The movies listed below are my personal favourites on the blog, although my tastes are fickle and will change frequently.
Devs
What's this?! A TV show? Well, a one season mini series anyway. I wouldn't want anyone to ignore this simply because it isn't a moviefilm. Holy shit I enjoyed the shit out of watching it.
The Fall
This film makes love to your eyeballs. Also a story that makes you all warm and fuzzy, which in all honesty is a nice change from the usual doomy gloomy subject matter that this genre is so very full of.
Liquid Sky
Oh man, here's a crazy one. It's about fashion, music, life and identity. And heroin junkie aliens looking to harvest the endorphins our brains make during orgasm.
Cypher
Jeremy Northam in what I consider to be one of the best performances in the whole world, in the history of everything, ever. Also: delectable scifi with more twists than a bag full of pretzels.
One Point O
This film, along with the also excellent Dark City share several stylistic and a few thematic parallels with The Matrix, yet both manage to bring something entirely different to the table while expanding on the same fundamental ideas.
The Fountain
I've had more internet fights over this movie than perhaps any other, and I'm tired of talking about it. If you don't like this movie you're wrong, you're a bad person, and you should feel bad.
Mind Game
Generally I'm not too fond of anime, but this one is something special.
Martyrs
Wanna know what the single most brutal and horrifying movie I've ever seen is? Then go ahead and give this one a whirl.
Gozu
I love Asian movies. They frequently do stuff and go places that I just don't ever in a million years see English speakers producing. Plus they're just so effortlessly cool and atmospheric. Not this one though. This one is just fucked up. Vis-à-vis Funky Forest.
The Singing Detective
I do indeed have a thing for film noir, and this lovely grab-bag of wonderful is filled to the brim with sexy broads and chain smoking detectives.
It's not even on this blog, and it's almost entirely unrelated, but The Salton Sea is a great movie too.
Eden Log
This movie is about some guy crawling around in small and dark places. It's awesome.
Primer
It is by no accident that Primer is the first movie I posted on this blog. It's kinda the de facto timeywimey wibblywobbly paradoxy posterboy.
In order to create the most comprehensive list of mindfuck films, my definition of just what constitutes a mindfuck is somewhat broader than what a demanding fan of the genre might expect. For this reason, I've tagged some of the movies accordingly.
Clicking here will allow you to browse movies that conform to the strictest conventions of the genre, and for your perusing pleasure an alphabetic list of these movies is below. You may be wondering how exactly I define the term and what the specific criteria are. The answer to these questions is I don't know and there aren't any. Let's not get lost in semantics.
Beyond The Black Rainbow (2010)
Cube (1997)
Dante 01 (2008)
Dark (TV) (2017)
Devs (TV) (2020)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Eden Log (2007)
El Topo (1970)
Enemy (2013)
Enter The Void (2009)
Eraserhead (1976)
Funky Forest: The First Contact (2005)
Holy Motors (2012)
The Holy Mountain (1973)
The Infinite Man (2014)
Inland Empire (2006)
Irreversible (2002)
Izo (2004)
Lost Highway (1997)
Love (2011)
The Machinist (2004)
Memento (2000)
Mr. Nobody (2009)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Pi (1998)
Predestination (2014)
Primer (2004)
Re-cycle (2006)
Rubber (2010)
Solaris (1972)
Solaris (2002)
Southland Tales (2006)
Stalker (1979)
Stay (2005)
Survive Style 5+ (2004)
Swimming Pool (2003)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Under The Skin (2013)
Upstream Color (2013)
Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
Oh hey, do you remember that phase of Cerebral Coitus where I'd do a bit of a 'review' of every movie I'd post? Statistically, you almost certainly won't. Anyway I did it for like a year and a half to see if it would increase those mythical user engagement metrics and hilariously it actually made them dip a bit but like whatever I had fun with it. Here's a list of the movies with writeups that my ego assures me will be useful to people, although to be honest reading these today makes me cringe with considerable force.
Upstream Color (2013)
Stalker (1979)
Black Moon (1975)
Asylum Seekers (2009)
Wrong (2012)
Beyond The Black Rainbow (2010)
Cloud Atlas (2012)
Upside Down (2012)
Holy Motors (2012)
Cosmopolis (2012)
Casshern (2004)
The Bothersome Man (2006)
The American Astronaut (2001)
Mysteria (2011)
This Is Not A Movie (2011)
Fantastic Planet (1973)
The Future (2011)
Kill List (2011)
For a time, I added shorts and video games however this practice was short-lived. I might add more later. Who can say. There was also that one time I made a site update which was really interesting. Not really. In any case, rather than being lost in the ether I've collated this miscellany right here:
Terminus (2007)
Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) (1929)
Kairo (2013)
The Stanley Parable (2011)