Best Existentialism Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of existentialism cinema — measured across 2,045 indexed frames from 27 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Existentialism films over-index on palm tree, bed and sand — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
Barbie (2023)
Greta GerwigDP Rodrigo PrietoIMDb 6.8TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →
Barbie the Doll lives in bliss in the matriarchal society of Barbieland feeling good about her role in the world in the various iterations of Barbies over the years showing girls that play with her that they can be whatever and whoever they want. On the flip side, Ken, who also lives in Barbieland, is unnoticed except in relation to Barbie, which is however one step above any other doll in Barbieland, such as Allan. One day, Stereotypical Barbie begins to have feelings which she's never experienced which leads to her world seemingly falling apart. Weird Barbie determines that there is something happening in the real world with someone playing with her being unhappy leading to Stereotypical Barbie reluctantly heading to the real world to rectify what is happening with that person, she first needing to find this person. Much to Barbie's chagrin, the original Ken, Beach Ken, tags along with her to the real world in he needing to survive in her presence. Beyond their mission to find this person, Barbie and Ken will find the real world unlike anything they know in Barbieland, especially in it being a male dominated society. While Barbie still has to find out what's going on that made her come to the real world, Ken is finding a newfound control which he wants to bring back to Barbieland. If he is able to do so, the role of Barbie in the real world may be forever changed. On top of everything, executives at Mattel, primarily white men, discover that a "real life" Barbie and Ken doll have infiltrated the real world, their mission to capture the pair, but especially Barbie, to put them/her back in their/her place, namely in a manufacturer's sealed box.
- 2
May December (2023)
Todd HaynesDP Christopher BlauveltIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →
Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
- 3
Drive (2011)
Nicolas Winding RefnDP Newton Thomas SigelIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →
This action drama follows a mysterious man who has multiple jobs as a garage mechanic, a Hollywood stuntman and a getaway driver seems to be trying to escape his shady past as he falls for his neighbor - whose husband is in prison and who's looking after her child alone. Meanwhile, his garage mechanic boss is trying to set up a race team using gangland money, which implicates our driver as he is to be used as the race team's main driver. Our hero gets more than he bargained for when he meets the man who is married to the woman he loves.
- 4
Never Let Me Go (2010)
Mark RomanekDP Adam KimmelIMDb 7.1TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →
As children, Ruth, Kathy and Tommy spend their childhood at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. As they grow into young adults, they find that they have to come to terms with the strength of the love they feel for each other, while preparing themselves for the haunting reality that awaits them.
- 5
The Tree Of Life (2011)
Terrence MalickDP Emmanuel LubezkiIMDb 6.8TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →
The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father (Brad Pitt). Jack (played as an adult by Sean Penn) finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.
- 6
A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)
Kim Jee-woonDP Lee Mo-gaeIMDb 7.1TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →
Two sisters return home after a stay in a mental institution, only to face disturbing events and a strained relationship with their stepmother. As eerie occurrences unfold, dark family secrets begin to surface, blurring the line between reality and nightmare.
- 7
Naked (1993)
Mike LeighDP Dick PopeIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Johnny flees Manchester for London, to avoid a beating from the family of a girl he has raped. There he finds an old girlfriend, and spends some time homeless, spending much of his time ranting at strangers, and meeting characters in plights very much like his own.
- 8
Ex Machina (2015)
Alex GarlandDP Rob HardyIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →
Caleb, a 26 year old programmer at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
- 9
Asteroid City (2023)
Wes AndersonDP Robert D. YeomanIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.4See in full on FrameThrower →
Asteroid City: a fictional American desert town, circa 1955. Junior Stargazers and Space Cadets from across the country assemble for the annual Asteroid Day celebration but the scholarly competition is spectacularly upended by world-changing events. Equal parts comedy, drama, and romance. Directed by Wes Anderson and featuring an all-star cast including Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, and Tom Hanks.
- 10
Charlie KaufmanDP Łukasz ŻalIMDb 6.5TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →
Despite second thoughts about their relationship, a young woman (Jessie Buckley) takes a road trip with her new boyfriend (Jesse Plemons) to his family farm. Trapped at the farm during a snowstorm with Jake's mother (Toni Collette) and father (David Thewlis), the young woman begins to question the nature of everything she knew or understood about her boyfriend, herself, and the world. An exploration of regret, longing and the fragility of the human spirit, I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS is directed and written by Academy Award® winner Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Inspired by Iain Reid's bestselling namesake novel.
What existentialism films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a existentialism frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — palm tree is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- palm tree3.6×
- bed2.0×
- sand1.9×
- chair1.8×
How existentialism films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate existentialism from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 24%widevs 20% baseline
- 15%high keyvs 12% baseline
- 83%eye levelvs 69% baseline
What breaks the pattern
Sorcerer (1977) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 2,045 frames from 27 films carrying the existentialism label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/existentialism
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