Exceptional Cerebral, Dark and Surreal Cinema
An ongoing list in no particular order of well-crafted, thought-provoking films that explore the dark and often surreal side of humanity and the imagination.
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- DirectorAlain ResnaisStarsEmmanuelle RivaEiji OkadaStella DassasA French actress filming an anti-war film in Hiroshima has an affair with a married Japanese architect as they share their differing perspectives on war.Opening with a surreal collage of dreamlike images and footage of the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, Alain Resnais' first masterpiece of French New Wave cinema--brilliantly penned by novelist Marguerite Duras--depicts a profound and revelatory affair between a Japanese businessman and a French actress, both victims of the War in their own ways.
- DirectorAndrzej ZulawskiStarsIsabelle AdjaniSam NeillMargit CarstensenA woman starts exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking her husband for a divorce. Suspicions of infidelity soon give way to something much more sinister.The dark and surreal aesthetics of Polish horror movie posters are brought to the screen in this thought-provoking film about a married couple in an unusual and tumultuous relationship where life and creation seem to coincide with death and destruction.
- DirectorBernard RoseStarsCharlotte BurkeJane BertishSamantha CahillA young girl lost in the loneliness and boredom of reality finds solace in an ill boy, whom she can visit in a surreal dream world that she drew in her school composition book.The nightmares of two sick children intertwine in one of the earliest and finest films of the truly talented director Bernard Rose.
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsSheryl LeeRay WiseMädchen AmickLaura Palmer's harrowing final days are chronicled one year after the murder of Teresa Banks, a resident of Twin Peaks' neighboring town.While serving as a prequel to the TV series, this dark and surreal tale of perversity and violence hiding just below the bright green lawns of middle-class American suburbs seems to pick up where Blue Velvet left off while further polishing the sublime and elegant visual and audio aesthetics that David Lynch has become so well known for.
- DirectorKim Ki-dukStarsHa Jung-wooPark Ji-yeonBaek Gwang-DooTo save her relationship, a woman puts herself through extensive plastic surgery.A young man and woman are driven to extremes of plastic surgery and loss of identity through their own strong feelings for each other in what is arguably one of Ki-duk Kim's finest films.
- DirectorSrdjan SpasojevicStarsSrdjan 'Zika' TodorovicSergej TrifunovicJelena GavrilovicAn aging porn star agrees to participate in an "art film" in order to make a clean break from the business, only to discover that he has been drafted into making a pedophilia and necrophilia themed snuff film.Serbian filmmaker Srdjan Spasojevic's highly controversial and provocative debut film provides a disturbing critique of exploitation and an entertainment industry that has to continually up the ante in order to shock an otherwise desensitized audience.
- DirectorKen RussellStarsWilliam HurtBlair BrownBob BalabanA psycho-physiologist experiments with drugs and a sensory-deprivation tank and has visions he believes are genetic memories.Ken Russell directs some of the most dazzling hallucinations ever put on film in this intriguing tale of a scientist using psychoactive drugs to explore the origins of humankind.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsJames WoodsDebbie HarrySonja SmitsA programmer at a Toronto TV station that specializes in adult entertainment searches for the producers of a dangerous and bizarre broadcast.Cronenberg's masterpiece of body horror serves as a dark and surreal metaphor of the ideological conflicts and power struggles of humankind in a hallucinogenic and manipulative world of mass media.
- DirectorWojciech HasStarsJan NowickiTadeusz KondratIrena OrskaJózef visits his dying father at a remote mental institution, where time itself doesn't seem to exist, and the line between dreams and memories becomes indistinguishable.Based on the writing of surrealist author and illustrator Bruno Schulz, who was shot dead by a Nazi officer during WWII, Wojciech Has' creatively ambitious film strings together a number of short stories to present a dark and emotionally striking portrait of life in the Polish Jewish ghettos.
- DirectorWilliam FriedkinStarsAshley JuddMichael ShannonHarry Connick Jr.An unhinged war veteran holes up with a lonely woman in a spooky Oklahoma motel room. The line between reality and delusion is blurred as they discover a bug infestation.A very rare example of a horror movie without any violence, gore or scares, this compelling and atmospheric gem seeks to examine the fear of its characters rather than provoke it from the audience.
- DirectorLars von TrierStarsBarbara SukowaJean-Marc BarrUdo KierJust after World War II, an American takes a railway job in Germany, but finds his position politically sensitive with various people trying to use him.Lush cinematography and a screenplay reminiscent of the dark and surreal narratives of Franz Kafka and Bruno Schulz add intriguing and nightmarish qualities to this dreamlike political noir set in a train drifting through the aftermath of WWII Germany.
- DirectorLee Chang-dongStarsSol Kyung-guKim Yeo-jinMoon So-riFollowing a man's suicide, time traverses back to reveal six chapters of his life on why he committed suicide.Critically acclaimed filmmaker/novelist Chang-dong Lee scripts his very moving film with a dreamlike narrative that travels backward through the life a man whose personal turning points reflect the history of 20th Century South Korea.
- DirectorAlejandro AmenábarStarsEduardo NoriegaPenélope CruzChete LeraA very handsome man finds the love of his life, but he suffers an accident and needs to have his face rebuilt by surgery after it is severely disfigured.In an era where so much deliberate nonsense is passed off as cryptic and profound, this dreamlike narrative is well-crafted enough that it can afford to explain itself in the end--a closure that leaves you with a wide range of thoughts and emotions.
- DirectorAdrian LyneStarsTim RobbinsElizabeth PeñaDanny AielloMourning his dead child, a haunted Vietnam War veteran attempts to uncover his past while suffering from a severe case of dissociation. To do so, he must decipher reality and life from his own dreams, delusions, and perceptions of death.Political corruption and objects of fear, longing, and loss reemerge into a dying U.S. soldier's dreamworld.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsJude LawJennifer Jason LeighIan HolmA game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.Filled with body horror and blurred lines between reality, dreams and hallucinations, Cronenberg brings into this film many of the elements and themes of Videodrome into the more modern world of gaming technology.
- DirectorAlain ResnaisStarsDelphine SeyrigGiorgio AlbertazziSacha PitoëffIn a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.This second French New Wave masterpiece by Alain Resnais, hauntingly depicting a mysterious romance at a maze-like chateau, seems to blur all lines between dreams and reality, the past and the present, and life and death.
- DirectorMark HanlonStarsAidan GillenEmmanuelle SeignerSusan TyrrellAn introvert relieves the tedium of caring for his invalid mother by spying on his neighbor.The dark and surreal intersection of romance, paranoia and alienation is creatively and skillfully depicted in this unusual and little-known cinematic gem.
- DirectorJoel CoenStarsBilly Bob ThorntonFrances McDormandMichael BadaluccoA laconic, chain-smoking barber blackmails his wife's boss and lover for money to invest in dry cleaning, but his plan goes terribly wrong.In this wonderfully directed and penned neo-noir set in 1950s middle-America, the Cohen brothers employ lush black-and-white cinematography, a nocturnal Beethoven soundtrack, and a screenplay filled with thoughtful social commentary.
- DirectorRandy MooreStarsRoy AbramsohnElena SchuberKatelynn RodriguezIn a world of fake castles and anthropomorphic rodents, an epic battle begins when an unemployed father's sanity is challenged by a chance encounter with two underage girls on holiday.Filmed discreetly and entirely at Disney World in Florida without the consent of the Walt Disney Company, this daring low-budget gem takes you on a ride through the waking nightmare and hallucinations of a recently unemployed middle-aged man in a loveless marriage.
- DirectorClive BarkerStarsAndrew RobinsonClare HigginsAshley LaurenceA woman discovers the newly resurrected, partially formed, body of her brother-in-law and lover. She starts killing for him to revitalize his body and escape the demonic beings that are pursuing him after he escaped their underworld.Dreamlike visions of a Hell ruled by humanoids grossly mutated by their sadomasochist desires provide the setting for this film that in many ways transcended the vast majority of 1980s horror cinema.
- DirectorNicolas Winding RefnStarsTom HardyKelly AdamsLuing AndrewsA young man who was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending three decades in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter-ego, Charles Bronson.The true-life and ongoing epic of an unusually fearless and rebellious English inmate is creatively told through dark humor and surreal refrains of cabaret theater.
- DirectorAntti-Jussi AnnilaStarsVille VirtanenTommi EronenViktor KlimenkoAs a 25-year war between Russia and Sweden concludes, two brothers who are part of an effort to outline new border accords become undone by their actions, and their mistreatment of a young woman during their journey.Haunted moral consciences take physical shape in this beautifully filmed Finnish horror.
- DirectorChristopher NolanStarsGuy PearceCarrie-Anne MossJoe PantolianoA man with short-term memory loss attempts to track down his wife's murderer.The surreal relationship between memory and reality is darkly illustrated in the Nolan brothers' backward moving and superbly crafted neo-noir narrative.
- DirectorMasaki KobayashiStarsRentarô MikuniMichiyo AratamaMisako WatanabeA collection of four Japanese folk tales with supernatural themes.Better known by the title Kwaidan, this quartet of literary horror tales depicted in beautifully designed expressionist environments is a surreal work of art.
- DirectorHiroshi TeshigaharaStarsTatsuya NakadaiMikijirô HiraKyôko KishidaA businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality.This third collaboration between legendary director Hiroshi Teshigahara and novelist Kobo Abe makes optimal use of elegant and surreal design and cinematography to illustrate the irreconcilable face of man and woman in post-WWII Japan.