10. Happiness.

Todd Solondz isn't known for being a warm and fuzzy director. If you haven't seen his films, they're best described as a carnival of misery for a bunch of sad Americans in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. He writes horrible, scathing comedy that pokes fun at suburban elitism and the oblivious naiveté of American life. When I say Solondz tortures his characters, we only need to look to look at this film to see the extent. Happiness is anything but what the title suggests. It's a bizarre augmentation of a bunch of individuals in small-town New Jersey searching for depth and meaning in the worst of places. If you don't know what you're getting into, one of the sub-plots involves a father drugging and raping his pre-pubescent son's friends when they come over for sleepovers. In another plot-line, a compulsive eater murders her doorman when he attempts to come on to her and hides his body parts in her freezer alongside Carvel's ice cream cake. There isn't anybody who makes films like Todd Solondz, and I've yet to really decide whether that's a good thing or not. But I will say if you have the open-mindedness - and yes, the empathy - to look at his composition of twisted individuals in Happiness, give it a watch.

9. Grizzly Man.

Werner Herzog is another strange individual that was bound to show up here. As a director, he takes himself so seriously sometimes over the strangest of subject matter that it’s hard not to laugh. In one of his documentaries, Herzog laments over a penguin in a colony that’s left its herd and wandered off to certain death. With a deadpan voice, as if he’s talking about the world ending, he asks a penguin researcher, “Is there such thing as insanity amongst these animals?” It’s hard to take Herzog seriously at times. Even in the darkest of circumstances, he manages to be unintentionally hilarious. Take Grizzly Man, a bizarre venture into the mind of Timothy Treadwell, a man who lived amongst grizzly bears for years before they, well, devoured him. While the tone is all over the place, what Herzog offers is a pretty thought-provoking case study into a man who allowed his own passion to kill him. If you’re into that jazz, and also into dark comedy, definitely check it out.

8. Even Dwarfs Started Small.

Okay, I’ll confess. I didn’t even see this movie in English. I actually watched it in Spanish, which only added to the bizarre, dreamlike quality of the experience. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what was going on. There were dwarfs. They rode motorcycles. They were on an island. There was some kind of political rebellion going on. This isn’t really a movie where I can cite specific details, but more of an experience where I left with this stupefied look on my face. If you’re ever convinced and saddened the world is a normal place, feel free to let this movie offer some levity.

7. Eraserhead.

When people write about weird movies, this almost always comes up. If anyone on the Internet is a fan of David Firth, who brought us classics like Salad Fingers, please feel free to thank surrealist genius David Lynch for the inspiration. Eraserhead tells the story – or well, what very little we can piece together – of a man named Henry who lives in this bizarre, industrial landscape. There’s always an unpleasant humming of machinery. All of the potted plants in his room are dead. Everyone seems to be in a suspended state of silence and anxiety. Worst of all, Henry has recently impregnated his long-term girlfriend Mary. I’ll cut to the chase. They give birth to this weird, deformed turkey creature and the rest of the movie is full of so many deranged images that it makes Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark look like The Busy World Of Richard Scarry.

6. Gummo.

Do you have faith in the human race? Well, have a drink and sit down. You’re going to have a long night with Harmony Korine’s Gummo. This movie polarized a lot of people when it came out. With the lack of any traditional plot-structure, many critics dismissed it as pretentious garbage. I’m one to disagree, and will actually stand up and say this is one of my favorite movies ever made. The film follows a loose narrative of a bunch of citizens of a tornado-stricken town in Ohio. They’ve been abandoned by their government, abandoned by religion and we’re sort of just left to watch as they wander around and take up activities to sustain their nihilistic lives. The whole movie is really just a procession of half-baked scenes and sketches. In one exchange, two skin-head brothers have a slap-fight in their kitchen over a pair of sneakers. In another one, probably the most notorious, a boy is served spaghetti in a bathtub of dirty water as his mother carelessly whaps shampoo at his hair. Gummo is disgusting, unprecedented, lacking in conventional artistic market, and actually kind of beautiful. Check it out. I don’t care if you hate it. It will mean at least one more person on this planet has seen it.

5. Rubber

This movie’s plot comes off like the result of an improv game at a sleep away camp. What would happen if a tire inherited telekinetic powers and went on a killing spree? Well, a cheap, straight-to-Netflix film sounds likely, but Rubber offers us something completely different. In the beginning of the film, a local sheriff, also the narrator, comes out to address the audience. He explains that the film is a homage to “no reason” and that Rubber, as a film, has no reason to exist. We pan out to see he is speaking to a group of spectators, all of whom have come with binoculars to watch the movie unfold. To say more would give too much away, but yes, the tire goes on a killing spree, and yes, it gets metaphysical and self-aware as fuck. While I don’t want to be the pretentious one and over-analyze this movie, Rubber is actually a really fascinating commentary on Hollywood’s relationship with its audience and sacrificing artistic quality to make a quick buck. All right, I’m done. Go watch a tire blow people’s heads up.

4. Mister Lonely.

Oh, Harmony Korine. You just keep popping up in this countdown. The truth is that this guy has made so many weird movies that it would be criminal not to include him at least twice. In Mister Lonely, we’re offered a very intriguing concept. A Michael Jackson impersonator in Paris falls in love with a Marilyn Monroe impersonator. They travel to a commune of celebrity impersonators to live together in a world where nobody ever gets any older, and nothing ever has to change – or so they think. Yeah, I know. You probably know where this is headed, but there’s also scenes where nuns jump out of helicopters to test their faith to God. Although Korine’s made some bizarre movies, this is also one of his sweetest and parts of it are genuinely heart-wrenching.

3. Blue.

There’s nothing to say here really. Some guy made a movie where it’s nothing but a blue screen for over an hour to act as a meditation on his blindness. Here's my favorite part.

2. Tree Of Life.

I’ve heard so many mixed reactions to this film. Sme people hated it. Some people loved it. I was indifferent. I felt the experience was a lot like walking into a planetarium. You goggled at the mystery and wonder of the universe, and then it was over, and there was really nothing remarkable or memorable about it. Well, to offer some detail, Tree Of Life is this very stream-of-conscious meditation of a grown man looking back at his relationship with his parents and his brothers. Interspersed throughout are scenes of purgatory, the creation of the Universe and the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. I didn’t like this movie, but I respected its ambition and it’s really impressive on a visual level. This is the kind of film where everybody reacts differently, so feel free to give it a watch to see where you fall

1. Palindromes.

Todd Solondz sneaks into our countdown again, and Good Lord, there was no question of this not being number-one. Palindromes is a weird, weird movie. Don’t believe me. The main character is played by six different actors and actresses who switch with no forewarning. Plot elements include a happy Catholic foster family that secretly kills abortion providers, a girl riding down a river on a Fischer Price boat and the main character being impregnated by a family friend’s son after just meeting him at a get-together. Palindromes follows the story of a sheltered, naïve young girl named Aviva who runs away from home after having a botched abortion. She’s taken in by the Sunshine Family, an evangelical, right-wing clan where every adopted child has a different disability. A lot of people hated this movie, and one reviewer even said that it achieved the atmosphere of clinical depression. I wouldn’t go as far to say this is an uplifting movie, because Jesus, that would be the equivalent of smashing you in the face with a frying pan and saying it wasn’t going to hurt. Palindromes is a cynical, jaded, bizarre and honestly unfinished movie that has a very select audience. Luckily for Solondz, I’m in his camp, and perhaps somebody reading this might fall in there with us.