A linguist is recruited by the military to communicate with alien lifeforms after twelve mysterious spacecrafts land around the world.
In the novella, "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, nine "looking glasses" arrive in America, a total of 112 worldwide. The film reduces that number and alters the dimensions to more profound effect.
Louise Banks:
I used to think this was the beginning of your story. Memory is a strange thing. It doesn't work like I thought it did. We are so bound by time, by its order.
Louise Banks:
Okay. Okay. Come back to me. Come back to me. Come back to me.
Louise Banks:
Stick 'em up! Are you the ...
In the main landings chart the Australian contact point seems to be in the Indian Ocean off Geralton in Western Australia. In a later scene there is a brief shot of an alien spacecraft with central Sydney in the distance across water. Sydney is on Australia's east coast.
After credits have finished, there is a short documentary on the making of Arrival.
English, Russian, Mandarin
$24,000,000 (USA) (11 November 2016)
$100,546,139 (USA)