Men is the most recent release from Alex Garland, a creator who typically opts for a fairly confusing narrative to discuss themes that would otherwise feel too obvious. Enigmatic movies seem to be his specialty, especially when taking Annihilation into account.
With complicated plotlines and unreliable characters, some movies are either accidentally confusing or designed to disorient viewers. Sometimes the true meaning of the story is quite simple, but the way the narrative is structured makes all the difference. Rather than doing something with the plain objective of delivering something hard to follow, the most confusing movies want to deliver a complex story from the main character’s point of view, in a way the viewers are left just as tangled up as the protagonist in these stories so charmingly devoted to chaos. Which movies still baffle Ranker voters?
Note: Due to the nature of Ranker’s voting, these results may change. At the time of publication, this list is correct.
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Vanilla Sky is a psychological drama starring Tom Cruise in one of his strangest roles yet. He plays David, a self-indulgent, handsome man of great wealth who, just after meeting the love of his life, is in a car accident that leaves him severely disfigured. The incident marks the beginning of a series of mysterious incidents that will make David question whether he’s living inside a dream or not.
Vanilla Sky isn’t the conventional story of a man who had everything and loses it all. Adding hints of science fiction to the heavy drama, the story begins to take shape into something completely different, just like David’s life transforms after his car crash. Vanilla Sky provides a world where illusions and fragments of images are everything, which also reflects the materialistic life David led before.
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer starts to lose his grip on reality. Plagued by hallucinations and disturbing flashbacks, he must unveil his past while deciphering the fragile reality around him.
Jacob’s Ladder isn’t straightforward when it comes to its true, despairing meaning. Fans argue to this day whether or not the movie ends up being a strong anti-war story, a meditation on mental health conditions, or both. Just like Jacob, viewers are caught up in his insubstantial perception of reality as the world and the people around him collapse into the unknown. Leaving a lot of room for interpretation, Jacob’s Ladder impresses with its psychedelic visuals and creepy elements, especially at the thought that the horror might be related to something much more grounded in reality than initially anticipated.
Lost Highway (1997)
Lost Highway is the enigmatic story of a man accused of murdering his own wife. When an impossible transformation takes place inside a prison cell, the life of two characters intersects in an unavoidable fate.
What makes Lost Highway such a difficult movie to understand is that the main characters are constantly being abruptly transformed into new bodies, with new identities, at least in theory. Crucial to the tale, these shifts in identity drive the narrative to a new direction, until suddenly returning it to the starting point, leaving up to the viewers to conclude what exactly this journey represents and how it affects each character. It’s also worth mentioning how Lost Highway introduces one of the most creepy and intriguing villains in Lynch’s career, The Mystery Man, an ominous figure who often seems to be the only one understanding what’s actually happening.
Eraserhead (1977)
David Lynch’s weirdest movie (which is saying a lot), Eraserhead offers a nightmarish narrative with haunting images and wicked characters that shape the life of a poor factory worker. In a series of strange, suffocating events, Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, an angry girlfriend, and the insufferable screams of his newly born mutant baby.
While the movie does follow a seemingly linear story, the reality of Eraserhead is filled with weird-looking characters that act like they’re out of this world. Henry’s passiveness towards the countless bizarre events that overwhelm him highlights the narrative’s curious intention of displaying Henry’s deepest fears and preoccupations in a disturbing fashion, putting the viewers in his shoes.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Chaos theory. Butterfly effect. Time travel. Parallel realities. A weird-looking giant bunny rabbit. It’s almost like Donnie Darko is following a strict recipe to craft the most frustratingly puzzling story possible, and it does that quite well.
One of the best directorial debuts of the 2000s, Donnie Darko follows a teenager who just barely escaped a bizarre incident. Troubled by strange visions, he’s manipulated to commit a series of crimes that will change the lives of everyone around him. The movie’s narrative is conducted in a self-destructing way, as universes are either meant to collide or go their own ways individually, and Donnie stands in the center of it. Long story short, Donnie Darko doesn’t really make sense, but it definitely has meaning.
Memento (2000)
Memento often feels like starting to complete a jigsaw puzzle, giving up in the middle, and then trying again right from the start. The film follows Leonard Shelby, a man who is desperately trying to track down the man who murdered his wife, but there’s a catch: Leonard suffers from a rare case of short-memory loss, which turns the investigation into a total nightmare.
Unable to remember all the information he managed to collect, he starts tattooing them on his skin. But having Leonard’s condition in mind, viewers are left with an unreliable character, resourcing only to his fragmented memories to catch up with the mystery. Apart from counting with Leonard’s inconstant mind, Memento’s narrative doesn’t follow a linear course, meandering in a surprisingly engaging way and disorienting viewers until getting to its final twist.
Inception (2010)
Inception is one of the best examples of movies that take place inside a character’s mind, following a thief who steals corporate secrets by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets. He’s offered a life-changing deal in exchange for a seemingly impossible task: planting another person’s idea into the mind of a successful CEO.
Due to the premise’s nature, it’s difficult to discern reality from dreams in Inception, and things get even more complicated when the protagonist’s troubled past begins to get in the way. As the thief and his team delve deeper into the different layers of the target’s unconscious states, the narrative ultimately leads to an inconclusive ending that left fans arguing whether or not it was real to this day.
Primer (2004)
Primer is a great indie time travel movie that handles its budget constraints in an interesting way, but it’s almost impossible to understand in the first watch.
Four fledging entrepreneurs accidentally create a time-traveling machine, and two of them decide to take advantage of the unique opportunity for self-centered purposes, but they end up getting tangled up in a chaotic chain of events. As the story progresses, it’s even difficult to understand who is who, and which timeline is unraveling onscreen. Just like the main characters, viewers get caught up in a seemingly unsolvable problem.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece remains one of the most groundbreaking movies ever made, not only due to the spectacular technical aspects, but also for delivering one of the most mind-bending experiences in cinema history. There are many reasons why 2001: A Space Odyssey still holds up today, but the one that stands out the most is the endlessly interpretable meanings the film offers.
In an alternate future, humanity finds an intriguing object buried beneath the lunar surface, and a space crew sets out to find its origin, counting on the help of HAL 9000, the world’s most advanced super computer. 2001 addresses themes ahead of its time such as the clash between humanity and machine, human evolution, and, clearly one crucial reason why the movie is so difficult to understand, what happens when humanity is face to face with the absolute cosmic magnitude of the universe that surrounds them.
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Different from David Lynch’s other works, Mulholland Drive is the one closest to a fever dream. Recurring faces come and go, illusions take over reality, and past and present collide in a search for identity; all that is conducted in an unsettling atmosphere.
In the film, a woman is left with amnesia after a car crash and crosses paths with an aspiring actress. Together they search for answers in the Los Angeles Hollywood scene, but soon the linear story gives way to a twisting narrative where nothing is what it seems and no one is trustable. While not as scary as Lynch’s other films, Mulholland Drive is just as unsettling, transmitting a recurring feeling that something’s off, although the reason why is left to the viewer’s interpretation.
