A post of ours last week on philo­soph­i­cal films piqued the inter­est of many a film-lov­ing, philo­soph­i­cal­ly-inclined read­er, and raised an impor­tant and per­haps unan­swer­able ques­tion: just what is a “philo­soph­i­cal film”? Does such a crea­ture even exist? Read­er Albert Hoff­man sug­gest­ed that “a real­ly great movie always is a philo­soph­i­cal movie, always opens the path to impor­tant philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions.” I find that state­ment hard to dis­pute, but then find myself also agree­ing with anoth­er read­er, Assy­outi, who writes “all bad films can be resources for philo­soph­i­cal dis­cus­sion.” Why not? What a philo­soph­i­cal film is depends, per­haps, on the def­i­n­i­tion of words like “philo­soph­i­cal,” “film,” and “is.”

In any case, the orig­i­nal­ly ref­er­enced list of 44 “essen­tial movies for the stu­dent of phi­los­o­phy,” com­piled in 2010 by Matt Whit­lock for Mubi, laid out some fair­ly spe­cif­ic cri­te­ria, name­ly that such films “(seem to be) incar­na­tions of clas­sic philo­soph­i­cal thought exper­i­ments or movies that have a major philo­soph­i­cal prob­lem as a main theme.” Yet, in addi­tion to films that fea­ture philoso­phers as char­ac­ters or par­tic­i­pants, this seems to me broad enough to cov­er an enor­mous range of movies—from Hitchock’s Ver­ti­go, a favorite of “pervert’s guide” the­o­rist Slavoj Žižek (above), and near­ly every film crit­ic every­where, to (speak­ing of bad films) Bill and Ted’s Excel­lent Adven­ture.

As I men­tioned in the pre­vi­ous post, the four years since Whitlock’s list have pro­duced a num­ber of movies that deserve inclu­sion, sev­er­al of which were high­light­ed in the com­ments. Addi­tion­al­ly, read­ers men­tioned sev­er­al over­looked films that cer­tain­ly meet the bar. And if we are to loosen up our definitions—and why not—the list expands even fur­ther. In that spir­it of inclu­sion, we offer an adden­dum to Whitlock’s 44, below, with the ever-nec­es­sary dis­claimer that this new list does not in any way exhaust the sub­ject. We do hope, how­ev­er, to spark fur­ther dis­cus­sion and, more impor­tant­ly, intro­duce inter­est­ing, thinky movies for read­ers to dis­cov­er. So, with­out fur­ther pre­am­ble, here are 27 more “essen­tial movies for the stu­dent of phi­los­o­phy,” in no par­tic­u­lar order, as sug­gest­ed by our always astute Open Cul­ture read­ers:

1. Mind­walk (1990)
2. Rosen­crantz & Guilden­stern Are Dead (1990)
3. My Din­ner With Andre (1981)
4. Step­pen­wolf (1974)
5. Wings of Desire (1987)
6. Cocteau’s Orphic Tril­o­gy—Blood of a Poet (1930), Orphee (1950), Tes­ta­ment of Orpheus (1959) [yes, this is three films, but we’ll count them as one for the pur­pos­es of this list]
7. Pos­si­ble Worlds (2000)
8. The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
9. The Holy Moun­tain (1973)
10. THX 1138 (1970)
11. 99 Francs (2007)
12. Un Chien Andalou (1929)
13. Enter the Void (2009)
14. Stalk­er (1979) — fea­tured ear­li­er today on OC
15. Viva La Muerte (1971)
16. I Stand Alone (1998)
17. Iris (2001)
18. World on a Wire (1973)
19. Locke (2013)
20. The Wid­ow of Saint-Pierre (2000)
21. The Tri­al (1962)
22. Life of Bri­an (1979)
23. Being There (1979)
24. Bladerun­ner (1982)
25. Out­landish: Strange For­eign Bod­ies (2009)
26. Is the Man Who Is Tall Hap­py? (2013) — see the trail­er above.
27. Thir­teen Con­ver­sa­tions About One Thing (2001)

As you sure­ly know, the list that pleas­es every­one has yet to be invent­ed, so if you don’t find your sug­ges­tions on this one, please don’t take offense. The exer­cise has been more than worth the price of the tick­et for me—I’ve added quite a few titles to my nev­erend­ing list of films I absolute­ly must see before that whole buck­et thing. No doubt even the hippest among you has found a sur­prise or two here to add to yours. And if you’re dying to add num­ber 28, 29, 30, etc. then, please, let us know in the com­ments below. Or, if you want even more sug­ges­tions, check out the titles that were men­tioned on our Face­book page.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

44 Essen­tial Movies for the Stu­dent of Phi­los­o­phy

Watch The Idea, the First Ani­mat­ed Film to Deal with Big, Philo­soph­i­cal Ideas (1932)

Daniel Den­nett and Cor­nel West Decode the Phi­los­o­phy of The Matrix in 2004 Film

Two Ani­ma­tions of Plato’s Alle­go­ry of the Cave: One Nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles, Anoth­er Made with Clay

The Drink­ing Par­ty, 1965 Film Adapts Plato’s Sym­po­sium to Mod­ern Times

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “philo­soph­i­cal film”? The Matrix, most like­ly, an obvi­ous exam­ple of a movie—or franchise—that explores time­less ques­tions: Who are we? What is real­i­ty? Are our lives noth­ing more than elab­o­rate sim­u­la­tions pro­grammed by hyper­in­tel­li­gent super­com­put­ers? Okay, that last one may be of more recent vin­tage, but it’s close­ly relat­ed to that ancient cave alle­go­ry of Plato’s that asks us to con­sid­er whether our expe­ri­ences of the world are noth­ing more than illu­sions ema­nat­ing from a “real” world that lies hid­den from view. Anoth­er influ­ence on The Matrix is Rene Descartes, whose dual­is­tic sep­a­ra­tion of con­scious­ness and body receives the max­i­mum of dra­mat­ic treat­ment.

But The Matrix is only one film among a great many that con­cern them­selves with clas­sic prob­lems of phi­los­o­phy. In a 2010 post for Mubi, Matt Whit­lock com­piled a list of 44 “Essen­tial Movies for a Stu­dent of Phi­los­o­phy.” Along with The Matrix, oth­er films of the past cou­ple decades get men­tions—Richard Lin­klater’s Wak­ing Life, The Tru­man Show (“the true home of Plato’s Cave in mod­ern movies”), Eter­nal Sun­shine of the Spot­less Mind, I Heart Huck­abees, Being John Malkovich, Incep­tion. Also appear­ing on the list are clas­sics like Aki­ra Kurosawa’s Rashomon and Ing­mar Bergman’s The Sev­enth Seal—which illus­trates, Whit­lock writes, “The Angst of The Absurd.” All of these films appear under the sub­head­ing “Famous thought exper­i­ments or dis­cus­sion of a famous philo­soph­i­cal prob­lem.”

Anoth­er cat­e­go­ry on the list is “Movies fea­tur­ing a philoso­pher.” The media-savvy Slavoj Žižek gets two men­tions, for 2006’s The Pervert’s Guide to Cin­e­ma and 2005’s Žižek! (excerpt above). Since Whit­lock com­piled the list, Žižek has received yet anoth­er fea­ture-length treatment—2012’s The Pervert’s Guide to Ide­ol­o­gy. Astra Tay­lor, direc­tor of Žižek!, also includ­ed him in 2009’s The Exam­ined Life, along­side Peter Singer, Michael Hardt, Judith But­ler, Sunau­ra Tay­lor, and Cor­nel West. After the doc­u­men­taries, we have “Movies with philoso­pher as a char­ac­ter,” includ­ing Derek Jarman’s Wittgen­stein, with Clan­cy Chas­say as the iras­ci­ble logi­cian, Rober­to Rossellini’s 1958 Socrates, star­ring Jean Syl­vere in the title role, and, of course, Bill and Ted’s Excel­lent Adven­ture, with Tony Steed­man as “So-Crates.”

The final three sub­cat­e­gories in Whitlock’s list are “Movies fea­tur­ing the ideas of par­tic­u­lar philoso­phers,” “Movies based on Nov­els writ­ten by famous philoso­phers,” and “Oth­er.” In the last bas­ket, Whit­lock places the PBS string-the­o­ry doc­u­men­tary The Ele­gant Uni­verse and Finnish per­for­mance artist M.A. Numminen’s bizarre adap­ta­tion of Wittgenstein’s Trac­ta­tus. Whit­lock nar­rows the field by rul­ing out “movies that make you think deep crazy stuff” or those with “some new ‘exis­ten­tial twist’ on com­mon top­ics.” Instead, he sticks to those films “that (seem to be) incar­na­tions of clas­sic philo­soph­i­cal thought exper­i­ments or movies that have a major philo­soph­i­cal prob­lem as a main theme… that include top­ics that a seri­ous stu­dent of phi­los­o­phy needs to under­stand.”

Like most such lists, this one doesn’t claim to be defin­i­tive, and the four years since its com­pi­la­tion have pro­duced sev­er­al films that might war­rant inclu­sion. Yet anoth­er ref­er­ence from 2010—William G. Smith’s Socrates and Sub­ti­tles: A Philosopher’s Guide to 95 Thought-Pro­vok­ing Movies from Around the World—casts a wider net. But Whitlock’s list seems to me a very use­ful start­ing point for think­ing about the rela­tion­ship between phi­los­o­phy and film. Below, see the first ten films on the list:

Zizek! (2005)
Exam­ined Life (2008)
Der­ri­da (2002)
The Ister (2004)
The Pervert’s Guide To Cin­e­ma (2009)
Being In The World (2010)
Bill And Ted’s Excel­lent Adven­ture (2001)
When Niet­zsche Wept (2007)
The Last Days Of Immanuel Kant (1994)
The Alchemist Of Hap­pi­ness (2004)

Take a look at his full list here, and by all means, offer your own sug­ges­tions for films that fit the cri­te­ria in the com­ments sec­tion below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wittgen­stein: Watch Derek Jarman’s Trib­ute to the Philoso­pher, Fea­tur­ing Til­da Swin­ton (1993)

Watch The Real­i­ty of the Vir­tu­al: 74 Min­utes of Pure Slavoj Žižek (2004)

Watch The Idea, the First Ani­mat­ed Film to Deal with Big, Philo­soph­i­cal Ideas (1932)

Daniel Den­nett and Cor­nel West Decode the Phi­los­o­phy of The Matrix in 2004 Film

Two Ani­ma­tions of Plato’s Alle­go­ry of the Cave: One Nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles, Anoth­er Made with Clay

The Drink­ing Par­ty, 1965 Film Adapts Plato’s Sym­po­sium to Mod­ern Times

Down­load 100 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es and Start Liv­ing the Exam­ined Life

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness