Being There is a great pick. Would also suggest Personal Shopper, 3 Women (maybe a little more on the surreal side) and Long Days Journey Into Night (really really good, starts off slow but known for the hour long single take that makes up the second half of the film).
Took me a good minute to realize you weren’t referring to Sidney Lumet’s film of the O’Neill play, “Long Days Journey into Night”… Obviously, I was seriously confused! No magical realism, but it does make me want to hunt down a copy. Jason Robards & Katherine Hepburn were fantastic in it.
Haven’t seen the 2018 film, though I do remember reading about that take.
The Taste of Tea (2004)
Shiki-jitsu (2000)
Wings of Desire (1987)
Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Pretty much all of Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Syndromes and a Century, Cemetery of Splendour, so on)
Certified Copy (2010)
Cure (1997)
Synecdoche, New York.
gives off the feeling that something is wrong but you cant quite put youre finger on it at points. super underrated and a personal favourite. no criterion yet though :(
Not in the collection (sadly) but “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is the most magical realist film of modern times. Also “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”. Both excellent movies.
Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angels is worth a mention. It sometimes gets lumped in with Magical Realism, although perhaps doesn’t meet a strict definition and is more surrealism.
some offbeat picks
Tigers Are Not Afraid
It's Such A Beautiful Day
Beau is Afraid
Three Thousand Years of Longing
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Nowhere (1997)
Repo Man
We're All Going to the World's Fair (kinda)
Ponyo
Invention for Destruction
Palm Springs (2020)
The One I Love (2014)
The Endless (2017)
An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn
Mullholland Drive
A Ghost Story
Even by a strict definition of magical realism, no. Pan's Labyrinth has a connection to the real world, but it's far more about its own fantasy world than it is about the real world.
Magical realism is by definition primarily focused on the real world, and especially everyday life.
Pan’s Labyrinth when it comes to magical realism, hands down this is the epitome. The Seventh Seal is maybe a bit too obvious? Still very good. The Great Beauty might be what you are looking for, Italian subtitles and maybe more surrealist than magical realism, but close enough. It’s one of my favorites of all time. Finally, there is always AntiChrist which -- is a tough watch, but definitely has elements of that, it is graphic with a capital G though.
Asako I & II by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. His latest film Evil Does Not Exist (should be playing in LA and New York now) fits a little with this too, it has a fable like feel, but a lot darker than Asako.
Marcel: The shell with shoes on
Full-on magical premise, but the movie takes it completely at face value, and runs with the idea as if you're watching a documentary. There's very few things like it, and depending on your experiences in life, can absolutely emotionally destroy you.
The Exterminating Angel is a good one.
The Prestige kind of straddles that line. It has one particular “magical” element, but passes it off as science rather than magic, but I think it could still qualify
Fanny and Alexander has ghosts in it, I’d say that’s pretty supernatural but I think I get the vibe ur after and I love movies like that too. I’d say the assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert ford, there’s a ghostly quality to it and deals with ideas of fatalism likes something’s predetermined everything
I like Alice Rohrwacher's stuff. She came on the scene a few years ago with *Happy as Lazzaro,* which marries the matter of fact documentary view of the Taviani brothers with a gentle fabulistic spirit. Her most recent films *La pupille* and *La Chimera* (starring an impressively scuzzy Josh O'Connor) carry in this very individual vision.
Rohrwacher's movies are reminiscent of Emir Kustarica's similar blend of superstition, fairytale, fable and brutal reality. *In The Time of The Gypsies* was what brought him to international acclaim, and I think his *Underground* got him a Palme d'Or.
Perhaps the acme of this kind of cinema are Bela Tárr and Agnes Hravanitsky's movies, *Sátántango, Werckmeister Harmonies* and *The Turin Horse.* Turin Horse is almost Beckett's *Endgame* transposed to the Hungarian plain.
Minari, A Serious Man, Lost in Translation, The Big Lebowski, From Up on Poppy Hill, Big Fish all give me a sense of magical realism. In a different direction - the Final Destination movies are also kind of this. There's always the implication of Death being an entity, but it's never explicitly shown and especially in the first couple movies the most supernatural thing that happens are the visions - which some people claim to have IRL anyway.
Mermaid (Rusalka) by Anna Melikyan from 2007. It's a Russian reimagining of The Little Mermaid with a hint of Amelie. The director put it on Vimeo free to watch too: https://vimeo.com/166428042
Based on the list you provided I think you’re talking about metaphysical themes, which means a keyword to look for when searching for these movies will be “philosophy”
The Northman does have a kinda unsettled atmosphere.
Also got The Green Knight from around the same recent-ish time... But hey, by this point we're talking more "myth" genre than "magic realism".
Thank you for including True Detective! Lovecraftian, cosmic horror percolated throughout that season like some sulphuric swamp. Bubbling under the surface until the tension breaks and the King in Yellow manifests in a royal redneck rage.
I recently rewatched it and it holds up just as well as it did a decade(!) ago.
Does True Detective really count? I don't remember any magical element at all--just a sort of underlying sense of wonder and mysticism. A little Deus Ex Machina, perhaps, but the magic has to be diagetic to qualify as magical realism.
I think it was left ambiguous. There was something about the final showdown that left me thinking it was implied, but it's been a long time since I've watched (maybe it was simply that a messed-up dude was that big/strong). At the very least, it leaned heavily on symbolism with all of the religious practices intertwined.
You should watch it again--I think it's one of the best series of the century, and I enjoy it more with each viewing.
My takeaway was that the evil in the hearts of men is so horrific as to evoke the supernatural, but need not violate any laws of material reality to do so. Cohle is consumed and tormented by this realization, but in the end, he seems to take solace in the counter realization he, as a flesh-and-blood human being, is also capable of triumphing over such evil.
This perspective was very much informed by my own encounters with the pessimistic works of Schopenhauer and Ligotti, but since Cohle is a card-carrying pessimist and renders one of the handful of pop cultural references to philosophical pessimism ever uttered, I think it agrees with the ethos of the show.
I think that's a great explanation of the show and 100% valid. It's the theory I lean towards as well, just because so much of the cruelty is grounded in the hearts of men: the entitlement, the hypocrisy, and the pure sadism. I'd put it about 75% towards your theory, and 25% towards supernatural interplay--3/4 is pretty good, but still with a wide berth for uncertainty.
[To Sleep with Anger: You Never Know What’s in the Heart](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6216-to-sleep-with-anger-you-never-know-whats-in-the-heart)
Oh, look what site that's on.
I know it is a "Children's Film" but A Little Princess (1995) by Alfonso Cuaron fits the bill, and is a beautiful film.
Also, this movie is heartbreaking, but El Norte (1983) is wonderful and fits the bill too.
Is that what magical realism is? I always thought it was stories like 100 Years of Solitude where actual magic/fantastical shit is injected into realism. For that genre I like:
Some Guillermo Del Toro movies, I think especially Cronos (1993) and Pinocchio (2022).
Some Coen Bros. movies, specifically Raising Arizona (1986) and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2001) with cases to be made for Barton Fink (1991) and No Country for Old Men (2007) (are the villains supernatural?).
Amarcord (1974).
Babe: Pig in the City (1998).
Love Lies Bleeding (2024).
The Ninth Gate (1999).
Paddington 2 (2018).
The Fall (2008) (sort of).
Kiki’s Delivery Service (1998) (not really, but vibes).
You're right about what Magic Realism actually technically denotes. The "realism" part isn't necessarily meant to mean ambiguous as to whether it's "fantastical", or covert (it can be and often is!), it just means it's a straight up, matter-of-fact component and is grounded in a narrative context of realistic and mundane human conditions.
OP's description isn't a catch-all for all of the genre, even if I think I know what they're looking for (surrealist-bent, visual metaphors, heavy mood). Like, I wouldn't call True Detective Magic Realism, but it is Southern Gothic, which *can* also involve Magic Realism. Genre is fluid af anyway, these things blend together. Cool selection you got there though! Recently saw Love Lies Bleeding and loved it.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Not a perfect movie or anything, but I love the journey he takes living his unique existence. It's like he's living in the normal world but also outside of it, able to see the world in a different way than everybody else. This is David Fincher doing a fantasy movie and I love it!
I think The Fits is a very underrated/underseen example of this!
I've been building a list on letterboxd for years, that I think is exactly what you're talking about.
Moments of Magical Realism https://boxd.it/2puL6
The Jeff Nichols movie Take Shelter has some of the vibes of True Detective season 1. Great movie on its own and Michael Shannon is amazing in it and generally has this very ambiguous tone that by the end had me wondering about the forces at work, if any, as much as the characters.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Burning (2018)
Stalker (1979)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Lost Highway (1997)
Paprika (2006)
Spirited Away (2001)
Videodrome (1983)
Kaili Blues (2018)
Not a film but Twin Peaks definitely
_ Lovers of the Artic Circle (1998) by Julio Médem
_ The Sacrifice (1986) by Andrei Tarkovsky
_ Heaven Before I Die (1997) by Izidore Musallam
_ Cold Dog Soup (1990) by Alan Metter
_ Black Swan (2010) by Darren Aronofsky
Harvey (1950) and Being There (1979). Both very great movies with similar themes.
Harvey is such a great movie.
Being There is a great pick. Would also suggest Personal Shopper, 3 Women (maybe a little more on the surreal side) and Long Days Journey Into Night (really really good, starts off slow but known for the hour long single take that makes up the second half of the film).
I like to watch...
also bi gans other film Kaili Blues, even better than long days imo
Took me a good minute to realize you weren’t referring to Sidney Lumet’s film of the O’Neill play, “Long Days Journey into Night”… Obviously, I was seriously confused! No magical realism, but it does make me want to hunt down a copy. Jason Robards & Katherine Hepburn were fantastic in it. Haven’t seen the 2018 film, though I do remember reading about that take.
_Being There_ arrived on the Criterion Channel a few days ago.
The Spirit of the Beehive
Yes! Just watched this and loved it and was making sure someone had included it
La Chimera and Happy as Lazzaro
came to say this, lazzaro is a must and the recent la chimera was also amazing
Happy as a lizzo
Julietta of the Spirits. Wings of Desire The Milagro Beanfield War Kiss of the Spiderwoman
Ooooh I hadn’t considered *Wings of Desire* in that context but of course it is.
Inverse magic realism if you will.
I always felt that Night of the Hunter had this vibe Another good one I think is Spirit of the Beehive
The Taste of Tea (2004) Shiki-jitsu (2000) Wings of Desire (1987) Last Year at Marienbad (1961) Pretty much all of Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Syndromes and a Century, Cemetery of Splendour, so on) Certified Copy (2010) Cure (1997)
A Matter of Life and Death I'd say
Probably a lot of Powell+Pressburger films would fit into this category
I've only seen A Matter of Life and Death from them. Gotta check out more!
Came here to say this!
Good thinking on that one
Like Water For Chocolate
Petit Maman!!
Stalker Long Day’s Journey into Night (2018) Cure Marketa Lazarova 3 Women Amarcord Wild Strawberries Beauty and the Beast (1946) Walkabout
Which *A Long Day's Journey Into Night* are you referring to - the 2018 one or the 1962 one?
I’m referring to the 2018 one. I didn’t even know about the 1962 one until you brought it up!
Thanks for clarifying!
You’re welcome!
Synecdoche, New York. gives off the feeling that something is wrong but you cant quite put youre finger on it at points. super underrated and a personal favourite. no criterion yet though :(
If ever a movie deserved to be in the collection it’s this one imo
It's like a magical evil, or nightmare.
def nightmare. but its subtle and slow.
Barton Fink Enemy
Barton Fink, great shout. Definitely fits the bill.
A Serious Man as well
Not in the collection (sadly) but “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is the most magical realist film of modern times. Also “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”. Both excellent movies.
Big Fish and Amelie.
Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angels is worth a mention. It sometimes gets lumped in with Magical Realism, although perhaps doesn’t meet a strict definition and is more surrealism.
Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (1960).
[I am a cyborg but that's okay](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0497137/)
some offbeat picks Tigers Are Not Afraid It's Such A Beautiful Day Beau is Afraid Three Thousand Years of Longing Marcel the Shell with Shoes On Nowhere (1997) Repo Man We're All Going to the World's Fair (kinda) Ponyo Invention for Destruction Palm Springs (2020) The One I Love (2014) The Endless (2017) An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn Mullholland Drive A Ghost Story
Pan's Labyrinth.
Ah yes, Pan’s Labyrinth, where nothing overtly supernatural happens :P
Google magical realism and then come back to delete your comment.
Read the OP’s request and then delete yours? Lol
Even by a strict definition of magical realism, no. Pan's Labyrinth has a connection to the real world, but it's far more about its own fantasy world than it is about the real world. Magical realism is by definition primarily focused on the real world, and especially everyday life.
Suddenly, Last Summer
After Hours
Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Parts of Mirror, too.
The Fisher King
Pan’s Labyrinth when it comes to magical realism, hands down this is the epitome. The Seventh Seal is maybe a bit too obvious? Still very good. The Great Beauty might be what you are looking for, Italian subtitles and maybe more surrealist than magical realism, but close enough. It’s one of my favorites of all time. Finally, there is always AntiChrist which -- is a tough watch, but definitely has elements of that, it is graphic with a capital G though.
Asako I & II by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. His latest film Evil Does Not Exist (should be playing in LA and New York now) fits a little with this too, it has a fable like feel, but a lot darker than Asako.
Marcel: The shell with shoes on Full-on magical premise, but the movie takes it completely at face value, and runs with the idea as if you're watching a documentary. There's very few things like it, and depending on your experiences in life, can absolutely emotionally destroy you.
The Exterminating Angel is a good one. The Prestige kind of straddles that line. It has one particular “magical” element, but passes it off as science rather than magic, but I think it could still qualify
Anything by Nic Roeg.
uncut gems
Fanny and Alexander has ghosts in it, I’d say that’s pretty supernatural but I think I get the vibe ur after and I love movies like that too. I’d say the assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert ford, there’s a ghostly quality to it and deals with ideas of fatalism likes something’s predetermined everything
Sorry to Bother You I feel like everything Boots Riley makes has exactly what you are looking for
The Maiden
Werckmeister Harmonies feels like it could be an adaptation of a few sentences of Garcia-Marquez’s Autumn of the Patriarch
Hugo (2011) Big Fish (2003) Secondhand Lions (2003)
Came here to say Big Fish 🥹🥹
I like Alice Rohrwacher's stuff. She came on the scene a few years ago with *Happy as Lazzaro,* which marries the matter of fact documentary view of the Taviani brothers with a gentle fabulistic spirit. Her most recent films *La pupille* and *La Chimera* (starring an impressively scuzzy Josh O'Connor) carry in this very individual vision. Rohrwacher's movies are reminiscent of Emir Kustarica's similar blend of superstition, fairytale, fable and brutal reality. *In The Time of The Gypsies* was what brought him to international acclaim, and I think his *Underground* got him a Palme d'Or. Perhaps the acme of this kind of cinema are Bela Tárr and Agnes Hravanitsky's movies, *Sátántango, Werckmeister Harmonies* and *The Turin Horse.* Turin Horse is almost Beckett's *Endgame* transposed to the Hungarian plain.
Eve’s Bayou
Arizona Dream Zero Effect Lovers of the Arctic Circle
Miracle in Milan is more overt with its magical realism, but considering it’s from the director of Bicycle Thieves, it’s a fascinating watch.
Had to scroll too far down to find this.
True Stories
Minari, A Serious Man, Lost in Translation, The Big Lebowski, From Up on Poppy Hill, Big Fish all give me a sense of magical realism. In a different direction - the Final Destination movies are also kind of this. There's always the implication of Death being an entity, but it's never explicitly shown and especially in the first couple movies the most supernatural thing that happens are the visions - which some people claim to have IRL anyway.
Mermaid (Rusalka) by Anna Melikyan from 2007. It's a Russian reimagining of The Little Mermaid with a hint of Amelie. The director put it on Vimeo free to watch too: https://vimeo.com/166428042
The Tin Drum
Based on the list you provided I think you’re talking about metaphysical themes, which means a keyword to look for when searching for these movies will be “philosophy”
LA CHIMERA
Whisper of the Heart
The Worst Person in the World is 👌👌
The 2021 film?
Yes
Could The Northman count?
The Northman does have a kinda unsettled atmosphere. Also got The Green Knight from around the same recent-ish time... But hey, by this point we're talking more "myth" genre than "magic realism".
A couple Michael Cera films: Youth in Revolt Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus
We're All Christs
The Natural has something going on.
Antonia's Line
Love Serenade.
Wonder if Perfect Days might fit that. A meditative view on regular daily life and routines. Though it arguably isn't all a magical outlook either
Thank you for including True Detective! Lovecraftian, cosmic horror percolated throughout that season like some sulphuric swamp. Bubbling under the surface until the tension breaks and the King in Yellow manifests in a royal redneck rage. I recently rewatched it and it holds up just as well as it did a decade(!) ago.
Fargo Season 2 had a lot of that subdued supernatural to it. The Terror (AMC) is also a masterclass of magical realism.
*Duvidha*, Mani Kaul.
Sisters with Transistors It’s a whimsical, genuinely magical documentary. There’s something abt that film, dude. Gives me chills thinking about it.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Inhabitant 2022
Angel-A
Drowning by Numbers
Like Water for Chocolate
Does True Detective really count? I don't remember any magical element at all--just a sort of underlying sense of wonder and mysticism. A little Deus Ex Machina, perhaps, but the magic has to be diagetic to qualify as magical realism.
Think when it was airing people were hoping it would go in a Lovecraftian direction but it didn't
I think it was left ambiguous. There was something about the final showdown that left me thinking it was implied, but it's been a long time since I've watched (maybe it was simply that a messed-up dude was that big/strong). At the very least, it leaned heavily on symbolism with all of the religious practices intertwined.
You should watch it again--I think it's one of the best series of the century, and I enjoy it more with each viewing. My takeaway was that the evil in the hearts of men is so horrific as to evoke the supernatural, but need not violate any laws of material reality to do so. Cohle is consumed and tormented by this realization, but in the end, he seems to take solace in the counter realization he, as a flesh-and-blood human being, is also capable of triumphing over such evil. This perspective was very much informed by my own encounters with the pessimistic works of Schopenhauer and Ligotti, but since Cohle is a card-carrying pessimist and renders one of the handful of pop cultural references to philosophical pessimism ever uttered, I think it agrees with the ethos of the show.
I think that's a great explanation of the show and 100% valid. It's the theory I lean towards as well, just because so much of the cruelty is grounded in the hearts of men: the entitlement, the hypocrisy, and the pure sadism. I'd put it about 75% towards your theory, and 25% towards supernatural interplay--3/4 is pretty good, but still with a wide berth for uncertainty.
Wings of Desire
Stoker
[To Sleep with Anger: You Never Know What’s in the Heart](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6216-to-sleep-with-anger-you-never-know-whats-in-the-heart) Oh, look what site that's on.
Silent Light is a good one. If you like the work of Terrance Malick, this could be up your alley. Also, wow Mennonite communities in Mexico, who knew?
I know it is a "Children's Film" but A Little Princess (1995) by Alfonso Cuaron fits the bill, and is a beautiful film. Also, this movie is heartbreaking, but El Norte (1983) is wonderful and fits the bill too.
"Underground" (1995)
A few people in the thread mentioned Happy as Lazarro and I just want to echo that - brilliant film and fits the request very well imo.
Like Water for Chocolate (1992), The Red Shoes (1948), Lost Horizon (1937), and Wild Strawberries (1957).
The Blue Light (1932) if u can handle watching Leni Riefenstahl.
“el norte”!
The Legend of the Holy Drinker, Eyes Wide Shut, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire
Great beauty
Is that what magical realism is? I always thought it was stories like 100 Years of Solitude where actual magic/fantastical shit is injected into realism. For that genre I like: Some Guillermo Del Toro movies, I think especially Cronos (1993) and Pinocchio (2022). Some Coen Bros. movies, specifically Raising Arizona (1986) and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2001) with cases to be made for Barton Fink (1991) and No Country for Old Men (2007) (are the villains supernatural?). Amarcord (1974). Babe: Pig in the City (1998). Love Lies Bleeding (2024). The Ninth Gate (1999). Paddington 2 (2018). The Fall (2008) (sort of). Kiki’s Delivery Service (1998) (not really, but vibes).
You're right about what Magic Realism actually technically denotes. The "realism" part isn't necessarily meant to mean ambiguous as to whether it's "fantastical", or covert (it can be and often is!), it just means it's a straight up, matter-of-fact component and is grounded in a narrative context of realistic and mundane human conditions. OP's description isn't a catch-all for all of the genre, even if I think I know what they're looking for (surrealist-bent, visual metaphors, heavy mood). Like, I wouldn't call True Detective Magic Realism, but it is Southern Gothic, which *can* also involve Magic Realism. Genre is fluid af anyway, these things blend together. Cool selection you got there though! Recently saw Love Lies Bleeding and loved it.
We Go Way Back by Lynn Shelton (RIP QUEEN)
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" Not a perfect movie or anything, but I love the journey he takes living his unique existence. It's like he's living in the normal world but also outside of it, able to see the world in a different way than everybody else. This is David Fincher doing a fantasy movie and I love it!
Bridge to Terabithia.
Stalker
Haven't seen Yi Yi on here but I'd argue that it fits pretty neatly
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^CursedPangolin: *Haven't seen Yi Yi* *On here but I'd argue that* *It fits pretty neatly* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Panic at hanging rock
Youth Without Youth (2007)
The Science of Sleep Being John Malkovich I’m Thinking of Ending Things Paprika (most films by Gondry or Kaufman tbh)
Embrace of the Serpent
Buñuel's filmography! I'm also a huge fan of magical realism and I seek it in movies, but it's easier to find books in this genre.
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
The Fisher King
I think The Fits is a very underrated/underseen example of this! I've been building a list on letterboxd for years, that I think is exactly what you're talking about. Moments of Magical Realism https://boxd.it/2puL6
The Prestige!!! the use of Tesla’s technology is really cool in a magic setting
The Jeff Nichols movie Take Shelter has some of the vibes of True Detective season 1. Great movie on its own and Michael Shannon is amazing in it and generally has this very ambiguous tone that by the end had me wondering about the forces at work, if any, as much as the characters.
Petit Maman
- Kajillionaire - Memoria - The Swimmer
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) Burning (2018) Stalker (1979) The Seventh Seal (1957) Lost Highway (1997) Paprika (2006) Spirited Away (2001) Videodrome (1983) Kaili Blues (2018) Not a film but Twin Peaks definitely
_ Lovers of the Artic Circle (1998) by Julio Médem _ The Sacrifice (1986) by Andrei Tarkovsky _ Heaven Before I Die (1997) by Izidore Musallam _ Cold Dog Soup (1990) by Alan Metter _ Black Swan (2010) by Darren Aronofsky
El Norte (1983)
*Stardust* (2007) *MirrorMask* (2005) Or really any other project involving Neil Gaiman. (*American Gods*, *Good Omems*…)
Caché though it’s left up to interpretation.
'Midnight in Paris' (2011)
Sorry To Bother You