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Movies like Quay

Key Features:
Surrealism, Animation, Short film, Filmmaker, Experimental film, Avant-garde, Director-driven, Cerebral
Tone:
restrained, poetic, stylized
Target Audience:
Art house cinema enthusiasts, Animation aficionados, Experimental film viewers
Emotional Arc:
Intrigue → Reflection

Quay

2015-08-19
Quay Poster - Find Similar Movies

In 2015, Christopher Nolan curated a selection of short films by the surrealist animators the Quay Brothers to be distributed as a touring 35mm presentation. The three films—"In Absentia" (2000), "The Comb" (1991) and "Street of Crocodiles" (1986)—were accompanied by this brief portrait of the brothers at work in their London studio.

Genres
Documentary
Cast
Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay
Crew
Christopher Nolan
Rating
6(64 votes)
QuayQuay
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Street of Crocodiles

A puppet, newly released from his strings, explores the sinister room in which he finds himself.



Lumière & Company
6.213

40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes.



Six Men Getting Sick
5.528

Lynch's first film project consists of a loop of six people vomiting projected on to a special sculptured screen featuring twisted three-dimensional faces.



Tango
Tango(1985)
7.4

A static camera observes a room as it slowly fills with thirty-six characters from different stages of life, looping further through an absurd dance of social disconnection as each character moves in.



Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

In Manhattan's Central Park, a film crew directed by William Greaves is shooting a screen test with various pairs of actors. It's a confrontation between a couple: he demands to know what's wrong, she challenges his sexual orientation. Cameras shoot the exchange, and another camera records Greaves and his crew. Sometimes we watch the crew discussing this scene, its language, and the process of making a movie. Is there such a thing as natural language? Are all things related to sex? The camera records distractions - a woman rides horseback past them; a garrulous homeless vet who sleeps in the park chats them up. What's the nature of making a movie?



Anomalisa
Anomalisa(2015)
7.105

An inspirational speaker becomes reinvigorated after meeting a lively woman who shakes up his mundane existence.



CQ
CQ(2001)
5.9

A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.



The House
The House(2022)
7

Across different eras, a poor family, an anxious developer and a fed-up landlady become tied to the same mysterious house in this animated dark comedy.



The Canal
The Canal(2014)
5.75

A man who suspects his wife is cheating on him begins having nightmarish visions of an evil presence that he believes inhabits his house.



Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio: Handcarved Cinema

With mesmerizing footage and time lapses of animators at work, this behind-the-scenes special captures the artistry of a unique tale years in the making.



Neo Tokyo
Neo Tokyo(1989)
6.737

A trilogy of separate stories. In "Labyrinth labyrinthos", a girl and her cat enter a strange world. In "Running Man", a racer takes on the ultimate opponent. In "Construction Cancellation Order", a man must shut down worker robots.



Doodlebug
Doodlebug(1997)
6.5

There's something in his apartment. A man looking for an insect-like thing devolves into a bout of insanity as his subconscious mind begins to strangle his waking one.



The Strange Ones
6.6

Elisabeth and her brother Paul live isolated from much of the world after Paul is injured in a snowball fight. As a coping mechanism, the two conjure up a hermetic dream of their own making. Their relationship, however, isn't exactly wholesome. Jealousy and a malevolent undercurrent intrude on their fantasy when Elisabeth invites the strange Agathe to stay with them -- and Paul is immediately attracted to her.



Subconscious Cruelty
4.721

A surrealistic anthology of horror films; four segments structured as an intense fever dream...



$9.99
$9.99(2009)
5.9

Have you ever wondered "What is the meaning of life? Why do we exist?" The answer to this vexing question is now within your reach! You'll find it in a small yet amazing booklet, which will explain, in easy to follow, simple terms your reason for being! The booklet, printed on the finest paper, contains illuminating, exquisite colour pictures, and could be yours for a mere $9.99.



WHAT DID JACK DO?
6.3

In a locked down train station, a homicide detective conducts an interview with a tormented monkey who is suspected of murder.



Anima
Anima(2019)
7.284

In a short musical film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Thom Yorke of Radiohead stars in a mind-bending visual piece. Best played loud.



The Amputee
5.1

A double amputee attempts to write a letter while her nurse gets in the way. (Note: The Amputee was produced in order to test two different black and white video stocks for the American Film Institute. There are therefore two different versions of the film, each using the same script but shot on different stocks and differing in other incidental ways in terms of performance, sound design and duration. This is Version 1.)



Freeze Frame
6.2

Sean Veil is an ultra paranoid murder suspect who takes to filming himself round the clock to provide an alibi, just in case he's ever accused of another crime. Problems arise however when the police do come calling and the one tape that can prove his innocence has mysteriously disappeared.



Eye Myth
Eye Myth(1967)
5.4

After the title, a white screen gives way to a series of frames suggestive of abstract art, usually with one or two colors dominating and rapid change in the images. Two figures emerge from this jungle of color: the first, a shirtless man, appears twice, coming into focus, then disappearing behind the bursts and patterns of color, then reappearing; the second figure appears later, in the right foreground. This figure suggests someone older, someone of substance. The myth? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.



Lapsis
Lapsis(2021)
6.2

In a parallel present, delivery man Ray Tincelli is struggling to support himself and his ailing younger brother. After a series of two-bit hustles and unsuccessful swindles, Ray takes a job in a strange new realm of the gig economy: trekking deep into the forest, pulling cable over miles of terrain to connect large, metal cubes that link together the new quantum trading market. As he gets pulled deeper into the zone, he encounters growing hostility and the threat of robot cablers, and must choose to either help his fellow workers or to get rich and get out.



Mad God
Mad God(2021)
6.876

A figure known as "The Assassin" descends from the heavens into a nightmarish pit full of monsters, titans, and cruelty.



Bunny
Bunny(1998)
6.6

Bunny, an elderly rabbit who uses a walker, is in her kitchen one night baking a cake. A photograph from her wedding day is on her wall. A pesky and persistent moth bangs about the kitchen. She shoos it outside, turns off the porch light, and returns to her baking. The moth finds its way back into the kitchen, she bats it with a wooden spoon, and it falls into the mix. She stirs it up, pours the batter into a pan, and pops it into the oven. But the moth isn't done: it has a different mission, turning the oven into a portal, and inviting Bunny on a voyage of reunion.



Rabbits
Rabbits(2002)
6.8

A story of a group of humanoid rabbits and their depressive, daily life. The plot includes Suzie ironing, Jane sitting on a couch, Jack walking in and out of the apartment, and the occasional solo singing number by Suzie or Jane. At one point the rabbits also make contact with their “leader”.



71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance

71 scenes revolving around multiple Viennese residents who are by chance involved with a senseless gun slaughter on Christmas Eve.



Trance
Trance(2013)
6.6

A violent gang enlists the help of a hypnotherapist in an attempt to locate a painting which somehow vanished in the middle of a heist.



Lumière!
Lumière!(2016)
7.944

A collection of restored prints from the Lumière Brothers.



The Strange Ones
5.216

Mysterious events surround the travels of two brothers as they make their way across a remote American landscape. On the surface all seems normal, but what appears to be a simple vacation soon gives way to a dark and complex web of secrets. This is the feature film version of the 2011 short film going by the same name.



The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

The unlikely friendship of a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse traveling together in the boy's search for home.



The Dante Quartet
6.3

A visual representation, in four parts, of one man's internalization of "The Divine Comedy." Hell is a series of multicolored brush strokes against a white background; the speed of the changing images varies. "Hell Spit Flexion," or springing out of Hell, is on smaller film stock, taking the center of the frame. Montages of color move rapidly with a star and the edge of a lighted moon briefly visible. Purgation is back to full frame; blurs of color occasionally slow down then freeze. From time to time, an image, such as a window or a face, is distinguishable for a moment. In "existence is song," colors swirl then flash in and out of view. Behind the vivid colors are momentary glimpses of volcanic activity.



The Five Obstructions

In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.



Inner Workings
7.8

This is the story of the internal struggle between a man's Brain—a pragmatic protector who calculates his every move, and his Heart—a free-spirited adventurer who wants to let loose.



Harvie Krumpet
7.389

The odd biography of Harvie Krumpet, a man who has Tourette's Syndrome, chronic bad luck, menial jobs, nudist tendencies, and a book of "fakts" hung around his neck - but still optimistically lives own way and enjoys the small things life has to offer.



Side by Side
7.242

Since the invention of cinema, the standard format for recording moving images has been film. Over the past two decades, a new form of digital filmmaking has emerged, creating a groundbreaking evolution in the medium. Keanu Reeves explores the development of cinema and the impact of digital filmmaking via in-depth interviews with Hollywood masters, such as James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Soderbergh, and many more.



The Hand
The Hand(1981)
5.9

Jon Lansdale is a comic book artist who loses his right hand in a car accident. The hand was not found at the scene of the accident, but it soon returns by itself to follow Jon around, and murder those who anger him.



Arnulf Rainer
4.5

An experimental film, the last in Peter Kubelka's trilogy of “metric films”. Each frame of Arnulf Rainer is composed of darkness or light and silence or sound.



Fata Morgana
6.6

Shot under extreme conditions and inspired by Mayan creation theory, the film contemplates the illusion of reality and the possibility of capturing for the camera something which is not there. It is about the mirages of nature—and the nature of mirage.



Little Otik
7

When a childless couple learn that they cannot have children, it causes great distress. To ease his wife's pain, the man finds a piece of root in the backyard and chops it and varnishes it into the shape of a child. However the woman takes the root as her baby and starts to pretend that it is real.



A Town Called Panic

Cowboy and Indian's only wish was to come up with a brilliant idea for Mr Horse's birthday, but when their plan ends up in utter disaster, they'll need to travel the world and back to make things right again.



The Moustache
6.1

One day, on a whim, Marc decides to shave off the moustache he's worn all of his adult life. He waits patiently for his wife's reaction, but neither she nor his friends seem to notice. Stranger still, when he finally tells them, they all insist he never had a moustache. Is Marc going mad? Is he the victim of some elaborate conspiracy? Or has something in the world's order gone terribly awry?



A Close Shave
7.567

Wallace's whirlwind romance with the proprietor of the local wool shop puts his head in a spin, and Gromit is framed for sheep-rustling in a fiendish criminal plot.



Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

Follows three social outcasts -- two geeks and a cynic -- as they attempt to navigate a time-travel conundrum in the middle of a British pub.



Interstellar: Nolan's Odyssey

A look behind the lens of Christopher Nolan's space epic.



La Maison en Petits Cubes

La Maison en Petits Cubes tells the story of a grandfather's memories as he adds more blocks to his house to stem the flooding waters.



Mr. Jones
Mr. Jones(2013)
4.7

Scott (Jon Foster) is a filmmaker in need of inspiration. He and his girlfriend Penny (Sarah Jones) move into a desolate house hoping to make a breakthrough. Then they discover their neighbor, the elusive Mr. Jones. Famous for his haunting sculptures, Mr. Jones has remained a mystery to the world. Scott and Penny, convinced that they have found the perfect film subject, sneak into his workshop and realize that their curiosity may have chilling consequences. Who is Mr. Jones?



Oddity
Oddity(2024)
6.669

After the brutal murder of her twin sister, Darcy goes after those responsible by using haunted items as her tools for revenge.



Adaptation.
7.346

Charlie Kaufman is a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief," by Susan Orlean, Kaufman's life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman, Orlean's book, become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the others'.



Cashback
Cashback(2004)
6.997

Ben is an art college student in London, whose imagination runs wild as he works the late-night shift at the local supermarket. What do he and his colleagues do to pass the long, endless hours of the night?



Men & Chicken
6.55

Men & Chicken is a black comedy about two outcast brothers who, by getting to know their unknown family, discover a horrible truth about themselves and their relatives.



Madame Tutli-Putli
6.9

Madame Tutli-Putli boards the Night Train, weighed down with all her earthly possessions and the ghosts of her past. She travels alone, facing both the kindness and menace of strangers. As day descends into dark, she finds herself caught up in a desperate metaphysical adventure.



A Detective Story
7.174

A private detective is hired to find the elusive computer hacker "Trinity." Part of the Animatrix collection of animated shorts in the Matrix universe.



The Zero Theorem
6.1

A computer hacker's goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.



Red's Dream
6.1

Life as the sole sale item in the clearance corner of Eben's Bikes can get lonely. So Red, a unicycle, dreams up a clown owner and his own juggling act that steals the show. But all too soon, the applause turns into the sound of rainfall, as reality rushes back. Red must resign himself to sitting in the corner and await his fate.



Dimensions of Dialogue

Three surreal depictions of failures of communication that occur on all levels of human society.



Rabbit's Moon
6.174

A Japanese fairy tale meets commedia dell'Arte. All in white, the naïf Pierrot lies in a wood. Doo-wop music plays as he rises, stares about, and reaches for the moon. Although music abounds and the children of the wood are there at play, Pierrot is melancholy and alone. Harlequin appears, brimming with confidence and energy. He conjures the lovely Colombina. Pierrot is dazzled. But can the course of true love run smooth?



Darkness, Light, Darkness

A human body gradually reconstructs itself as its various component parts crowd themselves into a small room and eventually, after much experimentation, sort out which part goes where.



Hollow Man
6

Cocky researcher Sebastian Caine is working on a project to make living creatures invisible. Determined to achieve the ultimate breakthrough, Caine pushes his team to move to the next phase — using himself as the subject. The test is a success, but when the process can't be reversed and Caine seems doomed to future without flesh, he starts to turn increasingly dangerous.



The Wrong Trousers
7.804

Wallace rents out Gromit's former bedroom to a penguin, who takes up an interest in the techno pants created by Wallace. However, Gromit later learns that the penguin is a wanted criminal. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.



Takeshis'
Takeshis'(2005)
6.089

Beat Takeshi lives the busy and sometimes surreal life of a showbiz celebrity. One day he meets his blond lookalike named Kitano, a shy convenience store cashier, who, still an unknown actor, is waiting for his big break. After their paths cross, Kitano seems to begin hallucinating about becoming Beat.



Edward Scissorhands
7.719

A small suburban town receives a visit from a castaway unfinished science experiment named Edward.



Stopmotion
6.182

Ella Blake, a stop-motion animator struggling to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother, embarks upon the creation of a film that becomes the battleground for her sanity. As Ella’s mind starts to fracture, the characters in her project take on a life of their own.



Tokyo!
Tokyo!(2008)
6.9

Three distinct tales unfold in the bustling city of Tokyo. Merde, a bizarre sewer-dweller, emerges from a manhole and begins terrorizing pedestrians. After his arrest, he stands trial and lashes out at a hostile courtroom. A man who has resigned himself to a life of solitude reconsiders after meeting a charming pizza delivery woman. And finally, a happy young couple find themselves undergoing a series of frightening metamorphoses.



In Paris
In Paris(2006)
6

After a love affair ends badly, a young Parisian named Paul sinks into the same kind of deep depression that led his sister to kill herself. He moves back home with his father and aimless brother Jonathan but refuses to get out of bed.



In the Soup
6.5

An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.



Absentia
Absentia(2011)
5.841

Tricia's husband has been missing for seven years. Her younger sister Callie comes to live with her as the pressure mounts to finally declare him 'dead in absentia'. Tricia is reluctant, always holding out hope, but Callie is practical and wants her to move on. As Tricia sifts through the wreckage and tries to move on with her life, Callie finds herself drawn to an ominous tunnel near the house.



Film, Film, Film
7.6

The trials and tribulations of putting a feature film together.



The Incident
6.889

Two parallel stories about people trapped in illogical endless spaces: two brothers and a detective locked on an infinite staircase, and a family locked on an infinite road... for over 35 years.



Film
Film(1965)
6.951

A man attempts to evade observation by an all-seeing eye.



Destino
Destino(2003)
7.208

Short film to a song of love lost and rediscovered, a woman sees and undergoes surreal transformations. Her lover's face melts off, she dons a dress from the shadow of a bell and becomes a dandelion, ants crawl out of a hand and become Frenchmen riding bicycles. Not to mention the turtles with faces on their backs that collide to form a ballerina, or the bizarre baseball game.



Repulsion
Repulsion(1965)
7.4

Beautiful young manicurist Carole suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen, leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend, Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.



Flow
Flow(1996)
7.6

A filmmaker talks about his work and love life with an unseen friend behind the camera. We also watch four of his short films.



Naked
Naked(1993)
7.2

An unemployed Brit vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.



Zoom
Zoom(2016)
5.8

A multi-dimensional interface between a comic book artist, a novelist, and a film director. Each lives in a separate reality but authors a story about one of the others.



Little Deaths
4.4

Composed of three disturbingly sensual and terrifying short narratives, unified by the twin themes of sex and death.



Funky Forest: The First Contact

An outrageous collection of surreal, short attention span non-sequiturs largely revolving around Guitar Brother, his randy older sibling, and the pair's portly Caucasian brother.



A Man Amidst Bees
6.807

Bruno is a young film editor who has just broke up his marriage with Regina, and returned living in his mother's house. Drowned in deep sorrow, something very weird happens in his life: people around him are gradually disappearing. But only for him. Some kind of blindness.



All the Invisible Children

Seven short films - each one focused on the plight of a different child protagonist.



Movie 43
Movie 43(2013)
4.627

A series of interconnected short films are the backdrop for a maniac screenwriter who pitches insane storylines featuring some of Hollywood's biggest and brightest.



Brazil
Brazil(1985)
7.7

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.



Living in Oblivion
7.2

Low-budget independent filmmaker Nick Reve tries to keep everything together as his production is plagued with an insecure actress, a megalomaniac star, a pretentious beret-wearing director of photography, and lousy catering.



Matrix
Matrix(1998)
7.1

The film is composed of receding planes in a landscape: a back garden and the houses beyond. The wooden lattice fence, visible in the image, marks the border between enclosed and open, private and public space, and forms both a fulcrum for the work and a formal grid by which the shots are framed and organised.



A Zed & Two Noughts

Twin zoologists lose their wives in a car accident and become obsessed with decomposing animals.



Partly Cloudy
7.753

Everyone knows that the stork delivers babies, but where do the storks get the babies from? The answer lies up in the stratosphere, where cloud people sculpt babies from clouds and bring them to life. Gus, a lonely and insecure grey cloud, is a master at creating "dangerous" babies. Crocodiles, porcupines, rams and more - Gus's beloved creations are works of art, but more than a handful for his loyal delivery stork partner, Peck. As Gus's creations become more and more rambunctious, Peck's job gets harder and harder. How will Peck manage to handle both his hazardous cargo and his friend's fiery temperament?



Negative Space
7.382

Even though Sam's father is hardly ever home because he is often away on business trips, he is able to connect with his son by teaching him how to pack a suitcase.



Room 666
Room 666(1982)
6.5

During the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wim Wenders asked a number of global film directors to, one at a time, go into a hotel room, turn on the camera, and answer a simple question: "What is the future of cinema?"



Nothing
Nothing(2003)
5.806

The film tells the story of two good friends who live together, Andrew, an agoraphobic travel agent who works from his home, and Dave, a loser who works in an office where he is treated with contempt. Just when it seems things can't get any worse for the two, the entire world outside of their house disappears and is replaced with an endless white void.



Stutterer
Stutterer(2015)
7.4

A lonely typographer with a cruel speech impediment but an eloquent inner voice must face his greatest fear.



Cashback
Cashback(2007)
6.949

After a painful breakup, Ben develops insomnia. To kill time, he starts working the late night shift at the local supermarket, where his artistic imagination runs wild.



Whisky
Whisky(2004)
6.9

When his long-lost brother resurfaces, Jacobo, desperate to prove his life has added up to something, looks to scrounge up a wife. He turns to Marta, an employee at his sock factory, with whom he has a prickly relationship.



You Upset Me
6.6

The first movie directed by Roberto Benigni in four surreal short stories: "Durante Cristo" (During Christ), "Angelo" (Angel), , "In Banca" (At the Bank) and "I Due Militi" (The Two Soldiers). An excursus in Benigni's satirical views on man, religion and society.



Caché
Caché(2005)
7.045

George, host of a television show focusing on literature, receives videos shot on the sly that feature his family, along with disturbing drawings that are difficult to interpret. He has no idea who has made and sent him the videos. Progressively, the contents of the videos become more personal, indicating that the sender has known George for a long time.



Meantime
Meantime(1983)
6.657

A working-class family in London's East End is struggling to stay afloat during the recession under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Only the mother Mavis is working; father Frank and the couple's two sons Colin, a timid, chronically shy individual and Mark, an outspoken, headstrong young man, are on the dole. This situation is contrasted by the presence of Mavis's sister Barbara, and her husband John, whose financial and social loftiness appears to be a comfortable facade over the unspoken soreness of a lackluster marriage.



I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.



Logorama
Logorama(2009)
7.1

Two cops portrayed by Michelin Men chase an armed Ronald McDonald through the streets of a fictionalized, stylized city.



Strangeness
6.865

During a trip to Sicily in 1920, Luigi Pirandello meets two gravediggers-turned-playwrights rehearsing a play with their amateur dramatics. Pirandello takes an interest in the odd couple, having been suffering from writer's block while working on his eventual masterpiece, Six Characters in Search of an Author.



A Pure Formality
7.417

Onoff is a famous writer, now a recluse. The Inspector is suspicious when Onoff is brought into the station one night, disoriented and suffering a kind of amnesia. In an isolated, rural police station, the Inspector tries to establish the events surrounding a killing, to reach a startling resolution.



Him
Him(2021)
4.478

Lacking inspiration, a composer isolates himself at a desolate house, on a small island, in Brittany. There he finds an old piano and receives visits from people who won't let him rest.



Memoria
Memoria(2021)
6

After hearing a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak, a Scottish woman begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while traversing the jungles of Colombia.



Out 1
Out 1(1990)
7.2

While two theater groups rehearse plays by Aeschylus, two solitary individuals wander the Parisian streets hustling the populace for cash.

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