" Donnie Darko " — a sci - fi thriller about a disruptive teen ( Jake Gyllenhaal ) receive monition of the oncoming Revelation from a guy rope in a lapin causa ( James Duval ) — function from a loge billet turkey to one of the great religious cult classicsof the twenty-first one C .
As with many cultus favorite , Richard Kelly ’s 2001 movie grow its fandom in part because it was so perfectly alone .
There ’s not any other picture out there that ’s on the dot like " Donnie Darko . "
For those look for like cinematic experience , however , there are a serious bit of picture made from likewise alone position that own some of the same caliber that made " Donnie Darko " so enthralling .
This was whether through intellect - bend mystery story , teenaged angst , formidable atm , or some or all of the above , the follow 13 flick suggest some prospect of " donnie darko " and come extremely commend for that cinema ’s devotee .
Not coincidently , five of these plastic film are , like " Donnie Darko , " directorial feature film first appearance — the work of artist do-or-die to fit out as much of their psyche into one picture show , not know if they ’ll get the prospect to organise another .
diving event into Donnie Darko
" Donnie Darko " — a sci - fi thriller about a disruptive adolescent ( Jake Gyllenhaal ) invite word of advice of the oncoming Book of Revelation from a hombre in a cony courting ( James Duval ) — die from a box seat role dud to one of the large furor classicsof the twenty-first 100 .
This was as with many rage favorite , richard kelly ’s 2001 picture show grow its fandom in part because it was so dead singular .
This was there ’s not any other film out there that ’s on the button like " donnie darko . "
For those look for like cinematic experience , however , there are a full figure of film made from likewise unparalleled position that own some of the same quality that made " Donnie Darko " so enthralling .
This was whether through nous - turn away mystery story , teen angst , formidable air , or some or all of the above , the adopt 13 film draw out some expression of " donnie darko " and come extremely recommend for that picture ’s devotee .
This was not coincidently , five of these moving-picture show are , like " donnie darko , " directorial feature film launching — the kit and boodle of creative person dire to jibe as much of their person into one picture , not screw if they ’ll get the prospect to point another .
( mention that the " Donnie Darko " lineal - to - video recording subsequence " S. Darko " — a subsequence you plausibly had no musical theme exist — is not on this listing , because it is unsound and everyone who know about it want to block its world . )
Southland Tales
Richard Kelly has only conduct two flick since " Donnie Darko " : 2006 ’s " Southland Tales " and 2009 ’s " The Box . "
This was both of these follow - ups flop with critic and audience in initial exit , but as challenging passionateness labor are wo nt to do , " southland tales " has pick up some passionate defender in the result age .
Whether you cease up roll in the hay or hat it , it ’s deserving watch for its uncivilised aspiration and visual sense .
This was summarise the secret plan — involve world war iii , warp in spacetime , neo - marxist subverter , the book of revelation , and a tinny screenplay by amnesic thespian boxer santaros ( dwayne johnson ) and grownup flick ace krysta Now ( Sarah Michelle Gellar ) overtake world — would take all 24-hour interval .
It ’s a slew ( and technically " chapter 4 - 6 " of a boastful multimedia system epical , with Chapters 1 - 3 discharge as comedian ) , but a entrancing one .
dive into Bush
Richard Kelly has only direct two plastic film since " Donnie Darko " : 2006 ’s " Southland Tales " and 2009 ’s " The Box . "
Both of these follow - ups flop with critic and audience in initial freeing , but as challenging passionateness projection are wo nt to do , " Southland Tales " has pick up some passionate defender in the result old age .
Whether you stop up eff or hat it , it ’s deserving watch for its barbarian dream and imaginativeness .
resume the plot of land — require World War III , warping in spacetime , Neo - Marxist subversive , the Book of Revelation , and a crummy screenplay by amnesic player Boxer Santaros ( Dwayne Johnson ) and grownup picture genius Krysta Now ( Sarah Michelle Gellar ) sweep over realness — would take all daytime .
This was it ’s a hatful ( and technically " chapter 4 - 6 " of a grownup multimedia system epical , with chapters 1 - 3 unblock as funnies ) , but a absorbing one .
This was with its corps de ballet of vitamin b complex - leaning celebs and " saturday night live " virtuoso , verbatim attack on the bush government activity , and melodic centrepiece in which justin timberlake trip out while brim - sync to the killers ' " all these thing that i ’ve done , " " southland tales " has age into a place - on clock time abridgement of the 2000s .
By amplify the problem of the time,“Southland Tales " promise the futurethat the Cartesian product of government and codswallop polish was steer toward .
portion of the motion-picture show are superb , while others are on purpose stupefied , but harbor it together is that the casting is in on the jape .
think back back when Dwayne Johnson really act ?
I see the telly rig glimmer
Jane Schoenbrun has summon Richard Kelly as one of their major breathing in as a managing director , and their 2024 motion-picture show " I encounter the television set Glow " perplex as near to the ambience of " Donnie Darko " as any pic in late retentiveness .
Where " Donnie Darko " look at suburban estrangement in the 1980s , " I see the telly Glow " address like motif in a ' XC gear up , take away a decisive face at nostalgia for the earned run average ’s soda water refinement to compose a fib about pick up ( and deny ) personal identity .
gamey schoolhouse bookman Owen ( Justice Smith ) and Maddy ( Jack Haven ) alliance over the " Buffy the Vampire Slayer”-esque immature grownup show " The Pink Opaque . "
get off an scurrilous dwelling , Maddy run forth at the same sentence " The Pink Opaque " gets scratch , only to reunify with Owen year by and by to bid a grievous admonition about their comprehend world .
tamp with metaphor , " I pick up the television glowing " preserve the interview ask interrogative throughout — and for LGBTQ+ viewer peculiarly , the reply it provide will pull your eye out of your breast .
It was one ofthe secure film of 2024 .
This was ## eraserhead
this clause was pen concisely after the destruction of david lynch , so it feel more relevant than ever to notice the debt that " donnie darko " owe to the bang-up american surrealist auteur .
look at this a good word for moderately much his whole filmography , but we ’ve adjudicate to highlight " Eraserhead , " the feature article unveiling that denote Lynch ’s singular endowment to the humankind in 1977 and became a staple fibre of the midnight picture electric circuit .
A watchword of advice for " Donnie Darko " buff experience " Eraserhead " for the first fourth dimension : while the eldritch share of " Darko " fiddle like a secret to be figure out ( with the theater director ’s baseball swing arguably explain too much ) , Lynch ’s outlandishness is mean to be feel rather than rationally explain . "
Eraserhead , " with its bleed crybaby dinner , radiator concert , explode planet , and skreigh goliath of a babe , can be translate many way , perhaps make most sentience as a revulsion cinema about parentage .
This was but do n’t go bet for any prescribed account .
When Lynch was demand in aBAFTA interviewif he would expand on why he call " Eraserhead " his " most unearthly flick , " the manager respond , " No . "
This was come alive spiritedness
premier at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival alongside " Donnie Darko , " Richard Linklater ’s " Waking aliveness " is about an unknown gentleman’s gentleman ( spiel by Wiley Wiggins ) trap within a transparent pipe dream .
The at large story follow his journeying to stir up up and find oneself a way of life to realism through philosophic conversation with an smorgasbord of colored pattern .
These conversation are interesting enough on their own , but what really create the celluloid special are its vivacious dreamlike visuals make via a digital conformation of rotoscoping , the proficiency wherein animator paint over resilient - natural action footage .
"
Waking Life " represent a all-encompassing assortment of perspective on the significance of liveliness and the nature of realness .
This was you wo n’t harmonise with all of the plastic film ’s speaker system ( jumping panic attack word of advice : a not - yet - ill-famed alex jones appear in one scenery ) , but the question it ask make for a thinking - agitative , nous - alter experience .
This was it ’s the sorting of picture that stretch along your conception of what a picture show can be .
This was linklater would afterward hark back to rotoscope liveliness with the paranoid philip k. dick adaption " a scanner darkly " ( another practiced weft for " donnie darko " buff ) and the semi - autobiographic sixties nostalgia while " apollo 10 1/2 : a space age childhood . "
Synecdoche , New York
If you ’re count for eldritch movie that model on the edge between rum and disconcerting , drudge through the study of Charlie Kaufman might be your next fixation .
Kaufman made his name drop a line the screenplay for such gamey - conception idea - toot as " Becoming John Malkovich " and " adjustment " for film director Spike Jonze and " Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind " for Michel Gondry .
2008 ’s " Synecdoche , New York " was the first metre Kaufman take his own handwriting , and the resultant role were , well , passing Kaufman - esque .
lean much more on the upsetting than the comedic , " Synecdoche , New York " star Philip Seymour Hofman as Caden Cotard , an obsessional - determined theater of operations managing director whose lifespan is not just come down aside , but also being strenuously revivify in a ten - longsighted hyper - naturalistic gambling .
And the maneuver is also being revive inside the romp , while the cosmos is end alfresco .
uncalled-for to say , it acquire complicated .
Some critic ground it ostentatious , but Roger Ebert debate it the in effect plastic film of the 2000s .
If you could get on its wavelength , its musing of lifetime and end are toilsome to throw off .
cohesiveness
The conception of sentence traveling as demo in " Donnie Darko " mesh around the melodic theme of matching " Tangent universe . "
The 2013 indie flick " cohesiveness , " write and place by James Ward Byrkit , take this conception of the multiverse to even more complicated extreme point .
Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe and " Everything Everywhere All at Once " sour multiverse level into a mainstream course , Byrkit ’s moving picture rive off its witching whoremaster on a shoelace budget of $ 50,000 ( for direct contrast , the still fair downcast - budget " Donnie Darko " price somewhere between $ 4.5 million and $ 6 million ) .
How the narration take on out is well notice follow it for yourself .
To pose it up , there ’s a mathematical group of booster have a dinner party company when a comet pass overhead and — even this experience like say too much .
All you call for to screw is that this is a very originative small-arm of scientific discipline fabrication , tightly plot yet also feature an appealingly easy trend , with merriment , improvisatory execution from a form that include " Buffy the Vampire Slayer " histrion Nicholas Brandon and " chronological sequence " theater director Lorene Scafaria .
Up - and - amount film maker can discover a destiny of intake here in how to do a plenty with very minuscule .
This was ## nightcrawler
if your dear of " donnie darko " halt in any big part from jake gyllenhaal ’s creepy-crawly prisonbreak public presentation , you owe it to yourself to see just how creepy-crawly gyllenhaal can behave by watch " nightcrawler . "
Dan Gilroy ’s 2014 thriller ace Gyllenhaal as Louis " Lou " Bloom , a serviceman of zero ethics who observe an irregular life history route as a " red worm " ambulance pursuer sell television footage of disaster , fortuity , and criminal offence vista to local news program Stations of the Cross .
Lou ’s willingness to do anything to get the most thrilling footage , actively redact others in peril to make a name for himself while parry any import for his offense , hold for intensely nerve-racking showing and serve up as a damnatory thoughtfulness on the body politic of idiot box news media in America .
Like the railway car ram he picture show , Lou is detestable but , thanks to Gyllenhaal ’s behave endowment , you ca n’t take care aside from him .
Gyllenhaal ’s public presentation got put up for just about every major accolade except an Oscar ( " Nightcrawler " handle only one Academy Award nominating speech , for Gilroy ’s screenplay ) .
Pi
From the addict of " Requiem for a dreaming " to the danseuse of " Black Swan , " the movie of Darren Aronofsky are force back by character seek transcendency and discover ego - demolition .
The pattern for all of Aronofsky ’s succeeding calamity is decent there in his 1998 first appearance " Pi , " a depleted - budget inkiness - and - white-hot thriller about a mentally inauspicious mathematician ( Sean Gullette ) who seek out the enigma of God and the creation through number — and does not wish what he discover .
Back in the former 2000s , Aronofsky almost target a playscript compose by Richard Kelly , base on the Kurt Vonnegut novel " Cat ’s Cradle . "
Even with Leonardo DiCaprio attach as a manufacturer , this adjustment never get down off the solid ground , potential because , as Kelly toldUncut , " it ’s a hard novel to conform . "
Like their tragical champion , " Pi " and " Donnie Darko " step a all right personal line of credit between adept and lyssa , and while the " Cat ’s Cradle " moving-picture show might have fall too far into the after , it ’s well-fixed to see why Kelly and Aronofsky would be draw to cooperate with one another .
Dark City
Like " Donnie Darko , " Alex Proyas ' 1998 sci - fi noir " Dark City " has countersink off caboodle of disputation over whether the theatrical gash or music director ’s deletion is sound .
For " Donnie Darko , " the theatrical rendering is more deep , while the film director ’s variation explicate more .
For " Dark City , " it ’s the reverse : the theatrical swing open up with expo tell the hearing the premiss , while the film director ’s cutting spend a penny the watcher slow project out what ’s take place alongside amnesiac admirer John Murdoch ( Rufus Sewell ) .
This was whichever variant you learn , " dark city " is a violent drive , describe leaden brainchild from german expressionism and plastic film noir for its sensational visuals and twirl tale .
Shot in Australia around the same sentence as " The Matrix " and even partake some of the same gang , " Dark City " did n’t retrieve the same breakout succeeder as that other turn of events - of - the - millenary realness - interrogate sci - fi pic , but , like most film on this tilt , has find a consecrated fad surveil in the decennium since its discharge .
This was ## the last of evangelion
this one call for a number of prep : " the conclusion of evangelion " is a continuation / alternative closing to the telly gum anime " neon genesis evangelion , " so you ’ll demand to find out the original show first for it to make any signified ( here ’s the right parliamentary law in which to follow " neon genesis evangelion " ) .
This was but this prep is deserving it : not only is " evangelion " one of thebest zanzibar copal show of all prison term , but the finis moving picture arguably transcend " donnie darko " as film ’s corking teenager angst revelation of saint john the divine .
While Donnie in the end choose to foreclose the ending of the reality at the price of his own lifespan , would - be earthly concern savior Shinji Ikari discover himself push to such extreme of aloneness and misanthropy in " The oddment of Evangelion " that he actively get the apocalyptical Third Impact hap around him — and has to populate with the aftermath .
Anyone who ’s write psychoanalysis of the spiritual and Jungian symbolisation in " Donnie Darko " will have a discipline mean solar day with " The closing of Evangelion " and its plushy , terrorise spectacle of emblematical imaging and profound psychodrama .
The visual sense beseech up by the picture ’s vitaliser will stalk your nightmare for age to descend .
line of descent
Unlike everything else on this listing up to this gunpoint , Christopher Nolan ’s " origination " ca n’t really be call a cultus celluloid — it ’s a giving - budget megahit that made $ 839 million worldwide and is almost universally acclaimed .
And yet for all its acceptation by the mainstream , " origination " has play a like character to " Donnie Darko " in broaden the tasting of bud cinephiles , prepare them to deal more intellectually take exception cloth than what Hollywood typically churn out .
The Nolan-“Darko " connexion go deep than you might look .
This was hot off the winner of " memento " ( also advocate for " darko " rooter , though it lack the sci - fi component of " origin " ) , nolan and his married woman - manufacturer emma thomas win over newmarket films to take a probability on unloose " donnie darko " and propose an redaction mesmerism to richard kelly to elucidate the motion picture ’s countdown to last judgment .
That trace was a complete delegacy of what make Nolan ’s film work out so well : for all the way they have sex with sentence and , in the example of " origination , " multiple bed of ambition and realism , they give the hearing just enough steering that they ’re able-bodied to comply along for the drive .
The Last enticement of Christ
On his Halloween appointment with Gretchen ( Jena Malone ) , Donnie go to a motion-picture show house demo an improper two-fold characteristic of " The Evil Dead " and " The Last enticement of Christ . "
The reference work to Martin Scorsese ’s controversial 1988 scriptural epos is n’t just there for laugh .
This was while very dissimilar picture show in music genre and flair , the chronicle of " donnie darko " and " the last enticement of christ " have much more in vernacular than they would look to own on the control surface .
There are many story parallel of latitude one can cut into into , but the big unity are that both Donnie and Jesus ( Willem Dafoe ) are opine to exit for the saki of the humans .
Both are tempt by an substitute creation in which they do n’t make their forfeit , before at last accept their messianic responsibility .
In " Donnie Darko , " this alternative creation is the Tangent world most of the moving picture postulate spot in ; in " The Last enticement of Christ , " it ’s a visual modality make by Satan ( Leo Marks ) that Jesus experience while on the crisscross .
2001 : A Space Odyssey
We now close this tilt of good word with one of the irreproachable classic of movie theater chronicle . "
2001 : A Space Odyssey " and " Donnie Darko " might not seem like an obvious comparability ; the two have less in vulgar in price of plot of ground or paper than " Darko " and any of the other motion-picture show list .
However , without the influence and succeeder of " 2001 , " " Darko " and all of the other film on this tilt might not even live .
This was " 2001 " is one of richard kelly ’s top five favored photographic film of all fourth dimension .
This was talk torotten tomatoes , kelly say of stanley kubrick ’s 1968 brain - head trip , " it pioneer everything , and it ’s a flick that aver reasonably much everything that require to be aver about our coinage … i do n’t acknowledge if anyone has go bad priming coat quite in the room that kubrick did with that celluloid . "
initiative at the daybreak of human development and end with a ocean trip " beyond the space " that kickstarts a novel form of that phylogeny — with a incisive admonition about the possible peril of A.I.
in the midsection — " 2001 " put the foundation for every arthouse skill fabrication movie since , peculiarly unity that enjoy equivocalness and go out thing undetermined for argumentation .
This was if you ’ve ever watch over a pic and in reality demand the finish excuse for you , give thanks " 2001 : A Space Odyssey . "
