20 best movies like Songs from the Second Floor (2000)

A factory worker in a dark, gray world assembles devices that promise happiness. In his spare time he tinkers to create something better, and finally succeeds in perfecting his invention, which allows people to see life through rose-colored glasses, but he has to pay a price for his success.

A little girl is taken on a mind-bending tour of her distant future.

Frustrated with her mundane life, a Tokyo office worker becomes obsessed with a fictional movie that she mistakes for a documentary. Fixating on a scene where stolen cash is buried in North Dakota, she travels to America to find it.

Bill struggles to put together his shattered psyche, in this feature film version of Don Hertzfeldt's animated short film trilogy.

Archival material from the original NASA film footage – much of it seen for the first time – plus interviews with the surviving astronauts, including Jim Lovell, Dave Scott, John Young, Gene Cernan, Mike Collins, Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Edgar Mitchell, Charlie Duke and Harrison Schmitt.

Described as "90210 on acid", the film tells the story of a day in the lives of a group of high school kids in Los Angeles and the strange lives they lead.

The second of two theatrically released follow-ups to the Neon Genesis Evangelion series. Comprising of two alternate episodes which were first intended to take the place of episodes 25 and 26, this finale answers many of the questions surrounding the series, while also opening up some new possibilities.

Jota is about to commit suicide. As he fighting against himself, trying to jump off a bridge, a girl riding a motorcycle falls off the bridge. He runs to help her, and goes with her to the hospital. She has forgotten even what her name is, and he invents her life. He makes up a name for her and tells her and the doctors that they live together as a couple for four years. The lie goes on for a while..

A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

Based on the British cult comic-strip, our tank-riding anti-heroine fights a mega-corporation, which controls the world's water supply.

A night like any other in the streets of Hong Kong: in the midst of the tangle of night-owls, cars and vendors, a group of passengers climbs aboard a minibus that is to take them from Mongkok to Tai Po. The group is as diverse as the city: there’s a young man on drugs, an arguing couple, a woman with prayer beads and a girl who has just fallen in love. And behind the wheel sits the chatty driver. But as the bus emerges from a tunnel, everything is suddenly quite still: the streets and buildings are all empty and there’s not a soul to be seen; it’s as if everyone has suddenly been swallowed by the earth. Only the millions of neon lights continue to blink, as if nothing has happened. The eclectic group of passengers seek refuge in a deserted café and discuss what they should do. Then they make an horrific discovery…

Alexander, a journalist, philosopher and retired actor, celebrates a birthday with friends and family when it is announced that nuclear war has begun.

When a depressed woman is burglarized, she finds a new sense of purpose by tracking down the thieves alongside her obnoxious neighbor. But they soon find themselves dangerously out of their depth against a pack of degenerate criminals.

A man crippled by the mundanity of his life experiences something out of the ordinary.

Dovlatov charts six days in the life of brilliant, ironic writer who saw far beyond the rigid limits of 70s Soviet Russia. Sergei Dovlatov fought to preserve his own talent and decency with poet and writer Joseph Brodsky while watching his artist friends get crushed by the iron-willed state machinery.

A lonely telephone operator leading an empty, amoral life finds God — only to have her faith continually tested in ways beyond what she could have imagined.

A computer hacker's goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.

In a near-future city where soaring opulence overshadows economic hardship, Gwen and her daughter, Jules, do all they can to hold on to their joy, despite the instability surfacing in their world.

About existence from the perspective of 20 nameless black females. Each of the women portray one of the characters represented in the collection of twenty poems, revealing different issues that impact women in general and women of color in particular.

In this bifurcated crime narrative, a disillusioned hitman attempts to escape from his violent lifestyle against the wishes of his partner, who is infatuated with him, and an eccentric mute repeatedly encounters, then subsequently falls for a depressed woman looking for the prostitute who supposedly stole her ex-boyfriend's affections.

What would it be like to step inside a great work of art, have it come alive around you, and even observe the artist as he sketches the very reality you are experiencing? From Lech Majewski, one of Poland's most acclaimed filmmakers, The Mill and the Cross is a cinematic re-staging of Pieter Bruegel's masterpiece "Procession to Calvary," presented alongside the story of its creation.

Thomas Jerome Newton is an alien who has come to Earth in search of water to save his home planet. Aided by lawyer Oliver Farnsworth, Thomas uses his knowledge of advanced technology to create profitable inventions. While developing a method to transport water, Thomas meets Mary-Lou, a quiet hotel clerk, and begins to fall in love with her. Just as he is ready to leave Earth, Thomas is intercepted by the U.S. government, and his entire plan is threatened.

The story revolves around a Basque Roman Catholic priest dedicated to committing as many sins as possible (Angulo), a death metal salesman from Carabanchel (Segura), and the Italian host of a TV show on the occult (De Razza). These go on a literal "trip" through Christmas-time Madrid to hunt for and prevent the reincarnation of the Antichrist.

The story of an imaginative boy who pretends he is the child of a sperm-laden Sicilian tomato upon which his mother accidentally fell.

A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.

A corrupt cop gets in over his head when he tries to assassinate a beautiful Russian hit-woman.

A French comedy with comedians Eric & Ramzy made by Quentin Dupieux a.k.a. Mr. Oizo.

An ordinary word processor has the worst night of his life after he agrees to visit a girl in Soho whom he met that evening at a coffee shop.

Tokyo! is an anthology of three short films by Gondry (France), Carax (France) and Bong (Korea), each of whom offers an imaginative and trans-/super- natural glimpse into the Tokyo Megapolis.

Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th century inventor instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds humankind divided into two warring races.

Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.

More than two decades after catapulting to stardom with The Princess Bride, Robin Wright decides to take her final job: preserving her likeness for a future Hollywood. Through a deal brokered by her loyal, longtime agent and the head of Miramount Studios, her digital doppelganger will be controlled by the studio, and will star in any film they want, with no restrictions. In return, she receives healthy compensation so she can care for her ailing son. Twenty years later, under the creative vision of the studio’s head animator, Wright’s double rises to immortal stardom. With her contract expiring, she is invited to speak at Miramount's "Futurological Congress". However, a group of terrorists plot an attack on the convention.

A fateful day pushes an aimless college dropout (Tom Schilling) to stop wasting his time and finally engage with life.

Begotten is the creation myth brought to life, the story of no less than the violent death of God and the (re)birth of nature on a barren earth.

A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from native American shamans, he explores these altered states of consciousness and finds that memory, time, and perhaps reality itself are states of mind.

A modern fairy tale with scientists, partisans, cosmonauts, officials, and the Motherland. The scientist and his assistant are collecting the ingredients for an elixir that can resurrect dead people to life. At the same time, officials are looking for the carpenter who has a power to transmute water into oil.

Day in and day out, lovers Cynthia and Evelyn enact an elaborate sadomasochistic fantasy as mistress and maid. But as their ritual of domination and submission begins to turn stale, Cynthia yearns for something more conventional, while Evelyn tries to push their taboos even further.

In the year 2035, convict James Cole reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to discover the origin of a deadly virus that wiped out nearly all of the earth's population and forced the survivors into underground communities. But when Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990 instead of 1996, he's arrested and locked up in a mental hospital. There he meets psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly, and patient Jeffrey Goines, the son of a famous virus expert, who may hold the key to the mysterious rogue group, the Army of the 12 Monkeys, thought to be responsible for unleashing the killer disease.

Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.

Sissy Hankshaw is born with enormous thumbs that help her hitchhiking through the US from a young age. She becomes a model in advertising and her NY agent 'the Countess' sends her to his ranch in CA to shoot a commercial, set against the background of mating whooping cranes. There, she befriends Bonanza Jellybean, one of the cowgirls at the beauty- ranch.

Set backstage at three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac, Steve Jobs takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to paint an intimate portrait of the brilliant man at its epicenter.

It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.

Two teens battle their way through a religious apocalypse on a mission to defeat the Antichrist.

Two friends spend all their free time building flame-throwers and weapons of mass destruction in hopes that a global apocalypse will occur and clear the runway for their imaginary gang "Mother Medusa".

When gigantic robots attack New York City, "Sky Captain" uses his private air force to fight them off. His ex-girlfriend, reporter Polly Perkins, has been investigating the recent disappearance of prominent scientists. Suspecting a link between the global robot attacks and missing men, Sky Captain and Polly decide to work together. They fly to the Himalayas in pursuit of the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf, the mastermind behind the robots.

This Surrealist film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Presented as chance encounters, these loosely related, intersecting situations, all without a consistent protagonist, reach from the 19th century to the 1970s. Touching briefly on subjects such as execution, pedophilia, incest, and sex, the film features an array of characters, including a sick father and incompetent police officers.

Visioneer George Washington Winsterhammerman lives a comfortable but monotonous life in this slightly futuristic black comedy. When people start exploding from stress and George is showing early symptoms, he's forced to examine his life. Taking a look at his nice job, his sexless marriage and his resistance to life coaching, George reconsiders the philosophy of happiness through mindless activity.

Along with her husband and three children, Marthe lives in an eden of her own creation, nearly isolated from the rest of the world. The arrival of a construction vehicle, however, pierces their tranquil, hermetic existence—before long a disused highway has been re-opened, and the family finds their home situated in the midst of rush-hour traffic. While the privileges of clean air, quietude and privacy are thus denied them, Marthe remains determined to stay no matter the cost.

On the planet Ygam, the Draags, extremely technologically and spiritually advanced blue humanoids, consider the tiny Oms, human beings descendants of Terra's inhabitants, as ignorant animals. Those who live in slavery are treated as simple pets and used to entertain Draag children; those who live hidden in the hostile wilderness of the planet are periodically hunted and ruthlessly slaughtered as if they were vermin.