Arrival
Directed by Denis Villeneuve7.994%83%7.6
Linguist Louise Banks leads a team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors.
Arrival Ratings & Reviews
- Callum2d ago⭐⭐⭐⭐½ – Arrival – When science fiction chooses empathy over noise Arrival is one of those rare science-fiction films that doesn’t try to impress you with scale, but instead asks you to slow down and pay attention. It’s less about aliens arriving on Earth and more about how humans react when faced with something they don’t understand — emotionally, linguistically, and personally. What really makes the film work is how grounded it feels. Amy Adams’ performance is quiet, controlled, and deeply human. There’s no big heroics here, just a woman trying to do her job while carrying a weight she doesn’t yet understand. The film gives her space to exist in silence, and that restraint is where its power lives. Denis Villeneuve directs with remarkable confidence. He trusts atmosphere over action, letting sound design, pacing, and framing do the heavy lifting. The ships feel imposing not because they explode or attack, but because of how other they are. The tension comes from waiting, listening, and trying to make sense of fragments — much like the characters themselves. What lingers most is the film’s emotional aftertaste. Arrival isn’t interested in easy answers or triumphant endings. It quietly explores the idea that knowledge doesn’t always protect us from pain — sometimes it simply asks us whether the experience is worth it anyway. That question sits with you long after the film ends. This is science fiction that respects its audience. Thoughtful, patient, and surprisingly affecting, Arrival proves that the genre can be just as powerful when it whispers as when it shouts. 🥃 Drink Pairing A smooth, contemplative dram — something you sip slowly, letting each layer unfold. Like the film, it rewards patience and attention rather than urgency.
- sixx84November 18, 2025Another film I’ve watched at least 10 times. Love it, different take on alien landings. Probably need to view a couple of times to get the most from it.
- SamNovember 16, 2025had trouble with the flashbacks because of face blindness. I fear it is terminal
- mazen982November 2, 2025It's on my top 4 on letterboxd....
- makdelartOctober 30, 2025Too much pomp and sentimentality.
- S JohnsonOctober 22, 2024Just watched it again, and honestly, it might be even better the second time around.
- HaHaHarvey44May 8, 2025What if aliens show up in giant obsidian coffee pods, and instead of nuking New York, they ask if we want to learn sentence structure? It’s a slow, thoughtful, brain-melting meditation on language, perception, and time, basically Independence Day for people who read books without pictures. Amy Adams is deciphering grief one inky Heptapod swirl at a time. These aliens don’t speak, they mist-blast entire concepts into the air like intergalactic Rorschach tests, and somehow it makes total sense. By the end, the twist doesn’t explode, it just lands in your chest like a memory you haven’t lived yet, quietly rearranging your understanding of time. There’s no war, no special effects show, just the terrifying realisation that communication might be the most powerful weapon, or gift, we’ve got.
- OnyxVeraOctober 26, 2025Truly an interesting movie, it has a semi slow start but overall a great movie.
- ayayronApril 6, 2025Non-zero sum game
- M08YOctober 1, 2025Arrival is one of the more unique and interesting sci-fi movies in the last 10 years. I'll be entirely honest, I didnt think much of Arrival when I saw it in 2017, but rewatching it now I certainly can see it's merit. While hardly thrill-a-minute, Arrival does manage to make an engaging film out of what seems to be a fairly mundane idea. As it turns out, the idea of a language professor decrypting an Alien language is actually quite interesting. Not much actually happens in the film, but don't let that trick you into thinking it's boring. The audio and visuals were all spot on even if slightly uneventful. There is next to no spectable in Arrival.
- J.Guillaume D-IsabelleSeptember 20, 2025A real movie about alien
- Florian EscureAugust 10, 2025After years, it's still great. The atmosphere, music, urgency still hits.
- HjortlandSeptember 18, 2025Love this movie!
- Daryl WilliamsSeptember 2, 2025Hands down the best on screen portrayal of what would happen if Aliens came to earth. A great Sci-fi film with an awesome Heart-Wrenching story throughout. Watched 3 times now over the years.
- ርልዪረJuly 30, 2025This is a beautifully crafted piece of filmic art, slow moving shots through cleverly lit atmospheric sets, common sense editing within scenes giving the feeling that you are changing your own point of view to see what is happening. The development of the main character is handled so flawlessly well, you can understand her drives/reactions so quickly and fully very early within the film. And finally the music.The soundtrack is so essential to creating the feel of this film that without the lilting strings, prolonged chords, curious horn sounds and vocalisations, a vast amount of emotional content would not even exist. All of this tied into a truly novel concept with regards to why and how alien life contacts the human race results in a truly outstanding sci-fi experience. I recommend watching this alone or, if you are with others, suppress the urge to speak, because moving focus away from the subdued flow of this film will interfere with how deeply you can engross yourself in the content and potentially how it may affect you.
Watch Arrival Videos
Arrival Trivia
Arrival was released on November 10, 2016.
Arrival was directed by Denis Villeneuve.
Arrival has a runtime of 1 hr 56 min.
Arrival was produced by Dan Levine, Shawn Levy, David Linde, Karen Lunder, Aaron Ryder, Dan Cohen.
The key characters in Arrival are Louise Banks (Amy Adams), Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker).
Arrival is rated PG-13.
Arrival is a Sci-Fi, Drama, Mystery film.
Arrival has an audience rating of 8.3 out of 10.