10 Great Movies With Plots That Make Your Head Hurt

10. Primer

Anyone who's seen Shane Carruth's recent film Upstream Colour will appreciate just how complicated, elusive and ultimately beguiling his approach to filmmaking really is - showing rather than telling, it's a head-scratching work in which abstract imagery and strange juxtapositions take precedence over conventional storytelling. Primer, his first feature film shot on the impressively low budget of $7,000, might contain plenty of dialogue for the audience to soak up, but it's no less oblique and confusing. Carruth, a former engineer with a degree in mathematics, refused to tone down the technical talk to pander to audiences in this story of time travel out of a garage, while the film's philosophical and existential musings and erratic structure make getting your head around what's going on even more difficult. Playing with the notion that scientific discoveries are often made by "ethical morons" more enamoured with the results of their tinkering than the moral obligations their discoveries bring about, Primer in a cinematic puzzle guaranteed to challenge even the most geeky member of the audience.