Arrival

Play trailer

1:00

Arrival

PG-13

2016

1h 56m

Sci-Fi

Mystery & Thriller

Drama

Play Trailer

Watchlist

Watchlist

Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

94%

Tomatometer

441 Reviews

83%

Popcornmeter

50,000+ Ratings

Linguistics professor Louise Banks leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all mankind.

Watch on Fandango at Home

Stream Now

Critics Consensus

Arrival delivers a must-see experience for fans of thinking person's sci-fi that anchors its heady themes with genuinely affecting emotion and a terrific performance from Amy Adams.

Read Critics Reviews

Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

The Blue Lenses

08/25/2018

Arrival transcends the limitations that so often govern the less creative examples of the subgenre, instead using it as a loose conceptual foundation upon which to build a theoretically-informed examination of what precisely ... makes us human.

Go to Full Review

Kristen Lopez

Culturess

11/20/2017

Arrival couldn't have arrived (pun intended) at a better time.

Go to Full Review

K. Austin Collins

The Ringer

08/10/2017

I think of Arrival in terms of color: the milky grays of the clouds rolling over the Montana plain; the bright blue of computer screens bouncing off the gray tents on the makeshift army compound.

Go to Full Review

JD Duran

InSession Film

08/08/2024

The film works as a powerful allegory for how we try to decode and interpret the tragedies of our lives.

Go to Full Review

Ankit Ojha

Cinema Elite

07/09/2024

4.5/5

Without spoiling too much, let’s just say Villeneuve and Heisserer use the Kuleshov effect to turn the non-linear storytelling of “Arrival” from a gimmick to an indispensable part of the film.

Go to Full Review

Anthony McGlynn

Vague Visages

02/06/2024

Arrival is a work that resents the necessity of violence. However, the film ditches some of the meditative qualities of the bleakness-to-idealism dialectic of the album in favor of making a cold hard stand against war and those who clamour for it.

Go to Full Review

Read all reviews

Jonathan F

02/05/2022

Extremely short-paced, felt like most of the movie was empty without a real driving story. I would have hoped for more action.

See more

Katie D

03/15/2021

An amazing film! very well-done, thought-provoking, entertaining and unpredictable. my only complaint is about the loud horn blasts that accompany so many science fiction movie scenes - unnecessary, unrealistic and distracting! other than that it was awesome!

See more

Marc W.

@Solarpegasus Feb 28

One of the best SciFi films ever made, no big special effects, or action. Just an extremely well written story with an ending that is both beautiful and sad. This movie for those who appreciate it will leave them crying a little and profound. The plot ending alone is one of the most well written ones in SciFi history. Amy Adams is always great in any role she does, thus why she has been nominated for 6 academy awards already. But in this role she was absolutely amazing. Shame she was not nominated or won an Oscar for this role, because she deserved it.

See more

Pedro O

@pedrohob91 Feb 27

Denis Villeneuve brings depth to a familiar sci-fi premise through intelligent dialogue and a carefully structured narrative. Combined with one of Amy Adams’ strongest performances, the film transforms a conventional theme into something thoughtful and emotionally resonant.

See more

Murilo P

@Murilo123 Feb 20

Tô em choque até agora

See more

Joshua B

@WildSquirrel Feb 19

Arrival is so much more than it appears on the surface. I first watched it years ago, and on rewatch I realised how much I didn’t fully comprehend or appreciate in this film. Having a child of my own now, the film’s themes hit far harder. It asks you to contemplate big ideas; consciousness, time as a construct, fate, and the shape of our choices. But at its heart, the question that stayed with me was this; if you knew exactly what the future held, would you change anything, or are the trials and heartbreaks along the way worth it for the time you get with the people you love?

See more

Read all reviews

Read More

Read Less

POST RATING

WRITE A REVIEW

EDIT REVIEW

Denis Villeneuve

Director

Amy Adams

Louise Banks

Jeremy Renner

Ian Donnelly

Forest Whitaker

Colonel Weber

Michael Stuhlbarg

Agent Halpern

Mark O'Brien

Captain Marks

Arrival: Official Clip - The Nature of a Question

2:08

Arrival: Official Clip - Death Process

2:13

Arrival: Official Clip - You Changed My Mind

2:13

Arrival: Official Clip - Past and Present in the Future

2:06

Arrival: Official Clip - The Heptapods Speak

2:13

Arrival: Official Clip - You Have the Weapon

1:41

Arrival: Official Clip - Sabotaged Diplomacy

2:13

Arrival: Official Clip - The Many Things We Don't Know

2:10

Arrival: Official Clip - First Contact

2:13

Arrival: Official Clip - A Proper Introduction

2:13

View more videos

The Circle

16%

21%

The Circle

Watchlist

TRAILER

for The Circle

Gravity

96%

79%

Gravity

Watchlist

TRAILER

for Gravity

Replicas

9%

33%

Replicas

Watchlist

Fast Color

83%

58%

Fast Color

Watchlist

Chronicle

85%

72%

Chronicle

Watchlist

TRAILER

for Chronicle

Discover more movies and TV shows.

View More

Know Your Critic: Max Weiss, Editor-in-Chief at Baltimore Magazine

Las Vegas Film Critics: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Takes 5 Awards

Watch Online: Arrival, The Hateful Eight, and More on Netflix and Amazon Prime

Arrival: Amy Adams is Incredible in Arrival

8:22

Arrival: TV Spot - Solve the Mystery

0:15

Arrival: Trailer 2

1:00

Arrival: International Trailer 1

2:31

Arrival: Trailer 1

2:25

Arrival: 'Global War' Teaser

1:00

View more videos

View more photos

Synopsis

Linguistics professor Louise Banks leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all mankind.

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Producer: Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Aaron Ryder, David Linde
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Production Co: 21 Laps Entertainment, Lava Bear Films, FilmNation
Rating: PG-13 (Brief Strong Language)
Genre: Sci-Fi, Mystery & Thriller, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Nov 11, 2016, Wide
Rerelease Date (Theaters): Jan 27, 2017
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 31, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA): $100.5M
Runtime: 1h 56m
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Most Popular at Home Now