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Best spiritual movies
Philosophy and Movies are an inseparable couple, as theater and tragedy. Images are a powerful mean to send messages, maybe a better way than words and books. Images stroke people, impress mind more than anything. Ideas spread better trough images than written words.
There is no philosophical questions ignored by cinema. God, mind, thruth, others, politics or metaphysics have all been dealt in many many films.
Many of great movie makers / directors are ardent readers of philosophy. From Chaplin to The Wachowskis brothers or Bergman, here is a list of major philosophical movies and related philosophical questions:
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Films of the 20’s:
Murnau : The Last Laugh
Related questions: loneliness, human condition
Chaplin: The Kid
Related questions: fatherhood, human condition
Lang: Metropolis
Related questions: communism, consumer society, totalitarianism,
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Films of the 30’s:
Jean Renoir: Great Illusion
Related questions: war, power, solidarity
Chaplin : Modern Times
Associated philosophical concept : human condition, modernity, alienation, class struggle
Jean Renoir: The Human Beast
Related questions: sex, woman, unconscious,
Fritz Lang: M
Related topics: Evil
Frank Capra: Mr Smith goes to Washington
Related philosophical questions: power, politics
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Films of the 40’s:
Orson Welles: Citizen Kane
Related Topics: media, power
René Clair: Beauty of the Devil
Related topics:
John Ford: The Grapes of Wrath
Related Topics:
Flemming: Docteur Jekyll et M. Hyde
Related topics: self, conscience, unconscious
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Films of the 50’s:
Sydney Lumet: 12 angry men
Related philosophical questions: death penalty, justice
Elia Kazan: A Streetcar named Desire
Jean-Luc Godard: Breathless
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Films of the 60’s:
François Truffaut: Jules and Jim
Related philosophical questions: love
Jean-Luc Godard: Contempt (Le Mépris)
Related topics: love, jealousy,
Mike Nichols: The Graduate
Related philosophical questions: seduction
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Films of the 70’s:
Stanley Kubrick: A Clockwork Orange
Related philosophical questions: violence, society
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Films of the 80’s:
Clint Eastwood: Bird
Related philosophical questions: music, fate
Martin Scorsese: Raging Bull
Related philosophical questions: resilience,
Stanley Kubrick: Shining
Related philosophical questions: mind,
Jean-Jacques Annaud: Quest for Fire
Related philosophical questions: humanity, human condition
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Films of the 90’s:
Terry Gilliam: 12 monkeys
Related philosophical questions: time travel, epidemics
Sam Mendes: American Beauty
Related philosophical questions: everyday life, despair,
Peter Weir: The Truman Show
Related philosophical questions: media
Andrew Niccol: Gattaca
Related philosophical questions: eugenics
Darren Aronofsky: Requiem for a dream
Related philosophical questions: addiction, TV, drugs
Tony Keye: American History X
Related philosophical questions: Racism, tolerance,
Wachowski: Matrix
Related philosophical questions: reality, identity, modernity, Plato
Amenabar: Open your Eyes
Related philosophical questions: reality, identity
Mann: The Insider
Related Topics: power, politics, journalism
Terence Malick: Thin Red Line
Related philosophical questions: war, meaning of life
Danny Boyle: Trainspotting
Related philosophical questions: addiction, destiny
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Films of the 2000’s:
Michel Gondry: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Related philosophical questions: love, memory, destiny, identity
David Fincher: Fight Club
Related philosophical questions: consumption, modernity, identity
Christopher Nolan: Inception
Related philosophical questions: dreams, love
Christopher Nolan: Memento
Related philosophical questions: memory
Paul Thomas Anderson: There will be blood
Related philosophical questions: religion, capitalism
Woody Allen: Match Point
Related philosophical questions: tragedy, love, ambition
