30 Psychological/Intellectual Films worth watching
by heathmckinley | created - 11 Aug 2013 | updated - 11 Aug 2013 | PublicA list of 30 films with a common theme of a psychological or intellectual thriller type element. Although not all films are true thrillers they all have that "What's going on?" type feel and several will leave you with a sense of confusion.
These films cover a variety of other genres ranging from Sci-Fi to Action to Romance.
Listed in no particular order.
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1. 12 Monkeys (1995)
R | 129 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet.
Director: Terry Gilliam | Stars: Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, Joseph Melito
Votes: 645,225 | Gross: $57.14M
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
G | 149 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
After uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins: a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer HAL 9000.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter
Votes: 716,815 | Gross: $56.95M
3. Another Earth (2011)
PG-13 | 92 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
On the night of the discovery of a duplicate Earth in the Solar system, an ambitious young student and an accomplished composer cross paths in a tragic accident.
Director: Mike Cahill | Stars: Brit Marling, William Mapother, Matthew-Lee Erlbach, DJ Flava
Votes: 99,811 | Gross: $1.32M
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
R | 120 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern
Votes: 214,900 | Gross: $8.55M
5. The Cell (2000)
R | 107 min | Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi
An F.B.I. Agent persuades a social worker, who is adept with a new experimental technology, to enter the mind of a comatose serial killer in order to learn where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim.
Director: Tarsem Singh | Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D'Onofrio, Colton James
Votes: 108,832 | Gross: $61.33M
6. Dark City (1998)
R | 100 min | Fantasy, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A man struggles with memories of his past, which include a wife he cannot remember and a nightmarish world no one else ever seems to wake up from.
Director: Alex Proyas | Stars: Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt
Votes: 211,587 | Gross: $14.38M
7. The Bothersome Man (2006)
Not Rated | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
In a strange city where every person seems content beyond reason a new man arrives in town and stirs up trouble by asking too many questions.
Director: Jens Lien | Stars: Trond Fausa, Petronella Barker, Per Schaanning, Birgitte Larsen
Votes: 18,035
8. Deja Vu (2006)
PG-13 | 126 min | Action, Crime, Sci-Fi
After a ferry is bombed in New Orleans, an A.T.F. agent joins a unique investigation using experimental surveillance technology to find the bomber, but soon finds himself becoming obsessed with one of the victims.
Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Jim Caviezel, Val Kilmer
Votes: 326,762 | Gross: $64.04M
9. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
R | 108 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
When their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a medical procedure to have each other erased from their memories for ever.
Director: Michel Gondry | Stars: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Gerry Robert Byrne
Votes: 1,074,010 | Gross: $34.40M
10. The Fountain (2006)
PG-13 | 97 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
As a modern-day scientist, Tommy is struggling with mortality, desperately searching for the medical breakthrough that will save the life of his cancer-stricken wife, Izzi.
Director: Darren Aronofsky | Stars: Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Sean Patrick Thomas, Ellen Burstyn
Votes: 248,388 | Gross: $10.14M
11. Identity (2003)
R | 90 min | Mystery, Thriller
Stranded at a desolate Nevada motel during a nasty rain storm, ten strangers become acquainted with each other when they realize that they're being killed off one by one.
Director: James Mangold | Stars: John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, John Hawkes
Votes: 266,297 | Gross: $52.16M
12. Ink (I) (2009)
Not Rated | 107 min | Action, Drama, Fantasy
A mysterious creature, known as Ink, steals a child's soul in hopes of using it as a bargaining chip to join the Incubi - the group of supernatural beings responsible for creating nightmares.
Director: Jamin Winans | Stars: Christopher Soren Kelly, Quinn Hunchar, Jessica Duffy, Jennifer Batter
Votes: 22,359
13. The Jacket (2005)
R | 103 min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
A Gulf war veteran is wrongly sent to a mental institution for insane criminals, where he becomes the object of a doctor's experiments, and his life is completely affected by them.
Director: John Maybury | Stars: Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Daniel Craig, Kris Kristofferson
Votes: 119,063 | Gross: $6.30M
14. Jacob's Ladder (I) (1990)
R | 113 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Mourning his dead child, a haunted Vietnam War veteran attempts to uncover his past while suffering from a severe case of dissociation. To do so, he must decipher reality and life from his own dreams, delusions, and perceptions of death.
Director: Adrian Lyne | Stars: Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, Danny Aiello, Matt Craven
Votes: 117,493 | Gross: $26.12M
15. Looper (2012)
R | 119 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
In 2074, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent into the past, where a hired gun awaits - someone like Joe - who one day learns the mob wants to 'close the loop' by sending back Joe's future self for assassination.
Director: Rian Johnson | Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano
Votes: 601,624 | Gross: $66.49M
16. The Machinist (2004)
R | 101 min | Drama, Thriller
An industrial worker who hasn't slept in a year begins to doubt his own sanity.
Director: Brad Anderson | Stars: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, John Sharian
Votes: 414,409 | Gross: $1.08M
17. Moon (2009)
R | 97 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Astronaut Sam Bell has a quintessentially personal encounter toward the end of his three-year stint on the Moon, where he, working alongside his computer, GERTY, sends back to Earth parcels of a resource that has helped diminish our planet's power problems.
Director: Duncan Jones | Stars: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott, Rosie Shaw
Votes: 375,839 | Gross: $5.01M
18. Mr. Nobody (2009)
R | 141 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
A boy stands on a station platform as a train is about to leave. Should he go with his mother or stay with his father? Infinite possibilities arise from this decision. As long as he doesn't choose, anything is possible.
Director: Jaco Van Dormael | Stars: Jared Leto, Sarah Polley, Diane Kruger, Linh-Dan Pham
Votes: 245,347 | Gross: $0.00M
19. Never Let Me Go (2010)
R | 103 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
The lives of three friends, from their early school days into young adulthood, when the reality of the world they live in comes knocking.
Director: Mark Romanek | Stars: Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Izzy Meikle-Small
Votes: 152,826 | Gross: $2.43M
20. Pandorum (2009)
R | 108 min | Action, Horror, Mystery
Two crew members of a spaceship wake up from hypersleep to discover that all their colleagues are missing. Despite this, it appears that they are not alone.
Director: Christian Alvart | Stars: Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet, Antje Traue
Votes: 159,199 | Gross: $10.33M
21. Pi (1998)
R | 84 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A paranoid mathematician searches for a key number that will unlock the universal patterns found in nature.
Director: Darren Aronofsky | Stars: Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Ben Shenkman, Pamela Hart
Votes: 186,138 | Gross: $3.22M
22. Primer (2004)
PG-13 | 77 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there's something bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices they've built, wrestle over their new invention.
Director: Shane Carruth | Stars: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden, Anand Upadhyaya
Votes: 113,832 | Gross: $0.42M
23. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
R | 102 min | Drama
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep..
Director: Darren Aronofsky | Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans
Votes: 895,722 | Gross: $3.64M
24. Session 9 (2001)
R | 97 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Tensions rise within an asbestos cleaning crew as they work in an abandoned mental hospital with a horrific past that seems to be coming back.
Director: Brad Anderson | Stars: David Caruso, Stephen Gevedon, Paul Guilfoyle, Josh Lucas
Votes: 62,709 | Gross: $0.38M
25. Sound of My Voice (2011)
R | 85 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Two documentary filmmakers attempt to penetrate a cult who worships a woman who claims to be from the future.
Director: Zal Batmanglij | Stars: Christopher Denham, Nicole Vicius, Brit Marling, Davenia McFadden
Votes: 22,927 | Gross: $0.41M
26. Stay (I) (2005)
R | 99 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A psychiatrist attempts to prevent one of his patients from committing suicide while trying to maintain his own grip on reality.
Director: Marc Forster | Stars: Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, Ryan Gosling, Kate Burton
Votes: 85,780 | Gross: $3.63M
27. Surrogates (2009)
PG-13 | 89 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.
Director: Jonathan Mostow | Stars: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Ving Rhames, Rosamund Pike
Votes: 180,049 | Gross: $38.58M
28. The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
R | 100 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A computer scientist running a virtual reality simulation of 1937 becomes the primary suspect when his colleague and mentor is murdered.
Director: Josef Rusnak | Stars: Craig Bierko, Gretchen Mol, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Vincent D'Onofrio
Votes: 77,018 | Gross: $15.50M
29. Timecrimes (2007)
R | 92 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.
Director: Nacho Vigalondo | Stars: Karra Elejalde, Candela Fernández, Bárbara Goenaga, Nacho Vigalondo
Votes: 68,578 | Gross: $0.04M
30. Waking Life (2001)
R | 99 min | Animation, Drama, Fantasy
A man shuffles through a dream meeting various people and discussing the meanings and purposes of the universe.
Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Ethan Hawke, Trevor Jack Brooks, Lorelei Linklater, Wiley Wiggins
Votes: 66,793 | Gross: $2.89M
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