The most impactful psychological thrillers are the ones that can’t be ignored. From the Mother of Darren Aronofskymom!David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, theseMulholland Roadsuitable for the most courageous moviegoers—mindf**k.
Nothing compares to having a movie completely ruin your melon. The finest psychological thrillers are those that you can see again and again without ever being quite sure you comprehended.
Cheers to the puzzlers, nagging minds, and complete moviegoer types.
mother!
The tension in Darren Aronofsky’s domestic horror film rises when unexpected intruders break into the home of Javier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence. Though it’s far from a typical home invasion movie, the last act goes utterly bonkers, making it one of the most bizarre and ridiculous endings ever.
Mulholland Drive
Although David Lynch has a back catalog of films long enough to fill a mindf**k list, Mulholland Drive seems to have piqued the interest of moviegoers the most. It’s pure Lynch from beginning to end, with its story of muddled identities, irrational cowboys, dancing little grandparents, and dashed Hollywood ambitions.
Donnie Darko
In his feature film debut, Richard Kelly introduced time travel, a falling jet engine, a talking six-foot rabbit, and a plethora of web hypotheses and interpretations. The Box and Southland Tales were two more of the filmmaker’s mind-bending films, but none could compete with Donnie Darko.
Past tense
The American filmmaker David Lynch made a bold declaration of purpose with his first feature-length work, a black-and-white surrealist horror picture that seemed to be about fatherhood. Lynch never seems to follow the rules. Inspired by both Franz Kafka and Nikolai Gogol, this surreal journey into the humPi psyche features a giant-cheeked lady who makes her home in a radiator. and starts singing.
First
You’ll need a flowchart to sort through Shane Carruth’s microbudget debut, which explores the genesis of time travel and is jam-packed with intricate detail and several timelines. Fortunately, one exists!
Modified Conditions
In the early 1980s, Ken Russell and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky collaborated on an adaptation of the latter’s book, Altered States. William Hurt played the main character, a scientist whose isolation chamber experiments with hallucinogenic chemicals inevitably result in some bizarre kaleidoscopic visions.
Triangle
Under the radar when it first came out, Christopher Smith’s time-loop thriller keeps you wondering as Melissa George’s character Jess boards an ocean liner with a future version of herself.
The Videodrome
A memorable moment in David Cronenberg’s science fiction body horror film saw James Woods putting a VHS tape into his stomach in a hallucinating state. Since then, the Canadian director has produced other movies, but none nearly as bizarre as this one.
Sky Vanilla
The A-list star of this Tom Cruise-led adaptation of the Spanish thriller Open Your Eyes wakes up moments before the film fades to black and ends with him falling from a building. There are a number of interpretations—some of which Cameron Crowe emphasizes in the director’s commentary—but part of the enjoyment is allowing your thoughts to come to their own conclusions.
Sunshine Always on the Spotless Mind
Parts of Jim Carrey’s character Joel Barrish’s memories, particularly his connection with Kate Winslet’s free spirit Clementine, are being zapped away, which is why Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry’s fantastic sci-fi romance deserves a spot on the mindf**k list.
Pi
In Darren Aronofsky’s low-budget feature film, mathematician Max Cohen almost killed himself attempting to decipher a 216-digit number that his computer was producing. A victim of debilitating headaches and hallucinations, Max does a self-trepanning with a power drill in the most literally mindf**k scene of the movie.
New York Synecdoche
Charlie Kaufman directed this expansive story about a director putting on a big-budget theatrical production in a Manhattan warehouse, where the movie’s actors also appear in the production. The distinction between fact and fiction becomes progressively hazy in this at times audacious, completely perplexing, and recursive movie. Recursion, indeed.
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