# Dreamlike Movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 7, 2003, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119 "2003-10-07T18:14:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Soup\_Nazi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Soup\_Nazi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soup_Nazi)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/21 "2003-10-08T03:34:59Z")
I’ll fourth _Donnie Darko_. Great flick. I’ll raise you _The Evil Dead_. Crazy and unpredictable, like lots of my dreams. Quirky too. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/22 "2003-10-08T03:54:26Z")
**Pi** , though it’s closer to a nightmare than a dream. Especially unnerving is the fact that it is not a horror movie. Most horror movies will fit the bill. **In the Mouth of Madness** is a personal favorite, along with all three **Evil Dead** movies. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/23 "2003-10-08T04:06:42Z")
As mentioned, Fellini’s **Satyricon**. And, a little seen, underappreciated gem by Robert Altman called [Images](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0068732/). ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/24 "2003-10-08T05:00:39Z")
**Naked Lunch** is one of the strangest, dreamiest flicks I’ve seen. It was supposedly based on the Wm. Burroughs book. I read the book later, though, and it had very little in common with the movie. **Dogma** had the odd, disjointed feel of a dream. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/25 "2003-10-08T07:25:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AskNott \* > **Naked Lunch** is one of the strangest, dreamiest flicks I’ve seen. It was supposedly based on the Wm. Burroughs book. I read the book later, though, and it had very little in common with the movie. Good call, I completely forgot about that one. I’ve also heard that the book was much different, but I’ve never been inclined to read it. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/26 "2003-10-08T08:13:10Z")
I read _Naked Lunch_ before I saw the movie. The movie relied heavily on both the book and the story of Burroughs writing it. It would be impossible to make an actually watchable movie if one wanted it to recongizably follow the book; I thought the movie struck a pretty good balance. Hijack: If anyone’s interested, the Burroughs biography [Literary Outlaw](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805009019/qid=1065601297/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-5762147-0415044?v=glance&s=books) is a good read. For a literary biography, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![green\_bladder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@green\_bladder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/green_bladder)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/27 "2003-10-08T11:05:20Z")
I’ll second _Mulholland Drive_ - very freaky. What about _Groundhog Day_? _Vanilla Sky_ or the original (and IMHO better) Spanish version: _Abre los Ojos_. They’re both fantastic. And _The Manchurian Candidate_, to a certain extent. ---
**Author:** ![threeorange](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@threeorange](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threeorange)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/28 "2003-10-09T16:50:01Z")
2001 A Space Odyssey ---
**Author:** ![Alias](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@Alias](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alias)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/29 "2003-10-10T00:42:00Z")
I just saw Willard (the new one) last night. It wasn’t the greatest movie, but it was very dreamlike. Crispin Glover’s performance is really haunting. ---
**Author:** ![Ultraviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/c77e96/32.png) [@Ultraviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ultraviolet)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/30 "2003-10-10T01:22:07Z")
I found Memento to be very dreamlike. I often have disconnected dreams where I struggle to find out exactly what is going on, much like I felt when I first watched that movie. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/31 "2003-10-10T01:39:12Z")
**The Keep (1983)** [http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0085780/](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0085780/) Very surreal. Most folks hate it but you have to admit it has a very dreamlike atmpsphere. (Musical score by “Tangerine Dream”). **Jacob’s Ladder (1990)** [http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/) Plot rambles all over the place. Incoherent at times. It is difficult to figure out anything that is occurring. Still, the reviews are much more positive than what you’ll read about “The Keep”. **Videodrome (1983)** [http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/) Very strange and very gory. Still, it is dreamlike - more like nightmarish actually. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/32 "2003-10-10T02:03:07Z")
Many of the movies that I would have recommended have already been mentioned. However, I would recommend [Kafka](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102181/). Good cast, good direction and a weird story. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/33 "2003-10-10T05:46:40Z")
_Eraserhead_ has already been mentioned, but many viewers fail to realize that the whole movie is a dream sequence. One movie that hasn’t been mentioned and deserves to be is the original _Nightmare on Elm Street_. The endless sequels have obscured the fact that the first movie was actually pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![Rainbowthief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4bbf92/32.png) [@Rainbowthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rainbowthief)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/34 "2003-10-10T06:12:29Z")
Phillip Ridley’s _The Reflecting Skin_ Alejandro Jodorowsky’s _El Topo_, _The Holy Mountain_ and _Santa Sangre_ Shinya Tsukamoto’s _Tetsuo: The Iron Man_ and _Tetsuo 2: Body Hammer_ Werner Herzog’s _Aguirre the Wrath of God_ ---
**Author:** ![refusal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@refusal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/refusal)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/35 "2003-10-10T10:13:42Z")
The Quay Brothers’ _Institute Benjamenta_ starring Mark Rylance and Alice Krige is amazingly strange and beautiful, the story of a man trying to lose his personality in the eternal repetition of life in a school for servants. However, when I saw it in the cinema the effect was lessened by many bored audience members fiddling noisily with their chairs. As well as Jodorowsky, Bergman, Cocteau, David Lynch, and David Cronenberg already mentioned, many of the films of Andrei Tarkovsky are truly dreamlike: _The Sacrifice_, the original _Solaris_, his masterpiece _Andrei Rublev_, the utterly incomprehensible _Nostalgia_, and others. Also: Emel Klimov’s _Come And See_, a dark, poetic, and visually spectacular Belorussian war film which alternates horror with farce and makes Apocalypse Now look like a recruiting advert filmed on a camcorder by a total amateur. Mike Leigh’s _Naked_ has the quality of a nightmare and is fiercely apocalyptic. Mizoguchi’s _Sansho Dayu_ (Sansho the Bailiff) is a fable set in medieval Japan with something of the same doomy feel of Bergman’s _The Seventh Seal_, which is another film I can’t believe nobody mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/36 "2003-10-10T13:39:57Z")
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned **The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari** , the original “dream movie.” ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/37 "2003-10-10T13:47:58Z")
The original City of Angels is very dreamlike, its amazing… ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/38 "2003-10-10T14:36:34Z")
_Night of the Hunter_ qualifies, I think, particularly for the sequence when the children are fleeing downriver from Robert Mitchum’s evil preacher. A few more: Hitchcock’s _Vertigo_ Polanski’s _Le Locataire_ (The Tenant) Just saw the recent _Lost in Translation_, and that certainly has dreamlike qualities to it. ---
**Author:** ![Caprese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9a28c/32.png) [@Caprese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caprese)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/39 "2003-10-10T15:15:58Z")
**The Virgin Suicides** Forboding, haunting, beautiful in its way. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119/40 "2003-10-10T15:17:10Z")
Some good choices (I’ll second _The Tenant_, one of the best horror films ever made, especially if you’ve seen Polanski’s _Rosemary’s Baby_\*). I’d like to add Louis Malle’s [Black Moon](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0072709/). No story, and practically no dialogue, but filled entirely by strange, dreamlike imagery that’s fascinating to watch. The final image is unforgettable. Malle had the ability to make fascinating (and oddly warmhearted) movies out of the most unlikely of concepts (Nazi collaborators, incest, child prostitution, etc.) \*The movie assumes you have, to marvelous effect. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamlike-movies/206119.md?page=3)