A great sci-fi film written by scientist Carl Sagan before he died. The film stars Jodie Foster, as she struggles to raise funding and deal with the sometimes unfair bureaucratic and political business of being a scientist, trying to stay funded and looking for life in space.

Then one day, a signal, from space, with mathematical codes embedded. The codes are blueprints for building a machine, but no one knows what the machine does.

Overall the film is really long, but really good. It shows the struggles and maneuvering of people on from all political and scientific walks of life, and touches on the religious ramifications, and what one might expect if something like this was to really take place.

Trapped in the middle of all this is Foster’s character, trying to stay a true scientist, not wanting to get involved in the politics or the religious fanatics. That straight and narrow view almost costs her, her career.

Budget: $90 million
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring:
Jodie Foster
David Morse
Jena Malone
William Fichtner
Matthew McConaughey
Tom Skerritt
James Woods

Jodie Foster really takes a beating in this film. Her character, Erica Bain and her fiancee are attacked one night by three hoodlums. They kill her fiancee and beat her within an inch of her life. After she recovers, she’s left with the mental scars the attack inflicted on her. Not getting help from the police, Foster decides to take matters into her own hands. In the end, she saves several people and kills the hoodlums that attacked them in the beginning.

This is a very good, emotional, and deep movie. A must watch.

Budget: $70 million
Director: Neil Jordan
Starring:
Jodie Foster
Terrence Howard
Naveen Andrews
Zoë Kravitz
Mary Steenburgen

Flightplan is another thriller which does not bore simply because it’s got an innovative plot. The movie follows the story of a mother whose daughter vanishes in a plane 38,000 feet in mid-air intercontinental flight from Europe to New York . The absurdity of it all “from the mother’s point of view” was that no one else in the plane remembered her daughter on board, thereby making the mother herself presuming that she’s delusional. Bordering already on insanity, the mother maintains her conviction that her daughter has really vanished and is on a distressed stage. The mother then embarks on an exclusive search for her daughter.