7 Movies To Watch When You’ve Been Staring Into Space All Day

Did you wake up this morning and blankly stare into the horizon for ten minutes, unaware of the drool hanging from your mouth? Are you constantly zoning out during your friends’ rants to dream of cheese? Did you already forget the question before this one because a pigeon just looked at you?

On the one hand, you might have ADHD. On the other hand, if you’re constantly disassociating, then you might just need a good old-fashioned break. Sometimes, the burden of existence is just too much to bear. I mean, I get it. As the former reigning karaoke champion of a random gay bar in San Diego, I understand what it’s like to live underneath the constant and crushing weight of expectation. That said, if you do happen to be disassociating a lot more these days, then there are movies that can help you! Some of the following movies are visually stimulating and thought-provoking; others are just thought provoking. Either way, they will shake you from your exquisite reverie.

Inception (2010)

Worried about your drifting mind? Allow Inception’s collapsing dreamscapes to bend your brain and pierce through your mental fog with complicated pseudoscience.  As you watch Leonardo DiCaprio navigate kaleidoscopic memories and multilayered realities, you’ll finally give your wandering brain something to hold onto.

Annihilation (2018)

This movie will jolt you to life for several reasons. For starters, this sneakily philosophical sci-fi thriller is crawling with surreal and terrifying flora and fauna that will haunt you while capturing your imagination. Second, the movie is soaked in existential themes and will keep you guessing about both its plot twists as well as its very reason for existing. If you’re feeling unmoored or fragmented, then this movie’s penetrating explorations of identity and evolutionary purpose may leave you inspired.

Waking Life (2001)

This underrated, rotoscope-animated film by Richard Linklater is like a documentary that someone invented during a lucid dream. Trippy, strange, and sometimes maddeningly abstract, Waking Life employs some unconventional approaches to ponder the concepts of consciousness, time, and life itself. Whether or not you fully sync up, you’ll at least have plenty to mull over afterwards. Just listen and be. In the end, that might be your ticket out of numbness.

Interstellar (2014)

For healing minds, Interstellar serves up a perfect mix of impressive visuals, original sci-fi concepts, and unchallenging philosophy. It’s Christopher Nolan at his most ambitious: There are wormholes, mountain-sized tidal waves, and quintadimensional time-space portals. However, Interstellar is also essentially a grounded, human story of love and loss, and may remind you why life on Earth isn’t so bad, after all. In any case, you definitely won’t zone out during it.

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

Like Interstellar, Everything Everywhere All At Once combines a mind-melting sci-fi premise with deeply moving storylines that are relatable to even the most disillusioned of viewers. It’s chaotic, sly, searingly weird, and sporadically hilarious, and it will leave you longing to reconnect with loved ones even as it leaves you scratching your head. As you watch Michelle Yeoh’s character navigate a genre-defying mindscape of butt plugs and googly eyes, you might feel yourself undergo an emotional reset that you never knew you needed. Ironically, you may feel very grounded afterwards – that is to say, not all over the place, and not all at once. 

Columbus (2017)

Sometimes, a pensive and visually modest film is just the ticket to cure spiritual malaise. Columbus captures the budding connection between an apparently mismatched couple as they grapple with the drudgery of life. Through its unhurried pace and rich, deliberate dialogue, Columbus gently guides its characters – and viewers, for that matter – towards clarity. Watching this movie is almost like meditating. You know, that thing you’ve had on your ”to-do” list for ten years.

A Ghost Story (2017)

You may remember this as “the movie where Casey Affleck walks around in a sheet with eyeholes, like a five-year-old who dressed as a ghost at Halloween.” That being said, if you can get past the droll concept, you’ll find a melancholy and possibly transcendent exploration of depression, memory, and mortality. If you’re feeling like you’re not quite here but not quite there, you might empathize with Affleck’s character, a recently deceased man who is cursed to haunt his former home. Or, A Ghost Story might just make you feel more depressed. Either way, you will end this movie feeling moved in some way, at which point this listicle will have done its job. Now please stop dreaming about cheese.