Best Absurdist Movies and Where to Watch Them

The Seventh Seal is a Cannes Film Festival award-winning historical fantasy, initially known as Det sjunde inseglet. Set in Sweden during the Black Death, the story revolves around a chess match between disillusioned knight Antonius Block and Death. Antonius Block and his cynical squire Jöns return from the Crusades to discover his country devastated by Black Death. The time personification of Death comes to take Blocks life; he challenges Death for a chess match. With the belief of Gods non-existence, he thought he would survive until the game continues. During the chess match, he comes across his wife, Mia; his infant son, Mikael, and his traveling player, Jof. What does this journey of a chess match behold for Antonius Block? Will he be able to defeat the ultimate Death or will Death empower Block and take his life?

When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.

More popularly known as Dr Strangelove, the movie is set during the Cold War period between the United States and the Soviet Union. With the memories of the World War and the Cold War still fresh in people's minds, Dr Strangelove takes a satirical turn, with a tinge of comedy, on these events. A lunatic Brigadier almost launches the world into a nuclear war without the knowledge or permission of his superiors, as they try to control the situation that could have led to serious consequences.

The Road is a post-apocalyptic thriller in a world hit by a global calamity. With no crops, no animals to eat, the remaining humans have turned cannibal as the winter tones in. A father and his son try to escape the annihilated and destructed America in hope of a hospitable habitat, living on some scavenged food and a pistol to help them survive the flesh-eating mobs. Watch the dark and unhearting side of humans as the two try to head south with indefinite plans and 2 bullets to kill the foes or, when the times toughen, to kill themselves.

Brian Cohen is a young average Joe, born Jewish. Cohen was born in a stable on Christmas, right next to the one in which Christ was born. His life progresses just like the one of Jesus Christ. Wise men come up to the stable and distribute gifts to everyone. If the North Star moves further, they pack up everything and move towards it. As Brian grows up, he joins a political party, a resistance organization, to get rid of the Romans from Judea. He shouts political sayings, paints the slogan on walls, and devises plans that instantly become a hit. The story is about the strange similarities between Brian and Jesus and what sets them apart after more than 1900 years.

A theatre director, Caden Cotard is at a stage of mid-life crisis. The situations of his life are drowned with miseries and have given him blues from every nook and corner. His wife and daughter have left him and his therapist does not take him seriously and is more interested in his new book. Caden leaves his home in Schenectady, New York, and moves to New York City. There, he musters a bunch of actors and goes on to pursue his artistic talent as a director. He drowns himself in his artistry and leaves the rest of the world behind. Finally, he accepts the death and his ending proves the Shakesphere's famous quote'' All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.''

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a movie about love's strange habit to come back in life, time and again. This is a story of Joel and Clementine. They are romantically involved with each other, but eventually, things start taking an ugly turn. Clementine makes up her mind to undergo a kind of medical procedure that can erase all the memories related to Joel and their relationship. After learning what Clementine did, Joel decides to undergo the same procedure. All the memories, good and bad, are erased from both of their minds. In such a scenario, Joel and Clementine meet again in a train from Montauk and a connection starts developing between them almost instantly.

Henry, a young guy resides in an apartment which has not-so-good vibes and is melancholic to some extent. After having a fling with a girl named Mary, he receives unexpected news of Mary being pregnant. This incident turns his life turtle. He marries Mary and starts living with her in his shabby apartment. His baby turns out to be completely odd and eerie as it is weird in shape and resembles a lizard. Moreover, it has a peculiar habit of crying without any stops. His life becomes madly difficult and to add more to his misery, he has to also deal with a strange old lady, who lives inside a radiator. How unexpected parenthood hits an unprepared young guy is what the movie covers.

Every night while the city sleeps, Ahmad, a former Pakistani rock star turned immigrant, drags his heavy cart along the streets of New York. And every morning, he sells coffee and donuts to a city he cannot call his own. One day, however,the pattern of this harsh existence is broken by a glimmer of hope for a better life.

A Hollywood actor named Riggan Thomson is popular for his role in a 1990s superhero franchise called Birdman. The persona of Birdman is still inside Riggan and he is haunted by Birdmans constant Jabbering. He also often visualizes himself with the powers of his Birdman persona. Riggan decides to get rid of his superhero identity and tries to regain his lost popularity by working in a Broadway show, while the Birdman persona mocks him and tells him to make a new Birdman movie. Riggans daughter Sam who is a former drug addict is working with him as his assistant. After an unfortunate event, Riggan hires a new talented but egotistical actor named Mike, who causes several issues during the first two previews. Several other series of events leads Riggan to a depressed state and he takes a real gun to the stage to perform the final act.

In 1971, two men named Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo were traveling to Las Vegas through the Nevada desert in a convertible Chevrolet. Duke hallucinates about a swarm of giant bats flying around their car and checks out their suitcase full of drugs. They give a ride to a hitchhiker on their way and Duke wonders how long they can maintain themselves before they start jabbering or harming the young hitchhiker. Duke tells the hitchhiker that he is going to cover a motorcycle race in Las Vegas and Gonzo is his attorney. The men are heavily under drug influence and behave in a crazy manner which scares the hitchhiker and he runs away. The men decide to reach California before the hitchhiker gets to the police.

A film poem inspired by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. A story about our need for love, our confusion, greatness and smallness and, most of all, our vulnerability. It is a story with many characters, among them a father and his mistress, his youngest son and his girlfriend. It is a film about big lies, abandonment and the eternal longing for companionship and confirmation.

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

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.

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.

In a small town still occupied by the Germans as World War II's tide is turning toward the Allies, apprentice train-watcher Milos is oblivious to the war. Instead, he is obsessed with having his first sexual experience. Despite the favors of train conductor Masa, Milos has no luck. His quest leads him to a female Resistance fighter who, in passing, recruits him to the cause. As Milos finally finds love, danger draws closer.

Young and disenchanted Sam meets a mysterious and beautiful woman who's swimming in his building's pool one night. When she suddenly vanishes the next morning, Sam embarks on a surreal quest across Los Angeles to decode the secret behind her disappearance, leading him into the murkiest depths of mystery, scandal and conspiracy.

This bizarre surrealistic black comedy takes place in a small fictitious post-apocalyptic town where food is scarce and butcher Clapet has the macabre business of using human flesh to feed his customers. Yet when his daughter falls in love with his next slaughter victim things turn into chaos.

A collection of seven vignettes, which each address a question concerning human sexuality. From aphrodisiacs to sexual perversion to the mystery of the male orgasm, characters like a court jester, a doctor, a queen and a journalist adventure through lab experiments and game shows, all seeking answers to common questions that many would never ask.