7.9/10
570,116
1,862 user 721 critic

Arrival (2016)

Trailer
1:01 | Trailer
A linguist works with the military to communicate with alien lifeforms after twelve mysterious spacecraft appear around the world.

Director:

Denis Villeneuve

Writers:

Eric Heisserer (screenplay by), Ted Chiang (based on the story "Story of Your Life" written by)
Popularity
515 ( 100)
Won 1 Oscar. Another 67 wins & 262 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Amy Adams ... Louise Banks
Jeremy Renner ... Ian Donnelly
Forest Whitaker ... Colonel Weber
Michael Stuhlbarg ... Agent Halpern
Mark O'Brien ... Captain Marks
Tzi Ma ... General Shang
Abigail Pniowsky ... 8-Year-Old-Hannah
Julia Scarlett Dan ... 12-Year-Old-Hannah
Jadyn Malone ... 6-Year-Old-Hannah
Frank Schorpion ... Dr. Kettler
Lucas Chartier-Dessert Lucas Chartier-Dessert ... Private Lasky
Christian Jadah ... Private Combs
Lucy Van Oldenbarneveld Lucy Van Oldenbarneveld ... CNAC Anchor
Andrew Shaver ... Environmental Tech
Pat Kiely ... Environmental Tech
Learn more

More Like This 

The Martian (2015)
Certificate: PG Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

An astronaut becomes stranded on Mars after his team assume him dead, and must rely on his ingenuity to find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive.

Director: Ridley Scott
Stars: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig
Gravity (2013)
Certificate: PG Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

Two astronauts work together to survive after an accident leaves them stranded in space.

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Stars: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris
Ex Machina (2014)
Certificate: PG Drama | Mystery | Sci-Fi
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

A young programmer is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a highly advanced humanoid A.I.

Director: Alex Garland
Stars: Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac
Certificate: 14A Action | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

Young Blade Runner K's discovery of a long-buried secret leads him to track down former Blade Runner Rick Deckard, who's been missing for thirty years.

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Stars: Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas
Avatar (2009)
Certificate: PG Action | Adventure | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

A paraplegic Marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.

Director: James Cameron
Stars: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver
Dunkirk (2017)
Certificate: PG Action | Drama | History
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire, and France are surrounded by the German Army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Stars: Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance
The Revenant (2015)
Certificate: 14A Action | Adventure | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

A frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team.

Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter
Life of Pi (2012)
Certificate: G Adventure | Drama | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

A young man who survives a disaster at sea is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an unexpected connection with another survivor: a fearsome Bengal tiger.

Director: Ang Lee
Stars: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain
Get Out I (2017)
Certificate: 14A Horror | Mystery | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.

Director: Jordan Peele
Stars: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford
Certificate: PG Biography | Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

During World War II, the English mathematical genius Alan Turing tries to crack the German Enigma code with help from fellow mathematicians.

Director: Morten Tyldum
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode
Deadpool (2016)
Certificate: 14A Action | Adventure | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

A wisecracking mercenary gets experimented on and becomes immortal but ugly, and sets out to track down the man who ruined his looks.

Director: Tim Miller
Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller
Her (2013)
Certificate: 14A Drama | Romance | Sci-Fi
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

In a near future, a lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with an operating system designed to meet his every need.

Director: Spike Jonze
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson
Edit

Storyline

Linguistics professor Louise Banks leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touchdown in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all of mankind. Written by Jwelch5742

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Taglines:

Why are they here?


Certificate:

PG | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

View content advisory »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

The classical music piece that bookends the film is "On the Nature of Daylight" by Max Richter. Its prominence during the film and the fact that it was a pre-existing track meant that Jóhann Jóhannsson's score was deemed ineligible for an Academy Award despite being highly acclaimed. See more »

Goofs

The language displayed for shots of Pakistan and Pakistani news channel are in Arabic. Whereas the main and dominant literary languages used in Pakistan are Urdu and English. Arabic is spoken by barely 1% of the population and is never used in news channels. See more »

Quotes

[first lines]
Louise Banks: [narrating] I used to think this was the beginning of your story. Memory is a strange thing. It doesn't work like I thought it did. We are so bound by time, by its order.
Louise Banks: [coddling her baby girl] Okay. Okay. Come back to me. Come back to me. Come back to me.
Louise Banks: [later playing with her in the yard] Stick 'em up! Are you the sheriff in this here town? These are my tickle guns, and I'm gonna getcha!
6-Year-Old-Hannah: No!
Louise Banks: You want me to chase you? You better run!
See more »

Crazy Credits

Denis Villeneuve's daughter, Salomé Villeneuve, is listed as "Hazmat Suit Specialist". See more »

Connections

Spoofed in Karakomik Filmler: Kaçamak (2019) See more »

Soundtracks

Decyphering
Written by Jóhann Jóhannsson
See more »

User Reviews

 
Time. Life. Gift. You. Gift. Life. Time.
11 January 2019 | by tahseenahmedSee all my reviews

As a kid, my dad used to tell me stories at night just like any other dads out there. I grew up, got busy with life but those priceless timeless beautiful storytelling moments that I once shared, that amazed me in wonder, curiosity, imagination and desire to know more..

I know if I think hard enough I might remember some of them, but that's not the point. The point is all those stories had characters and people and objects and places and things that I could either imagine or something that I could picture and understand and visualize in my young mind. If not for those imaginable characters and people, I would have never understood those stories, the true meaning of the story, the actual story behind the story that my dad probably wanted me to understand.

Arrival, for me is such a story. Aliens are just fun characters that help me understand the story so I can actually see beyond it and understand the untold story. You see, the way I understand it is that the director had to dumb it down for us and wrap this movie in a sci-fi genre and add aliens so you could relate it to something you are familiar with and hoped, really hoped that we try to understand the true purpose, the message behind all this. It simply couldn't have been portrayed better than this!

This movie teaches you a lot of things, if you are ready to learn. About 'time' and how much we are bound by it, about life and death, about loving unconditionally, about believing in yourself that everything happens for a reason, and so much more..


221 of 279 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you? | Report this
Review this title | See all 1,862 user reviews »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more »
Edit

Details

Country:

USA | Canada

Language:

English | Russian | Mandarin

Release Date:

11 November 2016 (Canada) See more »

Also Known As:

L'arrivée See more »

Filming Locations:

Montréal, Québec, Canada See more »

Edit

Box Office

Budget:

$47,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$24,074,047, 13 November 2016

Gross USA:

$100,546,139

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$203,388,186
See more on IMDbPro »

Company Credits

Show more on IMDbPro »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1
See full technical specs »

Contribute to This Page



Recently Viewed