Film
The Telephone
A fractured comedy about an out-of-work actress spiraling in her apartment, using her telephone as her only lifeline to the world. Whoopi Goldberg anchors this strange, deliberately chaotic film—part absurdist character study, part fever dream. It's lo-fi, weird, and utterly uninterested in making conventional sense. For viewers who like their comedy disorienting and their protagonists genuinely unmoored.
If you liked this
Desperately Seeking Susan1985
Madonna and Rosanna Arquette navigate New York chaos in a film that prioritizes style, mood, and screwball energy over narrative logic. Eccentric, confident, and totally committed to its own weirdness.
But The plot is deliberately fractured and sometimes feels like it's working against you rather than with you. It demands patience.

Valley Girl1983
A surprisingly sharp comedy about miscommunication and identity, anchored by Nicolas Cage's willingness to be ridiculous and Deborah Foreman's effortless charm. Genuinely funny and oddly touching.
But Eighties slang and valley-speak haven't aged into period charm for everyone. It can feel grating fast.

Liquid Sky1982
A micro-budget sci-fi comedy-drama about a woman living on her own in NYC while aliens feed on the endorphins from her parties. Deliberately artificial, hypnotic, completely its own thing.
But It's extremely stylised, sometimes boring, and utterly indifferent to whether you're having fun. The synthesizer score is relentless.

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The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure1985
Both films centre on an eccentric protagonist essentially alone in the world, using manic energy and non-sequiturs as a defence mechanism. Both were considered commercially toxic by studios. Both belong to no genre but themselves.
Paul Reubens as a man-child searching for his stolen bicycle across America. Tim Burton's debut: surreal, kinetic, genuinely bizarre. A comedy that moves like a dream and takes nothing seriously.
But Pee-wee's act is an acquired taste; if the voice and persona don't land, there's no film underneath to catch you.

More like this (7)
After Hours1985
Scorsese's strangest film: a man trapped in downtown Manhattan for one endless, escalating night. Chaotic, propulsive, darkly hilarious, and genuinely unsettling. Pure controlled panic.
But It's relentlessly stressful and doesn't really resolve anything. Some viewers find it exhausting rather than exhilarating.

Eating Raoul1982
A working-class couple murders swingers and uses the money to buy their dream home. Black-comic masterpiece: perverse, clever, and genuinely affectionate to its awful protagonists.
But The premise is deliberately offensive and the humour never softens it. Not for anyone squeamish about blood or sexuality.

Come and See1985
A raw, unflinching portrait of a teenage partisan's radicalization during WWII. Brutal, hallucinatory, and utterly committed to making you feel the weight of what war does to a child.
But It's devastatingly bleak and features genuine atrocity. This is not entertainment. It's an endurance test with artistic purpose.

Videodrome1983
Cronenberg's media-horror masterpiece: James Woods as a TV executive sucked into a nightmare conspiracy. Genuinely disorienting, visually grotesque, and intellectually vertiginous.
But The body horror is extreme and the narrative intentionally confusing. If you need clarity and comfort, this film has neither.

Something Wild1986
A buttoned-up tax auditor is swept into chaos by a free-spirited woman. Tonal whiplash, genuine romance, and a third-act turn that recalibrates everything you thought the film was.
But The genre shifts are deliberate but jarring. The final third alienates people who loved the first half.

Possession1981
Both films present isolation and apartment-bound despair through a fractured, deliberately disorienting style. Both reject conventional narrative structure in favour of emotional and sensory experience. Both expect the viewer to sit with discomfort.
Isabelle Adjani in a horror-marital-drama hybrid set in divided Berlin. Surreal, grotesque, viscerally performed. Andrzej Żuławski created something that functions as both serious art-film and complete psychological breakdown.
But The body horror is extreme and very graphic. The narrative is deliberately incoherent. Many viewers experience it as unpleasant rather than illuminating.

Shadows1960
Both are genuinely underground films about fractured people using a city as character, shot on micro-budgets by directors indifferent to commercial appeal. Both prioritise authentic chaos over plot coherence. Both are love letters to failure.
Cassavetes' proto-indie about three Black siblings navigating race, identity, and love in New York. Jazz score, improvised dialogue, documentary-real but dreamlike. Feels lived-in rather than performed.
But It's grainy, structurally loose, and the characters make choices that frustrate more than satisfy. Very much a film that asks you to meet it halfway.

People
Cast
Whoopi GoldbergVashti Blue
John HeardTelephone Man
Elliott GouldRodney
Hervé VillechaizeVoice on Freeway


Directing
- Rip TornDirector
Writing
- Harry NilssonWriter
- Terry SouthernWriter
Production
- Moctesuma EsparzaProducer
- Robert KatzProducer