It’s almost the weekend, and that means you should book in another Gizmodo movie night. This week it’s about being left dumbfounded. Staring at your screen thinking, why? How? Who did this? What… happened?
This isn’t a comprehensive list of mind-benders – big names like a Clockwork Orange, Jacob’s Ladder, Being John Malkovich, Memento and Trance are missing from our streaming services in Australia. But here are the best mind-bending movies streaming online right now.
We’ve re-jigged our existing Netflix Movie Night series, and brought in Australia’s other popular subscription video on demand services — Presto and Stan — to give you a broader selection of movies and TV shows to enjoy. On all three services, you can watch from your tablet or smartphone, on your PC or laptop, through your Smart TV, or through a media streaming dongle like the Google Chromecast, although specifics can vary.
Presto costs $10 to $15 a month depending which package you choose. Stan is a flat $10 per month, and Netflix can cost from $9 to $15 per month.
Not what you’re after? Check out some other Gizmodo Movie Night suggestions:
The Best Popcorn Munching Blockbusters
Presto
The Machinist
Presto: Trevor, a factory-worker with chronic insomnia is pushed to breaking point after a mysterious industrial accident. The only emotional support he gets is from a prostitute.
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Predestination
Presto: This amazing and intricate story of time travel follows an agent whose career has been dedicated to stopping crime before it happens, and the terrifying criminal he’s hunting.
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Waking Life
Presto: An unnamed drifter goes on a surreal meander into the waking dreams of everyday life with the aid of modern film technology.
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Ex Machina
Presto: In this futuristic thriller, a young coder becomes entangled in a bizarre experiment involving the first true artificial intelligence, which comes in the form of a sexy female robot.
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Eyes Wide Shut
Presto: A doctor enters a secret world of sex play that threatens his life and marriage after his wife admits to fantasies about another man.
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Stan
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Stan: A couple erase the memories of their relationship.
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Cloud Atlas
Stan: Cloud Atlas explores how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.
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Synecdoche, New York
Stan: A theatre director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
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1984
Stan: A George Orwell story set in a world where absolute conformity in action, word and thought including loyalty to Big Brother is demanded. In 1984, the world is divided into three states, whose inhabitants are dominated by all powerful governments.
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The Matrix
Stan: What is The Matrix? No one can concieve it, no one can be told what it is. It has to be seen, to be understood. This is the kind of future you don’t dream about.
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Netflix
12 Monkeys
Netflix: In the year 2035, a convict volunteeers to travel back in time to determine the origin of a deadly virus that wiped out the population decades earlier.
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Fight Club
Netflix: An insomniac corporate drone meets roguish rebel Tyler Durden and together they form a cathartic but brutal underground society.
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Inception
Netflix: These dream miners go deeper in the human mind than anyone ever has. For a trip like this, firepower is required.
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Shutter Island
Netflix: A U.S. marshal’s troubling visions compromise his investigation into the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane.
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Enter the void
Netflix: When a drug dealer in Tokyo is shot in a police raid, his spirit leaves his body in a hallucinatory odyssey that merges his past, present and future.
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Disclosure: Stan is a 50/50 joint venture between Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media. Allure Media, the company which publishes Gizmodo Australia, is also owned by Fairfax.