10 Movies Designed To Give You An Existential Crisis
Cinema at its most brilliantly dread-inducing.
As much as most major movies are concerned with giddy escapism, cinema can also be a wonderful way for filmmakers to explore concerns of the human soul and reflect the audience's anxieties back at them.
And what plagues humanity more than existential dread? In basic terms this means the fear of death, but it also pertains to the meaning of life, the drudgery of everyday existence, humanity's place in the universe, and so on.
Countless movies have wrestled with these thorny ideas since cinema's inception, but these are the 10 films sure to leave you awake at night pondering the state of your life, the universe, and everything.
From otherwise delightful comedies and blockbusters to more straight-up dramas - whether considering existence through an intimate or cosmic lens - these 10 movies all considered what it means to be alive, and more importantly what it means to actually live.
As terrific as all these films are, they also left many viewers racked with anxiety about their own future, desperate to scream into the endless void that is the universe...
10. Groundhog Day
One of the greatest existential comedies of all time, Groundhog Day traps Bill Murray's douchey TV weatherman Phil Connors in a 24-hour time loop forcing him to live out the same day over and over again.
Though this lays the groundwork for a thoroughly charming, time-constrained romance between Phil and his producer Rita Hanson (Andie MacDowell), at its core the film serves as an unexpectedly powerful metaphor for the utter slog that is everyday life for so many.
The repetition of Phil's day-to-day existence within the time loop isn't that far divorced from the way many people live their actual lives, simply coasting from one day to the next in a complacent, soulless routine.
Above all else, Groundhog Day delivers a wake-up call to both Phil and the audience, that it's easy for each day to bleed listlessly into the next unless you're continually focused on improving yourself and being a good person.
If you're ever stuck in a rut and decide to watch this movie, it's either going to motivate you to do more or leave you in a pit of all-consuming despair.