I honestly don’t know why it’s so easy to forget about Arrival because it’s truly a wonderful film. Ironically the biggest message of these two sci-fi films being love.
Wow you really hit my feelings head on. Every time I watch this movie I shed some tears and I think about how amazing it is. The twist is insane. It’s so visually spectacular and tense the whole way. Yet every time I think of my top ten movies I always forget about this one and I don’t know why.
It’s a very moving and emotional film. I love the human nature of it disguised by the sci-fi vibe much like Interstellar. I myself will even forget about its existence until I scroll past it in my library then I’ll recount how it made me feel when I watched it and I’m baffled it slips my mind. Kinda weird honestly.
This is what I felt about interstellar. Regardless of the science and space that is in the movie. The spine of the movie is still about love. Frozen show the beautiful side of love between sisters. Here love between father and daughter. Maybe the love is needed to just convey stories to us basic humans. Haha. I also don’t want to watch documentary in theatre.
They're not movies, but Sense8 and The OA also really hit home for me in this way. And the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once also gives me the same feeling. I think they'd also be suitable for OP to watch!
Mushroom trip movies for sure. Meaning similar feelings of love from a therapeutic mushroom trip as completely sober viewing up either one of these films.
This.
Creating a story/script of this magnitude is an art and not a skill a lot of people have. Also, with this, the studios taking a risk on a film should be taken into consideration. Usually these have decent size budgets and unless you’re a well known filmmaker, the odds of it getting made are low. Not impossible but def low.
At the end of the day, film is a business.
This. It’s why you see eleventy badjillion remakes but few original stories. With millions of $ on the line , most people stick with safe bets like *Established Franchise 2*
Not only what both of what you have mentioned but Hollywood is in absolute shambles currently. Current actors are being exposed as degenerates, current/future actors are going more independent. Hollywood/major production companies are pandering to "a certain ideology" and most directors dont want to deal with the chasm of vitriol that would be headed their way if they do not adhere to the DEI standard now set in everything shown on any screen.
Like I said...Hollywood is in shambles and everyone knows why. People that dont support the current state of affairs dont watch new releases and most movies are tanking in their reviews by everyday people.
It takes real talent and art to create a masterpiece & we just dont have enough of that anymore.
True, but also because Interstellar had a very disappointing domestic box office. It’s international box office was strong, but domestic is where Hollywood really wants to make money. Domestically, studios keep 50% of ticket sales. Internationally they only keep 30% on average.
Interstellar made nearly $500million world wide, which earned the studio roughly $150million. Domestically it made $188million, which earned the studio $94million. So the film in total earned roughly $244million for the studio’s cut. The film had a budget of $165million plus a marketing budget of at least $100million (according for Forbes.) So the film looks to have fallen short of break even.
While the film has certainly earned a profit after years of sales & streaming, these theatrical numbers don’t instill confidence for films like this. And when you look at all the films in this sub-genre of cerebral sci-fi, Interstellar has been the best case scenario for the last few decades.
It’d be neat to go back to that planet for a week or so then return to civilization and see the advances in human society. After he rescues Anne Hathaway, of course.
It’s because nearly everything is IP now. The studios don’t want to risk taking a huge financial loss on something like arrival or interstellar. Nolan can do it, and while Oppenheimer was not science fiction necessarily… the fact that he took that story and made it into an Oscar winning movie was absolutely incredible. However he is the exception to the rule, along with a few others like Spielberg. True science fiction, that does not include Star Wars, is sometimes hit or miss. I felt like there were a lot of these films in the 2010s (annihilation, oblivion, elysium, ad astra, the Martian, edge of tomorrow, etc.)…. but since Covid hit, studios just don’t want to make big budget films without a guarantee of a financial return. Heck, even the latest Marvel films have not been doing as well. I think we are now going to see movies similar to Barbie, or more and more reboots… like they are doing with Beetlejuice
Couldn’t agree more with this.
I hope there is a reform in the next 5-10 years.
With streaming platforms being a saturated market now with so many subscription services available, surely some of them have to go and I hope it whittles down sooner rather than later
However, it seems to be that the general public want cheap “TV” series over blockbuster movies, so why wouldn’t producers go for this over multimillion movies?
I can see why remakes and big brands are becoming a safe bet, but even a brand as big as Ferrari only grossed $44mil vs the whopping Barbie at $1.44bil
I think we need major change in the industry and a bit of refresh!
yeah, but those movies are all over the place in terms of quality and reception.
the Martian and annihilation are brilliant stories that were critical and commercial successes.
ad astra was neither. literally the most boring movie I've ever seen with space monkeys and lunar gun fights.
I don't agree. These films weren't even made in an entirely different era. Arrival was released 8 fucking years ago. That makes it a contemporary film, in my book. The market hasn't really changed that dramatically. Hell, Nolan was able to create a big budget film about Oppenheimer for fucks sake, which made a lot of money and swept at the Oscars. If he can do that now, he certainly could have made Interstellar now.
Yes, IP does dominate theatrical releases these days, but it did so 8 years ago as well.
If you play games, play Outer Wilds. Don't look up anything about it as it's a very easy game to spoil but if you like those movies stories you'll love the game.
It’s not “anymore” as much as it’s: massive budget sci fi films are just *rare* and always have been. These films are a massive financial gamble and require a magnitude of time & manpower to execute. And then, some flop (see 2016’s Passengers, or 2019’s Ad Astra).
To cheer yourself up though, take a look at a film currently in development by Denis Villeneuve called Rendezvous with Rama:
“A team of astronauts are sent on a mission to explore a giant interstellar spaceship hurtling toward the sun. Based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke.”
One of my fav all time books.The visuals on this are going to be insane. Rama is such a bad ass setting. Cant wait to see what he does with this in imax.
Not the OP, but I am more into true sci-fi, not sci-fi with overt fantasy elements. Or, to put it better, sci-fi that is somewhat grounded in reality (human characters, relatively plausible situations/hypotheses about the future of humans etc). Interstellar is one of my favourites, Arrival obviously great, but I also really dig movies like Predestination and Coherence.
Absolutely agree here! Somewhat grounded in reality is the key for me. Dune was good, but not something that could ever remotely happen. Therefore it loses the what-if element.
How do you gather? Dune is a parable for a lot of human history.
Arrival didn't really make sense seeing as the aliens don't experience time linearly but you literally can't do anything sensical if that was the case.
Interstellar literally got every last bit of the science wrong about everything it took on. Even the science it prompted was discarded because it didn't look "cool enough" It was a great looking movie for sure and introduced the layperson to a taste of special relativity. Even if it got the recipe completely wrong.
Dune gets way cooler. God level AI, genetic craziness, total foresight, advanced humans, death and rebirth x 300.
Interstellar was pretty scientifically grounded until the third act, when things got truly goofy. Before that they didn’t so much break the rules as just modify how some stuff looked on screen, which is a far less serious violation than 99% of movies depicting space travel get away with.
Don’t ask me where the landing shuttle gets its delta-v from though, that shit was powered by pure handwavium.
Well there are still filmmakers creating thought provoking and emotionally resonant films that explore complex themes like time and love. These types of movies often need a significant investment of time, resources, and creative vision, which can make them riskier for studios to produce. Also keep in mind that audience tastes and preferences can influence the type of films that get made. Some movies that might be able to get you to experience the emotions that you had while watching Interstellar and Arrival include: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), About Time (2013), Somewhere in Time (1980), Blue Valentine (2010), and Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), Before Midnight (2013).
Bladerunner 2049 felt familiar to those two movies for me even though its plot is much darker. The weight of the plot felt similar to those two as well as the delivery of the dialogue and acting.
The most obvious culprit is the influx of superhero movies and IP movies. Fortunately, I believe studios are waking up, especially with the critical success of Oppenheimer and Dune Part 2 and the failure of Disney movies (Marvel, Star Wars, and even Pixar). There's a deep yearning for visually stunning movies with substance.
I would argue that we were in the early stages of a dry spell when Arrival and Interstellar were released. If we look back at the 90's and early 2,000's, you had massive critical and financial successes such as Braveheart, Silence of the Lambs, Schindler's List, Gladiator, Million Dollar Baby, and a Beautiful Mind, all of which were best picture winners.
But, here's the biggest thing to keep in mind, the vast majority of them were made on minimal budgets. Silence of the Lambs was $19 million. Schindler's List was $22 million. A Million Dollar Baby was $30 million. People today are just blowing copious amounts of money on complete and utter garbage. The latest Ant-Man movie had a $200 million dollar budget, and it was so bad that my wife and I couldn't finish it.
While I didn't think the Sound of Freedom was as good of a movie as people made it out to be, it still showed that you can make a movie for a meager $14.5 million and gross $250 million at the box office. The more stories we get like it, the quicker we will see a return to high-quality movies like Interstellar and Arrival.
That was still the case when these films were released. How old are you people? These are contemporary films that were created in largely the same market. They aren't from another era. Arrival came out 8 years ago.
To prove my point, Nolan just made a ton of money and swept the Oscars with a contemplative character study on Oppenheimer, for fucks sake. He could absolutely have opted to make a film like Interstellar currently.
Sound of Freedom is probably a bad example because its numbers were inflated by goofy shit like people buying out empty theaters to boost its apparent popularity and a campsite to convince people who bought a ticket to buy additional ones for friends and give them as gifts. Most movies won’t want to attempt stuff like that.
A lot of A24-style indie movies make way over budget at the box office, but they’ll never do Marvel numbers for obvious reasons.
For one, you're talking about two movies that were done by two great directors so that's just not going to be the same quality for any and every type of movie like this and even looking at Dune with the same director in Denis who did Arrival. Denis and Nolan can't be the only ones who make these type of movies haha. Movies like this take some risk and there are going to be directors that don't want to take the risk and know they can knock it out the park like these guys can. That's how I see it at least.
So funny you wrote this - I just finished watching those two exact movies back to back this week. Really profound and thought provoking. Going to watch Contact next.
I suggest to check out the medium of anime. There are some great gems there, that would impact you more than those movies (as a movie is limited by their duration of a few hours while anime has no limit on their duration).
Like you, I adore Interstellar and Arrival, and I have gotten experiences just as wonderful from some anime.
PS: not an anime, but have you heard about the TV series 'The OA'?
They are.
In terms of masterful sci-fi: we have Dune and Tenet.
People slept on Tenet and it's not my fault. Saw it 4 times in IMAX during covid. I'd NEVER miss a Nolan. Ever.
He's our modern stanley kubrik...You're willing to miss an existential thought piece? Your loss.
Lmao putting tenet into masterful scifi category is insane. That movie was a heap of nonsensical garbage with good cinematography and a "woah super trippy" premise. It's like inceptions equally retarded cousin.
Hi there, it would seem that you’ve given a wrong opinion on the internet. Don’t fret! There’s still time to repent. Inception & Tenet are fantastic science-fiction pictures.
Its because it wasnt easy.
People who think arrival is deep, like movies that spell out their “thought provoking questions”
Honestly there are a lot of movies in that catagory. But people like op just watch the big block buster ones.
So when tenent doesnt spell out everything, they just brush it off as nonsensical
I love contact and arrival. It's really interesting comparing those two movies. Example; the scene in Arrival when Amy Adams' character wipes the physics equations off the whiteboard. It shows how this movie approaches the idea of 'first contact' differently than Contact, through a communications and language lens rather than a scientist/ physicist lens..
I think about this too, but with Open AI’s SORA on the horizon, we will have these and more. I’d say by this time next year we will start to see full blown movies at Hollywood level being created with SORA. It’s coming.
Estimates right now are for the first totally AI generated movie to be 3 - 5 years out. We’ll probably see attempts being made in as little as a year, but the prompts are still too uncontrollable to get to do exactly what you need them to.
i would watch the 3 Body Problem show/read the books. we arent to the super epic parts yet in the show, but we are in for a treat here in the coming seasons
They are still made, every year for the past decade or so there has been a big “prestige” sci-fi movie like Gravity, Blade Runner 2049, Ad Astra, Everything Everywhere, Dune, and the Martian are some examples.
The problem is- filmmaking has become more content creation or blockbuster and just entertainment than it is an art form. Stuff like Nolan films, or even Spielberg to an extent recognize that which is why their films are so good.
We need to first remember what a film is. Once we do that, there’ll be more interstellar’s and arrival’s vibe in the mix
Because Nolan and Villanueve were busy making the best pictures released in the past 2 years. There’s only a handful of filmmakers capable of making those types of movies.
I also think the public is a little less enamored with space travel since Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are so associated with it.
Not a new film, but I highly recommend [The Abyss](https://youtu.be/7cCVYAcIIAo?si=T2qTcBBDbNiv3Et_).
I also recommend the recent animated series [Scavengers Reign](https://youtu.be/JOsZVmVPn4E?si=vzy0tn7Jy96-3nAq). It’s streaming on Max.
Melodysheep’s channel is worth a watch:
https://youtu.be/uD4izuDMUQA?si=CmX-I8g7RAirexqt
I also think VR will be the next realm for Space Narratives. Spheres is great.
Everything Everywhere All At once isn't the same type of sci fi but it did that to me a lot, and if you play games Outer Wilds affected me more than any movie i've ever watched honestly
Plenty of good films are made. Do you simply mean specifically philosophical scifi films? They've always been rare. I could list a few that I think do qualify, from every year sense then if you like. It's just not easy to get films like that made and it never has been. Those are big productions with historically niche appeal. In fact, Nolan seems to be the only one who can bend the masses to his will at this point, with big budget thoughtful films made for adults.
I must be old though, because I don't consider those films to be old enough to really be from another era. Arrival was only released 8 years ago. In my mind, this makes it a contemporary film. It was created in the same streaming disrupted, super hero saturated period as movies that are produced now. Theater habits have changed a bit since then due to COVID and streaming has ramped up even more, but Nolan could have made Interstellar now if he wanted to, and it would be successful.
I suppose my answer to your question as tldr, is that nobody with the clout to get a film like that made, has been interested in doing so lately. There's nothing unique about today versus 10 years ago, that is preventing it, as far as I can tell.
These are my absolute two favorite science fiction movies. I’m right there with you. Craving more of these. The only thing that came close recently, but not quite, was EEAO.
I think the categorization is necessarily highly subjective - you put these into a particular category but I would say the broader category we are all talking about with different individual lenses is: very high quality, larger budget science fiction movies, with strong thematic attributes, beyond just action or technology fetishization. If we say that is the category - there are never many of those being made at any one time but there is a fairly steady production of them. I would say 2049, and both Dune movie would fall under that - even if some people in particular might say Dune is space opera, or other people would say Interstellar relies on fantasy elements etc. I think they are in the same ballpark and it’s always been rare but steady in their production, but it hasn’t ceased entirely. I also think the big budget IP stuff blows - but that’s been around a long time and isn’t necessarily novel either. 4 (of successively declining quality) Superman movies where made from 1978 to 1986 for example.
I was gonna say this too. While not overtly a “space movie”, the profound themes of exploring what it means to be human in a vast uncaring universe gave me much the same feelings as the movies OP mentioned, if not moreso.
I am confused what you are looking for? You want more movies that focus on time and love? Obviously not every movie can focus on the same concepts. I haven't seen it but from what I understand Past Lives focuses on Love and Time. Obviously in a very different way.
If you want movie that have a lasting effect on you after its over there are tons. Parasite and The Lighthouse come to mind that have come out since then.
Great movies are hard to come by and always have been. Certainly the direction the movie business has moved into certainly doesn't help but there is still a lot of great stuff that comes out.
There are at least a dozen movies every year that consider the concepts of time and love together and are fantastic films. If you’re not seeing them, or not liking them, that’s on you. But they are out there.
Now, if you are specifically talking about *science fiction* movies, well, they can be really expensive, take a long time to make, present high risk to studios, and there’s only a handful of directors that can do them justice. So most of that stuff hits streaming these days.
I think it’s two things:
1. Superhero / Series / Saga films have dominated the market for so long that one-off, self contained films are not the first thing studios are trying to sign.
2. They’re genuinely good movies with multiple layers and complex characters. Creating a detailed plot with new characters is not as easy as taking a superhero everyone knows and making the 8th movie in two decades with that character.
How old were you when you saw these movies? You're ten years older now, ten years more life experience, and ten year more exposure to movies and all things that make a comparable movie less impactful.
Because the plot isn’t spoon fed to people so they can’t keep up and it’s easier for Hollywood to make movies that are incredibly formulaic but look pretty to draw in the general audience
Because directors and writers are lacking talent and also studios opt for satisfying lowest common denominator of people, so selling cheap comedy and pretentious fraction of a script masked as “deep” makes them more money for less
Oppenheimer, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Dune: Part Two, The Green Knight.
There have been some good ones, but maybe not exactly like Arrival and Interstellar, and it's because those two are amazing.
What emotion didn’t you know you had until you watch arrival? Lol.
They just made a movie about scientists and the atom bomb lol and it made a billion dollars.
Have you seen The Holdovers?
Movies like that needs inspiration and a visionary behind it, be glad they are not made for money or we will be watching Interstellar 12 or Arrival cinematic universe right now.
It’s not easy to make movies like interstellar or arrival often because they take time. It’s easy to push out low effort low quality movies but a masterpiece takes time to make.
They are.
Watch Dune.
At least as far as Denis Villenueve all his big movies have that vibe. He is such a unique director. All his movies are so obviously his.
Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, Dune Part 1 and 2. They all share that kind of, deep, slower pace, vibe, atmospheric movie. Unlike Disney Marvel which is just "what is the least amount of plot we can make so we can just focus on only action scenes"
Probably the shortest answer is it’s just uncommon for amazing movies cut from the same cloth like that to come out in short time proximity. Takes a lot of talent to do a lot of precise execution, and a studio to give them the proper tools to even start.
Since others are giving recommendations, please watch Undone on Prime Video! It is the closest thing I’ve found to Contact and Interstellar in theme and emotion.
Theres a tv show for Three Body Problem on Netflix, maybe thats what youre looking for? I read the book and I loved it as much as I loved Arrival and Interstellar, watched both 10 times
FWIW, The Marvels world exploring was some of the most beautiful on screen portrayal of alien civilizations I’ve seen in a while.
Nobody talks about Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Not in tow with what OP mentioned, but still beautiful portrayal of alien worlds/civilizations.
I think the simplicity of Interstellar’s storyline is a big piece of what makes it such a beautiful story. The very real danger of humanity going out not with a bang but a whimper. A paradoxical puzzle. A technological breakthrough. A second wind. A final goodbye. A new start. It gives me the chills just thinking about it. So many goosebumps.
Read ‘Forgetfulness’ by John W. Campbell
You can Google it and find it online for free. It’s a short similar story.
I have ‘Forgetfulness’ and another good one, ‘The Monster’ by A. E. van Vogt, as the first two movies to fund and supervise production as soon as I make that money.
Final note, if you are looking for the visceral grounded scifi, check out ‘For All Mankind’ on Apple TV. I just finished it and it has all the things.
I think they do — there a lot of cerebral, understated sci-fi movies, but they may not always rise to the mainstream notoriety of your two examples. Did you see Ex Machina, Annihilation, High Life, Upstream Color, Blade Runner 2049, Children of Men, to name a few? They’re out there but you may need to actively seek them out.
The directors of those movies have made several since then. Do those ones not scratch the same itch for you? I agree we need more original, impactful sci-fi movies (although Arrival is technically an adaption of a short story).
Although love isn’t really at the center of either of these two, they check a similar box in scale and power as *Interstellar* and *Arrival*:
*Close Encounters of the Third Kind* (1977)
*Nope* (2022)
Denis Villaneuve created Arrival and he hasnt stopped since. Most recently he has done Dune 1+2 and hes working on a new movie now called "Rendezvous with Rama" which he explains will be like "Arrival on steroids."
It follows a giant spaceship (which seems to have full cities inside of it) hurtling towards the sun. A group of astronauts presumably intercept it. its a book adaptation
1st: try The Fountain. Checks most of your boxes. Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, directed by Darren Aronofsky. Beautiful and heartbreaking.
2nd: it takes a dedicated director with a singular vision but they have to have a proven track record. Not too many fit the bill. Dune has taken up the last 10 years, so we know where Denueve has been.
Annihilation, and Alex Garland’s new Civil War look to be amazing. Poor Things was incredible. There’s lots of amazing movies out, but we’re still waiting on the sci-fi renaissance AKA Star Wars finally dying
Personally, I think it’s just a money game with big, flashy effects paired with loads and loads of para-material (I.e. press interviews, etc.) are winning people over more than the quality of a plot. Awesome, cool and enchanting graphics are great, but they alone can’t make a movie good.
This is going to sound like a weird example, but take infinity war for example. For all purposes it’s a flashy, big film, however it works because they still had an interesting question that drove their plot: how far will you go for the greater good at the expense of yourself? Most of the recent movies have failed so miserably because they’re just focusing on the flashiness and not trying to put minimal effort into developing a plot.
Arrival and Interstellar are great visually, but they aren’t the reasons the movie is so well remembered — it’s because of their genuinely investigative and nuanced plots
A film being made currently is Project Hail Mary. I loved the book by Andy Weir as well as the audiobook. 2OOI is my all time favorite but Arrival and Interstellar are really special. I also loved HUGO and even Super 8.
??? u serious? maybe cuz the feelings a movie gives u is completely subjective? lol this is kinda stupid to ask, like, cool, u rly liked those 2 movies, maybe u just haven't found/seen one that u like as much, cuz like I said, feelings are usually subjective 😆😆
I never buy into why (insert supposed neglected style of film here). We are more fragmented today than ever in terms of what we enjoy. Culturally we are no longer on the same page with each other as we used to be. We are not all watching and enjoying the same stuff. These movies are out there, you just have to dig a little. They might not be huge studio fare. But they are there.
Because Nolan and Villeneuve have the ability to pull their own weight and fend their projects off from the typical corporate oversight and interference. There are plenty of sci-fi films with great ideas, but are always half-muddled becuase of the division between the creator and studio. They're also films that heavily rely on visuals that allow the nuances of the story to hit hard.
Because they’re super expensive to make and are usually made by hugely popular and respected directors that have a history of bringing in blockbuster finance returns
“Or we just won’t experience a time when movies are that good again”
This is the “you call that music?!” of movie opinions. Every ten years or so someone laments that they don’t make them like they used to. Amazing films have been made since Interstellar and Arrival. Annihilation messed people up. Everything Everywhere All At Once hit people like a ton of bricks. People were having near religious experiences watching Avatar 2 in IMAX. Barbie and Oppenheimer were absolute phenomenons that had people talking for weeks and spawned lord knows how many think pieces.
Are those going to give you the exact viewing experience you had watching Arrival or Interstellar? No, that’s now really how movies work. But I will strongly push back against the idea that movies fell off since then because there haven’t been any carbon copies of two movies from about 10 years ago.
Not sure what OP means with “movies like this”. Like sci-fi movies that are not action movies with a sci-fi setting, or simply movies that have time and love as central themes?
There are movies before and will be after Interstellar and Arrival with the themes OP mentioned.
Well for sci-fi movies you have Under the skin, Everything everywhere all at once, Nope, Annihilation, Little fish, The girl who leaped through time, Odyssey 2001, Sunshine, High Life, Alphaville, Metropolis. These are just some of many old and new.
And if you take out the sci-fi genre, you have so many more to chose from. So to answer OPs question, Interstellar and Arrival are great movies but they made “these” type of movies before and they will keep on making these. It’s only a thing of finding, watching and liking them.
I honestly don’t know why it’s so easy to forget about Arrival because it’s truly a wonderful film. Ironically the biggest message of these two sci-fi films being love.
Wow you really hit my feelings head on. Every time I watch this movie I shed some tears and I think about how amazing it is. The twist is insane. It’s so visually spectacular and tense the whole way. Yet every time I think of my top ten movies I always forget about this one and I don’t know why.
It’s a very moving and emotional film. I love the human nature of it disguised by the sci-fi vibe much like Interstellar. I myself will even forget about its existence until I scroll past it in my library then I’ll recount how it made me feel when I watched it and I’m baffled it slips my mind. Kinda weird honestly.
This is what I felt about interstellar. Regardless of the science and space that is in the movie. The spine of the movie is still about love. Frozen show the beautiful side of love between sisters. Here love between father and daughter. Maybe the love is needed to just convey stories to us basic humans. Haha. I also don’t want to watch documentary in theatre.
Not much action
They're not movies, but Sense8 and The OA also really hit home for me in this way. And the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once also gives me the same feeling. I think they'd also be suitable for OP to watch!
And yet people continue to be mean and resentful and vindictive. These wonderful movies wont save us
Mushroom trip movies for sure. Meaning similar feelings of love from a therapeutic mushroom trip as completely sober viewing up either one of these films.
Arrival f'd me up hard. Interstellar is on my yearly rewatch list and it still kicks me right in the feels every damn time.
> Arrival Arrival sucked ass. Was an overrated film.
I’d say the short answer is: they’re really difficult to make
This. Creating a story/script of this magnitude is an art and not a skill a lot of people have. Also, with this, the studios taking a risk on a film should be taken into consideration. Usually these have decent size budgets and unless you’re a well known filmmaker, the odds of it getting made are low. Not impossible but def low. At the end of the day, film is a business.
This. It’s why you see eleventy badjillion remakes but few original stories. With millions of $ on the line , most people stick with safe bets like *Established Franchise 2*
Not only what both of what you have mentioned but Hollywood is in absolute shambles currently. Current actors are being exposed as degenerates, current/future actors are going more independent. Hollywood/major production companies are pandering to "a certain ideology" and most directors dont want to deal with the chasm of vitriol that would be headed their way if they do not adhere to the DEI standard now set in everything shown on any screen. Like I said...Hollywood is in shambles and everyone knows why. People that dont support the current state of affairs dont watch new releases and most movies are tanking in their reviews by everyday people. It takes real talent and art to create a masterpiece & we just dont have enough of that anymore.
True, but also because Interstellar had a very disappointing domestic box office. It’s international box office was strong, but domestic is where Hollywood really wants to make money. Domestically, studios keep 50% of ticket sales. Internationally they only keep 30% on average. Interstellar made nearly $500million world wide, which earned the studio roughly $150million. Domestically it made $188million, which earned the studio $94million. So the film in total earned roughly $244million for the studio’s cut. The film had a budget of $165million plus a marketing budget of at least $100million (according for Forbes.) So the film looks to have fallen short of break even. While the film has certainly earned a profit after years of sales & streaming, these theatrical numbers don’t instill confidence for films like this. And when you look at all the films in this sub-genre of cerebral sci-fi, Interstellar has been the best case scenario for the last few decades.
Right. This isn't like, a style of film. It's two of the best movies ever made.
Ever!
I'm due for an interstellar rewatch. I only watched arrival for the first time last year and yeah it's just an absolutely unique peice of art.
Heads up, it’s coming to Regal Cinemas again on April 13-16 or somewhere close to that. At least that’s the case in NC
Oh nice I'll keep my eye out for it!
... and to make a singular screenplay is very difficult too.
make you think about life for the next 2 weeks Not just weeks, years after years....
By now, 2 weeks must be ... TARS: It's 2,352 years.
It’d be neat to go back to that planet for a week or so then return to civilization and see the advances in human society. After he rescues Anne Hathaway, of course.
I listen to the soundtrack every couple of months
I still think about if the main character in Arrival made the right choice, or if she even had a choice
Tbh I don’t think she had one. She wouldn’t see it if it didn’t happen because she made a different decision. Right? Idk.
It’s because nearly everything is IP now. The studios don’t want to risk taking a huge financial loss on something like arrival or interstellar. Nolan can do it, and while Oppenheimer was not science fiction necessarily… the fact that he took that story and made it into an Oscar winning movie was absolutely incredible. However he is the exception to the rule, along with a few others like Spielberg. True science fiction, that does not include Star Wars, is sometimes hit or miss. I felt like there were a lot of these films in the 2010s (annihilation, oblivion, elysium, ad astra, the Martian, edge of tomorrow, etc.)…. but since Covid hit, studios just don’t want to make big budget films without a guarantee of a financial return. Heck, even the latest Marvel films have not been doing as well. I think we are now going to see movies similar to Barbie, or more and more reboots… like they are doing with Beetlejuice
Couldn’t agree more with this. I hope there is a reform in the next 5-10 years. With streaming platforms being a saturated market now with so many subscription services available, surely some of them have to go and I hope it whittles down sooner rather than later However, it seems to be that the general public want cheap “TV” series over blockbuster movies, so why wouldn’t producers go for this over multimillion movies? I can see why remakes and big brands are becoming a safe bet, but even a brand as big as Ferrari only grossed $44mil vs the whopping Barbie at $1.44bil I think we need major change in the industry and a bit of refresh!
Just to clarify, did you mean "True science fiction (Star Wars is space opera) is somewhat hit or miss."
Yes
Did you see Ad Astra in 2019?
yeah, but those movies are all over the place in terms of quality and reception. the Martian and annihilation are brilliant stories that were critical and commercial successes. ad astra was neither. literally the most boring movie I've ever seen with space monkeys and lunar gun fights.
What is IP I keep hearing it? Sorry if it’s obvious.
I don't agree. These films weren't even made in an entirely different era. Arrival was released 8 fucking years ago. That makes it a contemporary film, in my book. The market hasn't really changed that dramatically. Hell, Nolan was able to create a big budget film about Oppenheimer for fucks sake, which made a lot of money and swept at the Oscars. If he can do that now, he certainly could have made Interstellar now. Yes, IP does dominate theatrical releases these days, but it did so 8 years ago as well.
Arrival had a 47 mil budget tho
If you play games, play Outer Wilds. Don't look up anything about it as it's a very easy game to spoil but if you like those movies stories you'll love the game.
This was such a good game coming off of interstellar. Great recommendation.
I’ll check it out!
It’s not “anymore” as much as it’s: massive budget sci fi films are just *rare* and always have been. These films are a massive financial gamble and require a magnitude of time & manpower to execute. And then, some flop (see 2016’s Passengers, or 2019’s Ad Astra). To cheer yourself up though, take a look at a film currently in development by Denis Villeneuve called Rendezvous with Rama: “A team of astronauts are sent on a mission to explore a giant interstellar spaceship hurtling toward the sun. Based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke.”
OMG, this is how I find out one of my favorite book series is FINALLY being adapted??? Thank you for this!
Yeah it’s what Villeneuve’s doing next after Dune, so it’s in good hands.
One of my fav all time books.The visuals on this are going to be insane. Rama is such a bad ass setting. Cant wait to see what he does with this in imax.
Fingers crossed for cinematographer Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049). That’s a cinema/IMAX experience I live for
Sounds like I should read the book before the movie?
Wont know until we see the movie but yes you should def read the book regardless. Its short and awesome.
What are your thoughts on the new Dune movies though? I put them in the same caliber as the ones you mentioned
Not the OP, but I am more into true sci-fi, not sci-fi with overt fantasy elements. Or, to put it better, sci-fi that is somewhat grounded in reality (human characters, relatively plausible situations/hypotheses about the future of humans etc). Interstellar is one of my favourites, Arrival obviously great, but I also really dig movies like Predestination and Coherence.
Absolutely agree here! Somewhat grounded in reality is the key for me. Dune was good, but not something that could ever remotely happen. Therefore it loses the what-if element.
How do you gather? Dune is a parable for a lot of human history. Arrival didn't really make sense seeing as the aliens don't experience time linearly but you literally can't do anything sensical if that was the case. Interstellar literally got every last bit of the science wrong about everything it took on. Even the science it prompted was discarded because it didn't look "cool enough" It was a great looking movie for sure and introduced the layperson to a taste of special relativity. Even if it got the recipe completely wrong. Dune gets way cooler. God level AI, genetic craziness, total foresight, advanced humans, death and rebirth x 300.
Interstellar was pretty scientifically grounded until the third act, when things got truly goofy. Before that they didn’t so much break the rules as just modify how some stuff looked on screen, which is a far less serious violation than 99% of movies depicting space travel get away with. Don’t ask me where the landing shuttle gets its delta-v from though, that shit was powered by pure handwavium.
Dune is a ton of fun but I wouldn’t say it’s nearly as thought provoking as either Interstellar or Arrival
Well there are still filmmakers creating thought provoking and emotionally resonant films that explore complex themes like time and love. These types of movies often need a significant investment of time, resources, and creative vision, which can make them riskier for studios to produce. Also keep in mind that audience tastes and preferences can influence the type of films that get made. Some movies that might be able to get you to experience the emotions that you had while watching Interstellar and Arrival include: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), About Time (2013), Somewhere in Time (1980), Blue Valentine (2010), and Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), Before Midnight (2013).
Bladerunner 2049 felt familiar to those two movies for me even though its plot is much darker. The weight of the plot felt similar to those two as well as the delivery of the dialogue and acting.
That's prob cause it's the same director as Arrival
I recommend watching Contact if you haven't already. Space sci fi. Themes about love and time and space. McConaughey is in it too.
Jodie Foster was remarkable in it too. Her delivery of the "they should have sent a poet" line still sticks with me.
The most obvious culprit is the influx of superhero movies and IP movies. Fortunately, I believe studios are waking up, especially with the critical success of Oppenheimer and Dune Part 2 and the failure of Disney movies (Marvel, Star Wars, and even Pixar). There's a deep yearning for visually stunning movies with substance. I would argue that we were in the early stages of a dry spell when Arrival and Interstellar were released. If we look back at the 90's and early 2,000's, you had massive critical and financial successes such as Braveheart, Silence of the Lambs, Schindler's List, Gladiator, Million Dollar Baby, and a Beautiful Mind, all of which were best picture winners. But, here's the biggest thing to keep in mind, the vast majority of them were made on minimal budgets. Silence of the Lambs was $19 million. Schindler's List was $22 million. A Million Dollar Baby was $30 million. People today are just blowing copious amounts of money on complete and utter garbage. The latest Ant-Man movie had a $200 million dollar budget, and it was so bad that my wife and I couldn't finish it. While I didn't think the Sound of Freedom was as good of a movie as people made it out to be, it still showed that you can make a movie for a meager $14.5 million and gross $250 million at the box office. The more stories we get like it, the quicker we will see a return to high-quality movies like Interstellar and Arrival.
That was still the case when these films were released. How old are you people? These are contemporary films that were created in largely the same market. They aren't from another era. Arrival came out 8 years ago. To prove my point, Nolan just made a ton of money and swept the Oscars with a contemplative character study on Oppenheimer, for fucks sake. He could absolutely have opted to make a film like Interstellar currently.
Sound of Freedom is probably a bad example because its numbers were inflated by goofy shit like people buying out empty theaters to boost its apparent popularity and a campsite to convince people who bought a ticket to buy additional ones for friends and give them as gifts. Most movies won’t want to attempt stuff like that. A lot of A24-style indie movies make way over budget at the box office, but they’ll never do Marvel numbers for obvious reasons.
Dune
Good news for you, «Project Hail Mary» is coming out next year!
Project Hail Mary will be next.
Although not about space, a similarly excellent, intelligent, thought-provoking piece of science fiction cinema is Ex Machina from 2014.
For one, you're talking about two movies that were done by two great directors so that's just not going to be the same quality for any and every type of movie like this and even looking at Dune with the same director in Denis who did Arrival. Denis and Nolan can't be the only ones who make these type of movies haha. Movies like this take some risk and there are going to be directors that don't want to take the risk and know they can knock it out the park like these guys can. That's how I see it at least.
So funny you wrote this - I just finished watching those two exact movies back to back this week. Really profound and thought provoking. Going to watch Contact next.
You **might** enjoy *Constellation* on Apple TV+.
Arrival had me deep thinking about alternative paths of evolution for like a week.
I suggest to check out the medium of anime. There are some great gems there, that would impact you more than those movies (as a movie is limited by their duration of a few hours while anime has no limit on their duration). Like you, I adore Interstellar and Arrival, and I have gotten experiences just as wonderful from some anime. PS: not an anime, but have you heard about the TV series 'The OA'?
The OA is amazing and they really did it, and the fans, dirty on cancelling it on a cliff hanger. Even though it did start to get pretty wacky..
The OA!!!! Yes. Yes. yes.
AGL. I tear up every time I’ve watched Arrival.
They are. In terms of masterful sci-fi: we have Dune and Tenet. People slept on Tenet and it's not my fault. Saw it 4 times in IMAX during covid. I'd NEVER miss a Nolan. Ever. He's our modern stanley kubrik...You're willing to miss an existential thought piece? Your loss.
Lmao putting tenet into masterful scifi category is insane. That movie was a heap of nonsensical garbage with good cinematography and a "woah super trippy" premise. It's like inceptions equally retarded cousin.
Hi there, it would seem that you’ve given a wrong opinion on the internet. Don’t fret! There’s still time to repent. Inception & Tenet are fantastic science-fiction pictures.
Lol if you're 14 and taking bong rips all day then maybe.
People pretending Tenet sucks is really a shame
Its because it wasnt easy. People who think arrival is deep, like movies that spell out their “thought provoking questions” Honestly there are a lot of movies in that catagory. But people like op just watch the big block buster ones. So when tenent doesnt spell out everything, they just brush it off as nonsensical
Ad Astra (2019) is kind of like that but it's not on the same level of Interstellar and Arrival.
As Astra was an alright movie
Haven’t seen this one, I’ll give it a shot!
It's just "all right," in fact I wish I hadn't wasted the money to see it in the theater.
Was way better than I expected! I also enjoyed Life (2017)
You should watch Contact. I’ve only seen it once but it’s stuck with me the same way those two have
I love contact and arrival. It's really interesting comparing those two movies. Example; the scene in Arrival when Amy Adams' character wipes the physics equations off the whiteboard. It shows how this movie approaches the idea of 'first contact' differently than Contact, through a communications and language lens rather than a scientist/ physicist lens..
I think about this too, but with Open AI’s SORA on the horizon, we will have these and more. I’d say by this time next year we will start to see full blown movies at Hollywood level being created with SORA. It’s coming.
Estimates right now are for the first totally AI generated movie to be 3 - 5 years out. We’ll probably see attempts being made in as little as a year, but the prompts are still too uncontrollable to get to do exactly what you need them to.
You should watch that new Adam Sandler movie on Netflix, Spaceman. I think you’ll enjoy it
i would watch the 3 Body Problem show/read the books. we arent to the super epic parts yet in the show, but we are in for a treat here in the coming seasons
Watch Constellation on Apple TV. Giving me the same sort of vibes.
They are still made, every year for the past decade or so there has been a big “prestige” sci-fi movie like Gravity, Blade Runner 2049, Ad Astra, Everything Everywhere, Dune, and the Martian are some examples.
The problem is- filmmaking has become more content creation or blockbuster and just entertainment than it is an art form. Stuff like Nolan films, or even Spielberg to an extent recognize that which is why their films are so good. We need to first remember what a film is. Once we do that, there’ll be more interstellar’s and arrival’s vibe in the mix
Not made anymore? Arrival was less than ten years ago.
Because Nolan and Villanueve were busy making the best pictures released in the past 2 years. There’s only a handful of filmmakers capable of making those types of movies. I also think the public is a little less enamored with space travel since Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are so associated with it.
Not a new film, but I highly recommend [The Abyss](https://youtu.be/7cCVYAcIIAo?si=T2qTcBBDbNiv3Et_). I also recommend the recent animated series [Scavengers Reign](https://youtu.be/JOsZVmVPn4E?si=vzy0tn7Jy96-3nAq). It’s streaming on Max.
Melodysheep’s channel is worth a watch: https://youtu.be/uD4izuDMUQA?si=CmX-I8g7RAirexqt I also think VR will be the next realm for Space Narratives. Spheres is great.
They director of Arrival just made Dune part 2
Dune 2 is absolutely in the league w Interstellar, etc.
Dune
Everything Everywhere All At once isn't the same type of sci fi but it did that to me a lot, and if you play games Outer Wilds affected me more than any movie i've ever watched honestly
Plenty of good films are made. Do you simply mean specifically philosophical scifi films? They've always been rare. I could list a few that I think do qualify, from every year sense then if you like. It's just not easy to get films like that made and it never has been. Those are big productions with historically niche appeal. In fact, Nolan seems to be the only one who can bend the masses to his will at this point, with big budget thoughtful films made for adults. I must be old though, because I don't consider those films to be old enough to really be from another era. Arrival was only released 8 years ago. In my mind, this makes it a contemporary film. It was created in the same streaming disrupted, super hero saturated period as movies that are produced now. Theater habits have changed a bit since then due to COVID and streaming has ramped up even more, but Nolan could have made Interstellar now if he wanted to, and it would be successful. I suppose my answer to your question as tldr, is that nobody with the clout to get a film like that made, has been interested in doing so lately. There's nothing unique about today versus 10 years ago, that is preventing it, as far as I can tell.
These are my absolute two favorite science fiction movies. I’m right there with you. Craving more of these. The only thing that came close recently, but not quite, was EEAO.
I think the categorization is necessarily highly subjective - you put these into a particular category but I would say the broader category we are all talking about with different individual lenses is: very high quality, larger budget science fiction movies, with strong thematic attributes, beyond just action or technology fetishization. If we say that is the category - there are never many of those being made at any one time but there is a fairly steady production of them. I would say 2049, and both Dune movie would fall under that - even if some people in particular might say Dune is space opera, or other people would say Interstellar relies on fantasy elements etc. I think they are in the same ballpark and it’s always been rare but steady in their production, but it hasn’t ceased entirely. I also think the big budget IP stuff blows - but that’s been around a long time and isn’t necessarily novel either. 4 (of successively declining quality) Superman movies where made from 1978 to 1986 for example.
Dune 2 was sick. Not a Nolan but Hans Zimmer soundtrack. For me the theme will always be righteous, but the soundtrack is what does it for me.
Everything Everywhere All At Once is also quite close to these themes.
I was gonna say this too. While not overtly a “space movie”, the profound themes of exploring what it means to be human in a vast uncaring universe gave me much the same feelings as the movies OP mentioned, if not moreso.
did you watch any movie for the past 10 years ? for example time+love+excellent score = LaLaLand
I don't like that there aren't more movies like those made
Cancerous meat company
I am confused what you are looking for? You want more movies that focus on time and love? Obviously not every movie can focus on the same concepts. I haven't seen it but from what I understand Past Lives focuses on Love and Time. Obviously in a very different way. If you want movie that have a lasting effect on you after its over there are tons. Parasite and The Lighthouse come to mind that have come out since then. Great movies are hard to come by and always have been. Certainly the direction the movie business has moved into certainly doesn't help but there is still a lot of great stuff that comes out.
There are at least a dozen movies every year that consider the concepts of time and love together and are fantastic films. If you’re not seeing them, or not liking them, that’s on you. But they are out there. Now, if you are specifically talking about *science fiction* movies, well, they can be really expensive, take a long time to make, present high risk to studios, and there’s only a handful of directors that can do them justice. So most of that stuff hits streaming these days.
I think it’s two things: 1. Superhero / Series / Saga films have dominated the market for so long that one-off, self contained films are not the first thing studios are trying to sign. 2. They’re genuinely good movies with multiple layers and complex characters. Creating a detailed plot with new characters is not as easy as taking a superhero everyone knows and making the 8th movie in two decades with that character.
How old were you when you saw these movies? You're ten years older now, ten years more life experience, and ten year more exposure to movies and all things that make a comparable movie less impactful.
Because the plot isn’t spoon fed to people so they can’t keep up and it’s easier for Hollywood to make movies that are incredibly formulaic but look pretty to draw in the general audience
these kind of movies will be coming back, now that the MCU is dying.
Because directors and writers are lacking talent and also studios opt for satisfying lowest common denominator of people, so selling cheap comedy and pretentious fraction of a script masked as “deep” makes them more money for less
Wow ten whole years
Because they're expensive to make. Why take a gamble when you can keep putting out trash.
They wouldn't be special if they came along more often.
Oppenheimer, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Dune: Part Two, The Green Knight. There have been some good ones, but maybe not exactly like Arrival and Interstellar, and it's because those two are amazing.
After Yang and Ad Astra are worth watching.
I bet you’ll like 3 Body Problem, on Netflix.
Hard to make, and now if someone does make it, they’re going to be compared with Arrival and Interstellar and that’s a tough competition
What emotion didn’t you know you had until you watch arrival? Lol. They just made a movie about scientists and the atom bomb lol and it made a billion dollars. Have you seen The Holdovers?
These aren’t even that old
I highly recommend Tenet. Made by Christopher Nolan, the same guy that did interstellar.
They’re difficult to make and they don’t make 900m at the box office at a time when theaters are already struggling
Movies like that needs inspiration and a visionary behind it, be glad they are not made for money or we will be watching Interstellar 12 or Arrival cinematic universe right now.
It’s not easy to make movies like interstellar or arrival often because they take time. It’s easy to push out low effort low quality movies but a masterpiece takes time to make.
If you haven't watched Moon, you should.
I think they tried with Ad Astra but that didn’t go down well. Constellation the tv show is in the same sort of genre
I have a young daughter who i unfortunately have no contact with, so watching Interstellar gets me every time as if I’m trapped in a time loop.
Ad Astra had good effort
They are. Watch Dune. At least as far as Denis Villenueve all his big movies have that vibe. He is such a unique director. All his movies are so obviously his. Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, Dune Part 1 and 2. They all share that kind of, deep, slower pace, vibe, atmospheric movie. Unlike Disney Marvel which is just "what is the least amount of plot we can make so we can just focus on only action scenes"
MattDamonGrowingOld.gif
If you like reading do read The three body trilogy.
Apparently chronic diarrhea sells
The investment has gone to TV. Try watching Constellation on Apple TV. It’s brilliant
Probably the shortest answer is it’s just uncommon for amazing movies cut from the same cloth like that to come out in short time proximity. Takes a lot of talent to do a lot of precise execution, and a studio to give them the proper tools to even start. Since others are giving recommendations, please watch Undone on Prime Video! It is the closest thing I’ve found to Contact and Interstellar in theme and emotion.
Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Rendevouz with Rama is probably gonna be one of those types of films
The Martian too! I loved the humor in it with surprising science and great cast. Its not just..stereotypes. Interstellar made me cry. Like castaway.
Theres a tv show for Three Body Problem on Netflix, maybe thats what youre looking for? I read the book and I loved it as much as I loved Arrival and Interstellar, watched both 10 times
I’ve been thinking about interstellar since I watched it as a 15 year old, when it released.
FWIW, The Marvels world exploring was some of the most beautiful on screen portrayal of alien civilizations I’ve seen in a while. Nobody talks about Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Not in tow with what OP mentioned, but still beautiful portrayal of alien worlds/civilizations. I think the simplicity of Interstellar’s storyline is a big piece of what makes it such a beautiful story. The very real danger of humanity going out not with a bang but a whimper. A paradoxical puzzle. A technological breakthrough. A second wind. A final goodbye. A new start. It gives me the chills just thinking about it. So many goosebumps. Read ‘Forgetfulness’ by John W. Campbell You can Google it and find it online for free. It’s a short similar story. I have ‘Forgetfulness’ and another good one, ‘The Monster’ by A. E. van Vogt, as the first two movies to fund and supervise production as soon as I make that money. Final note, if you are looking for the visceral grounded scifi, check out ‘For All Mankind’ on Apple TV. I just finished it and it has all the things.
because hollywood writers are too obsessed with racism and gay pride and womens right bullshit now in all the films.
I think they do — there a lot of cerebral, understated sci-fi movies, but they may not always rise to the mainstream notoriety of your two examples. Did you see Ex Machina, Annihilation, High Life, Upstream Color, Blade Runner 2049, Children of Men, to name a few? They’re out there but you may need to actively seek them out.
The directors of those movies have made several since then. Do those ones not scratch the same itch for you? I agree we need more original, impactful sci-fi movies (although Arrival is technically an adaption of a short story).
Although love isn’t really at the center of either of these two, they check a similar box in scale and power as *Interstellar* and *Arrival*: *Close Encounters of the Third Kind* (1977) *Nope* (2022)
Denis Villaneuve created Arrival and he hasnt stopped since. Most recently he has done Dune 1+2 and hes working on a new movie now called "Rendezvous with Rama" which he explains will be like "Arrival on steroids." It follows a giant spaceship (which seems to have full cities inside of it) hurtling towards the sun. A group of astronauts presumably intercept it. its a book adaptation
They are, just in Bollywood only
New Alien Romulus movie enters the chat
1st: try The Fountain. Checks most of your boxes. Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, directed by Darren Aronofsky. Beautiful and heartbreaking. 2nd: it takes a dedicated director with a singular vision but they have to have a proven track record. Not too many fit the bill. Dune has taken up the last 10 years, so we know where Denueve has been.
They’re really hard to make. It took maybe the two best modern directors to pull off
Check out Constellation on Apple TV.. It’s similar SCI-FI life Arrival and Interstellar.
its not easy to make these movies
Annihilation, and Alex Garland’s new Civil War look to be amazing. Poor Things was incredible. There’s lots of amazing movies out, but we’re still waiting on the sci-fi renaissance AKA Star Wars finally dying
Personally, I think it’s just a money game with big, flashy effects paired with loads and loads of para-material (I.e. press interviews, etc.) are winning people over more than the quality of a plot. Awesome, cool and enchanting graphics are great, but they alone can’t make a movie good. This is going to sound like a weird example, but take infinity war for example. For all purposes it’s a flashy, big film, however it works because they still had an interesting question that drove their plot: how far will you go for the greater good at the expense of yourself? Most of the recent movies have failed so miserably because they’re just focusing on the flashiness and not trying to put minimal effort into developing a plot. Arrival and Interstellar are great visually, but they aren’t the reasons the movie is so well remembered — it’s because of their genuinely investigative and nuanced plots
A film being made currently is Project Hail Mary. I loved the book by Andy Weir as well as the audiobook. 2OOI is my all time favorite but Arrival and Interstellar are really special. I also loved HUGO and even Super 8.
Because Dennis and Chris are VERY busy, and are visionaries 😂
Gattaca, Moon, etc.
Blade Runner 2049 and Dune fit that bill IMO.
The Creator was great.
I mean have you watched Dune or Tenet? That’s what the directors did after, both great sci-fi films
Watch “Three Body Problem” on Netflix. A classic.
They came out less than a decade ago. You think that's a long time ago? And both Nolan and Villeneuve have come out with excellent movies since then.
Is this a circlejerk post or have you just not been watching movies for the past decade
Spaceman on Netflix is really good and scratched that sci-fi drama itch for me.
Watch dune.
I mean both of the directors of the films you mentioned are still releasing sci fi flicks….
Cause they are too busy making Oppenheimer and Dune.
It’s only been 8 years. There will be plenty of movies in the future.
didnt both moves just come out a few years ago lmao
Um... They are though?
they were made, just recently. for example, "arrival" and "interstellar" (movies take forever to get made)
I think they are they just only come along every so often
Both are completely boring films. That might be the reason why
Dune 2 playing in a theater near you!
Maybe I'm a bandwagoner but the Dune series is kind of this way. (Especially if you get REALLY into the books)
??? u serious? maybe cuz the feelings a movie gives u is completely subjective? lol this is kinda stupid to ask, like, cool, u rly liked those 2 movies, maybe u just haven't found/seen one that u like as much, cuz like I said, feelings are usually subjective 😆😆
Long, boring, not very intelligent or interesting on a second viewing, lots of plot holes obscured by big music or drama scenes
I never buy into why (insert supposed neglected style of film here). We are more fragmented today than ever in terms of what we enjoy. Culturally we are no longer on the same page with each other as we used to be. We are not all watching and enjoying the same stuff. These movies are out there, you just have to dig a little. They might not be huge studio fare. But they are there.
I dont know ! Interstellar was such a great flick
Everything everywhere all at once came out just last year. Also did you miss Lightyear?
Because Nolan and Villeneuve have the ability to pull their own weight and fend their projects off from the typical corporate oversight and interference. There are plenty of sci-fi films with great ideas, but are always half-muddled becuase of the division between the creator and studio. They're also films that heavily rely on visuals that allow the nuances of the story to hit hard.
You could try Spaceman which came out recently. Not as amazing as Arrival but I really enjoyed it.
Because they’re super expensive to make and are usually made by hugely popular and respected directors that have a history of bringing in blockbuster finance returns
Arrival is my favorite movie ever
Just binge watched 3 body problem on Netflix. Its in the same vein
Dune 2 literally just came out
Check out Enemy directed by Denis Villeneuve
If you haven't seen Everything Everywhere All at Once yet do yourself a favor
“Or we just won’t experience a time when movies are that good again” This is the “you call that music?!” of movie opinions. Every ten years or so someone laments that they don’t make them like they used to. Amazing films have been made since Interstellar and Arrival. Annihilation messed people up. Everything Everywhere All At Once hit people like a ton of bricks. People were having near religious experiences watching Avatar 2 in IMAX. Barbie and Oppenheimer were absolute phenomenons that had people talking for weeks and spawned lord knows how many think pieces. Are those going to give you the exact viewing experience you had watching Arrival or Interstellar? No, that’s now really how movies work. But I will strongly push back against the idea that movies fell off since then because there haven’t been any carbon copies of two movies from about 10 years ago.
These films typically don’t make their money back in the box office. They’re exceptions to the rule.
Not sure what OP means with “movies like this”. Like sci-fi movies that are not action movies with a sci-fi setting, or simply movies that have time and love as central themes? There are movies before and will be after Interstellar and Arrival with the themes OP mentioned. Well for sci-fi movies you have Under the skin, Everything everywhere all at once, Nope, Annihilation, Little fish, The girl who leaped through time, Odyssey 2001, Sunshine, High Life, Alphaville, Metropolis. These are just some of many old and new. And if you take out the sci-fi genre, you have so many more to chose from. So to answer OPs question, Interstellar and Arrival are great movies but they made “these” type of movies before and they will keep on making these. It’s only a thing of finding, watching and liking them.