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movies like Arrival
Thought-provoking sci-fi films exploring language, time, and human connection through first contact and existential themes.
Movies Like Arrival
Explore a curated roundup for movies like Arrival. We prioritize replay value, depth, and niche-friendly qualities that match the search intent. Scroll the cards, then try the generator for fully personalized recommendations.
Interstellar
A team of explorers travel through a wormhole in search of a new home for humanity.
Combines emotional depth with complex science concepts like relativity and time dilation.
Arrival
Linguist Louise Banks leads a team to communicate with extraterrestrials as twelve mysterious spacecraft appear worldwide.
Central theme of language shaping perception and nonlinear time drives the plot.
Contact
Scientist Ellie Arroway detects a message from an extraterrestrial civilization and embarks on a journey to make contact.
Explores scientific rigor, faith, and humanity's place in the cosmos through communication.
Primer
Two engineers accidentally discover time travel and struggle with its consequences.
Intellectually dense narrative focusing on time manipulation and causality.
The Fountain
Interwoven stories across time explore love, mortality, and the quest for immortality.
Poetic treatment of time, loss, and transcendence similar to Arrival’s emotional structure.
Coherence
During a dinner party, a comet passes overhead, causing reality to fracture.
Tightly crafted sci-fi thriller that uses subtle phenomena to explore identity and choice.
Annihilation
A biologist joins an expedition into a mysterious zone where nature mutates unpredictably.
Atmospheric sci-fi examining transformation, self-destruction, and the unknown.
Ex Machina
A young programmer is invited to administer a Turing test to an advanced humanoid AI.
Focuses on communication, consciousness, and what it means to understand another being.
Sunshine
In the year 2057, a crew journeys to reignite the dying sun.
Blends hard science with psychological tension and cosmic awe.
Stories We Tell
Sarah Polley explores the blurred lines between truth and memory in her family’s history.
Though a documentary, it shares Arrival’s theme of narrative shaping reality and identity.
Under the Skin
An alien in human form preys on men in Scotland, gradually developing empathy.
Ambiguous, atmospheric exploration of humanity and perception from an outsider’s view.
High Life
Convicts on a spaceship hurtle toward a black hole in a mission blending punishment and reproduction.
Contemplates isolation, time, and human instinct in extreme conditions with poetic tone.
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