10 Movies You Weren't Supposed To Understand

10. Inherent Vice

Inherent Vice is so purposely incomprehensible, it's almost laughable.

The film is based on a novel of the same name by the famously infuriating author Thomas Pynchon, whose books are hard to get through because they're practically written in a way that dares the reader to keep on reading.

So, when one of his novels, Inherent Vice, was set to be made into a movie, people were not optimistic that the film would be easy to follow.

This turned out to be an understatement, and many audience members found the movie so confusing they actually walked out of their screening, refusing to put in the effort needed to follow the film. But that doesn't mean it was unenjoyable for everyone.

This drug-addled tale of Joaquin Phoenix's troubled private detective Doc is genre-obliterating and the cast does do well to feed into the wacky and dream-like storytelling.

In that sense the flick does work just as Pynchon's novel does, by enchanting and drawing the audience into its world in a way that many films fail to do.

Still, everyone expecting a straightforward crime caper about a man investigating a disappearance will be left in the dust at this winding, surreal movie that doesn't care if the plot doesn't make sense. It's the very definition of a piece of media motivated by vibes above anything else, operating exclusively on stoner logic.