Final Girl on 6th Ave: 5 Movies to Make You Say WTF

Inland Empire (2006, dir. David Lynch)

David Lynch’s Inland Empire is less a film than a fever dream stretched to three hours, blending digital grain, disjointed realities, and terrifying rabbit-headed sitcom figures.

On the surface, it follows actress Nikki Grace (Laura Dern, in a career-best performance) as she accepts a role in a film with a cursed history, only to blur into her character until neither she nor the audience knows where the performance ends. The result is a relentless descent into fractured identities, looping timelines, and Lynchian nightmare logic.

It’s important not only as Lynch’s most experimental work, but also as one of the boldest examples of digital cinema’s power to create unsettling textures. Worth watching because it dares you to surrender your need for narrative coherence and instead experience pure unease, Inland Empire is the ultimate test of how far you’re willing to go down the rabbit hole.

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini)

Few films have earned as much notoriety as Pasolini’s Salò.

Loosely adapted from the Marquis de Sade’s text, the film reimagines the depravity of fascism through the story of four authoritarian libertines who kidnap teenagers and subject them to escalating cycles of degradation. Grotesque, shocking, and nearly unwatchable at times, the film is not meant to titillate but to confront. Pasolini weaponizes obscenity to expose how political power reduces bodies to objects and how fascism thrives on dehumanization.

Its importance lies in its unwavering refusal to let audiences look away from systemic cruelty, and its relevance echoes through every conversation about censorship and art as protest. Watching Salò isn’t about entertainment—it’s about surviving one of cinema’s most brutal confrontations with power, control, and complicity.

The Holy Mountain (1973, dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky)

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain is cinema as alchemy: bold, sacrilegious, and psychedelic to the point of sensory overload.

A Christ-like figure teams up with a mystical guide who leads him—and a group of grotesque capitalist caricatures—on a quest for immortality atop the titular holy mountain. Along the way, Jodorowsky assaults the viewer with unforgettable imagery: lizards reenacting the Spanish conquest, grotesque factory parodies, and spiritual rebirths.

The film’s importance lies in its fearless embrace of the surreal to critique religion, consumerism, and colonialism, while also mocking the very idea of transcendence through art. Worth watching because it is utterly singular, The Holy Mountain is a delirious masterpiece that makes you laugh, recoil, and marvel in equal measure.

Dancer in the Dark (2000, dir. Lars von Trier)

Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark isn’t “weird” in the surrealist sense, but in how brutally it weaponizes the conventions of the movie musical.

Björk stars as Selma, a Czech immigrant factory worker in America going blind, who escapes her grim life through fantastical song-and-dance numbers. Instead of catharsis, von Trier delivers despair: the musical sequences only underscore the crushing injustice Selma faces. The juxtaposition is jarring—joyous fantasy collides with relentless tragedy until the viewer is emotionally disoriented.

Its importance lies in deconstructing both melodrama and the American dream, asking whether cinema can ever offer escape. Worth watching because it leaves you gutted yet awed, Dancer in the Dark is the rare film that dares to turn the musical into a horror show of empathy.

Mirror (1975, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky)

Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror is a deeply personal meditation on memory, childhood, and the Russian soul, told through fragmented vignettes that mix poetry, dream sequences, historical footage, and autobiographical confession.

There’s no straightforward plot: instead, viewers drift between a dying man’s recollections of his mother, wartime trauma, and fleeting moments of beauty. Its brilliance lies in how it transforms personal memory into universal experience, showing how history and identity intertwine in ways beyond linear storytelling.

Mirror’s importance in world cinema is immense, influencing filmmakers from Terrence Malick to Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Worth watching because it reminds us that cinema can be as much about mood and memory as narrative, Tarkovsky’s Mirror is a haunting, elusive masterpiece that lingers like a half-remembered dream.

These are not Friday-night popcorn watches, nor should they be. They are cinematic endurance tests, spiritual quests, and emotional wrecking balls.

And while they may leave you muttering “WTF?” long after the credits roll, they also prove why cinema remains the ultimate medium for confronting the unexplainable.

After all, sometimes the most unforgettable films are the ones that refuse to make sense.