# Great Movies Written By Philosophers **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 9, 2020, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464 "2020-05-09T12:51:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/1 "2020-05-09T12:51:26Z")
Example: “The Stranger” by Albert Camus… The movie was directed by Luchino Visconti (great director) with a fine actor - Marcello Mastroianni. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/2 "2020-05-09T13:09:45Z")
“Superman” - Friedrich Nietzsche. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/3 "2020-05-09T16:01:59Z")
Head - Jeremy Bentham. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/4 "2020-05-09T16:37:15Z")
_Shakespeare in Love_ by Roger Bacon. More seriously, I don’t understand the OP. AFAIK Albert Camus, who died in 1960, did not write the screenplay for the 1967 movie. Are we just looking for movies adapted from books by philosophers? ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/5 "2020-05-09T16:51:26Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > _Shakespeare in Love_ by Roger Bacon. > More seriously, I don’t understand the OP. AFAIK Albert Camus, who died in 1960, did not write the screenplay for the 1967 movie. Are we just looking for movies adapted from books by philosophers? Yes, adaptation is good enough, especially if the movie is good and as loyal as possible. A bad adaptation which lacks accuracy is what I’d consider antithetical to my initial post. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/6 "2020-05-09T17:15:41Z")
Camus is an exception among philosophers in that he was primarily a novelist and playwright. His philosophical works were mostly essays and constituted a small part of his output. It’s enormously easier to transfer novels and plays to the screen than nonfiction works of philosophy. There aren’t many philosophers who were known for their fiction. One is Jean-Paul Sartre, from whose works dozens of adaptations were filmed, just like Camus. However, back in 1947, he contributed the scenario and dialog for [Les jeux sont faits](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039512/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_89). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/7 "2020-05-09T17:22:13Z")
dup ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/8 "2020-05-09T18:00:02Z")
Well, arguably The Fountainhead, book and screenplay by Ayn Rand, who considered herself to be a philosopher, and at least covered a lot of philosophical ground in both her fiction and non-fiction writing. OP didn’t say the philosopher had to be a good one, or to have their work studied in academia. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/9 "2020-05-09T20:02:58Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Well, arguably The Fountainhead, book and screenplay by Ayn Rand, who considered herself to be a philosopher, and at least covered a lot of philosophical ground in both her fiction and non-fiction writing. > > OP didn’t say the philosopher had to be a good one, or to have their work studied in academia. Right… I saw the movie “The Fountainhead” years ago, and I’ve always liked Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. I never had the desire to read her book, though. I’m guessing the movie is a sterile version of libertarian ideology. To me, this was about individuality and ownership of ideas. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/10 "2020-05-09T20:25:11Z")
There have been a few filmed versions of _The Death of Socrates_, based on the work by Plato, to which he contributed (over 2000 years earlier) the dialogue > **[The Death of Socrates (2010) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1560702/)** > > The Death of Socrates: Directed by Natasa Prosenc Stearns, Matias Basso, Jonathan Beckhardt, Jessiline Berry, Nancy Buchanan, John Church, Stev Elam, Stephen Gill, Terrance Grace, Jasna Hribernik, Andrew David Irvine, Nancy Kiang, Ruby Kobayashi,... > **[Socrates (film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates_(film))** > > Socrates is a 1971 Spanish-Italian-French television film directed by Roberto Rossellini. The film is an adaptation of several Plato dialogues, including The Apology, Euthyphro, Crito, and Phaedo. > The film tells the personal and historical events of the last period of the life of Socrates, the famous Athenian philosopher. The historical background is the period of the decay of the Greek Polis and of the democracy of Athens: the opening scene shows the demolition of the city walls by the Spartans... > **[The Death of Socrates | WorldCat.org](https://www.worldcat.org/title/death-of-socrates/oclc/5643340)** > > A modern reconstruction of Plato's Crito and his Phaedo, which underlines the fact that political persecution has persisted for the 2,500 years since Socrates' execution. Presents Socrates' last argum It’s not a film , but Soren Kierkegaard’s _Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death_ was turned into a musical piece by Tomasz Sikorski (during which parts of the book are read) and into a manga by Asada Hikadi > **[The Sickness unto Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sickness_Unto_Death)** > > The Sickness unto Death (Danish: Sygdommen til Døden) is a book written by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in 1849 under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus. A work of Christian existentialism, the book is about Kierkegaard's concept of despair, which he equates with the Christian concept of sin, which he terms "the sin of despair". Walter Lowrie wrote that he saw the themes in The Sickness unto Death as a repetition of those in Kierkegaard’s earlier work, Fear and Trembling, and as being even mo... ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/11 "2020-05-09T23:13:41Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Well, arguably The Fountainhead, book and screenplay by Ayn Rand, who considered herself to be a philosopher, and at least covered a lot of philosophical ground in both her fiction and non-fiction writing. There were also movies made of Rand’s _We the Living_ and \*Atlas Shrugged. \* ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/12 "2020-05-10T01:27:35Z")
Certainly not what the OP means but here it is. Josiah Thompson, a former member of Underwater Demolition Team 21, later taught Philosophy at Yale and Haverford College, becoming a professor. He quit his tenured position to become a private investigator. His account of his PI career in [\*Gumshoe: Reflections in a Private Eye \*](https://www.amazon.com/Gumshoe-Reflections-Private-Josiah-Thompson/dp/0316841757/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8) makes great reading. Among the cases he discusses is his work in the successful re-trial of [Chol Soo Lee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chol_Soo_Lee) on a bogus murder charge. The James Woods, Robert Downey Jr movie [True Believer](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098524/reference) uses fictionalised details of the case as the crux of the plot. When I saw the movie years later it wasn’t until later that I realised why the plot felt so familiar. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/13 "2020-05-10T02:32:26Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > There aren’t many philosophers who were known for their fiction. One is Jean-Paul Sartre, from whose works dozens of adaptations were filmed, just like Camus. I was surprised [how many credits Sartre has on IMDB.](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0765683/) I suppose the best known movie was _The Crucible_ (1957) based on Arthur Miller’s play. There are a bunch of versions of Sartre’s own _No Exit._ ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/14 "2020-05-10T03:06:13Z")
I thought john Carpenter’s take on Kant’s _Critique of Pure Reason_ was pretty compelling. Especially the bits with Kurt Russel as analytic reason and Kieth David as synthetic reason. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/15 "2020-05-10T03:42:28Z")
_[Destiny](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119629/)_ by Averroës. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/16 "2020-05-10T03:48:39Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > There were also movies made of Rand’s _We the Living_ and \*Atlas Shrugged. > \* True. I knew about the Atlas Shrugged movies but I decided not to mention them. I did not know about We The Living, which might be worth seeing, but I think relatively few actually have. Since The Fountainhead was a major US studio movie with a name cast, it seemed to fit the OP better. Probably not “great” as the OP asked for, but better than average. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/17 "2020-05-10T09:54:12Z")
Steve Martin was a philosophy major and wrote THE JERK so there’s that. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/18 "2020-05-10T13:20:43Z")
“Marat/Sade” should fit the category A lot of people consider Milan Kundera a philosopher – “Unbearable Lightness of Being” ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/19 "2020-05-10T14:08:50Z")
I would consider Robert A. Heinlein (_Starship Troopers_) and John Boorman (_Deliverance_) philosophers. Not philosophers I agree with or share a worldview with, but their stories advance a specific vision of how the world operates or should operate. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464/20 "2020-05-10T15:17:18Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > I would consider Robert A. Heinlein (_Starship Troopers_) and John Boorman (_Deliverance_) philosophers. Not philosophers I agree with or share a worldview with, but their stories advance a specific vision of how the world operates or should operate. How far are we stretching this thin thread? The OP wrote “Yes, adaptation is good enough, especially if the movie is good and as loyal as possible. A bad adaptation which lacks accuracy is what I’d consider antithetical to my initial post.” Almost everybody complained that _Starship Troopers_ was in no way faithful to Heinlein. And John Boorman was the director of _Deliverance_, not the writer. The actual writer was James Dickey, the same person who wrote the novel. Shouldn’t he be getting the credit? As for “their stories advance a specific vision of how the world operates or should operate,” don’t most movies ever made fall into that category? That definition would make Quentin Tarantino the world’s foremost philosopher. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-movies-written-by-philosophers/853464.md?page=2)