The Art of Negative ThinkingMovies like The Art of Negative Thinking
- Key Features:
- Disability, Support group, Dark humor, Social satire, Cynicism, Unconventional, Black comedy
- Tone:
- cynical, deadpan, ironic
- Target Audience:
- Fans of dark comedy, Independent film viewers, Those interested in social commentary
- Emotional Arc:
- Discomfort → Chaos → Acceptance
The Art of Negative Thinking

The local disability support group visits an involuntary member, not realizing that it will bring them to a critical mass.
The Art of Negative Thinking
Increasingly overshadowed by her boyfriend's recent rise to fame as a contemporary artist creating sculptures from stolen furniture, Signe hatches a vicious plan to reclaim her rightfully deserved attention within the milieu of Oslo's cultural elite.

40-year-old Elling, sensitive, would-be poet, is sent to live in a state institution when his mother, who has sheltered him his entire life, dies. There he meets Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and female-obsessed virgin, also in his 40s.

An absurdist, surrealistic and shocking pitch-black comedy, which moves freely from nightmare to fantasy to hilariously deadpan humour as it muses on man’s perpetual inhumanity to man.

After a serious sport accident in a swimming pool, Ben, now an incomplete quadriplegic, arrives in a rehabilitation center. He meets with other handicapped persons (tetraplegics, paraplegics, traumatized crania), all victims of accidents, as well as a handicapped since his early childhood. They go through impotence, despair and resignation, with their daily struggle to learn how to move a finger or to hold a fork. Some of them slowly find a little mobility while others receive the verdict of the handicap for life. Despite everything, hope and friendship help them endure their difficulties.

Don Anselmo, a retired old man, decides to buy a motorized disabled stroller since all his pensioner friends own one. His family strongly refuses him to purchase the vehicle, so don Anselmo decides to take extreme measures to achieve his goal…

A group of physically disabled lowlifes plots the the perfect heist, but things go south as each reveals an agenda of their own.

A recovering drug addict is granted a day’s leave from rehab and returns to Oslo, where he reconnects with friends, faces the weight of his past, and struggles with uncertainty about his future. Over the course of one day, he drifts through encounters that reflect his longing for connection and his deep sense of alienation.

A neo-nazi sentenced to community service at a church clashes with the blindly devotional priest.

As a couple goes on a trip to find their way back to each other, a sideshow artist and his shady entourage emerge from the woods, terrorizing them, luring them deeper into a maelstrom of psychological terror and humiliating slapstick.

A group of patients meet at a prestigious psychologist's office. Apart from the day and time of the appointment, something else unites them all: all six suffer from OCD. But the plane bringing the doctor is unexpectedly delayed, which forces them to spend an endless wait until the doctor shows up. Will they be able to keep their manias, impulses, convulsions, obsessions and rituals at bay during the wait?

On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.

A prestigious Stockholm museum's chief art curator finds himself in times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a controversial new exhibit.

The chronicles of four years in the life of Julie, a young woman who navigates the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path, leading her to take a realistic look at who she really is.

Casey is attacked at random on the street and enlists in a local dojo led by a charismatic and mysterious Sensei in an effort to learn how to defend himself. What he uncovers is a sinister world of fraternity, violence and hypermasculinity and a woman fighting for her place in it.

Four stagnant high school teachers decide to test out a theory that maintaining a constant level of intoxication will improve their overall lives.

A group of people gather at a Copenhagen suburban home to break all the limitations and to bring out the 'inner idiot' in themselves.

In this pitch black comedy the rivalry between two neighbors escalates into an all out war. Through a maintenance error on a tractor they both end up, paralyzed, in a wheelchair. It seems they are doomed to stay together. They no longer focus their rage on each other but on the manufacturer of the tractor, in Helsinki. So get ready for a hilarious wheelchair road movie.

A dysfunctional couple head to a remote lakeside cabin under the guise of reconnecting, but each has secret designs to kill the other. Before they can carry out their respective plans, unexpected visitors arrive and the couple is faced with a greater danger than anything they could have plotted.

Four stoners, five vegans, three mobsters, four hunters and a million reasons to free one junkie elephant.

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.

In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.

Gustave Klopp suffers from narcolepsy, he can fall asleep everwhere at anytime whithout warning. Living a simple life with his wife Pam and his best friend Lenny Bar, Gus decides to undergo therapy sessions and finds out that he can make incredible comics from his dreams.

The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.

Comic tale of a cynical TV star's slow-combustion romance with a young paraplegic.

The film follows Nello, the recently hired director of a newly developed work cooperative of former mental patients. After the closure of state psychiatric hospitals and asylums in Italy under the Basaglia Law many former patients were left with few resources and little hope of reintegrating into society. With the intention of actually improving the lives of his pupils, rather than just sedating them, Nello encourages them to expand their individual abilities and explore the wider world around them although, regardless of intention, there is sometimes a price to pushing boundaries too quickly.

Tragedy meets comedy in seven stories about how our entire world can collapse at any given moment.

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.

Overweight loner Rino spends his days in seclusion, until his dad rents a room to an overtly sexual girl who challenges Rino to break down his walls.

A hyperactive boy and his best friend, a slow-witted youth with an affinity for horses, start collecting scrap metal for a shady dealer.

George, a lonely and fatalistic teen who's made it all the way to his senior year without ever having done a real day of work, is befriended by Sally, a popular but complicated girl who recognizes in him a kindred spirit.

6th-grader Terkel begins experiencing a streak of bad luck after sitting on a black spider. His teacher dies and is replaced by the strange Justin. At home, Terkel's Uncle Stewart erupts in sporadic fits of rage, and at school Terkel is bullied by two boys after they learn that fat Doris likes him. On a school camping trip, Terkel begins receiving death threats and must figure out who wants to kill him.

The last wish of the dying "Monk" is for his foster child, Harald, to find his real son, Ludvig. But the latter is currently in a Swedish prison cell...

Louise, a widow with two children, almost crushes a stranger with her car. She takes care of him, even if he's not really wounded. It turns out that he has mental disorders and that they can help each other much more than they thought.

At an elder-care facility, a geriatric con artist tries to prevent his new friend with early Alzheimer's symptoms from being transferred to the 'lost causes' floor.

An unlikely friendship develops between a hitman and a suicidal guy who have both checked into the same hotel for different reasons.

Sara invites her ex-husbands and their new families to celebrate Christmas with her and her husband Janne. Sara has always wanted to have a baby with Janne, and at the dinner table she reveals the news: she's pregnant. The only problem is that Janne had a vasectomy two years ago, without Sara knowing it. The secret starts to spread among the guests, and in no time everyone knows but Sara. The party heads for a complete disaster. Who's the real father?

Percy Nilegaard collects Swedish single men and embarks on a bus trip to Tallinn with a so-called "highly-experienced driver".

Depressed Jewish shrink Elia one day meets Claudia, a young and eccentric personal trainer.

When a woman visits a Chinese doctor, she discovers her pain is due to pent-up rage, and the only cure is to fully express herself, whatever may come.

A pawn shop proprietor buys used goods from desperate locals – as much to play perverse power games as for his own livelihood, but when the perfect rump and a backed-up toilet enter his life, he loses all control.

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.

A dachshund passes from oddball owner to oddball owner, whose radically dysfunctional lives are all impacted by the pooch.

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

Wendell Lawson has only six months to live. Not wanting to endure his last few months of life waiting for the end, he decides to take matters into his own hands and enlists the help of a delusional mental patient to help him commit suicide.

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 strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When their father dies leaving them his bookstore they meet a woman who makes their lives a bit better yet with a bit more trouble as well.

A universal theme: a story of people trapped in an inhuman network of power. The brutal circle of the Eurogroup meetings, who impose on Greece the dictatorship of austerity, where humanity and compassion are utterly disregarded. A claustrophobic trap with no way out, exerting pressures on the protagonists which finally divide them.

A gentleman deals with the consequences of a car accident, which has left him with a spinal injury that means he has a permanent smile on his face.

When two of artist Barbora Kysilkova’s most valuable paintings are stolen from a gallery at Frogner in Oslo, the police are able to find the thief after a few days, but the paintings are nowhere to be found. Barbora goes to the trial in hopes of finding clues, but instead she ends up asking the thief if she can paint a portrait of him. This will be the start of a very unusual friendship. Over three years, the cinematic documentary follows the incredible story of the artist looking for her stolen paintings, while at the same time turning the thief into art.

Detectives and best friends Andreas and Simon lead vastly different lives; Andreas has settled down with his beautiful wife and son; while Simon, recently divorced, spends most of his waking hours getting drunk at the local strip club. But all that changes when the two of them are called out to a domestic dispute between a junkie couple, caught in a vicious cycle of violence and drugs. It all looks very routine – until Andreas finds the couple's infant son, crying in a closet. The usually collected policeman finds himself confronted with his own powerlessness and is shaken to his core. As Andreas slowly loses his grip on justice, it suddenly becomes up to the unruly Simon to restore the balance between right and wrong.

A group of friends at a Jerusalem retirement home build a machine for self-euthanasia in order to help their terminally ill friend. When rumors of the machine begin to spread, more and more people ask for their help, and the friends are faced with an emotional dilemma

Insurance broker Max's life is about one thing - keeping his walnut brain tumour in check. He eats properly, exercises and lives properly, but all of this self-consciousness makes him more and more depressed. When he realises that his beloved wife plans to leave him, he decides to take his own life.

J. is depressed. E. lives peacefully. S. tries to get back with his wife. G. resorts to anxiolytics. P. plays seduction games. María and Sara exchange their husbands. L. calls his lover in a peculiar way.

A South Korean woman in her sixties enrolls in a poetry class as she grapples with her faltering memory and her grandson's appalling wrongdoing.

Steven Ray was never quite normal. But when tragedy strikes in the form of a deadly hit-and-run incident at a city cross walk, his violent and bizarre behavior becomes uncontrollable. One night, as Steven plots his next murder, he meets Percival, whose unsuccessful attempt at suicide not only interferes with Stevens plans, but the chance encounter also introduces the two into each others sad and lonely lives. Percival believes hes cursed after miraculously surviving each suicide attempt and concludes fate brought he and Steven together. So he hires Steven to assist him in suicide. Steven does not believe in fate and thinks Percival is desperate and delusional. But he accepts the offer. Easy money. After Percival continues to miraculously survive each attempt on his life, Steven starts to believe. He tries to help Percival figure out ways to break the curse. And in the process, they form an unlikely friendship through the common bond of tragedy.

A college student starts to experience extreme seizures. She soon learns that the violent episodes are a symptom of inexplicable abilities.

When the girl of his dreams is kidnapped, everyman Nate turns his inability to feel pain into an unexpected strength in his fight to get her back.

When a small-town con artist joins the local mafia with his manipulative brother, his obsession with balancing his karma gets hilariously brutal.

A kindly occupational therapist undergoes a new procedure to be shrunken to four inches tall so that he and his wife can help save the planet and afford a nice lifestyle at the same time.

Three friends in wheelchairs welcome a new patient at a children's hospital. Growing up together. All emotions pass the revue. Friendship and hope survive all.

Neto is a middle class teenager living a normal life. After his father finds a marijuana cigarette on his pocket, he is sent to a mental institution, where he gets to know a completely absurd and inhumane reality in which people are devoured by a corrupt and cruel system.

Ava is recovering from demonic possession. With no memory of the past month, she must attend a Spirit Possessions Anonymous support group to figure out what happened. Ava's life was hijacked by a demon, now it's time to get it back.

A bitter ad executive, who has reached his breaking point, finds himself in a mental institution, where his career actually begins to thrive with the help of the hospital's patients.

The story of a man who feels happy only when he is unhappy: addicted to sadness, with such need for pity, that he’s willing to do everything to evoke it from others. This is the life of a man in a world not cruel enough for him.

Forty-year-old Andreas arrives in a strange city with no memory of how he got there. He is presented with a job, an apartment - even a wife. But before long, Andreas notices that something is wrong. Andreas makes an attempt to escape the city, but he discovers there's no way out. Andreas meets Hugo, who has found a crack in a wall in his cellar. Beautiful music streams out from the crack. Maybe it leads to "the other side"? A new plan for escape is hatched.

Whilst on their way to a concert four friends get sidetracked and stranded in a seemingly abandoned town and whilst looking for help find themselves stalked and terrorised by a gang of violent clown dressed psychopaths who will stop at nothing ensnaring them into their sinister blood thirsty games.

After a wisdom tooth operation, a man decides to let his friend pull out one of the stitches.

A young man drops out of university and goes to the police. He's done nothing wrong he just wants a job. A particular job. Playing the victim in murder reconstructions. Maybe by getting close to death he can manage to cheat on his own.

Two physically handicapped youngsters make friends with a paralysed hitman and are commissioned by a local mafia boss. They have little to lose although things are never as they first appear. The boundaries between fantasy and reality blur as the unlikely heroes stumble from one close encounter to the next and we gain an unusual insight into their lives on the periphery of society.

Christian, a millionaire heir, meets Sigrid, a young student, on a dating app. They hit it off quickly, but there's only one problem: Christian lives with Frank, a man who dresses up and constantly acts like a dog.

A nurse, a paramedic, a gymnast and her coach offer a service for hire wherein they stand in for dead people by appointment, hired by relatives, friends or colleagues of the deceased, to assist with the grieving process.

A romantic comedy that brings together three disparate characters who are learning to face a challenging and often confusing world as they struggle together against a common demon—sex addiction.

Muriel is beautiful, free-spirited and bed-ridden since a horrific accident. Leo is a drunk middle-aged ex-boxer. Desperate for work and unqualified, he interviews for Muriel, who hires him to cook and care for her against her better judgment. Initially out of his depth, Leo slowly wins Muriel's trust. As Muriel teaches him to read, he forces her to confront the joys beyond her window.

Phillip is a wealthy quadriplegic who needs a caretaker to help him with his day-to-day routine in his New York penthouse. He decides to hire Dell, a struggling parolee who's trying to reconnect with his ex and his young son. Despite coming from two different worlds, an unlikely friendship starts to blossom.

In order to catch a basketball from the favorite team of his girlfriend's spoiled son, Fred poses as a numb, wheelchair-bound fan. But when he catches the ball, he also catches the attention of young, attractive filmmaker Denise, who wants to feature an invalid fan in an image film for the team. Fred has to keep playing his role, while real invalid and really furious fan Ronny might call his bluff at any moment. Worse, still, love sets in...

Armed only with a bow and an ensemble of animal skins, Martin sets off into the forest in a misguided attempt to overcome his midlife crisis. A chance meeting with a fugitive named Musa leads to a twisted trip through the fjords with police, drug runners, and Martin's family not far behind. As an unlikely friendship develops and wildly original set-pieces unfold, Martin's quest for manhood leads to deep and hilariously uncomfortable realizations about the presumed masculine ideal.

The film is about the health resort Granhedsgården in Dalarna, Sweden, and they have a problem. They don't have many guests at all and something must be done. At the same time, Stig-Helmer is a little depressed after his girlfriend has left him, and so he lives on junk food. His best friend Ole invites him to come along to the health resort Granhedsgården. Now, the craziness begins.

Unable to cope with a recent personal tragedy, LA's top celebrity shrink turns into a pothead with no concern for his appearance and a creeping sense of his inability to help his patients.

Markus returns home to care for his daughter when his wife dies in a tragic train accident. However, when a survivor of the wreck surfaces and claims foul play, Markus suspects his wife was murdered and embarks on a mission to find those responsible.

An unlikely friendship between two neighbors becomes an unexpectedly emotional journey when the younger man is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man might have predicted.

On a hot summer day in Oslo, the dead mysteriously awaken, and three families are thrown into chaos when their deceased loved ones come back to them. Who are they, and what do they want?

International art dealer Ron Hall must befriend a dangerous homeless man in order to save his struggling marriage to his wife, a woman whose dreams will lead all three of them on the journey of their lives.

A 16-year-old girl visits her gay half-brother and ends up seducing his boyfriend, thus wreaking havoc on all of their lives.

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

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.

Jocelyn is a selfish and misogynist businessman. He tries to seduce a young pretty woman by pretending to be handicapped, till the day he meets her sister, who is also in a wheelchair.

Having suffered a tragedy, Ben becomes a caregiver to earn money. His first client, Trevor, is a hilarious 18-year-old with muscular dystrophy. One paralyzed emotionally, one paralyzed physically, Ben and Trevor hit the road on a trip into the western states. The folks they collect along the way will help them test their skills for surviving outside their calculated existence. Together, they come to understand the importance of hope and the necessity of true friendship.

A director struggles with a difficult sex scene between a young actor and actress who can't stand one another. Aided by her loyal assistant, she is hell-bent on getting the scene right without compromise.

When Jane is rejected by life, she spirals into a chaotic, schizophrenic world where love and normality collide with humorous consequences.

A dramatic comedy about a self-induced attention-deficit disordered, learning disabled, Tourette's syndrome suffering, balance impaired, ex-alcoholic young man from the Upper East Side of Manhattan and the gold-digging girl who inspires him to try to get it together.

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.

Two competitive friends, fueled by literary aspirations and youthful exuberance, endure the pangs of love, depression and burgeoning careers.

An American family fulfills their dream of moving back to their roots after inheriting a remote cabin in the mountains of Norway. But there's a surprise waiting for them.

Young-goon, mentally deranged and frequently electro-charging herself with a transistor radio, has been admitted into a mental institution. Firmly believing herself to be a cyborg, she refuses to consume like a human being. Il-soon is another patient, who catches the eye of Young-goon and soon becomes a close friend. Il-soon is now confronted with the biggest task: to cure Young-goon's mental problem and have her eat real food.

In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket, and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.

A jailed swindler leaps at the chance to earn parole in return for taking care of his estranged brother, an athlete who recently lost his sight.

After serving a 12-year sentence for killing the man that slept with his wife, a man ponders whether he should try and reconcile with his family, or take revenge on those who turned him in.

