So I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about weird movies we've seen, and it turns out my taste in film is rather standard. I could only really consider three of the films I've seen to be weird, and even then they're still not really weird weird compared to what she's seen.

So I'm wondering what the weirdest and/or most disturbing movies you've seen are? For me they are, in chronological order: Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Donnie Darko.

 

"Pi" was pretty fucking strange. That's definitely on the top of my list, and by a healthy margin. "The Machinist" was weird too, but not quite the same level.

I know it's a standard film, but the original "Willy Wonka" is also pretty weird. "Watership Down" is another one that's both a fairly standard film, and a little fucked up.

 

Everything is Illuminated. The first half of the film is hilarious, then my father walks in, I tell him it's a hilarious movie, and then the rest of it is really sad. It's really weird at the same time.

 

Tetsuo: the Iron Man -- genre = 'body horror'

Almost everything I've watched made by David Cronenberg, particularly The Fly, Naked Lunch, and Dead Ringers

Brimstone and Treacle -- because the idea of Sting acting has always played out well, hasn't it

 

Anything by Charlie Kaufman is going to be weird but also brilliant. My fave is Being John Malkovich. So many dark but hilarious scenes.

 

When I was in my early teens and rather in love with Joaquin Phoenix (and possibly Kate Winslet as well) I watched Quills, which still stands out as disturbing today. I now know it featured some of the work of the Marquis de la Sade, but I really didn't get it at the time; I was expecting a more typical love story and got poetically written torture and on-screen necrophilia instead.

Slightly related to that, I also remember My Own Private Idaho with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as being really out there, more so because it's an American film, but it feels like an indie European one. It's really good despite being weird.

Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman still stands out as very strange in an almost genius sort of way.

 

Predestination has a weird and shocking ending. Up until then it was a solid timetravel movie.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Turns out the main Character is his/her own mother and father and ends up killing him/herself. It's quite fucked up when you think about it

 

Brazil. It can break you.

 

The Skin I Live In. Starts off crazy and just keeps getting crazier.

 

Perhaps too mild for this list (unless you can't separate the art from the artist), but... The Ninth Gate.

I've never seen Eraserhead.
It's highly possible I never will.

 

The Platform. Spanish cinema never disappoints.

 

The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo has the most disturbing rape scene I've ever watched in visual fiction, and I've watched Game of Thrones.

 

Assuming you're taking about the Hollywood version rather than the original, take it from me - not a great choice for the weekly date night with my ex.

Also, yes to The Skin I Live In - you'd think 'plastic surgeon has a much younger woman imprisoned at his house wearing a revolutionary new skin graft he's developed would be the main plot, but nope, that's just the start. Excellent film though.

 

I watched Gaspar Noe's Irreversible years ago, and it's always stuck with me. Still one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen. There's a brutal rape scene, and a guy gets his skull graphically bashed in with a fire extinguisher at a BDSM club.

The guy is an acclaimed filmmaker, but it put me off seeing anything else he did.

 

More weird than disturbing (although YMMV of course) but The Lighthouse really threw me for a loop earlier this year. No idea what to make of it at all, or even really whether I thought it was good or not.