Synopsis
A radio astronomer receives the first extraterrestrial radio signal ever picked up on Earth. As the world powers scramble to decipher the message and decide upon a course of action, she must make some difficult decisions between her beliefs, the truth, and reality.
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Cast
- Jodie FosterEllie Arroway
- Matthew McConaugheyPalmer Joss
- James WoodsMichael Kitz
- John HurtS. R. Hadden
- Tom SkerrittDavid Drumlin
- William FichtnerKent
- David MorseTed Arroway
- Angela BassettRachel Constantine
- Geoffrey BlakeFisher
- Max MartiniWillie
Recommendations
- 100
ReelViews
Contact is that rare big-budget motion picture that places ideas, characters, and plot above everything else. - 80
Empire
Contact delivers on more than a pure visual level, reiterating the idea that greatest progress is made taking "small steps" towards enlightenment. - 75
Christian Science Monitor
Its discussions don't go very deep, and moviegoers with strong religious values may wonder why it comes down for humanism over spirituality. - 70
The New York Times
The movie, adapted from a novel by Carl Sagan, presents one long chain of teasingly open-ended questions about reason versus faith and technology versus religion, and ends up tentatively embracing mysticism over rationality. - 70
Salon
Faithful to Sagan's brand of popularized science, the film never reaches beyond Hollywood spectacle and sentimentality. - 67
Austin Chronicle
Little effort is made to churn up romantic chemistry between Foster and McConaughey. For better or worse, director Robert Zemeckis sticks to Sagan's original vision for these characters, in which they're basically totems embodying both sides of a philosophical dialectic. - 50
Rolling Stone
Contact aims to be a film of ideas but serves too many of them half-baked. - 50
San Francisco Chronicle
Contact, directed by Robert Zemeckis, may be too long, too self-important and too "Gump"-like to be completely satisfying. But it contains elements that are so striking they pretty much redeem the film.
