Movies that deal with warped realities?
 

Yeah, so, as you can probably tell by the topic, I'm looking for some help from any avid movie watchers out there.

I'm in a class where we must do a presentation on a segment of a movie, and walk the rest of the class through it, describing why the protagonist is seeing something a certain way (i.e. affected by drugs, believing a dream is reality, conditioned to ignore certain things, progressing through the plot non-linearly), or why an environment is not being shown as it should be.

The obvious examples from recent cinema are The Matrix, Memento, and A Scanner Darkly. Since I don't get out and see much stuff, can anyone think of any other movies that might be good enough to warrant some academic study?

The first movie to pop in my head is Trainspotting (specifically the scene where he "dives" into the toilet and the scene where he falls into the floor).

Just to add, it would be even better if the character has good reason to believe his perceptions, but is really being fooled by something external.

the clearest example that comes to my mind is fight club... would have to think about the others though

DARK CITY (1998)

"John Murdoch awakens alone in a strange hotel to find that he has lost his memory and is wanted for a series of brutal and bizarre murders. While trying to piece together his past, he stumbles upon a fiendish underworld controlled by a group of beings known as The Strangers who possess the ability to put people to sleep and alter the city and its inhabitants. Now Murdoch must find a way to stop them before they take control of his mind and destroy him.

John's life has become a nightmare. He is hunted by the police for a series of murders he knows nothing about, a woman who claims to be his wife is after him, and so is a mysterious "doctor". But his worst trouble is the Strangers, a series of vastly powerful beings who seem to manipulate just about everything in the city, and want him because of the extraordinary powers he manifested. John decides to find out what is happening in his city; why is it always night? And why can nobody tell him a way to leave the city?"

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Adaptation
Being John Malkovich
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Vanilla Sky
Solaris

that's all I have time to think of right now

m2 reminded me of another jim carrey movie: the truman show.

i guess naked lunch would have to qualify.

ahhhhhh! perfect!

The 1962 Robert Wise ORIGINAL (not the sucky 1999 remake) of Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House. The antagonist is clearly the House itself and Eleanor views everything through delusions. This leaves you always guessing if things are really happening to them or if Eleanor is imagining it all.

Great catch warrreagl! Which also reminds me of The Turn of the Screw (the 1960's one with Deborah Kerr) and Carnival of Souls.

*edit* actually I just looked it up and the 1961 version of The Turn of the Screw with Deborah Kerr was titled The Innocents.

I can't recommend highly enough the 1972 film Sleuth with Lawrence Olivier and a very young Michael Caine. The film is about two master game-players manipulating each other. Brilliant.

Jacob's Ladder

This is a great movie....sad, and great.

The Machinist

Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) did something terrible which he has completely forgotten, and now he can't sleep, don't eat much and interacts with people who don't exist. Or rather, they do or did exist, but not in the roles he imagines for them and they are all connected in reality to this terrible thing he did. When the memories of the terrible thing are coming back his imagined reality is beginning to crack.

Thanks for everybody's replies, keep em coming! Finally my Blockbuster card will get some use, lol.

Along with the other excellent selections already mentioned, some others that come to mind that have altered perceptions/realities are:

What Dreams May Come
American Psycho
The Forgotten
The Game (Michael Douglas 1997)
Sixth Sense
A Beautiful Mind
Cube
Donnie Darko
Arlington Road
The Usual Suspects
Total Recall
Thirteenth Floor
The Jacket
The Others
Dreamcatcher
Pan's Labyrinth
The Cell
The Nightmare on Elm Street movies

I can't BELIEVE nobody's mentioned Mulholland Drive yet. More than HALF that movie is distorted fantasy-land reality! At some point we literally go through a black hole into "real" reality. The film is designed to be a Mobius Strip. If you haven't seen that one, SEE IT, it's a perfect example of what you're talking about.

For that matter just about ANY David Lynch film would be a good one.

As the official foreign film snob of my household, let me recommend the following:

Persona

Last Year at Marienbad

Abre los Ojos

Perfect Blue

Swimming Pool

Roshomon

Any of these would work well. The first two take at least a couple of viewings to get what's going on.

A beautiful mind, good film, though its due to mental illness, not the situations you listed.

How about Altered States?

Pi?

Matchstick Men

Pretty much the best movie I can think of for what you're talking about.

This thread needs a gigantic "SPOILERS BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!" thing in the title...............mods, do your thing!