If you watch a lot of arthouse movies, you're probably going to come across films that weren’t made in America, or by American directors (see La Dolce Vita, The Seventh Seal, In the Mood for Love, etc.). That’s not a criticism of the U.S. film industry, nor a suggestion that international films are automatically better; more just an observation.
However, there have been American arthouse films, some of which have been truly outstanding. What follows is a rundown of some of the best films classifiable as arthouse that were U.S. productions. Admittedly, some of these were co-productions between the U.S. and some other territories, but of those films, those that feel American – and feature English dialogue most prominently – are able to qualify for present purposes.
10. 1992's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
While it was on the air, Twin Peaks was about as close to arthouse as television got. Even though it is old, a lot of it still feels strange, funny, interesting, and very Lynchian. So, when it came time to do a follow-up, in the form of the prequel/sequel Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, things were unsurprisingly weird again, arguably even more so than they ever were during the show’s first two seasons.
A significant portion of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me focuses on Laura Palmer's life prior to her horrific death, which serves as the catalyst for the main plot of the show. It’s very arthouse, quite horrific, and psychologically intense, with David Lynch bringing his style to Twin Peaks in a truly unfiltered way, given there were no limitations here in terms of content or narrative (TV, in the 1990s, could be fairly restrictive).
9. 'Punch-Drunk Love' (2002)
Before 2002, the idea of Adam Sandler starring in something that could be called an art film might've sounded ridiculous, but Punch-Drunk Love showed the usually comedic actor had it in him all along. Sure, the film allows him some opportunities to be funny, but the humor here is considerably darker and more intense than can be found in most of his earlier movies.
Also, Punch-Drunk Love works as a drama alongside being a dark comedy, and it tells an engaging and unusual story about two somewhat strange people finding love, too. It’s a movie that walks a strange line tonally, and it’s all potentially alienating, but those after something a little different as far as romantic dramedies go ought to give Punch-Drunk Love a shot, if they haven’t already.
8. Poor Things' (2023)
It's hard to pick the Yorgos Lanthimos film with the most twists, but which of his films has the most arthouse or beautiful feel to it? That’s a little easier, because it’s probably Poor Things. This science fiction film follows a woman with an unusual brain on a long journey filled with self-discovery, heartbreak, adventure, and graphic sex. It is sometimes funny, and other times it is pretty dark. Yes, it’s one of those kinds of movies.
Poor Things doesn’t want to compromise, and it doesn’t care too much about potentially offending viewers (though other Lanthimos movies are even more confronting and taboo-busting, believe it or not). Poor Things does have a strong sense of style throughout visually, being both gorgeous to look at and quite grotesque at times, and that contrast is just about always interesting.
7. The movie "Black Swan"
Black Swan stands as one of the few horror movies in history to get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, so that’s pretty cool (though it’s uncool on the Academy’s part that it’s such a rarity). It’s about a ballet dancer pushing herself to continual extremes both physically and mentally, all because she wants more than anything else to be perfect, and the part she wants is highly competitive.
On the surface, Black Swan is pretty easy to follow, at least by the standards of arthouse cinema. Stories of this nature aren’t rare, and there are only so many ways such stories can end, too. But it’s everything the movie does visually and stylistically that makes Black Swan feel out of the ordinary, with the intensity at a fever pitch throughout, and so much of it ultimately proving to be devastating.
6. 'The Tree of Life' (2011)
Even though Terrence Malick is less mysterious as a person now than he used to be, his films still have an otherworldly quality to them, despite the fact that most of them are fairly grounded in terms of genre. The Tree of Life, for example, is mostly a movie about a family, contrasting the different parenting styles of a stern father and an affectionate mother, and what this does to the children they're raising.
However, The Tree of Life's presentation adds complexity and sometimes even obscurity. The bulk of the scenes are fragmented flashbacks, replicating the way memory functions. The scenes in the present, so to speak, also get increasingly surreal. In addition, there is even a tangent at one point about the universe's birth and development, complete with a sequence about dinosaurs. It’s overwhelming stuff, but somehow, it all just works surprisingly well.
5. 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'
2004 was a while ago now, so if you want to say a movie from that year was one of the best of all time, it shouldn’t ring too many alarm bells. As such, 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind might well be an all-timer, because it was great in 2004, it still hit hard about a decade later, and nowadays – with more than 20 years since it first came out – it’s retained all the power it had before.
It is about two people who were once in love reconnecting, but after both of them have gone through a process that erases the other person from their memories. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind explores one of the most common and relatable themes – love – in a unique and mind-bending way, feeling like an interesting mix of arthouse style and broader storytelling (regarding the latter, on an emotional front, at least).
4. 'The Lighthouse' (2019)
While Robert Eggers has made scarier movies than The Lighthouse, he hasn’t made anything weirder – or better – than it, at least so far. The basic premise is that two men are given the responsibility of overseeing a lighthouse on a small island with only themselves as company. They clash in subtle ways at first, but gradually drive each other madder and madder as the film goes along.
The Lighthouse is bizarre but in the best of ways, being hard to pin down when it comes to genre; something that can be said about a fair few art films. There are funny, tense, scary, confusing, and shocking moments here, but The Lighthouse always feels consistent and true to itself + its own weird energy. It's not easy to explain, at least in words, how it works, but it does. Watching the film itself makes that abundantly clear.
3. 'Mulholland Drive' (2001)
As was partially demonstrated by referencing Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me earlier, David Lynch wasn’t afraid of making art films, and was perhaps one of the most prominent American arthouse directors of all time. As such, most of his films could be counted here (even his big blockbuster, 1984’s Dune, is pretty out there), but nothing deserves a spot here as much as Mulholland Drive.
Mulholland Drive is dreamlike and intensely surreal in comparison to Lynch's other films. Some scenes are fantastical, others are crushingly real, and others may still be in some kind of inexplicable state between those two extremes. This is one of those movies that can be watched over and over again indefinitely and is always open to further investigation because it has a lot of mystery as well as beauty, sorrow, and horror.
2. Drive' (2011)
There’s so much style to Drive that the lack of substance doesn’t feel like an issue. It’s a movie about conveying a certain feeling/atmosphere and immersing you in that for a bit under two hours. Otherwise, once you break down the plot, it’s pretty ordinary stuff: there’s a getaway driver, unrequited love, and a heist that goes wrong, leading to violence, betrayal, and heartbreak.
It’s all super cool, arguably in a way that now feels cliché or what some people might consider lame, but Drive did what it had to at the time it came out, and it’s not the movie’s fault that some people might've overdone it as far as fandom stuff goes. It’s one of the best arthouse films of the 21st century so far, and easily one of the best English-language ones ever made, too.
1. 'Days of Heaven' (1978)
Days of Heaven is a pretty much perfect film, both as a tragic romantic drama and as a beautifully expressionistic piece of arthouse cinema. It does so much within a fairly short runtime, and manages to tell a story that’s, essentially, about a love triangle in a way that never feels hackneyed or corny. And, even if you did find that central story a bit melodramatic, there’s so much more here to appreciate.
It is, quite simply, one of the best-looking and best-sounding films of all time, so you could either watch it on mute, or with the audio only, and you'd still probably get a lot out of it. Days of Heaven feels more purely artistic and grand than any other film directed by Terrence Malick, including The Tree of Life.