It’s a bit of a controversial opinion, but not all films have to make sense to be good. And not all confusing movies are hard to follow for the same reason. Sometimes the imagery and ideas that directors and actors have crafted is purposely designed to tease the viewer’s brain — like in Inception — and sometimes bad editing and budgetary constraints mean that vital scenes get cut out, leading to all sorts of confusing timelines and plot holes (see: The Stuff, the brilliantly bad eighties sci-fi satirical horror). But what flicks are sure to leave even the most careful watchers bamboozled? Check out our list of the 10 most confusing movies of all time.
10. Brazil
Crazy sci-fi flicks with strange premises are always sure to confuse first-time viewers, but the 1985 Terry Gilliam film Brazil (starring Robert De Niro, of all people) is about as easy to understand as quantum mechanics. The film has been labelled as absurdist, kafkaesque, and a biting satire, but between the out there visuals and strange-seeming costume choices, there is a clear message about the dangers of unrestrained capitalism that runs throughout the flick. Brazil follows a low ranking bureaucrat in a dystopian future who is desperately searching for a woman who keeps appearing in his dreams. If you pay attention you should get most of it, but even then, some scenes will leave a lot to ponder after you’ve finished watching.
9. Synedoche, New York
This weird and wonderful psychological thriller stars the late, great, Philip Seymour Hoffman as an aging, ill theatre director who is attempting to cobble together his final masterpiece, even as the rest of his life falls apart around him due to his commitment to the production. The film says a lot about what it takes to make great art, and how the boundaries between reality and fiction can blur when a creative person is deep in the weeds of crafting something new. There are plenty of strange goings on in the film, from a perennially burning house, to repeated phrases, to the meta nature of the film itself being a plot point, but if you get it – then this movie will stick with you for its pure genius.
8. Gummo
Although Harmony Korine‘s film Trash Humpers is more surreal and upsetting than this entry on the list, Gummo manages to wow and scare without actually really telling you what’s going on most of the time. There isn’t too much of a plot to the movie – which follows various inhabitants of a small Midwestern town that’s been devastated by a tornado as they try to pass the time in their ruined society. Korine has never been afraid to shock (he wrote the screenplay for the heartbreaking yet brilliant Kids), but Gummo reaches another level of discomfort without offering anything that resembles a resolution, or even a real story. With that said, it is a smart comment on several facets of American society that many seem desperate to ignore.
7. The Room
The previous entries on this list have been films that are confusing out of choice, whereas the iconic The Room is known for making hardly any sense by complete accident. A passion project of the determined amateur filmmaker Tommy Wisseau, it follows a character named Johnny (Wisseau) whose life falls apart when he finds out his “future wife” is cheating on him with his best friend. If you know about this film, you can probably quote most of it by heart, including the infamous James Dean pastiche that Wisseau attempts to pull off. While the overall story makes sense, there are several scenes that introduce random plot points, many of which are never mentioned again (including one about a character having breast cancer, and a brief scuffle with a drug dealer). Hilarious, although not on purpose. If your local cinema is having a viewing, go and watch, because it’s always a great experience with an interactive crowd.
6. Solaris
Solaris — like 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was released a few years prior to the Russian film — delves into some incredibly deep themes about the universe, and the nature of life itself. As a result, a lot of the message it’s trying to get accross can only be taken in if a viewer really knows what to look out for, and even then a quick sweep of Wikipedia afterward is probably still needed to really makes sense of the movie. The film follows a psychologist who is sent to a spaceship that’s orbiting the eponymous fictional planet, only to find his sense of reality bending to an extent he didn’t realize was possible. A masterpiece, but not an easy watch.
5. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Part of the joy of spy stories is solving mysteries and being surprised, but this 2011 adaptation of a John le Carré novel of the same name is near impossible to make sense of, even if you know what to look out for. The premise is simple, at least, and concerns the search for a Soviet double agent who has embedded themselves in the heart of the British security services, but the way that the filmmakers go about showing the ins and outs of spycraft, and how knowledge is the most important currency in that world, is done excellently – albeit at the expense of an easy to follow plot. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy really does bring viewers into the world of espionage and that’s worth celebrating, but it doesn’t give them the code they need to make heads nor tails of it.
4. Eraserhead
If we’re being honest, this entire list could have just been David Lynch films. The director is known for his dark absurdism, uncomfortable surrealism, and genre blending, and although all of his films have an element of real confusion in them (especially Mulholland Drive, which almost feels like two different movies), there’s no doubt Eraserhead is one of the hardest to follow. It was Lynch’s first full-length film, and he edited and scored it himself, so it’s the epitome of his style. The movie follows Henry – a man who lives in a sad apartment in a bleak world, and includes a cast of several strange characters – including his love interest and their deformed, beast-like baby. Unwatchable? For some. Genius? Undoubtedly.
3. Fateful Findings
Cult filmmaker Neil Breen has been pumping out some of the weirdest films of all time for decades now, and Fateful Findings might just be his magnum opus, or whatever the opposite of that phrase is. To attempt to explain the plot is a bit of a fruitless endeavor, but the movie is effectively a sci-fi action film that involves a magical stone, government conspiracies, and a ghost psychologist. Truly awful, yet utterly spellbinding – like watching videos of car accidents or people falling off mountain paths.
2. Tenet
Christopher Nolan is one of the few big-budget directors who seems to be allowed to do what he wants with a studio’s money, and with Tenet he certainly pushed the boundaries of what execs would allow. The sci-fi time travel movie has an all-star cast, but like many films that dive into the ability to go back and forth in time while also trying to maintain a coherent logic about the rules of the power – it struggles to be as cohesive as it could be. Nolan can certainly make cerebral films that make audiences work, but this effort was a little too confusing to be a hit.
1. Primer
Primer is often considered one of the few time travel movies that makes the technology in question make sense, yet because of this attempt at logical consistency it’s possibly the most confusing watch of all time. An experimental plot is made harder to follow by some highly technical dialogue, and when you add in the deep philisophical implications of the movie, it really is the sort of watch that will make your brain hurt. The story follows two friends who accidentally discover a way to travel through time, and we see how their lives unravel while they explore this new power. If you have a degree in physics you may very well understand this easily. The rest of us, not so much.