Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for movies like Blue Velvet:
Fight Club
Released over two decades ago, David Fincher’s Fight Club remains in popular culture the way few films ever do. A movie that often resonates with those feeling marginalized by society, Fight Club lives on for each generation to interpret in new ways.
Read our full review of Fight Club
Videodrome
Videodrome is a bold, grotesque, and startlingly prescient film, and while it may not be David Cronenberg’s most accessible work, it’s certainly one of his most important. A high-concept fever dream of sex, violence, and screen-induced madness, it’s no wonder this is one of the director’s most widely discussed and celebrated films.
Read our full review of Videodrome
Infinity Pool
There are some real highlights in Brandon Cronenberg‘s newest art house horror movie, mainly the chemistry between Alexander Skarsgard and Mia Goth. But Infinity Pool struggles to build into anything beyond a set of shocking horror images and audacious scenes.
Read our full review of Infinity Pool
Love Lies Bleeding
There’s really nothing like Love Lies Bleeding. I don’t necessarily subscribe to the blanket notion that they don’t make movies like they used to anymore – but I will say, Hollywood hasn’t consistently made films as erotic and thrilling like this since the 1980s and 90s. Rose Glass directs the dynamic duo of Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart.
Read our full review of Love Lies Bleeding
Beau Is Afraid
Ari Aster puts his career and positive public perception on the line to create his most singular and divisive piece of filmmaking yet. Although easily his least accessible and structured movie, Beau Is Afraid still manages to work due to Aster‘s distinct eye for jaw-dropping images and scenes and Joaquin Phoenix‘s committed performance.
Read our full review of Beau Is Afraid
Lost Highway
Lost Highway is the most underappreciated David Lynch movie, one that served as an introduction to where he’d be heading in the early 2000s on. Because Lost Highway doesn’t make much sense, and the illogical, beguiling snippets and vignettes that take place within the movie are of a similar nature to Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. And while Lost Highway is slightly less operatic than Mulholland Drive (and much less indulgent than Inland Empire), it’s still one of Lynch’s best movies, and one of the best movies of the 1990s, period.
Read our full review of Lost Highway
Kinds of Kindness
As a side project conceived during the creation of Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness is quite the undertaking for Yorgos Lanthimos. The movie is hefty and left with a lot of gristle. While the performances of the cast suggest a film trying to have a lot of fun, the lack of cohesion took me out of a movie overstaying its welcome.
Read our full review of Kinds of Kindness
Inland Empire
Inland Empire is not nearly the best David Lynch movie, but it sure is the strangest. It bounces from loosely connected vignettes at a moments notice. Lynch finds a groove with help from a trio of solid performances, headlined by Laura Dern as the main character capable of morphing when required.
Read our full review of Inland Empire
Midsommar
Midsommar is one of the more daring movies of the last 20 years. Ari Aster’s sophomore film is a follow up to his audacious breakout horror hit Hereditary, which features similar, gory visual motifs to Midsommar. Florence Pugh stars in a movie that’s equal parts sadistic and hectic, upsetting and unnerving. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it grows in my estimation upon each rewatch (for which there have been many).
Read our full review of Midsommar
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
A sense of dread and despair blankets the entirety of Fire Walk with Me, the prequal movie centered on the torment and inevitable death of Homecoming queen Laura Palmer in the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington. There’s little fun to be had as much of the movie descends into a few frightening subplots with characters hiding dark secrets.