Arrival is a 2016 American science fiction drama film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Eric Heisserer. Based on the 1998 short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, it stars Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker. The film follows a linguist enlisted by the United States Army to discover how to communicate with extraterrestrial aliens who have arrived on Earth, before tensions lead to war.