Arrival

Arrival (2016) is Denis Villeneuve's science fiction drama you can watch online on iFILM. Twelve alien vessels hover over twelve locations simultaneously, and the world's militaries have no idea whether to negotiate or fire. The question falls to a linguist.

Louise Banks, played by Amy Adams, is brought to one of the landing sites by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) and physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). Inside the ship, behind a wall of fog, creatures she calls heptapods leave circular ink-like marks on a screen. Each visit, she gets a little closer to decoding what they mean — while other nations race toward their own, more aggressive interpretations. Adapted from Ted Chiang's 1998 short story "Story of Your Life," the film builds its tension on an idea about language: that the grammar of the words you learn can reshape how you experience time itself.

Jóhann Jóhannsson's score keeps everything suspended and unresolved, which is exactly the point. Arrival earned eight Academy Award nominations and landed on best-of-the-decade lists from critics worldwide. Stream Arrival (2016) online on iFILM.