Only one film could possibly top this list. David Lynch's Inland Empire is the culmination of the themes introduced in the work of Bergman, Fellini, Deren, Resnais and Godard, and it is probably the most difficult and terrifying piece of abstract film ever to grace a cinema screen. A three hour monolith combining characters playing multiple roles, black and white Polish sequences, viciously garish digital cinematography, a sitcom about humanoid rabbits, shots of cinematic apparatus and some of the most intensely lengthy monologues in filmic history, Inland Empire is nigh-on impenetrable in its narrative experimentation. And that's the point. Laura Dern plays Nikki Grace, an actress appearing in a film that is a remake of a movie renowned for the murder of its lead actors. Meanwhile, a Polish prostitute watches Nikki's whole life on a screen from the hotel room in which she is locked. That much is clear. However, as Nikki engages in an affair with her co-actor Devon Berk, their lives begin to mirror the events of the film itself. The characters that they are playing - Susan and Billy - are also involved in a secret affair. Soon the identities of Nikki/Susan and Devon/Billy blur to the point at which the audience cannot tell them apart, and the film descends into a series of creepy images, surreal support characters (from The Whores to The Phantom to The Rabbits) and sequences in which it is unclear whether the viewer is in Nikki's reality or Susan's reality. The film does everything to confuse, with characters that are seemingly important to the narrative only appearing briefly and with little introduction, and with roles reversing and re-reversing throughout. There is a story to be located in there, but the movie does everything in its power to throw the viewer off the scent. Lynch's intentions in creating such a difficult film have never been revealed. He is notoriously guarded about his cinematic approach. However, several theories do abound that seek to make sense of the director's work. Regardless of Lynch's aims, Inland Empire succeeds in epitomising everything that each film in this list has set out to achieve. It confounds, morphs and infuriates in equal measure. Its rabbit holes (including one literally populated by rabbits!) are designed to confuse the viewer and to render their cinematic experience "unpleasurable". As Lynch puts it, "People have a yearning to make intellectual sense of cinema. And when they cant do that, it feels frustrating." What other movies purposely confused you? And did they do it as well as these ten? Let us know your thoughts on all this weirdness down in the comments.
