The '90s were a great decade for every type of film, including dramas, teen romantic comedies, horror movies, and so much more. However, this decade was also a time of great change in the film world. Due to the rising popularity of straight-to-VHS releases and the internet, indie movies began to see unprecedented success. In response, larger production companies began to create smaller, independent divisions that were focused on attracting the audiences who were into gritty, bizarre, artistic films, causing a wave of seriously strange productions.
So, if you're feeling nostalgic and looking for something disturbing, peculiar, perplexing, or all of the above, then these Reddit users have you covered with their picks for the strangest movies of the 1990s. They ranges from absurdist comedies to psychological thrillers to just about everything in between.
Lost Highway (1997)
David Lynch’s name will inevitably come up in any discussion about bizarre films, and his neo-noir thriller Lost Highway is a great example of why that is. Mind-bending and disconcerting, the film begins with saxophonist Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) struggling to save his crumbling marriage while simultaneously being stalked in his own home.
Shortly after the stalking is reported to the police, Fred’s wife, Renee (Patricia Arquette), is murdered, and Fred is accused and convicted of the crime although he has no memory of committing it. The film only gets odder from there as Fred inexplicably morphs into local mechanic Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty), and is subsequently released from death row. What follows is a mind-bending, supernatural crime spree that will leave even the most seasoned psychological thriller connoisseurs, such as Reddit commenter foozalicious, bewildered.
Pi (1998)
In response to a post in r/AskReddit asking users to reply with the strangest movies they'd ever seen, midwest_vanilla responded with Darren Aronofsky's debut feature film, Pi. The film tells the story of number theorist Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) who believes that nature speaks to humanity through math and that the secrets of the universe can be revealed within numerical patterns.
Max and the people around him become obsessed with determining the meaning of a string of numbers that was spat out by Max’s computer, with some believing the number series is a message from God, and others believing it can be used to predict stock market activity. This black-and-white thriller was the winner of the Sundance Film Festival Directing Award in 1998, a sign that more great things were to come from Aronofsky.
Bad Boy Bubby (1993)
Sharpster77’s choice for the strangest film is an Australian dark comedy called Bad Boy Bubby, directed by Rolf de Heer. The main character, Bubby (Nicholas Hope), has been kept prisoner in his home by his own mother (Claire Benito) for almost his entire life. One day, Bubby escapes and begins experiencing life in the outside world, causing a lot of trouble as he enters the public for the first time.
Over 30 directors of photography worked on the movie, and the different stylistic choices are evident from scene to scene. Upon its release, the film created a lot of controversy due to its depictions of animal cruelty, which led to international bans and boycotts, but has since experienced a resurgence of appreciation, and some now consider it to be a modern classic of Australian cinema.
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Multiple Reddit users claim From Dusk Till Dawn is the craziest, weirdest film of the 1990s, and one Redditor says the oddities of the film are best experienced when the viewer has zero prior knowledge of the film’s plot.
Directed by Robert Rodriguez, From Dusk Till Dawn is a dark comedy-horror fusion starring George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino (who also wrote the film), Harvey Keitel, Salma Hayek, and several other big names. The movie deviates quite a bit from what is expected of a movie written by Tarantino, but that is just a small part of what makes it so strange.
Julien Donkey-Boy (1999)
Harmony Korine’s Julien Donkey-Boy is, to say the least, a contentious film among movie lovers, but that didn’t stop it from making its way onto some-seventy-years’ list of strangest movies. Characterized by its found footage-esque style of cinematography and dark, disturbing content, this art film was never intended to be a box-office smash.
The movie centers around Julien (Ewen Bremner), a young man with schizophrenia, and his daily life with his abusive father (Werner Herzog), pregnant sister (Chloë Sevigny), and wrestler brother (Evan Neumann). Viewers disagree on whether the film is pretentious and over-stylized or an artful search for beauty in even the most horrific and appalling parts of life, but all audience members can agree that Julien Donkey-Boy is a strange movie.
Gummo (1997)
Also written and directed by Harmony Korine, Gummo, suggested by TreeBearOne, is another examination of the bleakest aspects of society, depicting everything from poverty to animal abuse to even murder.
The character-driven film takes place in a small Ohio town that is devastated by a tornado and the financial ruin that came along with it. Characters casually commit crimes, some driven by desperation and others by boredom. Stylistically, it’s not quite as abnormal as Julien Donkey-Boy, but the subject matter presented is just as grotesque, if not more so.
Naked Lunch (1991)
OzzyYank86 and several other Reddit users agreed that David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch was the strangest movie they had ever seen. A body horror film pioneer, Cronenberg is known for his shudder-inducing practical effects, disturbing plots, and intense visuals.
This film in particular is based on Beatnik author William S. Burrough’s novel of the same name. In the film, bug exterminator Bill Lee (Peter Weller) becomes addicted to the chemicals he uses for work, causing him to have hallucinations of sexually graphic typewriters and talking bugs that tell him to kill his wife (Judy Davis). The film is full of creepy and unsettling scenes, and every time you think it can’t get any stranger, it does just that.
The Dark Backward (1991)
The Dark Backward, directed by Adam Rifkin, tells the story of an untalented stand-up comedian (portrayed by Judd Nelson) who, for some unknown reason, grows a third arm in the middle of his back, which brings brief success to his career but ruins just about every other part of his life.
The production design is another wacky element of the film, as the characters inhabit a revolting, garbage-filled yet colorful world. Dudeinab0x called the film “one of the weirdest, craziest, most enjoyable bats**t insane movies I've ever seen,” and most viewers can agree the movie lives up to the hype.
Brainscan (1994)
Flux_the_deal’s suggestion, John Flynn's Brainscan, is an early exploration of the potential dangers of virtual reality gaming. Reminiscent of multiple Black Mirror episodes, the film follows teenager Michael Brower (Edward Furlong) as he plays a spookily immersive video game.
The gameplay is just flat-out killing people, and Michael is loving it. Unfortunately, his fun turns to horror when he realizes that the murders he commits in the game are actually happening in real life. Full of experimental visual effects that range from comical to unnerving, Brainscan was not exactly well-received when it was first released. However, in the nearly 30 years since it came out, it has garnered a small cult following.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Reddit user therealbeng offered the most agreed-upon answer in the “Craziest ‘90s Movies?” r/Movies discussion: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Terry Gilliam's film is a psychedelic adventure based on Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo journalism piece that was first published in 1971. It tells the story of a journalist (Johnny Depp) and his lawyer (Benicio del Toro) who travel to Vegas to report on the Mint 400 motorcycle race, but they become more than a little sidetracked as their drug-induced behavior and hallucinations propel them through a sequence of trippy, terrifying events. The acting, writing, cinematography, production design, VFX, and more all work together to create an eccentric film filled with contagious paranoia.