Surreal
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- DirectorHans RichterStarsWerner GraeffWalter GronostayPaul HindemithHans Richter, noted for his abstract shorts, has everyday objects rebelling against their daily routine.
- DirectorMan RayStarsKiki of MontparnasseJacques RigautA long series of unrelated images, revolving, often distorted: lights, flowers, nails. A lightboard appears from time to time carrying the news of the day. Then, an eye. A woman in a car drives along country roads. Farm animals. She descends from the car, again and again. Images: dancing legs, seashore, swimming fish, geometric shapes, cut glass. A man removes his starched collar. It rotates. A girl has garishly painted eyes. No, she's only fooling. Those were her eyelids.
- DirectorMarcel DuchampA spiral design spins dizzily. It's replaced by a spinning disk. These two continue in perfect alternation until the end: a spiral design, a disk. Each disk is labelled and can be read as it rotates. The messages, in French, feature puns and whimsical rhymes and alliteration. The final message comments on the spiral motif itself.
- DirectorWalter RuttmannWalter Ruttmann's (Metropolis 1927) fourth abstract animated short in the series. In this the last film he has found a cohesion between the music and the action. The synergy between the music and the on screen action can be felt.
- DirectorViking EggelingA tilted figure, consisting largely of right angles at the beginning, grows by accretion, with the addition of short straight lines and curves which sprout from the existing design. The figure vanishes and the process begins again with a new pattern, each cycle lasting one or two seconds. The complete figures are drawn in a vaguely Art Deco style and could be said to resemble any number of things, an ear, a harp, panpipes, a grand piano with trombones, and so on, only highly stylized. The tone is playful and hypnotic.
- DirectorFernand LégerDudley MurphyStarsKiki of MontparnasseFernand LégerDudley MurphyA pulsing, kaleidoscope of images set to an energetic soundtrack. A young women swings in a garden; a woman's face smiles. The rest is spinning cylinders, pistons, gears and turbines, kitchen objects in concentric circles or rows - pots, pan lids, and funnels, cars passing overhead, a spinning carnival ride. Over and over, a heavy-set woman climbs stairs carrying a large bag on her shoulder. An Art Deco cartoon figure appears, dancing. This is a world in motion, dominated by mechanical and repetitive images, with a few moments of solitude in a garden.
- DirectorHans RichterBlack and white rectangular images fade in and out of the screen. Their movement make them sometimes look like they're panning from side to side. Their movement also make the black and white individually change from foreground to background and visa versa.
- DirectorRené ClairStarsJean BörlinInge FrïssFrancis PicabiaAn absolute dada movie. Somebody gets killed, his coffin gets out of control and after a chase it stops. The person gets out of it and let everybody who followed the coffin dissapear.
- DirectorMan RayStarsKiki of MontparnasseExperimental film, white specks and shapes gyrating over a black background, a light-striped torso, a gyrating eggcrate. One of the first Dadaist films.
- DirectorWalter RuttmannAgainst a dark background, several bright, curved or rounded shapes pulse towards the center of the screen, one at a time. They are followed by many other shapes, some irregular, some pointed, others rounded. The abstract shapes move into or across the screen in harmony with the musical score.
- DirectorWalter RuttmannThird instalment in a series of short, abstract animations, featuring bright shapes moving against a dark background. The shapes move across the screen in harmony with the music.
- DirectorHans RichterRhythm 23 (Rhythmus 23, 1923) is an extension of the same film but with more angles and overlays added, and adding lines rather than adhering to the squares of the original. It looks so similar that the academic argument that both "21" and "23" were made in 1923 looks rather likely. Richter himself at some exhibitions showed these two together as a single film called Un film de Hans Richter. The hand-colored Rhythm 25 (Rhythmus 25, 1925) was the final "chapter," but it does not survive."
- DirectorRobert FloreyStarsJoseph MarievskyTamara ShavrovaAnielka ElterWhile playing his trombone one Sunday, the enthusiastic Zero sees Beatrix and falls in love. He returns the next week to express his feelings, and it's mutual. Over the next few months, they spoon, kiss, and find happiness. Then, she receives a letter from Kabul, demanding that she return to the palace of the grand vizier. The lovers part, heartbroken. Zero tries expressing himself to a woman on the street. He meets derision. Then, news of Beatrix. Does this romance end in smiles or tears?
- DirectorRobert FloreySlavko VorkapichStarsJules RaucourtVoya GeorgeRobert FloreyA wannabe movie star experiences the surreal horrors of dehumanization at the bottom of Hollywood's social ladder as his hopes for success vanish and his identity is reduced to a number.
- DirectorJames Sibley WatsonMelville WebberStarsHerbert SternHildegarde WatsonMelville WebberAn avant-garde take on Poe's classic story of a traveller taking shelter at a household under a mysterious curse.
- DirectorGermaine DulacStarsAlex AllinLucien BatailleGenica AthanasiouObsessed with a general's woman, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism.
- DirectorMan RayStarsKiki of MontparnasseAndré de la RivièreRobert DesnosTwo people stand on a road, out of focus. Seen distorted through a glass, they retire upstairs to a bedroom where she undresses. He says, "Adieu." Images: the beautiful girl, a starfish in a jar, city scenes, newspapers, tugboats. More images: starfish, the girl. "How beautiful she is." Repeatedly. He advances up the stair, knife in hand, starfish on the step. Three people stand on a road, out of focus. "How beautiful she was." "How beautiful she is." "Beautiful."
- DirectorGermaine DulacIn this avant garde short subject, the director gives us her visual impressions from listening to two pieces by Chopin: the 4tn and 6tn preludes.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsPierre BatcheffSimone MareuilLuis BuñuelLuis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí present 16 minutes of bizarre, surreal imagery.
- DirectorHans RichterAn abstract short film from Hans Richter in which a series of unrelated images are edited together.
- DirectorHans RichterStarsSergei EisensteinMichael HankinsonBasil WrightAn abstract look at daily life in London.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsGaston ModotLya LysCaridad de LaberdesqueA surrealist tale of a man and a woman who are passionately in love with each other, but their attempts to consummate that passion are constantly thwarted by their families, the Church, and bourgeois society.
- DirectorSlavko Vorkapich
- DirectorDouglass CrockwellAn experimental animated short from Douglass Crockwell which derives its subject matter from his home Glens Falls.
- DirectorMary Ellen ButeNorman McLarenTed NemethIt's midnight in a graveyard. The principal characters are spooks, ghosts, bats, bells, and, at the end, the sun. As midnight strikes, 12 spooks appear, then two ghosts. They move to the music's rhythm. Against the black night, they are blue and yellow. Bats appear as does a xylophone of bones. Mist rises, spooks swirl. A bell tolls. The sky turns light blue, the ghosts' dance slows. Then black night returns bringing intimations of frenzy. Bones play snare drums; spooks peek out of square graves. Scary faces appear. Frenetic movement takes over. A rooster crows and all return to earth as the sun's light appears.
- DirectorNorman McLarenA John Phillip Sousa march plays as pen-and-ink images, drawn directly on film, appear. Against a blue background, white fireworks explode. Parts of a flag (red and white stripes and white stars on a blue background) move to the music's rhythm. The lines become hearts, circles, and stars: Cupid's arrows join the fun as do Stars of David and other rapidly moving lines. Sometimes the screen is dominated by patters of straight lines, then by squiggles and blobs. The movement of the shapes is rapid as they morph from one symbol to another. Red, white, and blue fireworks become comets, stars, and suns. A few reddish clouds appear at the finale.
- DirectorNorman McLarenAn experimental film of dots animated by being drawn directly on filmstock.
- DirectorJames Whitney
- DirectorMaya DerenAlexander HammidStarsMaya DerenAlexander HammidA woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-screen.
- DirectorJohn Whitney Sr.James WhitneyAn experimental computer animation film series from John Whitney Sr.
- DirectorJohn Whitney Sr.James WhitneyAn experimental computer animation film series from John Whitney Sr.
- DirectorJohn Whitney Sr.James WhitneyAn experimental computer animation film series from John Whitney Sr.
- DirectorMaya DerenStarsMarcel DuchampPajorita MattaThe surrealist film shows repetitive imagery involving a string fashioned in a bizarre, almost spiderweb-like pattern over the hands of several individuals, most notably an unnamed young woman and an elderly gentleman.
- DirectorFranciszka ThemersonStefan ThemersonStarsJames McKechnieThe images are synchronized to match the rhythm of five different traditional Polish songs in this early experimental musical short film.
- DirectorMaya DerenStarsRita ChristianiMaya DerenAnaïs NinAn experiment with editing techniques that distort space and time in order to further contextualize an image.
- DirectorMaya DerenStarsJohn CageMaya DerenAlexander HammidSilently, a woman wakes on a beach as the tides go in reverse. Her dreamscape unfolds as she tries to locate a chess piece traveling from the beach to a party to a country road and then back.
- DirectorHans RichterStarsJack BittnerLibby HolmanJosh WhiteAfter learning how to look inside himself, a poetic bum sells people vivid dreams.
- DirectorOskar FischingerA short painted film by Oskar Fishchinger which films images to the music of Johann Bach.
- DirectorNorman McLarenA film made without a camera, made by painting directly on the film.
- DirectorEvelyn LambartNorman McLarenAbstract images drawn directly onto the film are accompanied by three pieces of jazz performed by the Oscar Peterson trio.
- DirectorAndrei TarkovskyStarsAlisa FreyndlikhAleksandr KaydanovskiyAnatoliy SolonitsynA guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.
- DirectorRichard KellyStarsJake GyllenhaalJena MaloneMary McDonnellAfter narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsMax von SydowGunnar BjörnstrandBengt EkerotA knight returning to Sweden after the Crusades seeks answers about life, death, and the existence of God as he plays chess against the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague.
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsBill PullmanPatricia ArquetteJohn RoseliusAnonymous videotapes presage a musician's murder conviction, and a gangster's girlfriend leads a mechanic astray.
- DirectorUrsula PuerrerA. Hans ScheirlDietmar SchipekStarsSusana HelmayrUrsula PuerrerA. Hans ScheirlFlaming Ears is a pop sci-fi lesbian fantasy feature set in the year 2700 in the fictive burned-out city of Asche. It follows the tangled lives of three women - Volley, Nun and Spy.
- DirectorStephen QuayTimothy QuayStarsFeliks StawinskiInside a box full of curio, a puppet who is recently freed from his strings explores a dusty and forlorn commercial area. The explorer becomes ensnared into miniature tailor shop by baby-faced dolls.
- DirectorDean StockwellNeil YoungStarsNeil YoungRuss TamblynDean StockwellThe new owner of a roadside diner stuck in a town built around an always leaking nuclear power plant plans to torch the place to collect insurance. However, an assortment of bizare characters and weird events (such as spaceships flying around) gets in his way.
- DirectorAlejandro JodorowskyStarsTamara GarinaSergio KleinerDiana MariscalFando and his partially-paralyzed lover Lis search for the mythical city of Tar. Based on Jodorowsky's memories of a play by surrealist Fernando Arrabal.
- DirectorE. Elias MerhigeStarsBrian SalzbergDonna DempseyStephen Charles BarryPresented in a surreal, gory and entirely visual manner, Begotten tells of the death of religion, the abuse of nature by Man and a nihilistic outlook on what life ultimately is.
- DirectorWojciech HasStarsJan NowickiTadeusz KondratIrena OrskaJózef visits his dying father at a remote mental institution, where time itself doesn't seem to exist, and the line between dreams and memories becomes indistinguishable.
- DirectorDavid FirthStarsDavid FirthPaul MacKenzieChristian Webb13 years worth of animated madness, stitched together to form a single stream of nightmare consciousness. With a wealth of unseen material as well as familiar classics and remastered, rejigged, reanimated nuggets.
- DirectorBruce BaillieA montage of images of film making is followed by a silent western story.
- DirectorPat O'NeillA surreal and experimental film created by Pat O'Neill.
- DirectorAntouanetta AngelidiStarsJany GastaldiMagia LymberopoulouAnnita SantorinaiouDuring its 85-minute, this jarring experimental film takes a no-holds-barred look at the way women have been treated and depicted in Western art.
- DirectorRichard GaikowskiStarsTim ZentnerFrancine PodenskiSurreal short full of dreamlike images featuring a man being seduced by a woman, juxtaposed with images of faces, skulls and spiders.
- DirectorChuck StatlerStarsRobert Mothersbaugh Sr.Gerald CasaleJim MothersbaughSeveral factory workers finish their day at work and get into a car. They drive to a club where they perform the song Secret Agent Man as a rock quartet. A man with a mask of a child named Booji Boy runs into a building where his father, a man named General Boy is waiting. Subsequently, a man gives a lecture by song on the subject of devolution.
- DirectorE. Elias MerhigeA love story about two beings that believe themselves to be ONE. Two alien creatures: completely distressed and confounded by their separation. The film is a ritual enacted, where each find the other across time and space as they try to become the other literally and physically, in the process creating a new utopia, a mythic city where the two beautifully merge to become a new kind of creature, a new form of god.
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsJack NanceCharlotte StewartAllen JosephHenry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.
- DirectorTerry GilliamStarsJonathan PryceKim GreistRobert De NiroA bureaucrat in a dystopic society becomes an enemy of the state as he pursues the woman of his dreams.
- DirectorAlex CoxStarsHarry Dean StantonEmilio EstevezTracey WalterA young punk, recruited by a car repo agency, finds himself in pursuit of a Chevrolet Malibu with a huge, $20,000 bounty--and something otherworldly stashed in its trunk.
- DirectorTerry GilliamStarsJohnny DeppBenicio Del ToroTobey MaguireAn oddball journalist and his psychopathic lawyer travel to Las Vegas for a series of psychedelic escapades.
- DirectorSpike JonzeStarsJohn CusackCameron DiazCatherine KeenerA puppeteer discovers a portal that leads literally into the head of movie star John Malkovich.
- DirectorAlejandro JodorowskyStarsAlejandro JodorowskyBrontis JodorowskyJosé LegarretaA mysterious black-clad gunfighter wanders a mystical Western landscape encountering multiple bizarre characters.
- DirectorAlejandro JodorowskyStarsAlejandro JodorowskyHoracio SalinasZamira SaundersIn a corrupt, greed-fueled world, a powerful alchemist leads a messianic character and seven materialistic figures to the Holy Mountain, where they hope to achieve enlightenment.
- DirectorNicolas RoegStarsDavid BowieRip TornCandy ClarkAn alien must pose as a human to save his dying planet, but a woman and greed of other men create complications.
- DirectorBob RafelsonStarsPeter TorkDavy JonesMicky DolenzThe Monkees frolic their way through a series of musical set pieces and vignettes containing surreal humor and anti-establishment social commentary.
- DirectorLars von TrierStarsWillem DafoeCharlotte GainsbourgStorm Acheche SahlstrømA grieving couple retreat to their cabin in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage, but nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.
- DirectorMichelangelo AntonioniStarsDavid HemmingsVanessa RedgraveSarah MilesA fashion photographer unknowingly captures a death on film after following two lovers in a park.
- DirectorMichele SoaviStarsRupert EverettFrançois Hadji-LazaroAnna FalchiA cemetery man must kill the dead a second time when they become zombies.
- DirectorDenis VilleneuveStarsJake GyllenhaalMélanie LaurentSarah GadonA man seeks out his exact look-alike after spotting him in a movie.
- DirectorQuentin DupieuxStarsStephen SpinellaRoxane MesquidaWings HauserA homicidal car tire, discovering it has destructive psionic power, sets its sights on a desert town once a mysterious woman becomes its obsession.
- DirectorShin'ya TsukamotoStarsTomorô TaguchiKei FujiwaraNobu KanaokaA businessman accidentally kills The Metal Fetishist, who gets his revenge by slowly turning the man into a grotesque hybrid of flesh and rusty metal.
- DirectorJaromil JiresStarsJaroslava SchallerováHelena AnýzováPetr KoprivaSurreal tale in which love, fear, sex, and religion merge into one fantastic world. Based on a classical Czech novel of the same title.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsKlaus KinskiIsabelle AdjaniBruno GanzCount Dracula moves from Transylvania to Wismar, spreading the Black Plague across the land. Only a woman pure of heart can bring an end to his reign of horror.
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsNicolas CageLaura DernWillem DafoeYoung lovers Sailor and Lula run from the variety of weirdos that Lula's mom has hired to kill Sailor.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsJeremy IronsGeneviève BujoldHeidi von PalleskeTwin gynecologists take full advantage of the fact that nobody can tell them apart, until their relationship begins to deteriorate over a woman.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsPeter WellerJudy DavisIan HolmAfter developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally kills his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.
- DirectorWim WendersStarsWilliam HurtSolveig DommartinPietro FalconeIn 1999, Claire Tourneur's life is forever changed after she survives a car crash. She rescues Sam and travels the world with him. Writer Eugene Fitzpatrick follows and writes their story as a method of recording dreams is being developed.
- DirectorShin'ya TsukamotoStarsTomorô TaguchiShin'ya TsukamotoNobu KanaokaWhen metal-worshipping fanatics abduct his son, a father unleashes his dormant destructive power, as his naked rage transforms the once-feeble flesh into a grisly symbiosis of metal and tissue. Who dares to defy the ultimate body-hammer?
- DirectorKôji WakamatsuStarsMimi KozakuraMichio AkiyamaYôko YamamotoAfter being raped in an unknown rooftop, seventeen year-old girl Poppo meets a mysterious boy, and both share their sexual traumas and fears, with fatal consequences.
- DirectorJacques DemyStarsCatherine DeneuveJean MaraisJacques PerrinA fairy godmother helps a princess disguise and flee the kingdom so she won't have to marry the king who happens to be her father.
- DirectorPhil TippettStarsAlex CoxNiketa RomanSatish RatakondaThe Assassin travels through a nightmare underworld of tortured souls, ruined cities and wretched monstrosities forged from the primordial horrors of the unconscious mind of Phil Tippett, the world's preeminent stop-motion animator.
- DirectorSergei ParajanovStarsIvan MikolaychukLarisa KadochnikovaTatyana BestayevaA timeless Carpathian story - the young Ivan falls in love with the daughter of his father's killer among the Hutsul people of Ukraine.
- DirectorAndrei TarkovskyStarsErland JosephsonSusan FleetwoodAllan EdwallAt the dawn of World War III, a man searches for a way to restore peace to the world and finds he must give something in return.
- DirectorKaren ShakhnazarovStarsLeonid FilatovOleg BasilashviliVladimir MenshovGoing on a business trip, the hero of the film suddenly finds himself in a fantastic city. It is very similar to our world, only the hidden absurdity of everyday life here has become apparent.
- DirectorJean-Christophe AvertyStarsJean BouiseRosy VarteHubert DeschampsUbu leads a revolution to seize Poland's throne. His greed for money and power sees no end, leading him trough various adventures, from fighting against the Tzar to getting attacked by a bear. Meanwhile his wife has a plan of her own.
- DirectorUlli LommelStarsKurt RaabJeff RodenMargit CarstensenUsing his status as a police informant to procure his victims, baby-faced, shaven-headed Fritz Haarmann dismembers their bodies after death and sells the flesh to restaurants, dumping the remainder out of sight.
- DirectorSteven ArnoldStarsPandoraSteve SolbergRonald FarrellThe Procuress leads two young men through a surreal peepshow of fantastic, bizarre, androgynous, mystical, spiritual, and sexual vignettes.
- DirectorUlli LommelStarsJack PalanceTom SullivanAndy WarholDustin (Tom Sullivan) is the leader of a rock band on the brink of super-stardom. Until now they have juggled their music career with cocaine smuggling. The musicians, and their manager Raf (Jack Palance), wish to sever ties with organized-crime, leave the drug world behind and concentrate on music. However they are coerced into doing one last job for the Mob. They lose the $2 million of cocaine, and find themselves marked men unless they can fulfill their obligations.
- DirectorUlli LommelStarsCarole BouquetRichard HellUlli LommelNada, a beautiful French journalist on assignment in New York, records the life and work of an up and coming punk rock star, Billy. Soon she enters into a volatile relationship with him and must decide whether to continue with it, or return to her lover, a fellow journalist trying to track down the elusive Andy Warhol.
- DirectorJan SvankmajerStarsPetr CepekJan KrausVladimír KudlaAn ordinary man is lured into a strange puppet theatre by a map and finds himself embroiled in a production of the Faustian legend.
- DirectorJan SvankmajerStarsKristýna KohoutováCamilla PowerA surrealistic revision of Alice in Wonderland.
- DirectorAlexander CassiniStarsJohn P. RyanMichael St. GerardMaureen TeefyA delusional misfit becomes suicidal when his favorite TV show is cancelled. An agent promises to make him a TV star if he kills certain people, so he becomes "The Baby Mask Killer."
- DirectorVeljko BulajicStarsZvonimir CrnkoVladimir PopovicCharles MillotThe plot shows how Šćepan the Little takes over power in Montenegro, but turns away from Satan and begins to rule in the interests of the Montenegrin people, causing the enmity of not only Satan, but also the earthly superpowers.
- DirectorAlex van WarmerdamStarsJack WouterseAnnet MalherbeRudolf LucieerDuring the summer of 1960, the idiosyncratic residents of a one-street Dutch suburb collide in intertwining stories of desire and frustration.
- DirectorElia SuleimanStarsElia SuleimanManal KhaderGeorge IbrahimSeparated by a checkpoint, Palestinian lovers from Jerusalem and Ramallah arrange clandestine meetings.
- DirectorKinji FukasakuStarsTatsuya FujiwaraAki MaedaTarô YamamotoIn the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill one another under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.
- DirectorStephen SayadianMark S. EspositoStarsAndy NicholsPaul McGibboneyMichelle BauerIn the future, humans are divided into Sex Negatives and Sex Positives. The negatives get sick if they have sex so they go to Cafe Flesh to see positives who are forced to perform on stage for the negatives. Lana is a positive who everyone thinks is a negative and she must decide whether to come clean or not.
- DirectorAkira KurosawaIshirô HondaStarsAkira TeraoMitsuko BaishôToshie NegishiA collection of tales based upon eight of director Akira Kurosawa's recurring dreams.