix
What if I told you that Morpheus never said this line in the movie? The line has inspired countless Matrix memes. But he never spoke it on screen.
When The Matrix first came out, people were wowed by the action and the philosophical subject of the movie. And of course, Keanu Reeves.
The movie prompts the audience to ask questions like “What if we are really living in a dream?” “What if reality exists only in our minds?”
The Matrix remains one of the most iconic movies to this date. The plot is simple, what if the machines command us and we are only puppets.
Today, many fans understand that The Matrix is all about the desire for transformation. But in the Matrix, reality is created by machines. In our life, we create reality. But do you sometimes feel like you are just in a dream?
