12 Sci-Fi Movies That Purposefully Mess With Your Head

A rare flop from journeyman director Marc Foster who has helmed everything World War Z to Monster’s Ball, Stay left critics howling upon its 2005 release. The film was derided as too self-serious and suffering from a burdensome, over-complicated plot, but the complex narrative can actually be unravelled with ease once the viewer is aware of the pivotal twist revealed at its close.

You see, the characters played by Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts are actually only projections imagined by the real protagonist, Ryan Gosling’s Henry. Suffering survivor’s guilt after a car crash, Henry recontextualises the moments before his death to create a story for the last moments of his life in a new-millennium remix of Ambrose Pierce’s iconic An civil war era short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

With this twist in mind the film’s myriad turns and hard-to-follow plotting make much more sense, and whilst the film is still no Jacob’s Ladder, its story is made more original and provocative when viewed through the lens of its climactic reveal.