What if your thoughts intersected with someone else’s—and your identity and sense of reality become completely warped? Similar to his debut film Primer, Shane Carruth heavily focuses on identity using slow, layered, unique and intricate scenes that convey one’s humanity in Upstream Color.

A pretty experimental film that makes your head scratch at times, this is the type of subgenre that truly captures a person’s subconscious in a nonlinear way. The premise can be described as “basic” in the sense that it’s simply about a parasite affecting people’s mind, but it’s more so metaphorical than plot-driven.