Arrival (2016)

Screening Room Film
1

A linguist is brought in to communicate with one of twelve alien craft that have appeared around the world.
Medium Film
Year 2016
Creator Denis Villeneuve
Runtime 116 min
Mode Fiction
IMDb tt2543164
Reviewed 2026-07-26

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Adapted by Eric Heisserer from Ted Chiang’s 1998 novella Story of Your Life; eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, winning Best Sound Editing.

1 Like
2

Louise’s visions are memories of a future she has already agreed to. The film’s structure enacts the idea rather than describing it.

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Learning the language rewires how she experiences time, which is the film’s actual premise — perception is the mechanism, not a side effect.

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Contact is a translation problem, and the film spends its running time on the work of understanding rather than on the arrival.

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