Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness rode some huge concepts for a superhero movie, and while it was pulled off well, the multiverse movie left a lot of fans confused. But that doesn't mean the movie wasn't exciting and so much fun. The new Marvel Cinematic Universe film isn't the first to confuse the audience but still manages to entertain.
Redditors have debated which is the best movie that doesn't make much sense or is too ambiguous. Between a typically bizarre David Lynch movie, a micro-budget flick about a parasite, and a time travel film that hates the phrase "time travel," these releases left an impression on viewers even though they're completely incomprehensible.
Mulholland Drive (2001)
David Lynch's mystery thriller classic, Mulholland Drive, doesn't make a lot of sense. In typical Lynch fashion, the film's bizarre events are left unanswered and intentionally ambiguous. Wbaumnuss300 calls the movie, "From beginning to end one crazy ride into uncertainty. Interpretation is not a question of this or that. It's a question of what is happening and what is the movie about."
The 2001 movie is so confusing that David Lynch included 10 clues to Mulholland Drive's meaning, or as the director puts it, to "unlocking" Mulholland Drive, in the DVD release. However, those clues aren't exactly helpful, and it likely confused fans even more, but Mulholland Drive's mystique is all part of the allure. The movie is visually stunning and has a weird ora about it that attracts audiences. And even though it doesn't have a clear narrative and nobody knows what it's really about except for its creator, it often makes people's "greatest of all time" lists.
Identity (2003)
Identity is an unsung great slasher movie of the 2000s, and it does something unique with the whodunnit genre. The movie essentially unfolds like Knives Out or Murder on the Orient Express, only it's completely terrifying. S_N_Mac sings the film's praises and thinks everybody should see it, despite its intentionally off-putting and impenetrable premise.
The Redditor claims, "I loved that as a kid. Confused the f*** out of me the first time I saw it, but I loved it anyway." The first two acts of the film are so confusing, but the eye-opening final act forces audiences to rethink everything they've just seen. Identity is one of the most original thrillers of the 21st century, and it's one of the late, great Ray Liotta's best movies.
Upstream Color (2013)
The_Starter_Captain thinks the mind-boggling Upstream Color needs to be watched at least once. The movie is about two strangers who are separately drugged and have their lives ruined without knowing how or why. These strangers meet and slowly begin to piece together what happened to them.
But the scenario doesn't become any clearer once the characters start to figure out what's going on. The film becomes more confusing the more they learn about the traumatic experience. Between parasites in their arms, being emotionally connected with pigs, and orchids turning blue, the film makes almost no sense, but it's still fascinating and like a romantic and very low-budget attempt at a Lynchian story.
12 Monkeys (1995)
12 Monkeys is one of the most complex time travel movies ever, and it isn't exactly the lighthearted, family-friendly Back to the Future. The movie follows a convict who volunteers for a mission to travel back in time to find out how a deadly virus came to be.
Timmaahhyyy64 posits, "12 Monkeys melted my brain. One of my favorite movies ever. Terry Gilliam is an insane genius." Gilliam has directed some of the most provocative sci-fi flicks, and 12 Monkeys is one of the most engaging and exciting of them all, but it's also the most baffling.
Enemy (2013)
While Denis Villeneuve has become the sci-fi elder statesman with Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, and Dune, he was an extremely prolific thriller director in the 2010s, directing a new movie every year. 2014 saw the release of his weirdest thriller project to date. Enemy is about a college professor, Adam, who discovers he has a doppelganger, and it leads to some strange occurrences about sexuality and tarantulas.
IronSorrows is a big fan of the confusing movie, noting, "Enemy is a fantastic film, though, with plenty to unpack after watching." The movie ends with the professor walking in on his wife, who isn't his wife but a tarantula, and Adam simply sighs. The ending is so confusing and ambiguous, but it makes for a great talking point.
Brazil (1985)
Gilliam is great at creating confusing worlds that audiences still love despite not understanding them. Along with 12 Monkeys, Gilliam directed the just as strange Brazil, a movie about a dystopian future that's full of capitalism, surveillance, and bureaucracy, but it's also completely absurd.
Moinatx thinks the film is incredible but hints that they still can't wrap their head around it. The Redditor notes, "Brazil took me several viewings and still… Terry Gilliam is a unique thinker." The message is extremely straightforward, as it's a movie that predicts the future of humankind, and is a warning of where the world is heading, but the narrative and surreal moments still feel disconnected to many viewers.
Cloud Atlas (2012)
While many film buffs might call the Wachowskis one-hit wonders, as they failed to repeat the success of The Matrix, 2012's Cloud Atlas proves otherwise. The film has six different storylines that all take place during different time periods, and Timmaahhyyy64 loves the film despite it being preposterously difficult to follow.
When it comes to the several different storylines, the Redditor posits, "the movie just jumbled them together, still a fun watch if you pay attention." Cloud Atlas is an intense three-hour odyssey that's annoyingly hard to follow at certain points, but viewers who stick with it and pay attention will be massively rewarded.
Being John Malkovich (1999)
MaybeItWas8IEt points to 1999's Being John Malkovich as being the most confusing but brilliant movie ever. It's hard to explain the 1999 movie without falling into a spiral of confusion. The fantastical film follows an office administrator who finds a portal into the mind of real-life actor John Malkovich, and he then exploits that by charging people to use it, almost like a theme park ride.
But beneath the wild concept is an even stranger supernatural romance movie brewing. Even despite the film's difficult-to-grasp concept, audiences still empathize with Maxine and Lotte, and Craig learning to completely control John Malkovich is one of the weirdest but fascinating storylines in a fantasy movie.
Tenet (2020)
Tenet was a standalone movie that could have been a huge franchise, as Neal explains to the Protagonist at the end of the movie that it's the first of many adventures they go on together. However, even if writer-director Christopher Nolan wanted to make a sequel, it would probably never happen due to the audience's reception of the film. Jogoso2014 puts it best, explaining, "Tenet is really the only movie I like a lot that I didn’t understand the mechanics of."
There's so much exposition in the movie that still leaves audiences confused, and it would have been so much easier to simply call it "time travel." That way, audiences wouldn't get so confused, and the film would have been much shorter too. But Nolan seemingly treats "time travel" like a dirty word, and he'd much rather write endless pages of confusing dialogue to avoid using it. But the film is still a spectacle nonetheless, and it has to be watched on the biggest screen possible.
Mr. Nobody (2009)
Gamerongames argues that "Mr. Nobody should be on the list." Long before Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Everything Everywhere All at Once, Mr. Nobody explored the idea of multiverses in such great detail. The science fiction movie follows Nemo, the only non-immortal human who lives to 118 years old and recounts the loves of his life to a reporter.
The film has a non-linear structure and it can be hard to keep up with which Nemo the story is following and at what age, but it's a huge pay-off for the viewers who pay close attention. Like Being John Malkovich, Mr. Nobody uses a huge concept to tell a rather simple tale about love, loss, and heartbreak.