Best movies like The Dance of Reality
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
“Having broken away from my illusory self, I was desperately seeking a path and a meaning to life.” This phrase perfectly sums up Alejandro Jodorowsky’s biographical project: reconstituting the incredible adventure of his life. Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in 1929 in Tocopilla, a coastal town on edge of the Chilean desert, where this film was shot. It was there where he discovered the fundamentals of reality, as he underwent an unhappy and alienated childhood as part of an uprooted family.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Chile, France
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: art house, surreal, atmospheric, touching, realistic, serious, mind bending, psychedelic, mindfuck, funny
Best tv shows and movies like The Dance of Reality (2013):
Similar in 77%
The Color of Pomegranates (1969)
Plot Summary:
The life of revered the 18th-century Armenian poet and musician Sayat-Nova (Vilen Galstyan). Portraying events in the life of the artist from childhood up to his death, the movie addresses in particular his relationships with women, including his muse (Sofiko Chiaureli). The production tells Sayat-Nova's dramatic story by using both his poems and largely still camerawork, creating an impressionistic work.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, Music
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: surreal, poetic, atmospheric, avant garde, psychedelic, mind bending, experimental, contemplative, scenic, disturbing
Similar in 88%
What Is It? (2005)
Plot Summary:
What Is It? is the name of a 2005 experimental film written, starring, funded and directed by Crispin Glover. As of 2008, the film has only been shown at independent theaters, typically accompanied by a question and answer session, slideshow and meet-and-greet/autograph signing with Glover.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 945
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, serious, avant garde, controversial, psychotronic, intelligent, independent film, offbeat, realistic
Similar in 89%
Prospero's Books (1991)
Plot Summary:
An exiled magician finds an opportunity for revenge against his enemies muted when his daughter and the son of his chief enemy fall in love in this uniquely structured retelling of the 'The Tempest'.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: UK, Netherlands, France, Italy, Japan
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: experimental, surreal, psychedelic, epic, art house, non-linear, psychotronic, postmodern, cult classic, atmospheric
Similar in 89%
My Childhood (1972)
Plot Summary:
The first part of Bill Douglas' influential trilogy harks back to his impoverished upbringing in early-'40s Scotland. Cinema was his only escape - he paid for it with the money he made from returning empty jam jars - and this escape is reflected most closely at this time of his life as an eight-year-old living on the breadline with his half-brother and sick grandmother in a poor mining village.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 46 min
Plot tags: bleak, inspirational, depressing, art house, sincere, touching, offbeat, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 85%
I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse (1973)
Plot Summary:
Running away from the police, Aden goes to the desert where he meets an uncivilized man who has a special link with Mother-Earth. He ends up by convincing the hermit to come along with him into another desert... the big town!.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 950
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: surreal, disturbing, psychedelic, mind bending, experimental, controversial, avant garde, art house, psychotronic, deep
Similar in 89%
Fanny and Alexander (1982)
Plot Summary:
Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, we witness the delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 67000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, France, West Germany
Duration: 188 min
Plot tags: philosophical, disturbing, art house, visual, surreal, sincere, thought provoking, melancholic, visually appealing, intellectual
Similar in 75%
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
Plot Summary:
In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Ana, a sensitive seven-year-old girl in a rural Spanish hamlet is traumatized after a traveling projectionist screens a print of James Whale's 1931 "Frankenstein" for the village. The youngster is profoundly disturbed by the scenes in which the monster murders the little girl and is later killed himself by the villagers. She questions her sister about the profundities of life and death and believes her older sibling when she tells her that the monster is not dead, but exists as a spirit inhabiting a nearby barn. When a Loyalist soldier, a fugitive from Franco's victorious army, hides out in the barn, Ana crosses from reality into a fantasy world of her own.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 20000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Spain
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: art house, surreal, visual, atmospheric, contemplative, political, poetic, mind bending, psychedelic, depressing
Similar in 82%
Leolo (1992)
Plot Summary:
The story of an imaginative boy who pretends he is the child of a sperm-laden Sicilian tomato upon which his mother accidentally fell.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Canada, France
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: surreal, disturbing, art house, humorous, dark comedy, erotic, mind bending, psychedelic, epic, controversial
Similar in 80%
Goodbye to Language (2014)
Plot Summary:
About a man who’s angry at his wife because she’s met another man on a park bench and they no longer even speak the same language.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Switzerland, France
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: surreal, experimental, atmospheric, thought provoking, serious, stylized, avant garde, psychedelic, art house, erotic
Similar in 76%
The Exterminating Angel (1962)
Plot Summary:
The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave. The Exterminating Angel is a 1962 surrealist film, written and directed by Luis Buñuel, starring Silvia Pinal. Sharply satirical and allegorical, the film contains a view of human nature suggesting "mankind harbors savage instincts and unspeakable secrets". It is considered one of the best 1,000 films by The New York Times.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 35000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Mexico
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: surreal, avant garde, dark comedy, allegory, black comedy, philosophical, political, black and white, mindfuck, atmospheric
Similar in 88%
Endless Poetry (2016)
Plot Summary:
A portrait of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s young adulthood, set in the 1940s and 50s, in the electric capital city of Santiago. There, he decides to become a poet and is introduced, by destiny, into the foremost bohemian and artistic circle of the time.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Chile, UK, France, Japan
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: surreal, sexy, mind bending, psychedelic, captivating, light, sincere, touching, funny, intellectual
Similar in 89%
Fando and Lis (1968)
Plot Summary:
Fando and his partially paralyzed lover Lis search for the mythical city of Tar. Based on Jodorowsky's memories of a play by surrealist Fernando Arrabal.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Adventure, Fantasy
Country: Mexico
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, experimental, mind twisting, psychedelic, disturbing, avant garde, philosophical, depressing, suspense
Similar in 88%
Cremaster 3 (2002)
Plot Summary:
CREMASTER 3 (2002) is set in New York City and narrates the construction of the Chrysler Building, which is in itself a character - host to inner, antagonistic forces at play for access to the process of (spiritual) transcendence. These factions find form in the struggle between Hiram Abiff or the Architect.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 182 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, atmospheric, stylized, serious, thought provoking, psychedelic, disturbing, independent film, avant garde
Similar in 78%
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Plot Summary:
Suffering from acute kidney failure, Uncle Boonmee has chosen to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside. Surprisingly, the ghost of his deceased wife appears to care for him, and his long lost son returns home in a non-human form. Contemplating the reasons for his illness, Boonmee treks through the jungle with his family to a mysterious hilltop cave - the birthplace of his first life.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Thailand, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, disturbing, art house, philosophical, meditative, visually appealing, cerebral, slow cinema, contemplative
Similar in 84%
Post Tenebras Lux (2012)
Plot Summary:
Juan and his urban family live in the Mexican countryside, where they enjoy and suffer a world apart. And nobody knows if these two worlds are complementary or if they strive to eliminate one another.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico, France, Netherlands, Germany
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, serious, experimental, psychological, psychedelic, surreal, captivating, slow cinema, philosophical
Similar in 87%
Fellini Satyricon (1969)
Plot Summary:
A series of disjointed mythical tales set in first century Rome.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychedelic, art house, sexual, cult classic, erotic, philosophical, absurd, disturbing, controversial
Similar in 84%
Mirror (1975)
Plot Summary:
A dying man in his forties remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments and things that tell of the recent history of all the Russian nation.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 51000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: surreal, cerebral, atmospheric, avant garde, art house, enigmatic, serious, philosophical, psychological, thought provoking
Similar in 76%
The Gopher (1970)
Plot Summary:
El Topo decides to confront warrior Masters on a trans-formative desert journey he begins with his 6 year old son, who must bury his childhood totems to become a man. El Topo (the mole) claims to be God, while dressed as a gunfighter in black, riding a horse through a spiritual, mystical landscape strewn with old Western movie, and ancient Eastern religious symbols. Bandits slaughtered a village on his path, so El Topo avenges the massacred, then forcibly takes their leader's woman Mara as his. El Topo's surreal way is bloody, sexual and self-reflective, musing of his own demons, as he tries to vanquish those he encounters.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 31000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: Mexico
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychedelic, disturbing, allegory, experimental, cult classic, controversial, bloody, art house, stylized
Similar in 88%
Holy Motors (2012)
Plot Summary:
We follow 24 hours in the life of a being moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 48000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: France, Germany, Belgium
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: surreal, art house, psychedelic, cerebral, mindfuck, enigmatic, disturbing, atmospheric, experimental, artsy
Similar in 85%
Porto of My Childhood (2001)
Plot Summary:
Manoel de Oliveira's autobiographical documentary about returning to his hometown.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 532
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Portugal, France
Duration: 61 min
Plot tags: semi documentary, atmospheric, touching, serious, offbeat, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 81%
My Ain Folk (1973)
Plot Summary:
When Jamie's maternal grandmother dies, he and his brother Tommy are separated - Tommy is taken off to a welfare home and Jamie goes to live with his other grandmother and uncle. His life is far from happy, filled with silence, rejection and bouts of violence.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 989
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 55 min
Plot tags: bleak, depressing, art house, sincere, touching, offbeat, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 86%
Aglaya (2012)
Plot Summary:
This film is about the relationship of a mother and her daughter, the split-up of their family, the blessing and curse of belonging together and about coming of age - all this from the perspective of the young girl Aglaja. The story is based on real-life events, an Eastern European circus artist family that fled to the West. If they want to stay in the circus business they have to make up an exotic act. The mother spends all their money to buy a very dangerous act: hanging by her hair high up in the dome of the circus while juggling with burning torches. Every night Aglaja is terrified by the fear of losing her mother. But, on some day, she has to follow the family tradition and become the "Woman with the Hair of Steel".
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 392
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Hungary, Romania, Poland
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: sentimental, atmospheric, touching, emotional, offbeat, serious, realistic
Similar in 84%
Santa Sangre (1989)
Plot Summary:
A young man is confined in a mental hospital. Through a flashback we see that he was traumatized as a child, when he and his family were circus performers: he saw his father cut off the arms of his mother, a religious fanatic and leader of the heretical church of Santa Sangre ("Holy Blood"), and then commit suicide. Back in the present, he escapes and rejoins his surviving and armless mother.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 23000
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: Mexico, Italy
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: surreal, disturbing, psychedelic, dark, atmospheric, psychological, art house, mindfuck, creepy, cult classic
Similar in 78%
The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973)
Plot Summary:
Set in pre- World War II era. A young man is on a strange train to see his dying father in a sanatorium. But the place is going to ruin and recalls a lot of memories from the past. He is beset by soldiers from the past, colonial black mercenaries, girls from his early life, and his parents. It is an interior adventure, with unusual atmospheric flair and extraordinary sets.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Country: Poland
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, psychological, psychedelic, dark, mindfuck, disturbing, existential, philosophical, slasher
Similar in 89%
The Tree of Life (2011)
Plot Summary:
The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 182000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags: surreal, philosophical, artsy, atmospheric, visually stunning, contemplative, thought provoking, art house, visual, touching
Similar in 89%
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014)
Plot Summary:
An absurdist, surrealistic and shocking pitch-black comedy, which moves freely from nightmare to fantasy to hilariously deadpan humour as it muses on man’s perpetual inhumanity to man.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Sweden, Germany, Norway, France, Denmark
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: surreal, realistic, talky, lyrical, dark comedy, humorous, philosophical, semi serious, absurd, art house
Similar in 84%
Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)
Plot Summary:
A troubled rock star descends into madness in the midst of his physical and social isolation from everyone.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 84000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, surreal, psychological, disturbing, experimental, adult animation, stylized, mindfuck, mind bending, scary
Similar in 79%
Enter the Void (2009)
Plot Summary:
This psychedelic tour of life after death is seen entirely from the point of view of Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a young American drug dealer and addict living in Tokyo with his prostitute sister, Linda (Paz de la Huerta). When Oscar is killed by police during a bust gone bad, his spirit journeys from the past -- where he sees his parents before their deaths -- to the present -- where he witnesses his own autopsy -- and then to the future, where he looks out for his sister from beyond the grave.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 86000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan
Duration: 161 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, art house, visually stunning, philosophical, atmospheric, meditative, disturbing, surreal, cerebral, mindfuck
Similar in 88%
The Holy Mountain (1973)
Plot Summary:
A Mexican master leads a Christ figure and other disciples to a mountain of immortal wise men. The scandal of the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, writer/director Alejandro Jodorowsky's flood of sacrilegious imagery and existential symbolism in The Holy Mountain is a spiritual quest for enlightenment pitting illusion against truth. The Alchemist (Jodorowsky) assembles together a group of people from all walks of life to represent the planets in the solar system. The occult adept's intention is to put his recruits through strange mystical rites and divest them of their worldly baggage before embarking on a trip to Lotus Island. There they ascend the Holy Mountain to displace the immortal gods who secretly rule the universe.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 47000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Mexico
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychedelic, avant garde, disturbing, art house, mindfuck, mind bending, experimental, atmospheric, stylized
Similar in 83%
Wings of Desire (1987)
Plot Summary:
Wings of Desire is Wim Wender’s artistically beautiful film about the lonely and immortal life of angels during a post-war Berlin. It’s a poetic journey from the perspective of the angels of which one falls in love with a living woman and wants to become a mortal human thus giving up his heavenly life. Filmed in black and white and with a feeling of celebrating life.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 75000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: West Germany, France
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: meditative, atmospheric, surreal, lyrical, cerebral, emotional, black and white, philosophical, art house, touching