A complex riddle that you can obsess over until you fit all the pieces together and finally see the big picture. Films that fall into that category can be some of the most frustrating yet rewarding filmic experiences you’ll ever have and on this list we will be taking a look at 10 films that will blow your mind.
10. Coherence
Coherence begins like a pretty normal yet slightly mumblecore-y drama that you have seen a million times before, but then the film takes a turn into quantum physics that will leave you scratching your head and trying desperately to keep up as characters and events move between different timelines and/or realities and/or dimensions.
It’s an absolutely wild ride that will make varying degrees of sense based on your knowledge and understanding of Quantum Psychics, but even then you’ll be having a hard time keeping track of every little detail that the film throws at you.
The fact that the film was filmed in three days with next to no script is an astounding achievement, it must have been hell to get all of this to make as much sense as it does while having to literally improvise pretty much all of it and get the coverage needed to get a fully functioning film during the editing process.
9. The Element of Crime
The Element of Crime is the feature debut of the legendary yet highly controversial Danish director Lars Von Trier.
It’s an interesting case study because it’s so completely different from pretty much everything he would go on to do, both narratively and stylistically, yet pretty much lays the thematic groundwork for his entire filmography perfectly in a 100 minute surreal murder mystery that was highly inspired by the films of Andrei Tarkovsky.
Lars is no Tarkovsky but in this film he has come the closest anyone has to recapturing the atmosphere that made Tarkovsky’s work so special.
The film is a dreamlike odyssey of obsession, murder and madness that becomes increasingly harder to follow yet also becomes increasingly more addictive the longer it goes and by the end you will feel like you’ve just awoken from a dream that you didn’t understand but want to revisit as soon as possible.
8. In the Mouth of Madness
In the Mouth of Madness is John Carpenter’s masterpiece, it has the tension of Halloween, the cosmic horror of The Thing, the playfulness of Big Trouble in Little China, the awesomeness of Escape from New York and the creepiness of Prince of Darkness all rolled up into one absolutely insane package that goes batshit bananas in the third act as it spirals completely out of control in the best ways possible.
It tells the tale of Trent (the great Sam Neill), a cynical insurance investigator that is hired to track down a missing author and hopefully retrieve his newest manuscript, but the further Trent gets into this case the more things start to take a Lovecraftian turn and by the end it has turned into Carpenter’s most insane and complex film yet.
The film’s ending is something that you’ll just have to see to believe, it’s absolutely insane and might be the most playfully terrifying sequence Carpenter has ever directed.
7. Triangle
You might figure out Triangle’s game out early but that doesn’t really matter because the lengths that the film takes its concept to is so god damn insane and complex that it will blow your mind either way.
It’s truly a great experience to witness this film play out and not collapse under its own ridiculously convoluted weight.
The fact that it’s also a highly entertaining and engaging thriller that will keep you at the edge of your seat is just the icing on a cake.
6. Enemy
Enemy is a film that doesn’t make logical sense but at the same time it makes perfect emotional sense, in the end you may not understand anything that happened and you may not be able to explain all the symbolism but you will still understand the emotional underpinnings of the piece.
Enemy is also director Denis Villeneuve’s crowning achievement, every frame of this movie is directed to perfection and holds important details to help you through the maze that is the film’s story.
It tells the tale of a teacher that discovers his double when watching a low-budget film and tries to seek him out, but things go awry when they finally meet.
It’s the type of film where nothing is as it seems because everything is pretty much a metaphor for something else or only makes sense if you are familiar with certain psychological theories about the subconscious of the Freudian variety.
But even if you get the gist of it, then there is still more than enough left for you to unpack.