Highest-Rated Movies about 'Absurd Reality'

The Executioner (1963), After Hours (1985), The Bothersome Man (2006), Mug (2018), Lucky (2017), Of Snails and Men (2012), Den brysomme mannen - Bothersome Man (2006), Our Man in Havana (1960) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Absurd Reality movies.

#1. The Executioner (1963)

Storyline: An old executioner in early-1960s Spain, who is a very gentle, nice, caring man proud of traditions, is approaching retirement age. As his profession isn't the most popular, he worries about who might take his place. He worries about his daughter too; she seems doomed to spinsterhood because as soon as any prospective groom learns what her father's trade is, he flees in terror. Enter the local undertaker, a handsome young man with exactly the same problem: no girl wants him given his profession. So, you have the woman whom almost nobody would marry and the man whom almost nobody would marry. Obviously, they are meant for each other. But here the old executioner has something to say: He does not object to his daughter marrying the young undertaker; he seems a decent man--but he will only agree to the marriage if the prospective groom agrees to take the executioner's job when he retires. Father tells the worried fellow: "Don't worry, they sentence people, but they pardon them at the last moment!"—Jose Beltran <pepe@prince.pe.u-tokyo.ac.jp>

Plot Keywords: black comedy, satire, spanish cinema, social criticism, bureaucracy, moral dilemma, absurdism ...

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#2. After Hours (1985)

Storyline: A meek word processor in New York impulsively travels downtown to Soho for date with an attractive, but apparently disturbed young woman, and finds himself trapped in a nightmarishly surreal vortex of improbable coincidences and farcical circumstances.

Plot Keywords: black comedy, absurd, social satire, twist of fate, surreal, loneliness, paranoia ...

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#3. The Bothersome Man (2006)

Storyline: One morning, Andreas (Trond Fausa Aurvåg) wakes up in a strange apartment in a strange city and has no idea how he got there. His boss (Johannes Joner) gives him instructions for a job he doesn't remember having. He marries Anne Britt (Petronella Barker), an interior designer, and, almost without even realizing it, settles into a comfortable but predictable routine. Slowly, Andreas realizes that the city's clean, calm and complacent citizens are the front for something very sinister.

Plot Keywords: absurd, black comedy, dystopian, existential, social satire, surreal, modern parable ...

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#5. Lucky (2017)

Storyline: Lucky is an old US Navy veteran of rigid habits and attitudes in a small town. When his routine is interrupted by a sudden collapse at home, Lucky finds himself realizing that his remarkably healthy old age is going to face an inevitable decline and he has to accept it. In that difficult reassessment, Lucky must face up to what he believes in and how much it compares to his neighbors' priorities. In doing so, Lucky finds that his life has its positive side as he searches for some meaning that he can accept.

Plot Keywords: drama, comedy, black comedy, independent film, aging, death, existentialism ...

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#6. Of Snails and Men (2012)

Storyline: In a small town, the state-owned car factory, which employs almost all the local men, is about to be privatized. What the workers do not know is that their manager plans to make money from the deal and approaches two French businessmen, father and son, who are interested in buying the factory but intend to convert it into a snail cannery. There is not much space in their plan for the thousands of workers, but the only one who struggles to save the factory is the union leader. His crazy solution scares his fellow workers somewhat, as it involves them selling their sperm to an American sperm bank.

Plot Keywords: comedy, social satire, working class, unemployment, black comedy, independent film, human nature ...

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#7. Den brysomme mannen - Bothersome Man (2006)

Storyline: Forty-year-old Andreas arrives in a strange city with no memory of how he got there. He is presented with a job, an apartment - even a wife. But before long, Andreas notices that something is wrong. Andreas makes an attempt to escape the city, but he discovers there's no way out. Andreas meets Hugo, who has found a crack in a wall in his cellar. Beautiful music streams out from the crack. Maybe it leads to "the other side"? A new plan for escape is hatched.

Plot Keywords: black comedy, absurdist, existential, satire, surreal, social critique, loneliness ...

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#8. Our Man in Havana (1960)

Storyline: Jim Wormold is an expatriate Englishman living in pre-revolutionary Havana with his teenage daughter Milly. He owns a vacuum cleaner shop but isn't very successful so he accepts an offer from Hawthorne of the British Secret Service to recruit a network of agents in Cuba. Wormold hasn't got a clue where to start but when his friend Dr. Hasselbacher suggests that the best secrets are known to no one, he decides to manufacture a list of agents and provides fictional tales for the benefit of his masters in London. He is soon seen as the best agent in the Western Hemisphere but it all begins to unravel when the local police decode his cables and start rounding up his "network" and he learns that he is the target of a group out to kill him.—garykmcd

Plot Keywords: spy, cold war, comedy, black comedy, novel adaptation, british film, antihero ...

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#9. The Man of the Year (2003)

Storyline: In Rio, Máiquel is without prospects. He's philosophical and low-key. When he loses a bet and must dye his hair blond, life changes: he finds new confidence, he asks Cledir, the hairdresser, on a date, and when he's teased by a local tough kid, he murders him. Instead of an arrest, Máiquel's a local hero; the cops look the other way. He and Cledir become lovers, his victim's girlfriend Érica, who's 15, insists that he protect her and moves into his small flat, and job offers come his way from a group of rich men who want to settle scores and get rid of local riff-raff. Where can this business go, and what about the triangle of Cledir, Érica and Máiquel? He just wants to be normal?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: political satire, black comedy, social critique, corruption, social injustice, political corruption, film noir ...

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#10. I Always Wanted to Be a Gangster (2007)

Storyline: This is just another roadside cafeteria. Gino, who enters it discreetly, is an armed robber ... without an arm! He tries to hold up the place but fails pitifully: the pretty waitress won't allow! Two amateur kidnappers take a rich teenage girl hostage and want to exchange her for ransom. But their victim is not easy to deal with. Two singers meet in the cafeteria by chance and talk about a stolen song and a stolen woman. Five seventy-year-old retired robbers also meet at the cafeteria - where their hideout used to be - and work out a last caper. In the end, after having tried to steal from each other, go away together.—Guy Bellinger

Plot Keywords: crime, comedy, black comedy, french film, indie film, short film, drama ...

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#11. Little Murders (1971)

Storyline: An idealistic girl, Patsy Newquist, saves a young apathetic photographer, Alfred Chamberlain, from a gang of hooligans. She falls for him, but he turns out to be a nihilist. They go out anyway. All this happens against the background of random shootings in NYC (at the time the play the movie is based on was written, the city was going broke). Her family accept him, but when she tries to change him and get him to find meaning in life, things go horribly wrong in a cruel twist of fate.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>

Plot Keywords: black comedy, satire, absurdist, social critique, urban life, violence, psychological stress ...

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#13. The Chumscrubber (2005)

Storyline: The Chumscrubber starts out with Troy, a normal teenager who supplies "feel good" pills to everyone in his high school (this way he spreads happiness all around). But when his friend Dean pays him a visit, Dean discovers Troy has hanged himself in his bedroom during one of his mother's pool parties. After the death, three local teens: Billy, Lee, and Crystal, want what's left of Troy's stash of pills and they know that Dean is the only one who knows where they are. But when Dean refuses to get the pills, the three teens kidnap Dean's little brother, until they realize they've kidnapped the wrong kid.

Plot Keywords: black comedy, suburban life, teen issues, psychological trauma, drug abuse, social satire, family breakdown ...

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#14. Quick Change (1990)

Storyline: When a man dressed as a clown enters a bank and tries to rob it, no one takes him seriously at start. But as this New Yorker pulls this daring robbery with the help of his friends, it looks like leaving the bank with all the stolen money is the easy part! All they have to do now is make it out of the city and to the airport. They have plenty of time, but its not that easy as they seem to get out of one problem only to fall into another. Will they make before the cops catch up with them?

Plot Keywords: comedy, crime, heist, new york, bank robbery, escape, dark humor ...

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#15. The Art of Self-Defense (2019)

Storyline: After he's attacked on the street at night by a roving motorcycle gang, timid bookkeeper Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) joins a neighborhood karate studio to learn how to protect himself. Under the watchful eye of a charismatic instructor, Sensei (Alessandro Nivola), and hardcore brown belt Anna (Imogen Poots), Casey gains a newfound sense of confidence for the first time in his life. But when he attends Sensei's mysterious night classes, he discovers a sinister world of fraternity, brutality and hyper-masculinity, presenting a journey that places him squarely in the sights of his enigmatic new mentor.—Bleecker Street

Plot Keywords: dark comedy, violence, martial arts, satire, psychological thriller, absurdism, social critique ...

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