Contact, 1997
An adaptation of the Carl Sagan novel of the same name, Contact tells the story of scientist Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) who has dedicated her life to confirming extraterrestrial intelligence exists and can be discovered by listening to radio emissions from space. Though she’s met with disbelief, scrutiny, and the threat of a full shutdown of her research, she doggedly persists, eventually discovering a signal that details the schematics for building a single-manned spaceship that can reach the place from whence the signal originated. Contact is an incredibly grounded sci-fi flick for nearly its entire runtime, before going absolutely balls-to-the-wall in the final act and ultimately presenting a fascinating question: how much of science is rooted in faith when our scientific instruments and/or theories prove to be inadequate? — Alyssa Mercante
