Movie · 1997 · Drama, Science Fiction, Mystery · 2h 30m · PG · English
Curator score: 6.2/10 (514.5K ratings)
Take a journey to the heart of the universe.
Overview
A radio astronomer receives the first extraterrestrial radio signal ever picked up on Earth. As the world powers scramble to decipher the message and decide upon a course of action, she must make some difficult decisions between her beliefs, the truth, and reality.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.2/10
IMDb: 7.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.82/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 69%
Metacritic: 62
TMDB: 7.4/10
Director
Robert Zemeckis
Production
South Side Amusement Company, Warner Bros. Pictures
Cast
Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, David Morse, Angela Bassett, Geoffrey Blake, Max Martini, Rob Lowe, Jake Busey, Tucker Smallwood, Jena Malone, Sami Chester, Timothy McNeil, Laura Elena Surillo, Henry Strozier, Larry King, Thomas Garner
Curator Review
Verdict
A thoughtful, big-idea sci-fi drama that balances wonder, faith, politics, and human vulnerability. It can be talky and a little self-serious, but the emotional payoff and sense of scale still land.
Best for
Viewers who like intelligent, dialogue-driven science fiction
Fans of movies about faith versus evidence
People who enjoy grounded, humanist space stories
Anyone drawn to earnest 1990s prestige filmmaking
Skip if
You want fast-paced action or constant spectacle
You dislike philosophical or expository sci-fi
You prefer colder, more detached science fiction
You’re allergic to earnest sentimentality
Overview
Contact is one of those big studio science-fiction films that trusts conversation, institutions, and ideas as much as effects. It treats the search for extraterrestrial intelligence as a global, political, and spiritual event, not just a technological one, and that gives it a seriousness that still feels unusual for the genre.
Worth noting
Jodie Foster anchors the film with a controlled, deeply felt performance, making the character’s skepticism and longing feel lived-in rather than symbolic. The movie can be blunt and occasionally over-explanatory, but that directness is part of its appeal: it wants to argue, persuade, and awe you in the same breath.
Bottom line
What lingers is the scale of its imagination and the tenderness of its worldview. Even when it gets corny, it’s corny in a way that feels sincere, and the ending remains one of the more moving attempts to connect cosmic mystery with personal grief and belief.
Top Letterboxd reviews
jourdain searles (3.5★) · 3766 likes
how does she make it through this entire movie without punching someone
☆ sophie ☆ (4★) · 2370 likes
Contact walked...
so that INTERSTELLAR COULD RUN!
sam (5★) · 1170 likes
that mirror shot when ellie was getting the medicine... brilliant CINEMAtography™.
demi adejuyigbe · 1151 likes
SPACE WEEK MOVIE NO. 2
Beautiful speculative science-fiction with a focus on reality, secret duplicate machines, weirdly pro-capitalist, love transcending the boundaries of interdimensional travel, Matthew McConaughey, it’s too long, AND it‘s got a dead wife?? Christopher Nolan watch this movie every night before he put he kids to bed! I think Jodie Foster and me would be good friends. :)
Will Menaker (4★) · 1142 likes
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the director of 'Cure' and 'Pulse' has said that Robert Zemeckis is perhaps "the American film director who makes the most authentic films today." Not sure I would go that far, but this movie owns and was unfairly maligned when it first came out for its earnest, heart on the sleeve, humanist sentimentality. Sure, it's a little corny, but the ending of this movie is moving, beautiful and takes seriously the big ideas about faith, science, the existence… more Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the director of 'Cure' and 'Pulse' has said that Robert Zemeckis is perhaps "the American film director who makes the most authentic films today." Not sure I would go that far, but this movie owns and was unfairly maligned when it first came out for its earnest, heart on the sleeve, humanist sentimentality. Sure, it's a little corny, but the ending of this movie is moving, beautiful and takes seriously the big ideas about faith, science, the existence… more