Through the history of mankind, people have been fascinated by the macabre. It gives us an unease feeling of knowing danger might be around the corner, it is almost a guilty pleasure, horror films feed on our primal fears.

There are great horror films through history, but what happens when they are remade? Most of the time we get the same thing over again, but sometimes we get a new and fresh experience, sometimes the new film stands out on its own. Here are some of the best horror remakes in movie history.

15. The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

An American family is out on a road trip, they take a shortcut in the middle of the desert where they have an accident. After analyzing the cause of the accident, they realize someone punched their tires. Now stranded in the middle of nowhere, the family is being hunted by deformed cannibals, they realize they are stranded in an abandoned nuclear test site.

The film departs from the original in many ways, but it’s still good due to its violent nature. The film is directed by Alexandre Aja who is known for his over-the-top gore. The film adds a new spin on the cannibal family, they are mutated/inbreeds. One of the most crucial scenes in the film is where a mutant rape one of the family members, the other one is when the father is burned alive. This intense and almost nerve-wrecking film will keep you on the edge of your seat during its running time.

14. Friday the 13th (2009)

A group of friends go out in search of a mythical place in the middle of the woods that supposedly has a abandoned weed stash. The place is near the abandoned Crystal Lake camp, where gruesome murders took place years ago. The group of friends is taken out one by one by a masked figure.

Weeks later, another group of friends is out on a holiday to a lake house, the group stops to get refreshments when they meet Clay who is out searching for her sister who was with the group that’s gone missing. Jenna agrees to help Clay search for his sister, they go to the woods and find Crystal Lake camp, the killer Jason Voorhees is to kill the group who disrupted his peace.

This is a great remake, it mashes up the first three original films into one. You get to see Pamela Voorhees briefly to show Jason’s origins, you get to see the potato sack mask and the iconic hokey mask. What makes this film fresh is the new take on Jason, for the first time you see a thinking Jason, and in a way the filmmakers tried to explain how come Jason pups out conveniently everywhere by adding underground tunnels.

The film has almost every iconic moment that made the franchise popular while adding some new ones. If you love the originals, you will love this new imposing Jason on steroids.

13. Evil Dead (2013)

Five friends go to a remote cabin in the woods to help Mia get sober and end her drug addiction. One of them discovers the Book of the Dead in the basement, Eric reads the book and accidentally gets cut with one of the pages. Blood is spilled on the book and summons an evil force possessing Mia, slowly they begin to get possessed one by one. Now it’s up to Erik and David, Mia’s brother, to find a way to stop the demons.

This could easily be the original on steroids. It cuts Rami’s campiness and makes it crude and violent. It is filled with gore and over-the-top violence, while adding some character development enough to make us care. 

The score makes the film even creepier, the way Fede Alvarez directed the film will make you sit on the edge of your seat for the entire film. By far the film has one of the best opening and closing scenes out there, Alvarez even treated the audience to a little surprise with a post-credits scene.

12. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Driving through Texas’ rural countryside, four friends pick up a hitcher in the middle of the road. The girl is severely traumatized and bloody, once the hitcher realizes they are driving in the wrong direction, she shoots herself in the van. The group decides to seek for the local authorities and ends up at the Hewitt’s place where they are attacked by a man with a chainsaw known as Leatherface and his cannibal family.

The film is a good example of how to remake a film by keeping the original concept and story while adding some new characters and plot twists. This new version adds more depth to the cannibal family, showing just how sick and depraved they are. For the first time in film history, Leatherface’s origin is somewhat hinted and his face is shown for the first time, giving a more reasonable cause to the mask other than his craziness.

R. Lee Ermey’s new character is the missing piece to the family’s puzzle and its craziness. This film is one of the most nerve wrecking and suspenseful remakes out there, adding even more gore to the film for no reason. A plus for this film is an explanation of how those terrible crimes have come unnoticed, and a very good treat is its fake documentary style. The film also spawned a prequel that answers some questions, if you liked this one, you should check it out.

11. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)

Victor Frankenstein, a young doctor with a bright future ahead, is haunted by his mother’s death when he was a child, this channels his obsession of trying to bring people back to life from their death. He creates a creature made by parts of deceased people, he gives the creature life but soon realizes his experiment is a mistake and abandons the creature. The creature searches for knowledge and resents “father” for abandoning him, now the creature will seek revenge and cause Victor the same amount of pain Victor has caused him.

The film draws a lot of its source material from the novel with only minor changes. Francis Ford Coppola originally intended to direct it as a companion piece to his Dracula, then he decided to give Branagh a chance and stepped out of the way, only to serve as the producer.

The film is very character driven and deals with the emotional and psychological aspects of the characters. It also gives the audience more background story of the relationship between Victor and the creature. Branagh did a wonderful job by giving the creature such emotional depth. Instead of a semi-thinking creature, we have a child trapped in the body of a monster who resents everyone because no one showed him any kind of love or compassion. Robert De Niro studied stroke patients to give a real notion of how someone struggles to talk.

10. Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Barbara and Johnny are visiting their mother’s grave, out of nowhere a zombie attacks and kills Johnny. Barbara manages to escape into an abandoned farm in the middle of nowhere. Ben arrives and tells her there are zombies everywhere. Soon they realize they are not alone in the farmhouse, other people are hiding as well. Now Barbara and the others must do whatever it takes to survive the relentless attack of the undead.

Except for some small differences, the film follows the original line for line. It has one of Romero’s prodigy on the directors chair, special effects and makeup artist Tom Savini directs a respectful remake to the original Night of the Living Dead. One thing Savini changed to serve the film’s purpose was Barbara’s character.

In the original, Barbara almost faded into the background, Savini made Barbara a strong and powerful woman that carries the film. The ending is totally different, giving more depth and development to the character. Savini delivers a great remake with solid performances and great effects.

9. Let Me In (2010)

In the quiet town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, bizarre murders begin to occur. Owen is a lonely boy who has no friends and is being tormented by bullies in school. One night, he meets his next-door neighbor Abby who’s also a lonely soul. They find friendship and comfort in each other, but there is a dark mysterious secret to Abby, Owen starts suspecting Abby might not be who she is, he wonders why she only comes out at night and realizes that the murders began just when Abby moved in.

The film is beautifully directed by Matt Reeves, Reeves adds more emotional feelings and weight to the characters, both young leads (Kodi Smith and Chloe Grace) are amazing playing Owen and Abby.

Reeves also added more context to Owen’s character by having him show his dark side, the score of the film carries beautifully throughout, beautiful photography and exact amount of suspense and drama also works well. The film leaves some questions unanswered whereas the original explained Abby’s past and origin.

Deeply rooted in Haitian Folklore, zombies have become well-known horror creature spanning from literature, comic books, to cinema, and more recently T.V. Zombies have prevailed in popular culture due to our immense fascination with death. It comes from a ritual in Haitian Voodoo religion in which a corpse is reanimated and controlled by the bokor (a type of priest).

The word zombie first made it into The Oxford English Dictionary in 1819, the first literary incarnation was in The Magic Island by William Seabrook where the author tried to exploit the fear of zombies. Since then, many filmmakers have tried to adapt the folklore in many ways to evoke our primal fears, the most traditional ones are the mindless flesh-eating cannibals. Here are 14 essential films you need to watch.

14. White Zombie (1932)

Madeleine and Neil, a young couple madly in love, are convinced by a new acquaintance Monsieur Beaumont on his Haitian plantation in Port Prince. Beaumont will stop at nothing until he can make Madeleine his, with the help of the devious Legendre, who gives him a drug that will turn Madeleine into an obedient zombie.

Madeleine dies after the wedding, shortly she turns into a zombie. Convinced that Madeleine is still alive by a local missionary, Neil desperately wants to get the love of his life back, will true love prevail?

Considered as the first feature length zombie film and what may be the archetype and model for all the zombie films after, the film centers around the Haitian folklore in which a priest can take control of a person’s body and soul. The film is great with over-the-top performances from the cast, especially from Bela Lugosi who brilliantly plays Legendre. The film is in many ways ahead of its time, by dealing with a subject as controversial as an undead lover. It’s a great introduction into zombie folklore in film.

13. The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

Ethnobotanist David Allen is sent to Haiti by a pharmaceutical corporation to investigate a powder drug used in Haitian voodoo rituals that turns people into zombies.

Allen embarks in a violent and at times surreal journey to gain access to the powders drug, but what he discovers will change his life forever. He gets mixed in a game where he is the pawn in the middle of voodoo priests, corrupt government officials and his own sanity. In the end, he must decipher what is science and what is black magic.

This film is Wes Craven’s first and only take on the voodoo zombie folklore, loosely based on the nonfiction book by the same name by ethnobotanist Wade Davis. It is beautifully directed and filled with surreal imagery. Bill Pullman carries the movie splendidly, convincing the audience of his hunger for knowledge and disbelief that slowly turns into despair and madness. The film could be categorized as a psychological thriller that leaves you on the edge of your seat.

12. Dead Snow (2009)

A group of friends are on holiday to a secluded cabin in the middle of the wilderness, out of the blue their peace is interrupter by an old man. He warns them of a local curse and tells them a story about WWII during the Nazi occupation, when a group of revels drove the Nazis into the mountain and left them for dead. Soon after the group of friends will have to face the attacks of a zombie Nazi army led by the undead Commander Herzog.

Director Tommy Wirkola wants to portray a different take on the zombie genre. Trying to enhance the disgust and horror, he gave the zombies the Nazi element. Combing actual elements of history with the story, Wirkola delivers us one of the craziest and most controversial zombie films. Filled with great visuals and original zombie make-up and design, Dead Snow is one of the films out there that pays homage to the classic ones while reinventing the sub-genre.

11. Zombieland (2009)

In a post-apocalyptic world, we meet Columbus, who is afraid of everything and uses specific set of rules to keep him alive. He meets Tallahassee, a zombie-slaying badass. On the road their friendship will grow while they try to improve the zombie kill of the week. Columbus and Tallahassee are joined by Wichita and Little Rock, they will have to rely on each other to survive a zombie infected country.

One of the best horror comedies out there, Zombieland takes unique and fun perspectives on surviving a zombie apocalypse. The film has one of the creepiest clown-zombie on film. This is a comedy rather than a horror film, well edited and written. One of the nice things of the scripts is its well-crafted dark comedy, with one of the best cameos ever when Bill Murray appears in zombie makeup while donning a great homage to Ghostbusters and Murray’s “personal disappointment: Garfield.”

This is a great film with a fair amount of action while unraveling its characters’ backstory.

10. Zombie (1979)

A sailboat arrives in New York with only a zombie on board. Anne Bowles, daughter of the owner of the boat, is searching for her father who last sailed to an Island in the Antilles. Joined by Peter West, Brian Hill and Susan Barrett, they travel to the Matul Island. Once on the island they will realize the island is infected by flesh eating zombies. Fighting for survival against the increasing number of zombies, they might find answers once they meet Dr. Menard who is working on a possible cure.

Violent and full of  gore, the film is best known as Zombie 2, the producers and director tried to cash in with Romero`s financial success of Dawn of the Dead, even though the two films are not connected. The film is memorable for its use of gore and great special make-up effects. There are two memorable scenes in the film, the first one being a zombie piercing a woman’s eye with a wooden spike in a shocking fashion, and the second one is a zombie wrestling with a shark underwater.

9. The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Employees at a medical supply facility accidentally release a deadly gas into the air, causing acid rain that re-animates the dead, now a group of survivors will find shelter in a mortuary and fight the hordes of re-animated corpses.

Filled with campiness, it has a slight nod to the events of Night of the Living Dead. This film somewhat re-defines the genre, the film changes the concept established before by making the zombies somewhat intelligent and being able to speak, instead of being flesh eating monsters. Now the zombies are out for brains, the zombies are much faster than the traditional slow-moving ones.

The film is filled with punk/rock music. It is very campy but has great makeup and special effects. It also touches on the zombie’s perspective and motifs, which is the constant pain and hunger.

Since the beginning of the Great Depression and the rise of organized crime, gangsters have fascinated people around the world. Gangster films often portray a human side of the character, almost making them look like both an antihero and a Robin Hood. Considerably categorized as film noir in earlier days, gangster movies dealt with the mafia and tried to show the ongoing fight between “G-Men” and the mob.

Early gangster films boosted the careers of actors such as James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, among others. These 25 gangster films will take us on a tour of the rise and falls of empires, and we will analyze the dark psychology of these icons, as well as the truth behind the myth.

1. Miller’s Crossing (1990) Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen

Two rival gangs play a crucial game to control the city. Racketeering, murder and deception are the basic rules of the day, and we will find Tom Regan caught in the middle in the search for peace. However, things are never what they appear to be.

The Coen brothers deliver a film filled with black humor and gritty violence. Based on Dashiell Hammett’s novels “The Glass Key” and “The Red Harvest”, the story represents and ultimately shows the consequences of loyalty. Its shadow aesthetic feels somehow like film noir brilliantly reinterpreted by the Coen brothers.

2. King of New York (1990) Dir. Abel Ferrara

After being released from Sing-Sing prison, drug lord Frank White is reunited with his former gang now led by the psychopath Jimmy Jump. After Frank sees how his old neighborhood has decayed, he decides to do some good in return by eliminating his competition, who took control after his incarceration and led the neighborhood die. He robs his competitors and distributes the profits to the city’s poor in this balls-to-the-wall re-imagining of the Robin Hood tale.

Abel Ferrara might be one of the most underrated filmmakers in the United States. This is one of Ferrara’s most carefully constructed films, with complicated character development and meticulously composed scenes. Christopher Walken also gives one of the best performances of his career.

3. The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) Dir. D.W. Griffith

The plot of this film centers on a poor married couple living in New York. Walter Miller plays the husband who’s an aspiring musician and is often on the road. During one of his travels, the husband is robbed by one of the musketeers known as The Snapper Kid.

Later on, the musician gets caught in a shootout, and he recognizes one of the shooters and gangsters as the one who mugged him. Now the musician is on the loose to get his money back, and this will begin a series of events that the viewer will never expect.

Director D.W. Griffith’s 16-minute silent film may be the first gangster film in history. It is loosely inspired by the nationwide attention paid by the press in the murder of gambler Herman Rosenthal; Griffith was intrigued enough by the case that he got his own camera and decided to make his own film. This is the first time the Lower East Side of Manhattan was featured in film, and Griffith actually used local and street hoods and gangsters from the neighborhood as extras to authenticate the film.

4. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) Dir. Charles Crichton

Holland (Alec Guinness) is a faithful banker who has dedicated 20 years of his life to his job, overseeing the shipment of gold bullions. One day he meets and befriends Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) who convinces him to steal the gold bars, melt them and make them pass for harmless toy Eiffel towers and smuggle them from England to France. The two men hire the services of professional criminals Lackery and Shorty. Together the four will lead the crime of a century, leading to unexpected twists and turns.

This film, which won an Oscar for Best Screenplay, is great for its genre. It is very rare to mix a comedy with a gangster film, and the movie delivers in many ways, with great lines and jokes, and one of Audrey Hepburn’s earlier career roles.

5. Get Carter (1971) Dir. Mike Hodges

Michael Caine plays Jack Carter, a vicious and sadistic gangster, back in Newcastle from his criminal life in London. Carter attends the funeral of his brother, who died of a mysterious accident. He starts to investigate his brother’s death after suspecting it was no accident, and this will lead him into Newcastle’s criminal underworld on a trail of violence, murder, lies and cover-ups.

This film is a game changer for Caine, who plays a vicious yet likable gangster loose on a trail of vengeance. He is a revelation as an assassin who will not stop until he puts a bullet into the body of his brother’s killer. This movie made Carter an iconic character and it has a great cult following; unlike its American counterpart (released in 2000 starring Sylvester Stallone), it is considered a great masterpiece.

6. Thieves Like Us (1974) Dir. Robert Altman

Set in Mississippi in the 1930s, this film follows Bowie (Keith Carradine), a charming young criminal, and bank robber partners T-Dub (Bert Remsen) and Chicamaw (John Shuck), who escape from a chain gang. Now on the loose, they will follow their old steps and resume their criminal activities, wrecking havoc in their heists and their path. In one of their heists, Bowie meets Keechie and falls in love with her. Now with a Texas Ranger retracing their every step, Bowie will put everything on the line.

The film is great because it deals with ironic romanticism, making a social and political commentary, and making “heroes” out of the bandits by indicating that the gangsters are only doing what those in private enterprises accomplished legally. Departing from a conventional music score, the film uses radio shows and news items of the day to contrast with the successful heists, and ironically contradict their interpersonal relationships.

7. Regeneration (1915) Dir. Raoul Walsh

The story follows the life of Owen, brilliantly played by Rockliffe Fellowes, a young Irish-American boy. Owen is adopted by a couple after his mother dies, and the couple puts him to work and mistreats him. After having enough from his adoptive parents, he escapes and becomes a “child of the slums”. In the slum he learns to do whatever it takes to survive and this turns him into a gang leader. Everything changes when he meets Marie Deering, played Anna Nilson, who will help him redeem himself and reform to a better life. Owen has the potential to be reformed by love, but will he be able to resist the temptations of his former life?

This is the first future-length gangster film made by the director. Filmed on location in New York´s Bowery district, this social document is a masterpiece, full of realistic performances and impressive camera angles, most notably the shot of a man falling from a 4th-story window. The film is adapted from the autobiography of Owen Frawley Kildare, a turn-of-the-century gangster.

8. A Better Tomorrow (1986) Dir. John Woo

“A Better Tomorrow” tells the story of two brothers torn between their radical lives. One is a reforming criminal who still has close ties to his criminal past, and the other is a rookie police officer. Trying to reconcile, both brothers will put everything on the line to survive this bullet fest film.

John Woo brilliantly directs this great film, with greatly choreographed fights and shootouts. This film gives a new cool look to gangster movies, giving a new visualized kind of violence characterized by balletic slow-motion carnage, using gunplay almost in a kung fu style. The film was responsible for the birth of a genre and the genesis of many Hollywood action films that followed.

Surrealism and film have been together since the beginning of the surrealist movement in the early 1920’s. The first time the word surrealist appeared was in 1903 in the play “Les Mamelles de Tirésias” by Guillaume Apollinaire; Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during WWI centering itself in Paris. Surrealism is based on the element of surprise, using unexpected juxtaposition and non sequitur images; basically it’s an expression of the philosophical movement, with the works being an artifact of the mind and the subconscious.

Surrealism was the first artistic movement to become seriously associated with cinema. At the beginning of the 1920’s, film-making was experimental, the surrealist movement helped shape disassembling reality into a dream world that was beyond reality and belief, capturing the consciousness of the audience. This medium nullified realities and boundaries, giving the opportunity to portray the ridiculous as rational.

Cinema helped the movement spread across other countries, allowing the viewers a chance to experiment with sensations and emotions other media could not deliver.

From the late 20’s and early 30’s, the movement spread around the globe, allowing many countries to experiment in the visual field of cinema, consequently nurturing the minds of many talented directors and giving us some of cinema’s most crazy and unique films in history.

Since Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel is a household name of making surrealist films, and we have dedicated an entire list to his filmography, we will introduce other brilliant surrealist filmmakers and their films in this article. We hope this list will help you find some real gems in this fascinating genre. All films listed here are ranked in chronological order.

1. The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) Dir. Germain Dulac

A General, his wife, and a clergyman play a crucial threesome in Germain Dulac’s silent short film, where the clergyman is haunted by the lusting emotions he has for the General’s wife. This might be the quintessential jewel in surrealist cinema, Germain Dulac’s short story introduces us from the first frame to a surreal and trippy journey into the mind of the clergy, the opening shots of a hallway transport us to an eerie place in the darkest corners of the clergy’s mind where he is being hunted by the General.

This story centers around the values and morals of a priest who stands for what is right and represents the moral values of society and religion and the turmoil of moral repression he has to deal while fighting his inner demons and the lust for a woman who is spoken for.

The film has what may be the first slow motion run in cinema history, it is greatly executed, almost as if a ballerina was approaching her final moves to end a perfect performance, great frame by frame juxtapositions of images, to achieve one of the greatest executed criticisms against a man’s oppression and basic instincts and for a final treat the film gives us a good idea of the architecture and way of life around the 20’s.

2. The Blood of a Poet (1932) Dir. Jean Cocteau

The Blood of a Poet is the first in Jean Cocteau’s Orphic trilogy, which is followed by Orphée (1950) and concluded by Testament of Orpheus (1960). Blood of a Poet is a poem in many ways, from the great music by Georges Auric to the subtitle cuts, using sculptures, and effects used to achieve surreal scenery.

We follow an artist sketching the face of a woman, who in a way may resemble the art of Picasso, going over and over again to achieve the perfect portrait he is startled when he discovers the woman’s mouth moving, he reacts by rubbing the mouth and erasing it only to discover the mouth has transferred to the palm of his hand, he tries to remove it but fails, then what appears to be an awkward scene the artist uses the mouth in his hand to roam his body and falls asleep.

In section two, the statue comes to life, speaking to the artist, luring him to go inside the mirror in his studio. Once inside in a dream like scenery, we find our artist in what appears to be a hotel, where he encounters several doors and plays the part of a peeping tom, witnessing several people such as a man being shot to death, an opium smoker, a girl, and a hermaphrodite.

The artist is handed a gun and instructed how to shoot himself, he does so but does not die, and after that the artist cries out, he has seen enough and leaves the mirror. He smashes the statue to pieces. Outside some kids have a snowball fight, an elder boy throws a snowball to a younger boy, the boy dies from the impact, and the snowball is actually a chunk of marble. A gambler plays cards with a woman while set up next to the boy’s dead body.

The gambler extracts a card from the boy’s body while an angel appears and absorbs the body, ultimately the gambler loses the game and commits suicide, everybody applauds this action and the woman transforms into the statue that was smashed earlier in the film; the statue walks through the snow, leaving no footprints behind. The film in the end resists full understanding, but welcomes endless interpretations. It is a film that is hard to get a grasp.

3. Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) Dir. Maya Deren

In this short film directed by husband and wife team, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid treat us to this circular narrative, where a woman is being followed home by a figure, upon entering her home after a failed attempt, the woman goes to her room and sits on a chair, immediately falling asleep and entering a dreamlike world.

The first figure we gaze upon is a grim-reaper-like character with a mirror for a face, the woman tries to catch the figure but is unable to do so, and with each failure she re-enters the house. She bumps into the same house hold objects, a knife, a telephone, a phonograph, a key, and a flower. Following the hooded figure, she sees it hiding a knife under the pillow, seeing multiple instances of herself, in a Deja-vu like memento the woman tries to kill herself with a knife but is interrupted by a man.

The man leads her back to the bedroom and makes her realize everything she saw in the dream was actually happening. At the end, Maya delivers us an unexpected twist.

The short film is flooded with eerie scenery, a sometimes repelling and frustrating score alluding more to a nightmare rather than a dream, the film also deals with great and creative editing, slow motion that gives a dream-like illusion to depict a world where it is more difficult to catch reality, maybe the hooded figure stands for reality and what drives the woman is the loneliness that pushes her to become something different, something she doesn’t want to be anymore. Meshes of the Afternoon was selected in 1990 for preservation in the United States Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

4. Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947) Dir. Hans Richter

Jack Bittner plays Jack/Narcissus as a man who has just rented a room and is struggling with his finances. While wondering how he can afford to pay the rent, he discovers he can unfold the contents of his mind while gazing at himself in a mirror, it is not long until he realizes he can apply this gift to others and that way make a profit to pay the rent. He manages to sell the ultimate fantasy, tailor-made dreams that can meet every buyer’s desires, his client base is very special and with different demands.

Within the seven surreal dream sequences, Writer/Director Hans Richter uses the collaboration of such renowned artists like: Max Ernest, Man Ray, and Alexander Calder.

The film is so well made and the way Hans Richter used color to emphasize a surreal journey to give us the ultimate treat while asking us a great question: what and how much would you pay for a tailor-made dream? The movie explores our basic human psyche. It was awarded for the Best Original Contribution to the Progress of Cinematography at the 1947 Venice Film Festival.

5. Woman in The Dunes (1964) Dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara

Eiji Okada plays an entomologist who has come to a remote desert to study and collect the indigenous population of insects. On a quest for an unclassified beetle he ponders the idea, he would achieve notoriety as a scientist by discovering and naming the beetle after himself.

While doing so he rests for a while on a dune where he asks himself a fundamental question: does a person’s recognized achievements validate his existence? Does the number of certificates and awards he has received in his lifetime measure the value of his life?

After thinking over the question, he falls asleep just to be awakened by a stranger with the news he is stranded there because the last bus has just departed, the villagers arrange temporary lodging with the towns widow who is brilliantly played by Kyoko Kishida, who lives at the bottom of a sand dune only accessible by a rope ladder, he notices the widow shovels sand from dusk to dawn, not making a big deal about it he falls asleep.

The next morning he wakes up to find the rope ladder he used to descend to the house has been retracted and the sands formations are impossible to climb, soon he discovers what happened to the widows family, and why she is shoveling day and night, the entomologist asks the widow an essential question for his sake. “Are you living to shovel, or shoveling to live?”

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Woman in The Dunes is a brilliant surreal film where the shifting dunes landscape presents us redemption in the everyday and monotonous task, where to live is just a desire and human’s most basic instinct, the film also deals with the basic needs of human civilization and the frail line between the pursuit of the artificial excesses of human civilization.

6. The Saragossa Manuscript (1965) Dir. Wojciech Has

This film adaptation based on the novel by Jan Potocki is set in the town of Saragossa Spain during the Napoleonic Wars, two officers of opposing sides find themselves allies in a unique and ironic way, one of the officers finds a manuscript in a deserted inn, its author was his grandfather, the other officer tries to arrest him but instead he ends up translating the manuscript.

The manuscript tells the story of Alfonso van Worden who is seeking the shortest route through the Sierra Morena Mountains, by doing so he will go into hunted territory. At an apparently deserted inn, Alfonso is invited to dine with two Moorish princesses who are his cousins, who he must marry to provide them with heirs. However, he must convert to Islam to do so, the cousins seduce him and give him a skull goblet to drink, and he does so and passes out.

From there, the story escalates into a series of subplots that introduce us to such adventures, taking us from a Hermit Priest to the Inquisition, from fending off ghosts to fighting duels, all to wake up back where he started in the shadow of the gallows.

The film is a labyrinth with a story within a story structure, it treats us to a multi-layer subplot, making it almost impossible to keep track of who is who and what’s what. The complexity of how the inner tales intertwine so the latter tales shed some new light on earlier experiences recounted by other characters. We would recommend multiple viewings of the film in order to get a firm grasp on the plot, this is the kind of film that leaves you thinking over and over: Did I get it right?

7. Daisies (1966) Dir. Vera Chytilová

Two female teenagers who are having a robotic and monotonous conversation known as Marie 1 and Marie 2 decide to go crazy and be bad as a result of how the world has no values and is demoralized. The girls set out into the world with one goal in mind, wreak havoc everywhere they go. They stage various dinner dates with older men, eating, drinking, and telling lies through the evening, just to ditch their dates in a fast motion montage that feels almost as an homage to Chaplin.

Looking for more adventures, the dynamic duo ends up getting wasted in a 1920´s vibe nightclub, just to get kicked out in the most avant-garde comedic way possible. Going from adventure to adventure, they end up getting caught and trailed for their mischief. Finally understanding what they need to do to redeem themselves the universe catches up with them.

Banned from the Czech authorities for “depicting the wanton”, this film is a great comedic roller-coaster of non-stop mischievous adventures, Vera Chytilová comes out to make a statement of nihilistic decadence and what it’s like to live in a communist country. After the release of the film, Vera Chytilová was forbidden to work in her homeland until 1975.