24 Bizarre Movies That Will Mess With Your Mind
Some people watch movies for entertainment. Others watch movies to have their mind blown.
Lucky for them, there’s a whole host of filmmakers who see cinema as a way to expand perception and push boundaries. In some cases, these movies play with structure and form, resulting in works that defy expectations. In other cases, the movies deal with troubling subject material, taboos most would rather ignore.
Whatever the source, these twenty-four films always come up whenever cinephiles talk about the strangest movies they’ve ever seen.
Eraserhead (1977)
Even non-cinephiles know the name David Lynch, thanks to the hit TV series Twin Peaks, which he co-created with Mark Frost, and his 1984 adaptation of Dune.
That name recognition doesn’t make Lynch any less surreal a filmmaker, as demonstrated by his 1977 feature debut Eraserhead. Lynch takes the anxieties of a man thrust into marriage and fatherhood and turns them into a black-and-white nightmare.
Titane (2021)
The weirdest part of the French film Titane, by writer and director Julia Ducournau, isn’t when protagonist Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) mates with an automobile. Nor is it when she gives birth to the offspring of that union, a half-human and half-car.
No, the weirdest parts of Titane involve the movie’s surprising sympathy, in the bond that Alexia forms with a grieving father (Vincent Lindon). Unusual as the relationship is, it transforms Titane into something rich and moving.
The Holy Mountain (1973)
Mexican director Alejandro Jodorowsky created several strange masterpieces throughout his too-short career. Except for maybe 1970’s El Topo, The Holy Mountain stands as Jodorowsky’s masterpiece.
A quest film that stars Jodorowsky himself as the Thief, The Holy Mountain features the director’s clearest expression of his spiritual interests, giving an ethereal quality to the unsettling imagery.
Crimes of the Future (2022)
Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg got his start making low-budget gross-out body horror films in his native country, before scoring mainstream success with upsetting hits such as The Fly and Videodrome.
After a long period of making more intellectual films, Cronenberg returned to his roots with Crimes of the Future, which reuses the title of one of his own short features from 1970. The later Crimes of the Future stars Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux as performance artists who alter their form for critical acclaim.
Dogtooth (2009)
Mainstream audiences first learned of Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos with Poor Things, but cinephiles learned about him with his third movie, Dogtooth.
Co-written with Efthymis Filippou, Dogtooth takes place on a secluded ranch, where a family lives by themselves, away from the world. There, they develop their own language and habits, all of which point out the oddities of the regular world.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
Any Marvel fan who picks up Tetsuo: The Iron Man looking for Tony Stark is in for a disturbing surprise. Unlike the slick superhero film, Tetsuo leans into the grime, complete with black and white photography filled with metallic imagery.
Tetsuo comes from Japanese writer and director Shinya Tsukamoto, who pushes all boundaries to depict a middle-class man (Tomorowo Taguchi) who becomes machine-like after an accident.
The Exterminating Angel (1962)
The Exterminating Angel director Louis Buñel comes from the Spanish art collective that launched Salvador Dalí. The two collaborated on some of Buñel’s early works, including the collage short Un Chien Andalou (1929).
Buñel’s best work came in 1962 with The Exterminating Angel, based on a story he devised with Luis Alcoriza. The movie brings Buñel’s political beliefs into his surrealism, telling a story about the super-rich who find themselves unable to leave a ritzy party.
Pink Flamingos (1972)
These days, anyone can make a movie, as everyone walks around with a professional-level camera on their phones. Back in the 1970s, true outsiders did not often get to make films.
That fact makes the works of John Waters all the more remarkable, including his best film, Pink Flamingos. With a cast consisting of his rabble-rousing friends, including the famed drag queen Divine, Pink Flamingos operates as a series of provocations more than a narrative.
The City of Lost Children (1995)
At its heart, the sci-fi fantasy film The City of Lost Children is a fairy tale. French directing duo Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, working from a script they co-wrote with Gilles Adrien, work several childlike elements into their project, including a hero in the form of a circus strongman played by Ron Perlman.
Yet, Caro and Jeunet work some upsetting imagery into the story, about a selfish old man (Daniel Emilfork) who steals the dreams of children.
Fantastic Planet (1973)
Because it need not adhere to the laws of physics, animation lends itself to bizarre films. A case in point, the French cartoon Fantastic Planet, directed by René Laloux and co-written by Roland Topor.
Based on the novel Oms en série by Stefan Wul, Fantastic Planet takes place in another world, where distorted humanoids interact with one another, often in non-narrative vignettes, devoid of dialogue.
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Like Louis Buñel before him, rapper-turned-director Boots Riley uses the absurd to make a political point in Sorry to Bother You. The dark comedy stars LaKeith Stanfield as Cash Clay, an out-of-work Black man who takes a job at a call center.
When Clay starts making sales calls using his “white voice” (provided by David Cross), he becomes a sensation, which uncovers a larger corporate conspiracy that goes farther than anyone would expect.
Under the Skin (2013)
Under the Skin might star Hollywood starlet Scarlett Johansson, but it has little in common with her usual blockbusters. Under the Skin comes from English director Jonathan Glazer, who co-wrote the script with Walter Campbell and adapted the novel by Michel Faber.
Johansson plays an alien predator who drives around Glasgow looking for men to take away. Part of the film consists of hidden camera footage, in which Johansson flirts with unsuspecting non-actors, and the other part in nightmare sequences, in which her character devours her victims.
Meet the Feebles (1989)
Long before he got the keys to Middle-Earth, Peter Jackson made cheap and gross movies in his native New Zealand. After his appropriately titled debut Bad Taste, he made Meet the Feebles, a profane spoof of The Muppet Show.
No one will have an easy time watching Meet the Feebles, which offends with glee. But it remains a fascinating look at the first days of a big-budget moviemaker.
The Lighthouse (2019)
Thanks to Twilight and the Harry Potter movies, Robert Pattinson got tagged as nothing more than a handsome leading man. However, like his frequent co-star Kristen Stewart, Pattinson prefers to make weird movies, as demonstrated by The Lighthouse.
Written and directed by Robert Eggers, The Lighthouse stars Pattinson alongside Willem Dafoe as keepers at a lighthouse. As the two get on one another’s nerves, they also give into unexplainable phenomena, something to do with worshiping the light.
The Devils (1971)
For years, many countries banned the English religious horror movie The Devils, written and directed by Ken Russell and based on the play by John Whiting and the novel by Aldous Huxley. Its frank depiction of corruption and debauchery within a powerful church offended many.
Even if The Devils can’t shock in the same way it once did, it does still disquiet viewers, thanks to its outrageous imagery and unhinged performances from Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed.
House (1977)
Even today, it’s hard to tell if Japanese director Nobuhiko Obayashi and screenwriter Chiho Katsura made House so strange because they wanted to unnerve viewers or because they didn’t understand the rules of a haunted house film.
Whatever their intentions, the duo use a straightforward plot about teen girls staying overnight in a house full of spirits to pack the frame with indescribable scenes, at once inexplicable and unsettling.
Time Bandits (1981)
Before making features, Terry Gilliam was the sole American in the British comedy troupe Monty Python, supplying the group’s distinctive collage-like animation.
Gilliam took those oddball sensibilities into his own movies, including the children’s adventure Time Bandits. On one hand, Time Bandits works like any other kid’s movie, in which a boy (Craig Warnock) goes through space and time with a group of outlaws who stole a magic map. On the other hand, Time Bandits frames the heist as a battle between God (Ralph Richardson as the Supreme Being) and the Devil (David Warner as Evil), making things much harder to categorize.
Holy Motors (2012)
At the start of Holy Motors, a man (Denis Lavant) wakes up from a nightmare and pushes through a wall covered with painted trees to enter a darkened theater, filled with sleeping people.
That scene sets the tone for Holy Motors, written and directed by Leos Carax. With a blurring set of vignettes, Carax and his cast (including Lavant in several different roles) explore the promise and peril of cinema as a storytelling form.
I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
The newest entry on this list, I Saw the TV Glow owes a great debt to not just David Lynch but also 90s teen TV series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Writer and director Jane Schoenbrun draws from her own experiences as a trans woman who could not transition until adulthood and found affirmation through pop culture.
Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine play teens who bond over a cult television show called The Pink Opaque. As reality and fiction blend together, the two speak for anyone who doesn’t feel right in their bodies but cannot articulate why.
mother! (2017)
With his debut film Pi, Darren Aronofsky established himself as an ambitious filmmaker with unusual sensibilities. He best displays those qualities with mother!, which adapts the entire Old Testament of the Bible as part domestic drama and part environmental parable.
Jennifer Lawrence plays Mother, the young wife of Him (Javier Bardem). Her idyllic life gets interrupted when various people enter her home, destroying it while her husband does nothing. The movie makes sense to those who can follow the biblical allusions, but it’s disorienting to anyone else.
Mandy (2018)
Nicolas Cage became an internet favorite for his daring acting style, which almost always featured unexpected and shocking choices.
In the psychological horror film Mandy, director Panos Cosmatos, working from a screenplay co-written by Aaron Stewart-Ahn, matches Cage’s energy. After a cult leader (Linus Roache) kidnaps his girlfriend Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), the lumberjack Red (Cage) goes on a mission of revenge against cultists and demonic bikers.
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
When starting Synecdoche, New York, writer and director Charlie Kaufman wanted to make a horror movie for adults. But adults, he reasoned, don’t fear the wolfman or Dracula. Instead, they fear dying alone, professional failure, and the dissolution of their families.
Kauffman brings those terrors to life in Synecdoche, New York through the story of playwright Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who mounts a massive production after winning a MacArthur Grant. Desperate to portray real life through art, Caden gets lost in his work, losing the distinction between the play and himself, which creates a unique form of horror.
Carnival of Souls (1962)
Carnival of Souls is the lone narrative feature from Herk Harvey, who spent the rest of his career making industrial educational films. Given that practical experience, it’s hard to believe that Harvey intended to get so weird with Carnival of Souls.
Carnival of Souls opens with a jolt, an abrupt scene in which a bunch of young drag racers drive off a bridge. Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) survives and tries to start a new life, but she’s haunted by visions of a pale man (Harvey), who seems to beckon her to an ethereal world. Harvey doesn’t overdo any of the effects, nor does he explain the world, which makes the movie all the more absurd.
Beau is Afraid (2023)
After two intense, chilling films, director Ari Aster crafted what seems like a comedy with Beau is Afraid. It’s hard to say if anyone else finds Beau is Afraid funny.
Joaquin Phoenix stars as Beau, a very anxious man with an overbearing mother. Beau’s sojourn from his home in New York to his mother’s place in Los Angeles takes several turns for the unexplainable, transcending expectation.
