Genre: Comedy, Documentary, Reality
Actor: Nathan Fielder
What’s absurd to one viewer could just be mildly odd for the next. But if you love anything highly unusual, this list is a good start. Here are the best weird movies and shows to stream, from the avant-garde to the surreal.
Genre: Comedy, Documentary, Reality
Actor: Nathan Fielder
An oni/human hybrid, a severed head in a birdcage, and a bayonet-wielding maid step into a vampire's house to solve a murder.
And that is truly the essence of Undead Murder Face. Blending gothic with supernatural, creatures of global and Japanese lore converge in a turn-of-the-century historical anime. In only two episodes, the show establishes the Westernization of Japan and how it leads to erasing foundational parts of their culture while mixing in a unique fantasy element to the story. Most interestingly, the impressive animation (especially the transitions), eerie close-ups and ominous nightscapes are punctuated by curious moments of comedy. And it all accumulates into a sensational concept that's worth the watch.
Genre: Animation, Mystery, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Actor: Hiro Shimono, Itaru Yamamoto, Maaya Uchida, Makoto Koichi, Mamoru Miyano, Masaki Aizawa, Reina Kondo, Saima Nakano, Sayumi Suzushiro, Shin-ichiro Miki, Soma Saito, Taku Yashiro, Tomokazu Sugita, Tomoyo Kurosawa, Wataru Yokojima, Yumiri Hanamori
Despite being released amid a deluge of period dramas and biopics, Starz's The Serpent Queen, which follows Catherine de' Medici’s rise from Italian servant to Queen of France, is a strong standout in today's streaming fare.
By balancing modern storytelling (expect poppy needle drops and fourth-wall breaks a la Fleabag) and historical realism (the costume and production design are as accurate and detailed as any thoughtful production), The Serpent Queen manages to have a genuinely fresh take on the historical drama. It's also refreshing in its refusal to sugarcoat history’s crude ways, so despite its modern feel, don't be too surprised to see 13-year-olds bedded and bodies graphically pulled apart by horses.
Genre: Drama, History
Actor: Amrita Acharia, Barry Atsma, Beth Goddard, Danny Kirrane, Enzo Cilenti, Liv Hill, Nicholas Burns, Ray Panthaki, Raza Jaffrey, Samantha Morton, Sennia Nanua
While the film adapts some of Shakespeare’s histories, you don’t need to know Shakespeare to appreciate My Own Private Idaho. In fact, instead of focusing on the Prince Hal character, Scott Favor (Keanu Reeves), the film centers on his narcoleptic friend Mike Waters (River Phoenix). Both of them are young street hustlers in Portland. However, unlike Favor, Waters has no reliable family, inheritance, or support system waiting for him to give up his job. Waters only has his body. Writer-director Gus Van Sant doesn’t really focus on the sex or the narcolepsy - these flash by us only as a state-of-mind experience, with time-lapses and freeze-frames to impart to us Waters’ detachment. Instead, Van Sant cares more about Waters’ seeking connection. It’s why the surreal shots speed by us so fast, and why the natural, lived-in scenes remain in our heads. It’s why Waters’ campfire confession, crackling under Phoenix’s earnest voice, feels so powerful. And it’s also why his later rejection feels so painful.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Chiara Caselli, Eric Hull, Flea, Grace Zabriskie, Gus Van Sant, James Russo, Jessica Makinson, Jim Caviezel, Keanu Reeves, Mickey Cottrell, Pao Pei Andreoli, Pat Patterson, River Phoenix, Robert Egon, Rodney Harvey, Scott Patrick Green, Tom Troupe, Udo Kier, Vana O'Brien, William Richert
Director: Gus Van Sant
With a premise as insane as this—a high school coming-of-age film adapted from 410 consecutive tweets from a real, random Thai girl under the username @marylony—you would expect Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy to be some sort of incoherent commentary about social media. What director Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit gives us instead is a completely original and surprisingly affecting portrait of a young woman in her senior year trying to come to terms with the fact that her life may only ever be a mess of incongruous parts without a definite identity. It's as whimsical as it is bittersweet, with the film flitting back and forth between the absurd and the melancholic.
Thamrongrattanarit structures his film as a series of loosely connected vignettes, with every single one of @marylony's tweets appearing on screen. The effect is one-of-a-kind—as if we're watching different layers of meaning constantly interacting with each other, our understanding of what we're supposed to think of as serious or tongue-in-cheek always changing. And through the film's deliberately lo-fi aesthetics, the experience of watching it is like flipping through a scrapbook of memories mundane and precious.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Awat Ratanapintha, Boonsong Nakphoo, Chonnikan Netjui, Kongdej Jaturanrasmee, Krissada Sukosol Clapp, Patcha Poonpiriya, Prabda Yoon, Thanapob Leeratanakachorn, Wasupol Kriangprapakit
Director: Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit
With a premise straight out of a cheesy sci-fi B-movie, you wouldn't expect Little Shop of Horrors to be a bona fide spectacle, and yet its tale of a wish-fulfilling yet bloodthirsty plant remains as thrilling and intense as ever. More importantly, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's rock-musical songs remain boisterous and theatrical, gleefully performed by Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Steve Martin, and Levi Stubbs. And buried underneath all this is a comedy with a heart of darkness and a legitimately disturbing morality tale.
Musicals and horror movies are genres that typically cater to a more niche audience, but Little Shop of Horrors should be fun enough to draw anybody in, thanks to the film's impressively tactile sets, director Frank Oz's knack for physical comedy, and animatronic special effects that look better than most CGI creations today. As both a horror movie monster and a massive puppet, the vicious plant named Audrey II is entirely worth the price of admission, no matter which version of the film you seek out.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Horror
Actor: Barbara Rosenblat, Bertice Reading, Bill Murray, Christopher Guest, Danny John-Jules, Edward Wiley, Ellen Greene, Heather Henson, Jill Goldston, Jim Belushi, John Candy, John Scott Martin, Kevin Scott, Levi Stubbs, Mak Wilson, Michelle Weeks, Miriam Margolyes, Rick Moranis, Steve Martin, Tichina Arnold, Tisha Campbell, Tisha Campbell-Martin, Vincent Gardenia, Vincent Wong
Director: Frank Oz
Made up entirely of B-roll and random, unglamorous footage of New York City, as well as the intentionally awkward, stuttering narration of its creator, How To with John Wilson might be the most unlikely series to offer touching, life-affirming insights about human connections and the simple beauty of the world we live in. As Wilson sets off at the start of each episode trying to provide advice on a mundane topic, his curiosity and self-effacing nature land him in increasingly odd places with different strangers around the city. The show may seem like nothing more than a bunch of vignettes loosely strung together at first, but upon closer look there's truly clever wit and intelligence that goes into every single transition. How To's power sneaks up on you—quietly teaching us the value of community and how we're always a part of something much more interesting.
Genre: Comedy, Documentary
Martin Scorsese had just spent a year prepping for The Last Temptation of Christ when Paramount Pictures unceremoniously pulled the plug on the movie just one month before production was due to start. After Hours was Scorsese’s way of exorcising all that disappointment and frustration, and you can feel it: this black comedy vibrates with manic intensity as it charts a night from hell in the life of Paul (Griffin Dunne), a somewhat scuzzy yuppie living in ‘80s New York City.
In keeping with its title — which suggests the movie is suspended in temporal limbo — After Hours feels like it takes place in some mythological hellscape, a demonic underworld in which everyone Paul meets has been sent forth with the express mission to make his life more miserable. Surreal coincidences pile up, deepening his paranoia and turning his simple goal of returning home into a labyrinthine quest for survival on the deserted, rain-soaked streets of SoHo. It’s the kind of celluloid nightmare that terrorizes and thrills you at the same time (a la the Safdie brothers’ best works, which draw inspiration from After Hours). Only a director of Scorsese’s caliber could turn profound professional disappointment into such a win as this.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Thriller
Actor: Bronson Pinchot, Catherine O'Hara, Charles Scorsese, Cheech Marin, Clarence Felder, Dick Miller, Frank Aquilino, Griffin Dunne, Henry Judd Baker, John Heard, Larry Block, Linda Fiorentino, Margo Winkler, Martin Scorsese, Murray Moston, Paula Raflo, Robin Johnson, Rocco Sisto, Rockets Redglare, Rosanna Arquette, Teri Garr, Tommy Chong, Verna Bloom, Victor Argo, Victor Bumbalo, Victor Magnotta, Will Patton
Director: Martin Scorsese
Challenging, strange, and utterly captivating from start to finish, Sanctuary takes the relationship between a pathetic, wealthy man and a desperate, plucky young woman—a relationship built on consensual acts of sexual humiliation—and makes it so much more dynamic and entertaining than it has any right to be. The film takes place entirely in one hotel suite over the course of one night, becoming a series of increasingly absurd psychological scenarios, as the characters wrestle over ideas of power, shame, and identity by concealing and roleplaying various parts of themselves. It's a wild take on several different genres that director Zachary Wigon is able to effortlessly weave together with excellent pacing, stunning visuals, and two truly committed performances from Christopher Abbott and a wonderfully unhinged Margaret Qualley.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Thriller
Actor: Christopher Abbott, Margaret Qualley
Director: Zachary Wigon
A very intelligent and nuanced movie that relentlessly asks unpleasant questions. It's a story about a woman seeking freedom by turning away from her own family and finding something she did not expect. The main character of the movie, Martha, is taken in by a cult and the movie depicts how this experience shapes and warps her life, thoughts, and actions. The time she spent with the cult ultimately also shapes her own personality, which raises questions about her identity and the place she now fits in. Every actor is well cast, and especially Elizabeth Olsen (playing Martha) puts on a stand-out performance, which proves that she is an actor to watch out for in the years to come.
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Actor: Adam David Thompson, Allen McCullough, Brady Corbet, Christopher Abbott, Elizabeth Olsen, Gregg Burton, Hugh Dancy, John Hawkes, Julia Garner, Lauren Molina, Louisa Krause, Maria Dizzia, Sarah Paulson, Tobias Segal
Director: Sean Durkin
One of the most original, underseen, and unexpectedly wholesome shows on HBO, High Maintenance spends each episode looking into the everyday lives of various New Yorkers, often with eccentric jobs or alternative lifestyles. The only thing that connects them is that they all happen to be clients of an unnamed weed dealer (played by Ben Sinclair), who becomes a witness to their ordinary joys and struggles. Barely any of the stories we get to see throughout the show's four seasons have a traditional dramatic arc to them, but the series remains a one-of-a-kind comfort nonetheless—showing us just how colorful and interesting a mundane life can be when we have well-meaning people surrounding us. And it's a prime example of how television should be allowed to tell stories in any form, making perfect use of the half-hour episodic format to capture these fleeting, beautiful snapshots.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Ben Sinclair
A wacky viral story — the kind that gets played for laughs at the end of news broadcasts — gets uncommonly deep consideration in this documentary gem. That’s not to say that Finders Keepers ignores the surreal comedy of the situation that John Wood and Shannon Whisnant, two star-crossed North Carolina men, found themselves in in 2007: battling over the custody rights of John’s mummified amputated leg. The humor in this bizarre tale and all the myriad eccentricities of its real-life characters is never left untapped, but to simply focus on that would add nothing new to the way the story had been told thus far.
Unlike the many clips from news segments and reality TV that we see in the film, Finders Keepers instead looks beyond the low-hanging fruit and finds deep pathos simmering under the surface of this wacky tale. What emerges is a complex, often tragic, and very American picture of the way traumas shape our lives, the addictive pull of drugs and attention, and fate’s habit of twisting nightmares into blessings and vice versa. It’s the kind of film that makes you wonder how many other unexpectedly poignant stories have been short-changed by our impulse to be flippant.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: John Wood, Shannon Whisnant
Director: Bryan Carberry, J. Clay Tweel
The end of the world isn’t the most optimistic thing to think about, but the scenario leads you to thinking about unrealized dreams, pleasures, and aspirations: the way you want your life to be, if things have gone the way they planned. Dan Guterman, from Community and Rick and Morty, reimagines this idea in Carol and the End of the World. Carol is that mundane, downright boring character that we wouldn’t take notice of in real life, only because she actively chooses the ordinary life, but this show is extraordinary, shifting perspectives and even genres between episodes, taking unexpected turns, and celebrating the day-to-day monotony of life.
Genre: Animation, Comedy
Actor: Beth Grant, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Lawrence Pressman, Martha Kelly, Mel Rodriguez
Even a straightforward documentary on the New York East Village visual artist David Wonjarowicz (pronounced VOY-nuh-ROH-vitch) would be thrilling, given the energy and the irreverence of his artworks especially during the AIDS epidemic from the 1980s to the 1990s. But director Chris McKim goes above and beyond, essentially imagining how Wojnarowicz would have directed his own film. McKim treats the movie like a collage in itself, expertly blending footage and sound together not just to capture the artist's fury, but to remember how deeply he loved, transcending space and sickness. As an account of the underground New York art scene at the time, a profile on a supposed enfant terrible, and a tribute to all those who lost their lives to a disease accelerated by discrimination, Wojnarowicz is a beautiful, complex tapestry.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: David Wojnarowicz, Fran Lebowitz, Nan Goldin
Director: Chris McKim
That The Curse is squirm-inducingly awkward won’t be news to anyone who’s watched a Nathan Fielder show before, but TV’s king of cringe digs his heels in on that approach here. The Curse chronicles the making of another show: HGTV’s inelegantly named “Flipanthropy,” which follows Fielder’s Asher and wife Whitney Siegel (Emma Stone) as they perform (the operative word) good deeds in a struggling New Mexico town. Flipanthropy is also a means through which the well-to-do white couple can shill the eco-friendly homes they’re gentrifying the town with — a galling conflict of interest that plays as a running satire of TV.
The uneasy tension between what the Siegels say they want to do versus what they actually do is the heart of the show. In true Fielder fashion, their hypocrisy is revealed through excruciatingly awkward, tortuously long scenes takes, such as the one that gives the show its title (the socially inept Asher angers a little girl, who puts a curse on him). This scene is also an example of the insane left takes The Curse constantly takes, which speak to Fielder’s ability to make his shows feel like they’re falling apart all while building to towering complexity. Suffice it to say, there’s nothing else like this on TV.
Genre: Comedy
Actor: Benny Safdie, Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder