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Directors and writers frequently use their preferred visual medium to tell a tale, whether or not they are aware that filmmaking is an art form. In the hopes that the audience will understand, ideologies, ideas, or any other type of communication are always decoded in this visual medium. Avoiding preaching is the key to creating a great movie, especially when it tells a tale.
From Federico Fellini to Ridley Scott, Mel Gibson to Seth Macfarlene, and of course, Hitchcock, their films convey themes through subtextual conversations and symbolist narrative. The following is a list of films that provide philosophical messages for viewers. Please be aware that this list of movies is arranged chronologically.
- Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948)
The suspenseful maestro Hitchcock plays with his audience, repelling and luring them into a realm of shock. One of his boldest pictures to date, Rope was intentionally made as a one-shot, real-time experiment.
Farley Granger, John Dall, and James Stewart star in this underappreciated masterpiece. It depicts superior and lesser humans and features the most inventive filmmaking of its era. The Leopold-Loeb case of 1924, in which two gay law students in Chicago killed a fourteen-year-old kid for fun in order to demonstrate their intelligence and get away with it, served as the basis for the movie.
In this anti-existentialist film, James Stewart is horrified to learn that two of his students had murdered a classmate in accordance with existentialism’s tenets. In the end, James Stewart comes to the realization that relying on this concept only causes pain for the adherent and everyone around him. This film has Freudian themes and references to the Nietzsche idea of the “Ubermensch.”
- King Vidor’s The Fountainhead (1949)
Shot in an intriguing German Expressionist style, this is a melodrama about individualism that adapts Ayn Rand’s novel. This film, which stars Gary Cooper as an independent architect who battles to uphold his integrity, is a critique on American architecture, ethics, and politics as well as a metaphysical statement and artistic manifesto.
The gifted characters try their hardest with cliched dialogue and sometimes provide their greatest performances, which adds a lot of charm. Because of the changes he undergoes during the movie, Raymond Massey’s character Gail Wynard is an intriguing one. Gary Cooper’s portrayal of Roark, on the other hand, is a tool—an egocentric man who struggles to fit in with society’s expectations.
- Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 novel The Seventh Seal
Known for his films Persona, Wild Strawberries, and Fanny & Alexander, director Ingmar Bergman created The Seventh Seal, a film that explores a man’s post-apocalyptic quest for meaning and serves as a model for existentialism. A knight challenges Death to a crucial game of chess in this amazing story.
The Swedish director wants the viewer to encounter the picture with the problems of evil, philosophy of religion, and existentialism, even though it is about understanding oneself in terms of metaphysical and philosophical questions. For his audience to see and assess for themselves, Bergman does a fantastic job of illustrating Bloch’s struggles with his beliefs—namely, the existence of an all-powerful God in the world.
This film raises a lot of concerns; it doesn’t disparage or preach to any particular group. Rather, it simply presents opposing viewpoints and invites discussion from the audience.
- Federico Fellini’s 1960 film La Dolce Vita
La Dolce Vita, which was directed by Federico Fellini, who is renowned for films like 8 ½, Amarcord, Roma, and Satyricon, has a dark and prevalent sense of humor about the opulent lifestyles of individuals in Rome.
Marcello Mastroianni plays a gossip journalist in this movie who feels stuck in a box and can’t decide what to do next. In this film, which takes place over seven insane nights and seven dawns, it seems as though Fellini is trying to teach his audience about the seven deadly sins.
The entire film is set on the sidewalks of cafes and in the streets of nightclubs, situated between the Seven Hills of Rome. Close your eyes and visualize Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night if you are having trouble picturing it. La Dolce Vita is one of the rare films that may help audiences understand philosophy, life, and death while showing them in a different timeframe. The good life may not exist, but it is determined by the decisions you make in life.
- Eric Rohmer’s 1969 film My Night at Maud’s
This film, which was directed by Eric Rohmer, tells the tale of Jean, a young engineer who spies on a pretty blonde woman and, more significantly, a devout Catholic. However, when he runs into his friend (Pascal), who spends the entire evening talking about philosophy and religion, the entire objective is put on hold.
They both decide to get together at Maud’s house the next day to carry on the conversation. Pascal placed a bet during the debates, offering astronomical odds of 100 to 1 against the existence of God. They have to wager on that one opportunity. Even though the damage is negligible to them, they lose the wager if God doesn’t exist. However, their lives have purpose and eternal life is the reward if God exists.
The characters in this film possess intelligence, self-assurance, communication skills, and the ability to deceive themselves.
- Woody Allen’s 1975 film Love and Death
Kafkian nervousness and Kierkegaard’s fearfulness have been combined by Woody Allen to create a continuous comedy about war and peace, crime and punishment, and fathers and sons. It is widely regarded as a satire of everything about Russians, from Fyodor Dostoyevsky to Sergei Eisenstein flicks.
Allen portrays Boris, who, until he was thirty, was unable to sleep without the lights on. He is on the verge of being put to death for a crime he did not commit. Allen uses a variety of jokes from various visual media throughout the film, including one-liners from Attila the Hun and Persona as a stylized pastiche.
Allen ends by pitching us on love and death, what he has discovered as a human, that although our minds are brilliant, our bodies have all the fun, that God is a failure, and that death is a bit depressing. The phrase “so the last shall be first, and the first shall be the last” from Matthew 20:16 is reminiscent of this.
- Hal Ashby, Being There (1979)
Being There is an adaption of Jerzy Kosinski’s 1970 book. Until his boss (Ben) passes away, Peter Sellers’ character, a menial gardener, had never left the estate. When it comes to Ben’s funeral, things get pretty interesting. As the President and other political leaders debate who should be the next president, Chauncey (Peter Sellers) emerges as their front-runner.
This film does not gravely upset a television-dependent public since it accepts the ethical and intellectual ramifications of television.
One of Hal Ashby’s talents is his ability to show humor without ever losing sight of the film’s gravity or the characters’ humanity. Heidegger has produced some excellent films, including Harold & Maude and The Last Detail, but this satirical comedy will inspire you and provide you many new insights into Heidegger’s philosophy.
- Louis Malle, “My Dinner with Andre” (1981)
This film, which was written and starred by Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, is about two men talking about life over dinner at a fine restaurant. Yes, that is the whole story. Their discussions are undoubtedly quite thought-provoking, even with a simple plot.
Wallace’s pragmatic humanism and his practical-realistic vision are mostly at odds with Andre’s spiritualistic and idealistic outlook. Wallace and Andre are two distinct men; one is a settled type, while the other is erratic.
Insightful discussions about life, the human condition, religion, and communication make this film a cult favorite among independent film critics and filmmakers because of its minimalist aesthetic and philosophical significance. Both are simultaneously correct and wrong, which is what makes this film so beautiful.
Following several discussions, Wallace and Andre have developed a close, intimate, and emotional bond and are talking at a level beyond and beyond conventional socialization processes. The most accurate portrayal of human communication in a visual medium can be found in this movie.
- Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982)
The science fiction book by Philip K. Dick served as the inspiration for the feature film Blade Runner. Do Androids Have Electric Sheep Dreams? Harrison Ford plays one of the Blade Runners employed to “Terminate” (Retire) the Replicants, a human-engineered slave robot made by the genetic engineers of Tyrell Corporation. Slave labor was their intended use in the exploration and colonization of distant planets.
The film explores what it means to be human in the age of cybernetics, posing queries such as whether artificial intelligence would qualify as a person if it were housed in a body that behaved and looked like a human. Would there be any significant differences between the people who made androids and themselves? Existentialism!
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