Plato believed that dreams conveyed messages from the divine, or could be used to see through time, and Freud and Jung thought that by analyzing them, we could understand ourselves better. There’s no doubt dreams hold a massive cultural significance across all cultures, and their inherent mystery makes for some excellent film fodder.
So, what are the 10 best movies exploring the realm of dreams and nightmares? Read on to discover our picks.
Total Recall
Arnie isn’t always known for giving the most convincing performances, but his turn in this beloved sci-fi thriller won him plenty of fans, even if critics felt the film itself leaned too heavily on violence and action sequences. The former governor of California plays Douglas Quaid, a construction worker on Earth who, after having strange dreams about Mars and a mysterious woman, goes to a company named Rekall to have false, but realistic, memories of a trip to Mars implanted into his head. Little does he know his dreams were revealing a lot more than he thought. A visual feast, and a nuanced performance from the Terminator.
The Science of Sleep
This surrealist French film follows a young man named Stéphane, who returns to Paris to live with his mother and take on a new job at a calendar printing company. Stéphane is beset by incredibly vivid dreams that sometimes interrupt his time in the waking world, and as he slowly gets used to his new life in the French capital and becomes close with his neighbour (Nymphomaniac star Charlotte Gainsbourg), the line between reality and dreams begins to blur, leading to a strange but beautiful final act.
Last Night in Soho
Thomasin McKenzie stars as Eloise, a fashion student who is failing to fit in at her new college. She begins having dreams in which she’s transported back to sixties London, but they soon take on a darker tint and bleed into her real life. This psychological horror is a rollercoaster from start to finish, and director Edgar Wright shows off all his style in what’s ultimately a really ambitious film. The excellent performances hold the script together when it loses a little momentum towards the end, but all in all this is an intriguing and entertaining watch.
Inception
Inception immediately gained a special place in Western pop culture when it was released all the way back in 2010, with Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster becoming a sort of shorthand for a pop culture phenomenon that requires a higher level of thinking to understand. The slightly confusing (or not, depending on who you ask) plot follows Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), an agent who enters the dreams of his targets to uncover their secrets. A wonderfully twisty watch — one that definitely isn’t something you can watch with your phone in your hand — and it’s well worthy of the praise it gets.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
This 1984 classic has hit all the pop culture highlights, including inspiring an iconic Simpsons parody. It also introduced us to Freddy Krueger, one of horror’s most infamous creations, and the monster that launched a million nightmares. The film follows a group of teens who are being stalked in their dreams by Kreuger, a child murderer who was released on a technicality but then burned to death by a vigilante mob — which included the parents of the children being harrassed. Kreuger only strikes in the unconscious realm, but his attacks have real world consequences, turning everything into a waking nightmare. Terrifying but brilliant.
Mulholland Drive
This is one of David Lynch’s most accessible films, which doesn’t really guarantee it’s easily understood, but it’s definitely an entertaining watch, even if you don’t fully grasp everything the surrealist director is hinting at. Lynch gave the movie the tagline “A love story in the city of dreams,” and the whole film is shot in a dreamlike way, with loose connections between certain scenes and characters as opposed to a more linear narrative. The plot follows an aspiring actress who befriends an amnesiac, but it’s so much more than that. Naomi Watts stars, and is incredible.
Waking Life
Richard Linklater’s animated philosophical exploration of, well, everything, is a quintessential film about dreams. The plot of this weird and wonderful movie follows an unnamed narrator who finds himself wandering through multiple dreamlike realities, and engages in profound and enlightening discussions with a cast of different characters, touching on topics like free will, lucid dreaming, and our purpose on earth. So, only the small stuff, then. Best of all, it’s as beautifully animated as it is intriguing.
Un Chien Andalou
Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali’s infamous surrealist film might be best known for that scene with the eye (which is not one for the squeamish), but it was also one of the very first motion pictures to really dive into the notion of dream logic. Un Chien Andalou has influenced such a wide range of artists and thinkers today that it’s almost impossible to name them all, and even in modern times remains a revolutionary film for its content and structure.
Eyes Wide Shut
Kubrick’s final feature film was released after his death, and although it wasn’t finished exactly in the way the director would have wanted because of his passing, it remains a testament to his incredible legacy. Based on the vividly written novella Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler, it isn’t set in the realm of dreams and nightmares like other entries on this list, but dreams, hopes, and desires play a vital role in the sexually charged narrative. Plus, the whole film is shot in a dreamlike way that stokes the notion that perhaps our protagonist (Tom Cruise) has entered into unreality.
Alice in Wonderland
We’ve mentioned the term cultural impact a few times in this article, but none of the other entries have as big a place in the public consciousness as Lewis Carrol’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the inspiration behind this 1951 Disney animated classic. The film is entirely set in a dreamworld, but there are some dark, nightmarish elements that rear their head throughout the narrative. All in all, this is a trippy, engaging classic that has something for all ages, although there’s no doubting it’s also scarred a fair amount of kids over the years.