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Distortion (both in sound and vision), narrative and editing experimentation, and occasionally drug-induced hallucinations are characteristics of psychedelic cinema. The spectator is shown a strange and/or dreamlike version of reality in psychedelic films, similar to how psychoactive drugs cause heightened sensory impressions and distortion.

The following movies construct distorted worlds through the use of sound design, music, editing, narrative, and cinematography. These movies somehow play with the audience’s senses to disengage the viewer from reality, whether they are showing drug-induced insanity or constructing an atomsphere of existential perplexity. These movies invite (or sometimes compel) viewers to engage with a wealth of hallucinogenic sounds, images, and/or narration.

1. The director of Un Chien Andalou (1929). Luis Buñuel

The twisted storyline and dreamlike graphics in Buñuel’s renowned surrealist short film give it a psychedelic aura that impacted many later films, even though it predates psychedelia. His movie is a prime illustration of surrealism, an artistic movement that makes use of symbolism and the unconscious mind’s irrationality.

Buñuel’s debut film, Un Chien Andalou, was co-written with renowned surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. As if to encourage the audience to symbolically discard preconceived ideas and perceive with fresh eyes, the movie begins with a barber cutting open a woman’s eye.

The film is made even more frightening by the fact that the next twenty minutes are set to snippets of Wagner’s “Liebestod,” a tragic opera from Tristan und Isolde that never completely climaxes. By alternating between time periods and using subtitles that read “Eight years later” or “Sixteen years ago,” Buñuel bewilders his audience.

Instead of a clear storyline, there is a collection of surrealistic pictures. We are shown dreamlike scenarios, such as the young man dragging a piano topped with a dead donkey carcass and two priests in his pursuit of a young woman (Simone Mareuil), and distorted religious symbology, such as ants crawling out from the protagonist’s stigmatic hand (played by Pierre Batcheff).

These surrealistic pictures produce a warped perception of reality, which is a feature of many psychedelic movies.

2. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, directors of The Red Shoes (1948)

The Red Shoes, a classic film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, tells the story of a young woman, dancer Victoria Page (Moira Shearer), who is divided between her love of dance and her love for a young man. It does this by utilizing Expressionistic sets and costumes, subjective point of view shots, and passionate performances.

The film’s final dance sequence enthralls the audience with its captivating, painted landscapes and point-of-view images that subtly highlight Victoria’s subconscious worries and concerns.

A young, gifted ballet dancer, Victoria “Vicky” Page is keen to join a company. She meets the ferocious director of a famous dance company, Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook). Vicky is cast in Lermontov’s ballet, The Red Shoes, which is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about a young woman who is possessed by her red shoes and dances to death, after he discovers her skill in a modest performance of Swan Lake.

To Lermontov’s dismay, Vicky then meets Julian Craster (Marius Goring), the ballet’s young composer, and the two fall in love. Vicky quickly finds herself torn between the two men and must decide between her love for her life and her artistic desire.

The film’s protagonists’ passions are illuminated by Powell and Pressburger’s magnificent Technicolor. The remarkable dance number, which highlights Vicky’s ferocious and anguished emotions, is set against the hallucinogenic backdrop of the Oscar-winning sets. This scene’s subtly placed point-of-view shots heighten the psychological drama and immerse the audience in Vicky’s thoughts.

The Red Shoes is a classic that continues to influence contemporary filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Brian de Palma because it incorporates hallucinogenic aspects into a mainstream picture, serving as a predecessor to psychedelic filmmaking.

3. Věra Chytilová, director of Daisies (1966)

The groundbreaking experimental film Daisies was made by the first female director in Czechoslovakia during the Czech New Wave movement. The film is driven by two naughty young ladies who make fun of themselves (and cause trouble in the process) without really having a plot.

As her two heroines, Marie (Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová), play carefree throughout the film, Věra Chytilová subverts social norms. Among other rebellious actions, the two Maries ruin a lavish meal, cause drunken mayhem at a nightclub, and lounge around in bikinis and lingerie.

In order to create a highly self-aware work of art, the film continuously experiments with the medium of film itself, experimenting with various film stocks and impromptu collages. The film, which was banned when it was first released, shows destructive playfulness that Czech authorities reportedly deemed harmful. With clips from World War II intercut with the characters’ shenanigans, the movie has a political undertone. With its trippy imagery and editing, as well as its Puckish heroes, Daisies captivates its audience.

4. John Boorman, director, Point Blank (1967)

Point Blank, the neo-noir thriller directed by John Boorman, is a captivating portrayal of a man’s need for vengeance. Lee Marvin’s deadpan portrayal of Walker, along with the pacing, color schemes, and moody soundtrack, create an enthralling experience for the audience.

Walker returns to San Francisco to get retribution and claim his share of a crime he assisted in after being shot and left for dead on Alcatraz Island. Walker embarks on his quest for vengeance with the aid of the enigmatic Yost (Keenan Wynn).

Along the way, he discovers that Reese (John Vernon), the man who defrauded him, not only took his money and abandoned him on Alcatraz, but also his wife Lynn (Sharon Acker), who is now a hopeless, depressed mess who feels guilty for betraying Walker. Walker discovers Lynn’s sister Chris (Angie Dickinson) when Lynn overdoses on sleep, and she helps him grow closer to Reese.

The film’s rhythm, which alternates between slow, melancholic scenes and bursts of violent action, induces a lulling sleep from which the audience is subsequently awakened. The film’s evocative tone is influenced by color; for instance, Lynn’s silver-grey flat mirrors her lifeless, guilt-ridden persona.

Walker has the appearance of a mystery chameleon because his suits change color according on his location. The film is left unclear as to whether the events that take place are a dream, reality, or if Walker is indeed a ghost because the movie concludes where it started—on Alcatraz Island.

5. The 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey

The science fiction classic by Stanley Kubrick is a magnificent work of art. A unique cinematic experience is created by the film’s breathtaking sights, the majesty of the classical music scores, and György Ligeti’s eerie, discordant avant-garde music. As it forces us to face the vast unknown of space and time, Kubrick’s examination of the past and future of humanity captivates the senses of the audience.

We see the earliest protohumans ever using tools in history as the movie begins with the start of man. The prehuman tool is transformed into a spacecraft by a graphic match cut, taking us to the future, when people have advanced and grown proficient with their tools. Investigating a weird object that was just discovered on a lunar crater is the goal of the spacecraft.

In this crater, a massive black monolith that the protohumans also found on Earth earlier in the movie looms. In the movie, this black monolith will be rediscoverable. We then board the spacecraft Discovery One, which is bound for Jupiter. The ship’s talking computer, HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain), is guiding Dr. David Bowman (Keir Dullea), Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood), and three other astronauts on a covert mission while they are in a cyrogenic slumber.

Because the computer’s intelligence surpasses that of the astronauts, man now loses control over his tools. When faced with HAL, Bowman takes command of the ship and proceeds on the mission by himself, navigating the uncharted territory.

Ligeti’s discordant chorus with the film’s Beyond the Infinite segment, which features streaks of light in space, create a powerfully hallucinogenic experience. The mysterious conclusion of 2001 leaves the audience stunned and unable to speak. Man’s existential trek into unexplored terrain is beautifully captured by Kubrick.

6. Dennis Hopper, director, Easy Rider (1969)

Easy Rider, one of the first counterculture movies in America, depicts the hippie movement’s way of life and its interactions with society. In this popular film, director Dennis Hopper and producer Peter Fonda play two hippie motorcycle riders who are making their way into the deep South through the American Southwest. The film’s portrayal of the counterculture and its realistic drug scenes—in which the performers actually ingested the substances their characters are seen using—make it historic.

In order to finance their road journey to New Orleans for the impending Mardi Gras celebration, Wyatt (played by Peter Fonda) and Billy (played by Dennis Hopper) sell cocaine to a dealer. The two meet a hitchhiker along the way, who takes them to a commune where young hippies live together and practice free love.

The two continue traveling until they are detained for “parading without a permit” in a nearby town. Wyatt and Billy encounter George Hanson (Jack Nicholson), a jailed drunken attorney, there. The three of them resume their pilgrimage to Mardi Gras after George helps them escape from jail. The trio encounters the naive, “square” communities of the South, who perceive them as a danger.

The sociopolitical atmosphere of the era is brilliantly captured in the movie. We witness firsthand how the counterculture was motivated by a desire for freedom and how the hippies were frightened by the mainstream. The film has a strong and confusing element because of the drug-related scenes, particularly the cemetery scene where Wyatt and Billy drop acid with two prostitutes, Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil).

Jump cuts, dislocated, frightened, and regretful language, and a variety of warped images, including close-ups of the sun and the use of a fish-eye lens, are all features of the unscripted LSD scene. The documentary-style realism combined with the hallucinogenic moments gives the movie a strong sense of the era.

7. Michelangelo Antonioni, director of Zabriskie Point (1970)

Antonioni’s American film offers its viewers a variety of perspectives on life during the height of the counterculture, with elements of fantasy psychedelic desert travel and documentary-like realism. Despite its lackluster critical reception, Antonioni’s cult classic—which features stunning desert vistas, hypnotic fantasy scenes, and a custom soundtrack featuring Pink Floyd and The Grateful Dead—remains a landmark of psychedelic cinema.

The story revolves around the meeting of two young adults in Death Valley, Mark (Mark Frechette) and Daria (Daria Halprin). Mark attends a student protest gathering at the beginning of the movie, which centers on the subject of what constitutes a revolutionary. During a protest, we follow Mark as he witnesses his friends being tear-gassed, assaulted, and one student shot by the police.

Mark flees the scene after a police officer is shot, and they suspect him. He flies to the desert after stealing a tiny plane from a nearby airport. On her way to Pheonix to meet Lee (Rod Taylor), her corporate boss and possibly her lover, Daria is traveling through a ghost town. Mark flies down to meet Daria after spotting her automobile in the sky. Before confronting the gloomy realities of society, the two dance in the desert together.

Antonioni’s film, which examines revolution and America’s counterculture, portrays the carelessness of youth. This picture shifts from realism into earthy psychedelics thanks to its dreamlike moments, which include a seductive desert love scene that explodes into an orgy of sand-covered people.

8. Ken Russell, director of The Devils (1971).

Based on the alleged demonic possessions that occurred in Loudon, France in the 17th century, Ken Russell’s contentious 1971 film includes sexually graphic hallucinogenic scenes.

A haughty priest named Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed), who has recently taken political control of Loudon, is believed to be the leader of an order of Ursuline nuns that start acting irrationally and uncontrollably. The convent’s sexually repressed hunchback Mother Superior, Sister Jeanne des Anges (played by Vanessa Redgrave), falls in love with Grandier and is plagued by intense sexual fantasies.

When Jeanne learns of Grandier’s covert marriage to someone else, she breaks down in hysterics and accuses Grandier of being the Devil’s agent. There is a flurry of sexual outbursts and strange public exorcisms as other nuns in the convent also claim to be possessed.

Russell bravely illustrates the results of religious fanaticism combined with sexual oppression. A hallucinogenic orgy of nude nuns “raping” a statue of Christ and Sister Jeanne masturbating with a human bone are among the scenes of the “demonic possessions” that have been banned. The Devils’ uncensored version is an incredible, daring examination of ecstasy (both sexual and religious).