If you’re bored with the usual suspects (Dazed and Confused, The Big Lebowski, etc.) then check out the following flicks. While these movies are not quite great, they’ll blow your mind if you’re in the right state. Plus they’re all available to stream, so you don’t even have to leave your parents’ basement.
Enter the Void (2009)
When Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a foreign drug dealer living in Tokyo with his stripper sister, Linda (Paz de la Huerta), is fatally shot in a police raid, his spirit leaves his body in a hallucinatory odyssey that merges his past, present and future into a chaotic whole. This riveting third film from provocative French auteur Gaspar Noe screened in competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.
The Fall (2006)
Set in the 1920s, director Tarsem Singh’s visually lush drama stars Lee Pace as paralyzed movie stuntman Roy Walker, who bonds with an imaginative 5-year-old named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) as they convalesce together in a Los Angeles infirmary. To coax the girl into procuring the cache of morphine he wants from the hospital pharmacy, the suicidal Roy regales Alexandria with an elaborate fantasy about larger-than-life heroes.
The Fountain (2006)
In this sci-fi drama that spans a millennium, a man (Hugh Jackman) searches for a tree believed to grant eternal life in 16th-century Spain; seeks a cure for his wife’s (Rachel Weisz) cancer as a present-day scientist; and traverses the universe as a 26th-century astronaut. As he travels through time in an epic struggle to save the woman he loves, he also comes to understand some of life’s murkiest mysteries.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
When a deal with the devil comes due, the immortal Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) must renegotiate the pact to save his daughter. Now, with the help of his mystical theater troupe and a mysterious stranger, Parnassus attempts to right the wrongs of his past. Terry Gilliam’s quirky fantasy marks Heath Ledger’s final film, with Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law stepping in to complete his pivotal role.