When “Oppenheimer” (2023) swept the Oscars two years ago, it was not just a cinematic triumph, but also a philosophical one. The film’s haunting exploration of scientific responsibility left the audience wrestling with moral questions that went far beyond Los Alamos. Around the same time, “Barbie” (2023) had moviegoers asking what it means to be real, to be free and to define yourself outside others’ expectations. 

It turns out that the biggest blockbusters of recent years are also the most philosophical. Behind the popcorn and Computer-Generated Imagery, they ask the same timeless questions that individuals from Aristotle to Immanuel Kant to Simone de Beauvoir have pondered: What’s right and what is wrong? What makes life meaningful? How do we balance emotion, an empirical value or a posteriori knowledge that is a knowledge gained through experience, and reason, an a priori judgement that is truth derived in alignment with the universal law of morality? In other words, today’s pop culture is giving us a crash course in Philosophy 101, whether we consciously realize that or not. 

Philosophers have long used thought experiments, including Plato’s caves, Rene Descartes’ demon, Robert Nozick’s experiment machine, Friedrich Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence, etc. to probe human nature. Now films have taken up that role. When Christopher Nolan places J. Robert Oppenheimer before the atomic bomb, he restages an ancient dilemma: If knowledge grants you world-ending power, do you use it? This is a question that Kant deals with through the groundwork of metaphysics of morals, one of his main works wherein he lays a foundation for his further theories. He views a truly moral being as one who would never use knowledge in a way that violates moral law or treats others merely as a means to an end. 

On the other hand, if “Oppenheimer” is about the ethics of action, “Barbie” explores the philosophy of identity. Director Greta Gerwig satirically asks: How do we construct meaning in a world that’s already defined us? When Barbie leaves Barbieland, she undergoes an existential awakening. Like Plato’s prisoner leaving the cave, she sees reality for what it is and cannot return. Many called the movie a manifestation of Simone de Beauvoir’s ideals meeting pop culture, asking what it means for women to define themselves, not just be defined. Barbie’s final choice to become human is a radical act of authenticity since she’s choosing reality over perfection. 

More than two decades after its release, “The Matrix” (1999) still stands as one of pop culture’s most vivid explorations of truth and illusion. The premise is based around the notion that the world we perceive might be a simulation. Although debated by various philosophers, most notably J.L Austin and Barry Stroud, the film brings an important question to light and begs the question, which pill would you choose? Neo choosing the red pill is him choosing knowledge over comfort, choosing the truth over an illusion. What if our world is in fact a simulation? Does that mean that everything we know is a lie? “The Matrix” tackles these questions head on, leaving the viewer wondering about the world around them. 

Similarly, the renowned television show “Severance” (2022-25) asks one of the most haunting questions philosophy faces: What happens when we look at our work-life balance in a way that separates one identity in two? Employees at Lumon Industries have their memories surgically split between an “innie” and an “outie,” creating two versions of the same person who never meet. The innie is the version of the employee that attends work and the outie recalls only their memories made outside of work. The show can be summarized as Descartes’ mind-body dualism meeting modern capitalism as it forces viewers to question where the true self resides. In doing so, it transforms the Cartesian search for self-awareness into a critique of modern capitalism, where identity and autonomy become commodities controlled by corporate power. Are we still whole if parts of our mind are walled off? In the eerie minimalism, “Severance” exposes the dangers of alienation and the cost of living without integrated selfhood.

On a lighter note, Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” (2024) presents Riley, a teenager, with the new emotions of Anxiety, Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment, forcing her to find balance. It is a deeply Aristotelian idea suggesting that virtue lies between extremes. Pixar reminds us that moral development isn’t just about reason but about learning to feel the weight of every emotion. Riley learns that every emotion has value, a cinematic echo of stoic wisdom that peace comes not from avoiding emotions but from understanding and embracing them. 

Individuals dismiss pop culture as shallow, but many miss the point. As Plato understood, storytelling is how humans explore the truth. Movies democratize philosophy. You don’t need to read Kant to ponder morality, sometimes all it takes is watching a pink plastic doll question her purpose. Not only do these films make you question yourself and your reality, they help explore questions of the universe and plant seeds of morality, existentialism and human consciousness, challenging viewers to confront not only ethical dilemmas but also the nature of truth itself.