His artistic avocations were many -- poet, novelist, painter, playwright, set designer, actor -- but Jean Cocteau's work as a filmmaker distilled his creative vision with a special lucidity. In film he could bring his Surrealist language and imagery together, making the dreamlike palpable and present

Existentialist literature, Horror, Surreal, Surrealist film, Surrealist literature, Surrealist photography, Trippy

David Cronenberg has perfected the art of making us simultaneously cringe with disgust and stare with furtive fascination. With an early career marked by restless explorations in low-budget horror, he is no stranger to shocking cinema -- in fact, his biggest claim-to-fame may be the notorious explodi

Avant-garde film, Erotic, Fantastic, Grotesque, Perverse, Surrealist film, Visceral

A razor blade slicing across a woman's eye -- this spine-chilling image is indelibly burned into the brain of anyone who has ever seen "Un Chien Andalou" (1929) by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. This short film -- which also features a man poking at a severed hand and ants emerging from a hole in a m

Dreamy, Fantastic, Psychological, Surreal, Surrealist film

Jean Epstein had a theory. The star of his theory was the machine -- an anti-hero, a character the audience loved to hate. Epstein recognized the machine as an extension of humans, who manipulate objects, but magnificently immortal. A filmmaker, Epstein cast the camera, his own personal extension, in

Clever, Hallucinatory, Intense, Machinistic, Manic, Surrealist film