Thinking movies

I've seen a lot of philosophical/thinking movie lists and a lot of them really well represent how little we all think about movies during as well as after watching them. If you put A Beautiful Mind, Eternal Sunshine of Spotless mind, Inception, or the Matrix on your thinking lists, then I don't believe you really know what it means to think.

Thinking isn't just FOLLOWING a complex idea or a concept that you find so cool to wrap your head around. Nor is it when you sympathize with a character that you can't possibly imagine what it'd be like to be in their shoes (You're supposed to be able to imagine. You're supposed to be able to think. When you get all emotional and teary eyed, that likely doesn't stretch your cerebral perceptions but instead your emotional resonance. Although they can be related when a foreign emotion brings you to a difficult intellectual question). Oh and as for movies that are just so trippy, man... and you just don't know what's going on, without any legitimate intentions from the director, no matter how artsy, I'd say they're the furthest thing from thinking movies possible. Those movies are more likely named head trips to trip your head into the realm of a drugged up confused state. Surrealist cinema falls into this style as well. I like some of them but you don't need acid to think, or more importantly, drugs won't necessarily help you find a solid rational answer. It may FEEL right, or just tickle your fascination. EVERYTHING in a hallucinogenic state FEELS like closure. Just because you find yourself completely confused because the director/writer intentionally made the path you must take so convoluted, doesn't mean that there's real philosophical or emotional depth of thematic content. In other words, puzzles do cause the brain to do some work but sometimes the answers aren't worth the time devoted, rendering the problem itself nonsensical ("The only way to win is to not play" Sure it took you time to figure it out, but the realization was not a profoundly intellectual, spiritual, or philosophical one). The point(s) must justify convoluted paths. Not all thinking movies have convoluted presentation.

So what is a thinking movie then? Genuine thinking ideas evoke conflict and engagement in the viewer's mind, hoping for you to sift between the lines of the ideas that are presented. You're most definitely required to put things together. You are basically playing detective for what appears to be meaningful and inciteful. They will appear as if they are useful contradictions. You should also be able to sift through this finding in your head until you no longer see it as a contradiction even if it takes a while, or even years. A writer can't just introduce ideas that are unsolvable, nor if they make no legitimate sense. The subject matter may only remain as ambiguous in your mind until a latter date. Usually thinking ideas themselves are applicable to life itself, or at very least they are challenging in structure or subject matter. Or at very very least you take a new idea away from the film that isn't derived from a typical expression or an ancient cliche.

Thinking films don't always MAKE or provoke you to think. Isn't that an oxymoron of a description? (A better way to phrase it might be that they sometimes encourage or incite you to use your mind in ways foreign to you. However, sometimes they simply don't). With some of these films, you have to be the one to ask the right questions (or to catch the main question(s) posed by the writer) to obtain a deeper perception of the content, or to get something out of it at all. Keep in mind that I don't believe that thinking movies are necessarily the best ones ever as I have favorites that will not appear on this list. I also liberally threw some movies on here that were obviously difficult to dream up (but don't go to completely silly territory in a pointless attempt to be unnecessarily challenging). Ideally you want a real solid reason for presenting conflicting ideas, or simply an idea that causes you to see with new eyes. You are essentially on your own in some way for you obtain what the author is trying to convey.

In the event that this list description makes me appear smug or like a pompous d bag. I sincerely mean the best and hope to give you some interesting recommendations, some of which that you can actually put some real book club treatment on. Here you go.