SymbolMovies like Symbol
- Key Features:
- Surrealism, Parallel universes, Intertwined narratives, Japanese cinema, Mexican cinema, Wrestling, Non-linear narrative, Symbolism, Existentialism, Dark humor, Physical comedy, Cult classic
- Tone:
- whimsical, deadpan, stylized
- Target Audience:
- Film buffs, Fans of surreal cinema, Cult film enthusiasts, International cinema appreciators
- Emotional Arc:
- Confusion → Absurdity
Symbol

A Japanese man in polka-dot pajamas wakes up in a room with no doors. Meanwhile, a middle-aged Mexican wrestler prepares for his most challenging match ever.
Symbol
Five bizarre stories with no apparent connection to one another eventually become intertwined, resulting in surreal circumstances.

Mitsuko, a young student, encounters a series of horrifying incidents set in alternate realities where people wind up dead in the most horrendous fashion.

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.

Koji Shiraishi interviews the survivors of an indiscriminate attack at a sightseeing resort and starts investigating the strange events that have been happening to them.

As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of.

Ruthless dominatrixes pursue a mild-mannered salesman who wants to get out of his unbreakable contract with a secret bondage club.

Nishi is a loser who has a crush on his childhood girlfriend. After an encounter with the Japanese mafia, he journeys to heaven and back, and ends up trapped in an even more unlikely place.

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.

A detective investigates a series of murders. A possible serial killer might be on a rampage, since they all are in the same vicinity and by the same method, but as the evidence points toward the detective as the prime suspect, a ghost in red follows him, and he begins to question his identity. His realization of what seems to have really happened results in something much more sinister and larger in scope, and it leaves his psyche scarred.

After botching his latest assignment, a third-ranked Japanese hit man becomes the target of another assassin.

Minami mistakenly kills a gangster associate of his named Brother. Almost as soon as the murder takes place, the body of the deceased man is gone, prompting Minami to conduct a search. While looking, he finds a mysterious isolated hotel where he decides to take a rest. Not only are the front desk clerks a bit strange, but even the ambiance feels unusual. Minami soon realizes he may have gotten more than he bargained for.

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

A reconstructed girl is created from the pieces of a vampire girl's mini-butchery. Slaughter abounds as both of them pursue the same boy.

The Katakuri family has just opened their guest house in the mountains. Unfortunately their first guest commits suicide and in order to avoid trouble they decide to bury him in the backyard. Things get way more complicated when their second guest, a famous sumo wrestler, dies while having sex with his underage girlfriend and the grave behind the house starts to fill up more and more.

A disillusioned filmmaker has an encounter with a young woman who has a ritual of repeating "Tomorrow is my birthday" everyday. He tries to communicate with her through his video camera.

A group of ruthless gangsters, an unknown woman and an escaped convict have met, in The Forest of Resurrection, the 444th portal to the other side. Their troubles start when those once killed and buried in the forest come back from the dead.

The inhabitants of a small Japanese town become increasingly obsessed with and tormented by spirals.

On the night that Parka pried the championship from Abismo Negro's hands, the master of darkness' long lasting resentments resurge, thus threatening AAA's stability. With the help of Chesman, Charly Manson, and Cybernético, Abismo plots his revenge. Not even Octagón, AAA's spiritual leader, can stop the evil turn of events. When Kenzo Suzuki and Yonatan, Parka's younger brother, are kidnapped, it's quite clear the war has begun. Parka, helped by Gronda, Mascarita, Faby Apache, and Octagón, will fight to their very last breath to overcome the obstacles. The sudden appearance of a long lost evil, Triple A's ancestral enemy, rises the odds even more. An abandoned insane asylum, murderous cyborgs, gigantic dragonflies, ancient armies, and time travel are just the beginning of the adventure. The most spectacular lucha libre match ever is about to begin...

A Korean man is sentenced to death in Japan but somehow survives his execution, sending the authorities into a panic about what to do next.

Ignacio, a disrespected cook at a Mexican monastery, can barely afford to feed the orphans who live there. Inspired by a local wrestling hero, he decides to moonlight as the not-so-famous Luchador "Nacho Libre" to earn money for the monastery -- not to mention the admiration of beautiful nun Sister Encarnación.

El Topo decides to confront warrior Masters on a trans-formative desert journey he begins with his 6 year old son, who must bury his childhood totems to become a man.

A simple funeral turns a man's world Topsy turvy. He wakes up in a posh hotel room, totally clueless about how he got there. Slowly, he recalls what happened a day before.

News about the disappearance of panties is still being covered every day. Kyosuke still wears Aiko Completo's panties to battle evil. Meanwhile, Aiko has mixed emotions and decides to get her panties back. Kyosuke suffers from the loss of Aiko's panties and disappears, but his biggest enemy yet is about to materialise.

Eight of the world's most legendary monsters, along with their diabolical managers, compete in a wrestling tournament deathmatch to determine the most powerful champion of all time. Interviews, pre-fight breakdowns, trash talking, and monster origin segments round out this ultimate fight of the living dead.

An American journalist travels through 19th-century Japan to find the prostitute he fell in love with but instead learns of the physical and existential horror that befell her after he left.

Satan, a wrestler who sold his soul to the Lord of Darkness for fame but was thwarted by Santo's ancestor, who is now rising after a hundred years with his army of mummies to take revenge.

When a series of martial misunderstandings spirals into an international incident, a Chinese martial arts student struggling to relate to his new Japanese wife is forced to take on seven of Japan's most powerful martial arts masters, each an expert in a different discipline, ranging from karate to samurai to ninjitsu.

After escaping from an insane asylum, a medical student assumes the identity of a mysterious dead man, who appears to be his doppelganger, and gets lured to a sinister island ruled by a mad scientist and his malformed men.

In a dysfunctional family where the mother is a heroin addict and prostitute, beaten by her son, and the father is an ex-TV reporter, sleeping with his daughter and filming his son being beaten up, ‘Q’, a complete stranger enters the bizarre family, changing their lives for the better, finding a balance in their disturbing natures.

The embodiment of ultimate evil, a glowing orb terrorizes a young girl with bizarre stories of dark fantasy, eroticism and horror.

In the immense city of Tokyo, the darkness of the afterlife lures some of its inhabitants who are desperately trying to escape the sadness and isolation of the modern world.

After discovering a hole in their crowded cell, nine prisoners escape their confinement to track down the key of the universe, which a fellow prisoner known as the Counterfeit King said he had hidden.

A bizarre black comedy about a man whose overwhelming ambition in life is to be a renowned serial killer of women, and will stop at nothing to achieve it - but not everything goes according to plan...

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.

After having narrowly escaped an attempt on his life at the hands of a psychopath, detective inspector Takakura quits active service in the police force and takes up a position as a university lecturer in criminal psychology. But his desire to get to the bottom of criminals’ motives remains, and he does not hesitate long when former colleague Nogami asks him to reopen an old case.

Young artist Kyoko wreaks havoc on everyone that she encounters when Japan's oldest major movie studio asks a batch of venerable filmmakers to revive its high-brow soft-core Roman Porno series.

Five vacationers and two crewmen become stranded on a tropical island near the equator. The island has little edible food for them to use as they try to live in a fungus covered hulk while repairing Kessei's yacht. Eventually they struggle over the food rations which were left behind by the former crew. Soon they discover something unfriendly there...

A shaman from the South American rain forest visits France for a public relations campaign. In a hotel's elevator in Paris he meets a French good-for-nothing named Perrin he's fascinated with. He follows Perrin to his flat and although Perrin is not very enthusiastic about so much interest in his person, he lets the shaman spend the night in his flat. After an official meeting on the next day being part of the PR campaign the shaman suffers from a heart attack. Hardly being able to speak and laying in a hospital bed he demands to see Perrin. The latter is not very interested in meeting the shaman again. However it looks like it is to late for animosities as the shaman and Perrin seem to be tied mentally somehow since they've met in the elevator.

Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.

A girl, Yūri Kurahashi, after watching a cursed videotape together with her friend in a haunted house, becomes trapped in a conflict between the two murderous ghosts: Sadako Yamamura and Kayako Saeki

Daisato, a second-rate, third-generation superhero, annoys his neighbors with the noise and destruction he causes on the job. But a heroic public image is the least of his concerns. Besides defending Japan from bizarre monsters, he must deal with an agent seeking to brand him with ads, a superhero grandfather with Alzheimer's and a family embarrassed by his incompetence.

Two young men seek the solitude of the country; their peace is disturbed when a set of random occurrences suggest to their susceptible minds a pattern with sinister meanings.

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.

A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his armless, cult leader mother, and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name.

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his new doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality and causing him to question his identity.

Real zombies arrive and terrorize the crew of a zombie film being shot in an abandoned warehouse, said to be the site of military experiments on humans.

Roberto makes a pact with the devil to please his multiple lovers sexually, Satan accepts the deal but promises to snatch his soul when he finds true love. Meanwhile, two cops are on the lookout for those responsible of a murderous drug on the streets.

An embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption.

Young art student Hideo paints an unnerving portrait of Tomie, who whispers that she loves him. Inexplicably, he reacts by stabbing her to death with a painting trowel. Two friends, Takumi and Shunichi, arrive on the scene and help him dispose of the body. To cheer him up, the boys take the unwitting murderer to the nearest bar for a party... but a mysterious girl named Tomie shows up, bearing a few odd physical resemblances to the dead girl in the ground.

One day, hospital orderlies, watching corpse in the morgue, recognize film director. Man, even though he died, he begins to remember his life. He made a career making movies, had numerous mistresses, but never realized their dreams. His life was interspersed with many setbacks that enfeebled him from the inside. Although he made a career in film, he was not happy with his life.

Centered around a television station which features a 1950s-style sci-fi movie interspersed with a series of wild commercials, wacky shorts and weird specials, this lampoon of contemporary life and pop culture skewers some of the silliest spectacles ever created in the name of entertainment.

A fleeing gangland flunky discovers the New York nest of Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl, the man-eating flying serpent.

A young man becomes convinced that the solution to all his problems is to live in jail, and he will do whatever it takes to get it.

A teenage boy and his friends face off against a mysterious grave robber, known only as the Tall Man, who employs a lethal arsenal of unearthly weapons.

Nursing student Asuka has just moved into an apartment complex with her parents and younger brother. On the first night in her new room, she is awoken by a strange scratching sound coming from the apartment of her neighbor, a reclusive old man who has refused all attempts at communication. Concerned over his well being, Asuka enters his home only to find him dead from malnutrition. Worse, it looks as if he had been trying to claw his way into her room. Asuka learns that there have been a number of strange deaths in the complex over the years from Shinobu, the handyman cleaning up the old man’s apartment. Even the girls at school whisper rumors of it being haunted.

Sister Maria is known in the convent for her good works and charity, but, in the secret depths of her sexual fantasies, she is tormented by visions of another world - a world where her forbidden passions are allowed to run free. In this world Satan is her master. As her acts of violence and blasphemy mount, Maria realizes that she has been chosen by the Devil to destroy the convent and lead her sister nuns into hell!

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

Two enigmatic women, Leni and Viva, separately arrive in Paris, each with a hidden but shared motive. As they navigate the city and their search progresses, various characters become entangled in their conflict, one which increasingly comes to take a fantastical turn. These characters too, driven by their own desires, strive to assert their influence in the struggle. In Paris, drenched in an otherworldly ambiance, an opaque tale of desire and power emerges through mystery and secrets.

The Alchemist assembles together a group of people from all walks of life to represent the planets in the solar system. The occult adept's intention is to put his recruits through strange mystical rites and divest them of their worldly baggage before embarking on a trip to Lotus Island. There they ascend the Holy Mountain to displace the immortal gods who secretly rule the universe.

Three female idols appear on a television show to investigate an exorcism. An exorcist with psychic powers named Unsui claims that the show’s subjects, the Kaneda family, are cursed by a demon that’s too powerful for him to banish on his own, so he calls in a fellow exorcist to help. Soon, a reckless ghost hunter enters the fray as the three idols witness a series of terrifying events.

After a young heiress is assaulted by a policeman, she seeks revenge by befriending the policeman’s mousy wife and introducing her to her circle of outrageous punk friends.

Two men, part tramp, part pilgrim, are on their way to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. On their way they meet a whole assortment of people—some truculent, some violent, and some bizarre; they experience many adventures—some mysterious, some erotic, some even supernatural.

After years of being browbeaten and walked on, a man wakes one day wearing an expressionless mask, fitted with a personality that enables him to take revenge.

An unnamed doctor has always had everything he's ever wanted, but that has only made him develop more extreme and depraved needs. He kidnaps a young couple in the prime of their life together and forces them into a game of torment that slowly extinguishes their hopes for survival.

In different parts of Tokyo, four young and seemingly healthy people suddenly die of heart failure at exactly the same moment. Reporter Kazuyuki Asakawa decides to investigate the deaths, and discovers that the four had stayed at a rural inn together just a week earlier. At the inn, he comes across a strange video that ends with a message saying that anyone who watches it will die exactly seven days later. Now the clock is ticking for Asakawa. Can he break the curse in time?

Wall Street stockbroker Rosario Fuentes returns to her grandmother's apartment after her sudden death. While sorting through her belongings, Rosario discovers a hidden chamber that's filled with occult artifacts tied to dark generational rituals. As supernatural occurrences begin to plague her, she must confront her family's buried secrets and face the truth about the sacrifices and choices they made.

With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged and tortured for 15 years, a desperate man seeks revenge on his captors.

Legend holds that 30 years ago, a suburban town was terrorized by the spirit of a woman whose horrid face had been grotesquely disfigured. Roaming the streets wearing a long coat and carrying large scissors, the spirit would approach her young victims and, while removing the mask, ask if she was pretty. The victim’s response would almost always lead to their violent death.

Dolph Springer wakes up one morning to realize he has lost the love of his life, his dog, Paul. During his quest to get Paul (and his life) back, Dolph radically changes the lives of others -- risking his sanity all the while.

A dark comedy about a murder and its consequences presented in a backwards manner, where death is actually a rebirth. The film starts with an "execution" of the main protagonist and goes back to explore his previous actions and motivations.

A group of Serbian socialists prepares for the war in a surreal underground filled by parties, tragedies, love and hate.

In 1614 a Japanese expedition led by the emperor's grandson landed in the Sevillian town of Coria del Río, and the heir to the throne fell in love with a beautiful Sevillian, formed a family and never returned to Japan. 400 years later, Emperor Satohito dies and the rightful heir turns out to be Paco Japan, a 37-year-old neighbor of Coria del Río. The life of Paco and his family will change dramatically when he sees himself overnight living in the Imperial Palace and preparing to be the new Emperors of Japan. The cultural and linguistic clash between Japanese and Andalusian will cause funny and crazy situations in this adventure where East and West shake hands.

A man searches for his father, Pedro Páramo, in a town doomed by violence and the fury of a frustrated love.

When a billionaire entrepreneur impulsively decides to create an iconic movie, he demands the best. Renowned filmmaker Lola Cuevas is recruited to mastermind this ambitious endeavour. Completing the all-star team are two actors with massive talent but even bigger egos: Hollywood heartthrob Félix Rivero and radical theatre actor Iván Torres. Both are legends, but not exactly best friends. Through a series of increasingly eccentric trials set by Lola, Félix and Iván must confront not only each other but also their own legacies. Who will be left when the cameras finally start rolling?

When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patient's dreams is stolen, all hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist can stop it and recover it before damage is done: Paprika.

Capable of making bio-mechanical weapons out of human flesh, alien parasites grotesquely invade the Earth, turning their hosts into maniacal killers who seek and destroy each other to the bloody death! And yes, it s also a human love story, even though the budding romantics are infested with slimy, tumor-like globules.

Shy outcast Kokoro has been avoiding school for weeks when she discovers a portal in her bedroom mirror. She reaches through and finds herself transported to an enchanting castle where she is joined by six other students. When a girl in a wolf mask explains that they have been invited to play a game, the teens must work together to uncover the mysterious connection that unites them. However, anyone who breaks the rules will be eaten by a wolf.

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

A tragedy strikes a young woman's life without warning or reason. She continues living while searching for meaning in a lonely world.

Elver is an indigenous man who arrives in the capital in search of opportunities and by a twist of fate comes to work at Don Toribio's residence, where the women discover his enormous sexual attractiveness.

A mysterious video has been linked to a number of deaths, and when an inquisitive journalist finds the tape and views it herself, she sets in motion a chain of events that puts her own life in danger.

Two people, a man and a woman, wake up naked and with their abdomens attached to each other.

In the ruins of a strange city, a young girl takes care of a large egg she holds carefully in her arms. She bonds with a boy who is searching for a bird he saw in a dream.

One day a mysterious box arrived and a curse began to spread all over. The source of the box is 'Jukai Village'. The village is hidden in Jukai Forest, a suicide spot that once you enter it, you can never come out.

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.

Riko is an honest and hardworking man who can count on a group of real friends and a loving wife. Things change after he loses his job and experiences a midlife crisis.

In dreamlike mountain scenery, Toshiko makes a daring escape from her sexually warped Uncle Sonezaki. Fortunately, she met Samehada as she runs for her life, which is also escaping from some slayers. What follows is a wild chase that leads the audience into a comically violent world.

Pandy and Retro awaken naked on Earth with no recollection of their past. They embark on a crime spree in search of food and clothing, but are captured by authorities and sent to the infamous lunar penitentiary named Dead Leaves.

Hoping to land a role, two Japanese actresses begin a fight within their apartment that keeps escalating.

Lucía and her son live isolated from society in a flat place where there’s practically no life. The small family unit formed by mother and son hardly ever receives visitors, and their goal is to lead a quiet existence. At first they succeed, but the appearance of a mysterious, violent creature that starts stalking their small house will put the relationship that unites them to the test.

When his mother's untimely death quickly follows his father's, a doctor begins to believe a killer may be targeting him and his amnesiac wife.

While combing through the belongings of his recently deceased aunt, Matsuko, nephew Sho pieces together the crucial events that sank Matsuko's life into a despairing tragedy.

A middle-aged office worker encounters aliens and is gifted with alien technology and limitless powers.

Izo is an assassin in the service of a Tosa lord and Imperial supporter. After killing dozens of the Shogun's men, Izo is captured and crucified. Instead of being extinguished, his rage propels him through the space-time continuum to present-day Tokyo. Here Izo transforms himself into a new, improved killing machine.

An unknown future. A boy confesses to the murder of another in an all-boy juvenile detention facility. More an exercise in style than storytelling, the story follows two detectives trying to uncover the case. Homosexual tension and explosive violence drives the story which delivers some weird and fascinating visuals.

When Carlos invites his father and his brother to spend a pleasant New Year in a strange house isolated in the forest with him and his wife Ana. But what promised to be a quiet family dinner, suddenly is interrupted by the presence of a peculiar vagabond, dwarf and very bad man, who claims to be God.

Three American tourists follow a mysterious map deep into the jungles of Japan searching for an ancient temple. When spirits entrap them, their adventure quickly becomes a horrific nightmare.

Pepa resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover leaves her. Fortunately, she is interrupted by a deliciously chaotic series of events.

After being released from a mental hospital, a troubled young man tracks down an actress he once had sex with and forces her into captivity, determined to make her part of his life.
