Film

Rubber

Name: Rubber
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
Released: 2010
Cast: Thomas F. Duffy, David Bowe, Stephen Spinella, Roxane Mesquida, Jack Plotnick

A sentient tire with psychokinetic powers rolls through the California desert murdering people while obsessed with a beautiful woman. Rubber is absurdist cinema that commits entirely to its ridiculous premise, playing it straight with craft and deadpan conviction. It's for viewers who appreciate the subversive and weird, who laugh at audacity itself.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy deadpan absurdism that plays a ridiculous premise with total seriousness, and you find the audience watching the spectacle as funny as the spectacle itself.

Skip it if you need the story to move forward, since this is thin on plot and leans on one gag that can feel repetitive well before its end.

What it asks of you: It asks for a loose, shrugging patience: under ninety minutes, mostly deadpan, and happy to let its own absurdity sit unexplained while you decide how seriously to take it.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Lobster2015

A surreal dark comedy where single people are transformed into animals if they don't find romance within 45 days. Like Rubber, it builds an utterly bonkers world with absolute seriousness and deadpan performances that make the premise somehow more hilarious.

But The pacing is glacial and deliberately alienating. If you need your absurdism wrapped in conventional storytelling, this will feel like punishment.

Greener Grass2019

Two suburban mothers navigate a reality where basic social rules are inverted and nonsensical. Shares Rubber's commitment to weird logic and the comedy that comes from treating impossible situations with complete earnestness and visual precision.

But It's exhaustingly surreal with minimal plot. The joke—that these women accept everything without question—only lands if you're genuinely amused by that specific brand of emptiness.

Santa Sangre1989

Jodorowsky's nightmare about a boy raised in a circus by his armless mother is grotesque, poetic, and completely unhinged. Shares Rubber's refusal to explain itself and its commitment to visual strangeness over narrative sense.

But It's genuinely disturbing and occasionally graphic. The surrealism isn't playful—it's dark and psychologically uncomfortable in ways Rubber isn't.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Rubber

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Reality restructured around an impossible obsession, treated with architectural rigor rather than comedy.

Charlie Kaufman's labyrinthine film about a theater director creating a life-sized replica of New York inside a warehouse. Both films build reality-bending worlds from absurd central concepts and sustain them with complete visual and thematic commitment. Both are about obsession and the blur between performance and reality.

But It's dense, deliberately frustrating, and two hours of escalating philosophical misery. Rubber is playful; this is a migraine on purpose.

The Happiness of the Katakuris2002

A family that runs a small inn keeps having guests die mysteriously. Directed by Takashi Miike, it lurches between tones—comedy, horror, musical numbers, stop-motion—with the same anarchic energy as Rubber, finding joy in tonal whiplash.

But The tone shifts are so extreme it can feel scattered rather than inspired. If you need coherence, the constant genre-hopping will exhaust you.

Attack of the Killer Donuts2016

Exactly what the title promises: weaponized pastries terrorizing a town. It has Rubber's B-movie premise played with enough commitment and technical skill that you can't quite tell if it's mocking itself or just being itself.

But The execution doesn't always match the ambition. Long stretches play as merely inept rather than intentionally absurd, which kills the vibe.

The Man with Two Brains1983

Steve Martin as a brain surgeon who falls in love with a disembodied brain in a jar. It's surreal comedy that respects its premise while acknowledging how ridiculous it is—the same balance Rubber strikes between horror and absurdity.

But The humor is very '80s and relies on cartoon logic and slapstick. If you find that era of comedy dated, you'll find the jokes thin.

Kung Fu Hustle2004

Stephen Chow's action-comedy where a run-down apartment building full of retired martial arts masters becomes the site of spectacular violence. Shares Rubber's gleeful commitment to a bonkers premise and visual creativity in service of something that shouldn't work.

But The tonal shifts between comedy and action can feel jarring. Some viewers find the humor precious or the wire-work dated.

Everything Everywhere All at Once2022

A multiverse-hopping action comedy that treats absurdity with complete sincerity and technical brilliance. Echoes Rubber's philosophy: commit to the weird idea and execute it with craft, not irony.

But At two hours twenty, it's exhausting by design. The constant escalation can numb rather than delight if you're not onboard from the start.

Everything Everywhere All at Once poster

Tusk2014

Kevin Smith's body horror comedy about a man surgically transformed into a walrus by an eccentric millionaire. Like Rubber, it's committed to an unbearable premise with sincere performances and technical competence, which makes it strangely compelling.

But The premise is deeply unpleasant and the film doesn't quite justify why it exists. You're essentially watching something deeply uncomfortable for little payoff.

Possession1981

Uncompromising formal strangeness and commitment to an impossible visual concept as a vehicle for deeper obsession.

Andrzej Żuławski's avant-garde horror about a marriage collapse in Berlin that spirals into cosmic body horror and a tentacled alien creature. Like Rubber, it's formally radical and refuses to apologize for its strangeness, but it wields it as genuine emotional and philosophical devastation rather than comedy.

But It's genuinely disturbing and utterly humorless. The performances are operatic to the point of being difficult to watch. This is not entertainment in any conventional sense.

The Truman Show1998

Hidden audiences watching reality bend, and the comedy that erupts when observers realize they're complicit in something impossible.

Jim Carrey discovers his entire reality is a television show watched by an audience. Both films are about reality as constructed performance, observed by witnesses who can't quite believe what they're seeing, and both find dark comedy in the gap between what is and what appears to be.

But It's much more conventional and sentimental than Rubber. If you want cosmic strangeness, you'll find this a bit too earnest and resolved.