Highest-Rated Movies about 'Avant Garde'

Woman in the Dunes (1964), Memento (2000), A Clockwork Orange (1971), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003), The Elephant Man (1980), The Mirror (1975) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Avant Garde movies.

#1. Woman in the Dunes (1964)

Storyline: Jumpei Niki, a Tokyo based entomologist and educator, is in a poor seaside village collecting specimens of sand insects. As it is late in the day and as he has missed the last bus back to the city, some of the local villagers suggest that he spend the night there, they offering to find him a place to stay. That place is the home of a young woman, whose house is located at the bottom of a sand pit accessible only by ladder. He later learns that the woman's husband and child died in a sandstorm, their undiscovered bodies buried somewhere near the house. The next morning as he tries to leave, he finds that the ladder is gone - he realizing that the ladder he climbed down was a rope ladder which is anchored above the pit - meaning that he is trapped with the young woman as the walls of the pit are sand with no grip. He also realizes that this entrapment was the villagers and the young woman's plan for him to stay there permanently to be her helper in the never-ending task of digging out ...

Plot Keywords: sand dune, existentialism, avant garde, metaphor, surrealism, pregnancy, escape attempt ...

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#2. Memento (2000)

Storyline: Memento chronicles two separate stories of Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers. One story line moves forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time.

Plot Keywords: memory, hidden truth, amnesiac, diabetic, neo noir, nonlinear timeline, insulin ...

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#3. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Storyline: Protagonist Alex DeLarge is an "ultraviolent" youth in futuristic Britain. As with all luck, his eventually runs out and he's arrested and convicted of murder and rape. While in prison, Alex learns of an experimental program in which convicts are programmed to detest violence. If he goes through the program, his sentence will be reduced and he will be back on the streets sooner than expected. But Alex's ordeals are far from over once he hits the mean streets of Britain that he had a hand in creating.

Plot Keywords: gang, rape, gang rape, sexual assault, forced to strip, female full frontal nudity, female removes her clothes ...

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#4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Storyline: "2001" is a story of evolution. Sometime in the distant past, someone or something nudged evolution by placing a monolith on Earth (presumably elsewhere throughout the universe as well). Evolution then enabled humankind to reach the moon's surface, where yet another monolith is found, one that signals the monolith placers that humankind has evolved that far. Now a race begins between computers (HAL) and human (Bowman) to reach the monolith placers. The winner will achieve the next step in evolution, whatever that may be.

Plot Keywords: number in title, computer, year 2001, spacecraft, famous line, chess, science runs amok ...

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#5. Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Storyline: This experimental film looks at the world and more specifically the effect man has had on the landscape and the environment. Without narration, the film shows the world in a pristine condition and untouched: blue skies, beautiful landscapes and endless vistas. The man-made world is much less appealing. Essentially a montage using a variety of film techniques to provide a visually stunning montage of images.—garykmcd

Plot Keywords: time lapse photography, independent film, rocket, desert, pollution, airplane, building ...

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#6. Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003)

Storyline: In India gangsters are called Bhai (brothers). One such Bhai is Munna, who is feared by everyone in Mumbai, a big city in India. He cons his village-based parents into believing that he is a doctor. He gets a shock when he finds out that they are coming to verify for themselves. So he transforms a rooming shanty house into a makeshift hospital, populated by patients, people he beats up. His parents arrive, are pleased, and happy that their son is well settled. They would like him to get married to a doctor's daughter. The marriage is arranged, but before the engagement, the bride's father finds out the truth about Munna, and cancels the marriage. Munna's humiliated parents see the truth for themselves, and hurt, they return home, leaving Munna with a strong desire to hurt the doctor - and force him to let his daughter get married to him - even if it means getting admitted in the medical college - with forged documents!!!

Plot Keywords: character name in title, friendship, juice, kidnapping, lecture, medical student, mistaken identity ...

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#7. The Elephant Man (1980)

Storyline: Joseph "John" Merrick is an intelligent and friendly man, but he is hated by his Victorian-era English society because he is severely deformed. Once he is discovered by a doctor, however, he is saved from his life in a freak show and he is treated like the human being that he really is.

Plot Keywords: psychological torture, hospital, cruelty, isolation, sideshow, dignity, exploitation ...

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#8. The Mirror (1975)

Storyline: Tarkovsky mixes flash-backs, historical footage and original poetry to illustrate the reminiscences of a dying man about his childhood during World War II, adolescence, and a painful divorce in his family. The story interweaves reflections about Russian history and society.

Plot Keywords: childhood, mirror, surrealism, memory, bare butt, moscow russia, mud ...

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#9. Persona (1966)

Storyline: A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer. Alma eventually confesses her secrets to a seemingly sympathetic Elisabeth and finds that her own personality is being submerged into Elisabeth's persona.

Plot Keywords: silence, patient, mute character, psychiatry, meta film, lesbian, nihilism ...

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#10. The Big Lebowski (1998)

Storyline: When "the dude" Lebowski is mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, two thugs urinate on his rug to coerce him into paying a debt he knows nothing about. While attempting to gain recompense for the ruined rug from his wealthy counterpart, he accepts a one-time job with high pay-off. He enlists the help of his bowling buddy, Walter, a gun-toting Jewish-convert with anger issues. Deception leads to more trouble, and it soon seems that everyone from porn empire tycoons to nihilists want something from The Dude.

Plot Keywords: rug, nihilism, bowling alley, bowling, pornographer, mistaken identity, drug ...

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#11. Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920)

Storyline: Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. It is the annual fair in Holstenwall. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep. When Alan asks Cesare about his future, Cesare answers that he will die before dawn. The next morning Alan is found dead. Francis suspects Cesare of being the murderer, and starts spying on him and Dr. Caligari. The following night Cesare is going to stab Jane in her bed, but softens when he sees the beautiful woman, and instead of committing another murder, he abducts her. Jane's father awakens because of the noise, and he and some servants follow the fleeing Cesare. When Cesare cannot outrun his pursuers anymore, he gently places Jane down on the ground, and runs away. Francis and the police investigate the caravan of Dr. Caligari, but the ...

Plot Keywords: expressionism, hypnosis, avant garde, death, flashback within a flashback, flashback, enigma ...

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#12. The Exterminating Angel (1962)

Storyline: After a lavish dinner party, the guests find themselves mysteriously unable to leave the room... and over the next few days all the elaborate pretenses and facades that they've built up by virtue of their position in society collapse completely as they become reduced to living like animals...

Plot Keywords: black comedy, class differences, social satire, surrealism, symbolism, dinner party, dark comedy ...

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#13. Pink Floyd - The Wall (1982)

Storyline: Rock star Pink Floyd is a tortured soul. Because of his childhood, he has always tried to make meaningful emotional connections to other living creatures. That childhood includes not having a male role model with his father having been killed in the war, his overprotective mother smothering him, and an oppressive school system quashing his natural creativity. Being a rock star, he is often wanted more because of what he is than who he is. The most recent failure in that true connection to someone or something else is his marriage, when on tour, he discovers that his wife back home is cheating on him. His response is to go in the opposite direction, by building a figurative wall around him to isolate himself from the rest of the world, but not before showing graphically his feelings on different gut levels. The question becomes if he or anyone else can do anything to tear down the wall in a meaningful way.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: drugs, loss of father, angst, anti conformity, car, cat, conformity ...

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#14. Persepolis (2007)

Storyline: In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own. With Marji dangerously refusing to remain silent at this injustice, her parents send her abroad to Vienna to study for a better life. However, this change proves an equally difficult trial with the young woman finding herself in a different culture loaded with abrasive characters and profound disappointments that deeply trouble her. Even when she returns home, Marji finds that both she and homeland have changed too much and the young woman and her loving family must decide where she truly belongs.

Plot Keywords: iran, 1970s, based on comic book, repression, grandmother granddaughter relationship, 1990s, 1980s ...

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#15. The Straight Story (1999)

Storyline: "The Straight Story" chronicles a trip made by 73-year-old Alvin Straight from Laurens, Iowa, to Mt. Zion, Wis., in 1994 while riding a lawn mower. The man undertook his strange journey to mend his relationship with his ill, estranged, 75-year-old brother Lyle.

Plot Keywords: lawn mower, elderly protagonist, road trip, lead actor's last film, on the road, brother brother relationship, cross country ...

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