Most thought provoking movies

My pick of thought provoking movies of all time
-Ladder 49
-Lord of War
-The Pianist
-Assassination of Richard NIxon
-Lemony Snicket's Unfortunate Series of Events
-Ladykillers

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"A Movie is a five letter word that starts and ends with ME" - Yours truly..

There was a movie a while back (I can't recall the name) that had an unusual plot. The movie begans with a man living in a civilization and they are speaking in a very cryptic language. For that reason, the 1st 3rd of the the movie is subtitled in English. To signify that the man can now communicate with the others, the subtitles transition away and everyone is now speaking in English. I can't recall the name of the movie, but it was really interesting how they transitioned it.

Any Michael Moore film
Supersize Me
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media
In the Bedroom
Brazil

And so many more...

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"You have to believe in God before you can say there are things that man was not meant to know. I don't think there's anything man wasn't meant to know. There are just some stupid things that people shouldn't do." -David Cronenberg

If i had to choose:

1: Lemony Snicket's Unfortunate Series of Events
2: Fight Club
3: Cocoon
4: Sixth Sense
5: any Friday the 13th ( it taught that if you do the dirty you
had better watch out for Jason Voorhees!!! )

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Success is the only earthly judge of right and wrong...

The Fountain (Arnofsky, 2006)


Adding to the list...

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Donnie Darko
Menace II Society
Crash (2004)

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Of Mice and Men
What Dreams May Come
Full Metal Jacket
About Schmidt
JFK
Gandhi

samerie jack and also the last samuri

Genuine thought-provoking films:

Andrei Rublev
Barton Fink
Bicycle Thieves
A Clockwork Orange
Ghost in the Shell
Mulholland Dr.
Persona

Pseudo-intellectual movies for people that can't really think for themselves:

Crash
Donnie Darko
Requiem For A Dream

Top Thought Provoking Films
1. Do The Right Thing
2. Malcolm X
3. Menace II Society/Boyz In Da Hood
4. Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind
5. American History X = Personally I saw American History X as kinda like a white response to Menace II Society. Edward Norton's greatest performance to date IMO. Certain scenes in the film try hard to make viewers believe that racism is justified while other scenes depict that way of thinking as accomplishing nothing ,and in the end were shown it does solve nothing. I guess that is why this movie is so thought provoking cause it gets alot of different point of views.

Personally, I think Crash is generally thought-provoking because of the way in which it communicates the central theme, which is spoken by Don Cheadle at the beginning of the film:

Nobody has to see Crash to know that racism is bad. But that's not all the film has to say. I rather think that it shows how we've let our differences stifle the human connection that we as human beings cannot live without; and more importantly, how sweet life can taste when we move past those differences - not because we think we should, but because we want to - and just open ourselves up to another person and find that their heart beats in harmony with our own.

We might suspect that this is true, but do we ever really let ourselves find out for certain? Without Crash, would we ever know what that looks like?

why is Donnie darko intellectual, pseudo or otherwise?

Thought provoking and intelligent films are necessarily the same thing. Donnie Darko raises some interesting ideas e.g. time travel, lengths of sacrifice, doomed youth etc but i dont think it raises them in an 'intelligent' way. It doesnt provide answers to any serious questions you may ask about those ideas.

Nor do I think Crash was an intellectual film, it had a realism to it that negates all need for intelligence. Real situations, a relatable feeling on the subject of racism-that its real, its out there and that we cant ignore it because its not going to go away. And yet it is thought provoking, it certainly made me think about how i perceive those of a different race and my preconceived notions of equality.

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Undercoverlovers 100 REDUX

I remember getting to the end of Donnie Darko and going WTF! I had to then watch the movie again and think a whole heap before understanding what the movie was about... haha pretty thought provoking imo.

I agree with UsualSuspect...I thought A Clockwork Orange made me feel bad for the "bad guys"...but it definitely called to question who the "bad guys" really are.

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If you wanna be free- be free...'cause there's a million things to be.

is Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind.

Se7en, 21g, Mystic River

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He's name is Amsterdam. Amstardam?! I'm New York. (Bill "The Butcher" Poole - Daniel Day-Lewis)

I forget:Million Dollar Baby, Irreversible

Do the Right Thing is one of the most thought provoking movies I've ever seen (it's also one of my favorites) and it is an epic shame that so many people fail to understand it and what it's trying to say. Oh well.

Some others for me would be...
Eraserhead
Blade Runner
The Seventh Seal
Mulholland Dr.
Waking Life
The Fountain
8 1/2
Solaris (Tarkovsky version)
3 Women
Rashômon

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"No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul." ~ Ingmar Bergman

23
Inherit The Wind

One movie that got me thinking recently was a rental of "Hard Candy."

If you haven't seen it -- rent it. Very powerful look at vengeance and pedophilia.

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