This brilliant movie navigates our societal discussion of beliefs regarding topics which are beyond the reach of experimentation (such as religion and aliens), with more wit than any other work.

Enjoyable but not great film lacks character depth, but has very good special effects and a complicated plot, and leaves you thinking about what could be out there. 6.60/10.

A bunch of political nonsense jargon for 1.5 hours and maybe 5 minutes of interesting visuals. I don’t understand these 5 star reviews. Waste of time, boring story telling… would not recommend!

Maybe it's the clunky dialogue, but Foster seems so awkwardly miscast. Much of the movie plays out like it was a made for tv melodrama. Some of the visuals still hold up.

I love this movie - perhaps my all time favourite. Jodie Foster as Dr Ellie Arroway is wonderful in the lead role and the supporting cast is outstanding. It's a wide ranging sci-fi movie addressing the interconnections between politics, religion and science. It's thought provoking, moving, breathtaking and a beautiful wild ride.

Never gets old. One of the best Science fiction movies of all time. Carl Sagan was a visionary!

Watching this film for the first time over two decades after its release offers a different experience as one can appreciate the use of practical effects, the earnest performances of the cast who make every outlandish aspect of the plot more believable, the 90s vibes, and the ambitious vision of Rob Zemeckis. Contact is a unique film not for everyone's taste but filled with admirable qualities that make it entertaining nonetheless.

A Sci-Fi Classic. It reminds me of Sci-Fi flicks like original The Day the Earth Stood Still where it's not about tons of cool fantasy action or world building but more about exploring ideas and science. The fundamental building blocks of the Science Fiction genre. When it focuses on those ideas, besides a handful of plot conviences, it explores those ideas pretty darn well and asks though provoking questions. However, when it focuses on character driven interactions, it struggles quite a bit and isn't as good. Most of the problems are in the first half. Overall this has solid acting and is really well made all around. The first half is mainly about setting Foster's characters background and the relationships with others. The problems are two fold. First she's just not that interesting a character to explore for a whole hour. Second, The acting is just alright for the first half. M.M. & Jodie are the poster child for the problems here. They are fine on their own with great charisma and prescence. However they just don't really romantic chemistry at all, the other characters she interacts with like Fitchner & Hurt are more quirky than they are anything with depth. Also, this really struggles with making the science babble expose understandable at first. It truly is not accessible at all. As a whole looking back the first half is very bloated and could've probably been cut in half without much lost. You probably could've gotten away with quick flashbacks and cutting the romance completely and it would've fixed everything. Once it focuses on the plot and becomes more story driven though it really finds it stride and never lets up. The ideas it explores are SOOOO much more interesting than the characters and everything including the acting takes a big step up. The special effects overall are very good and creative. They really do a good job immerising you and visually explaining what's happening than the first half did which counts more. It does a great job flipping the script of the idea of religion and faith on it's head as well. Don't go into this expecting tons of cool tech, space battles, and action. You'll be severely let down. Go in expecting ideas and to be challenged. Anyone who is a fan of any actors in this, Sci-Fi, or the director will like this. As a sidenote you can defintely see Interstellar drew a lot of inspiration from this. It fixed the issues this had and soared.

Good acting coupled with messages that are still alive today.

While many have critique this film for being too verbose and heady, I think they do the film and audiences a disservice. The themes in this film remain critical today- perhaps even more so than when it was released. The tension between science and the unknown should be viewed as generative and not divisive. But that is far easier said than done. Foster's performance was stellar (pun intended).

If you are the type that enjoys math, science and ever contemplates why and how we are here, then Contact is for you. If you're the type that's never bothered to wonder why the sky is blue and the sun comes up in the east and sets in the west, you'll be better suited to watch some mindless movie another half dozen times.

One of the most thought provoking films I have ever seen. Other reviews saying that the audience was left unhappy because there was no definitive answer given annoy me so much. The whole point of the film is “we don’t know”. The main content may be science fiction but the story behind this film is not, hence why it leaves us with questions to be answered, because in real life there are questions to be answered about what’s out there. A joy to watch with Jodie Foster being her usual amazing self. Even Matthew doesn’t annoy me in this film. Oh and to the other reviewer out there that questioned “how does he always end up being at every important meeting” the film actually tells you he’s an advisor to the president, he would be there with something like this going on wouldn’t he, sigh. Watch the film, then critique.

I will gladly add to this and flesh this out later but if anyone is finding this I am absolutely astounded to look up this movie that I have always turned to and watch so many times and see that the critic reviews are below 70% average. You could say all different things but people have to take into account that there are so many strong stretches and strong parts of this film. This should be a highly celebrated film.. I need to look up if it had nominations and and look at that and what the competition was that you're in look I used to be into the Academy Awards when I was younger and then when Fargo didn't win I remember getting upset and not caring anymore.. but let's be real here this is clearly in the best picture type category I saw someone writing about this online today so this is fresh in my mind but also Jodie Foster was incredible. I don't know that she's had a better performance besides Silence of the Lambs this is an incredible movie. I need to read the book and everything but seriously just so thought-provoking and so much and so many great shots even when they zoom in on this bad guy I don't want to give it away but the zoom in shot and everything that they show is excellent filmmaking. I need to look up and see all his films but Robert zemack is a favorite of mine with Castaway and flight is unbelievable if you haven't seen that you have to. But I'm just dismayed and kind of disgusted to see that this film could have anything but but higher reviews I mean you know a lot of movies come out now and things are really poorly rated and then you know something's most likely going to be great when it's like high 80s and into the 90s and there is no reason why this movie shouldn't be up by a solid 90%

Awesome movie! I hope we hear this type of signal soon! :)

This movie has some of the greatest trick shots when it come to cinematography and choreography of actors combined together.

Excellent Si-ci movie written by Carl Sagan book.

It takes a bit too long for the story to start but, in my opinion, great movie. Some lines from pretty much all characters were simply brilliant.

Brilliant and moving and profound.

Excellent movie. Wonderful acting. Clever script. Well directed. A classic, and for good reasons.

Well made movie about life on other planets where you don't actually see them. Jodie Foster is brilliant as usual. The God vs Science part was over the top and kind of ruins it for me. But I did enjoy it most of the time.