9. After Hours
Martin Scorsese embraces madness. Flick through his early filmography and you'll be hard pushed to find a film that doesn't incorporate elements adapted from German Expressionism: a movement that spawned legendary horror films Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. A movement that zoned in on dark themes of delusion and madness, Expressionism heightened a surrealistic atmosphere to create pictures that had potential for anything to happen. Scorsese's adoration for this period is never more evident than in After Hours, a film that begins innocently enough before tumbling into absurdity and refusing to come back to normality until the final reel. Griffin Dunne stars as Paul Hackett, an ordinary New Yorker who meets an intriguing girl in a cafe after work one evening, and agrees to meet her in Soho later that night. From the cab ride onwards, the film flips wildly, and Paul descends into a world within a world: a place where he finds himself at director Scorsese's maniacal mercy. Stuffed with bizarre characters and scenarios, Paul's creeping paranoia is palpable as the film turns wildly black, before coming full circle back to Paul's office as the sun comes up. The craziness of it all makes you feel like you've just had a weird dream as opposed to watching a movie.