Merriam-Webster anointed “surreal” the “Word of the Year” for 2016, so maybe the film world was just capitalizing on the zeitgeist when movies about a hotel prison for single people, a farting corpse, and an underage model devoured by the beautiful people all got major exposure on cinema screens this year. Old hands like Giorgos Lanthimos and Peter Greenaway were joined by a promising crop of (often bloody) new blood: “Daniels,” Jim Hosking, and Anna Biller. Pregnant druggies, greasy stranglers, and hooty-tooty disco cuties paraded across screens, while castaways rode corpses to freedom and Muppets assisted at the birth of Satanic alien spawn.

We had no problem filling out our list of ten weird ones for you to check out, and that’s not even counting the revival of 1973’s Belladonna of Sadness, the softcore psychedelic witchcraft rape-revenge anime that was so unseen it basically could count as a new release in 2016. We’re also leaving off a trio of features seen only at film festivals: the Polish mermaid musical The Lure; Psychonauts: The Forgotten Children, the feature-length expansion of the hit Spanish short film “Birdboy“; and She’s Allergic to Cats, the underground/avant-garde romantic comedy filled with grimy video art montages exploring the struggles of an L.A. dog groomer who wants to make a version of Carrie starring cats. (Plus the dialogue-free pharmaceutical horror [?] Atmo HorroX which, while not a favorite, beat everything in 2016 in terms of sheer weirdness). Any of those films would have made the list had they received actual distribution; hopefully, all of them will show up on next year’s list.

As for the choice of movies, I personally pick them using a secret proprietary formula that accounts for cinematic craftsmanship, the level of surrealism/weirdness, and the perceived prestige in the weird movie community based on buzz and reader feedback, then I rank them in whatever arbitrary order I momentarily feel like without regard to any of that. As always, we list the films in random order—the weirdest of orders.

9. The Brand New Testament: God is alive and living in Brussels, and he’s a jerk. His 10-year old daughter hacks his computer and leaks humanity’s death dates, then goes to Earth to write a new Gospel. Literate and genially blasphemous comedy with bizarre touches, like Catherine Deneuve sleeping with a gorilla.  Also #6 on our 2016 mainstream movie list, which should tell you that it’s quality exceeds its weirdness. Director Jaco Van Dormael is already represented twice on the List of the 366 Weirdest Movies of All Time.

1. The Lobster – Certified Weird! Dogtooth‘s Giorgos Lanthimos Continue reading 10 WEIRDEST MOVIES OF 2016 →

It’s fashionable to rag on 2016—with good reason—but this was an excellent year in film. My honorable mentions from the year past include a couple of fantastic foreign animated features that were ignored by the mainstream press: the French steampunk fantasy April and the Extraordinary World and Michael Arias‘ Harmony, the only movie where the World Health Organization is cast as a villain. Also worthy of a mention are two-time Certified Weird director Denis Villeneuve‘s Arrival (almost a postmodern Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and I Am Not Your Negro, which is basically just Samuel L. Jackson reading unpublished reflections of writer James Baldwin—making it the most authoritative commentary on race relations in a year that included 13th and the epic O.J.: Made in America. Either could have made the top ten in a weaker year. We should also mention Weiner, a documentary giving us unprecedented access to the title character’s bizarre act of political self-destruction—a man so hounded by his own incomprehensible demons that he could not keep from publicly humiliating himself again even after the movie’s release. And how could we forget Swiss Army Man, which easily made the list of the 366 Best Weird Movies of All Time but barely missed 2016’s pan-genre top ten. With those out of the way, let’s get down to the ten films that did make the cut:

10. Peter and the Farm: Documentary following Peter Dunning, a depressed 68-year old alcoholic Vermonter who works his declining farm alone. Poetic and honest; Peter despairs, but keeps drinking and keeps farming, realizing he and his farm have become one. A good antidote to the populist and inspirational Gleason: not everyone is cheerfully persistent in the face of death. Some critics felt the documentary was exploitative, but I believe the articulate Peter is in full possession of his faculties (when sober) and is deliberately pushing our noses in a view of mortality we would prefer to deny.

9. Finding Dory: A fish with very early onset Alzheimer’s is lost in the ocean for years and tries to find her way back to her home and parents, assisted by characters from Finding Nemo, a “septopus,” and other colorful aquatic anthromorphs. There are four great things about this movie: the fast-moving plot, the cute sea creatures, the excellent animation, and I forgot the other one.

8. The Jungle Book: Mogwli, an orphaned “man cub” raised in the jungles of India by a pack of wolves, has adventures with the talking animals while fleeing the man-killing tiger Shere Khan. This is the first of Disney’s recent series of live action remakes that is clearly superior to the animated original. Jon Favreau keeps most of the humor and a little bit of the music but ramps up the peril and expands the scope so the movie feels like an epic adventure rather than a lightweight musical comedy.

7. Moana: Defying her parents, an island princess sails off to find a mischievous trickster demigod (voiced by the Rock) to help save her home. Once again, Disney successfully tweaks their formula with this Polynesian themed winner that features unique sidekicks (a particularly dumb chicken, an impudent tattoo) and adversaries (coconut pirates, a giant singing crab). The name had to be changed in Continue reading TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2016: THE MAINSTREAM EDITION →

Another cinema year has come and gone, and as always, if you dig deeper than the blockbuster reboots of Mad Max and Star Wars or the conservative Oscar-bait dramas trotted out at the end of the year for Academy geriatrics to vote on, you will find some very strange creatures squirming around in the movie industry’s basement. Any year in which early cinema’s postmodern champion Guy Maddin releases a movie is bound to be a rich one; add Roy Andersson’s long-awaited third chapter in his “being human” trilogy, a trippy big-budget Thomas Pynchon adaptation, and some unclassifiable debuts by weirdo film upstarts, and you have a truly strange year in cinema. Transvestite samurai, Swedish kings, and instructions on how to take a bath await you in this tensome of the year’s most unusual films.

As for the choice of movies, I pick them using a secret proprietary formula that accounts for cinematic craftsmanship, the level of surrealism/weirdness, and the perceived prestige in the weird movie community based on buzz and reader feedback, then I rank them in whatever arbitrary order I momentarily feel like without regard to any of that. As always, the films are listed in random order, the weirdest of orders (a convention other lists are starting to catch on to).

On to the movies!

10. Anomalisa – Even though we narrowly declined to make it a List Candidate (a decision I wonder if we will later regret), we couldn’t possibly leave out a Charlie Kaufman-scripted stop-motion existential comedy about a motivational speaker who hears everyone in the world talking in the same monotone voice off our year end list. Alex Kittle confirms that “yes, it does get weird” while adding “but for the most part it just gets sad, and nihilistic, exploring mid-life crisis in ways both poetic and infuriating.” Although the fumbling sex scene was one of the most realistic bedroom scenarios ever scripted, I confess I find puppet cunnilingus disturbing.

1. The Forbidden Room – Stories unfold inside of other stories in Guy Maddin’s telescoping narrative experiment. The concept for this omnibus project came from Maddin trying to imagine the content of lost films from their titles alone. Of course, Guy Maddin’s imagination evokes such unlikely scenarios as men trapped in a submarine furiously eating pancakes, a bone surgeon assaulted by seductresses in skintight skeleton leotards, and a man who bids against his own double for a bust of the two-faced Roman god Janus. It all begins and ends with Louis Negin in a bathrobe, explaining how to take a bath (for hygiene novices). Once The Forbidden Room is released on home video we’re certain you’ll agree it’s easily the weirdest movie of Continue reading 10 WEIRDEST MOVIES OF 2015 →