You have to be kind of dumb to think this film doesn’t have a plot.

For some reason, a plotless movie with seventeen or more directors, fifteen or more actors, and the title Untitled Peter Farrelly/Charles Wessler Project seemed to get a lot of press yesterday. Apparently Hollywood thinks we’re overdue for another Amazon Women on the Moon, Kentucky Fried Movie or The Groove Tube. Maybe we are, but what intrigues me more is a thought that evolved out of a conversation with a couple of friends as we tried to recall that short list of plotless wonders. We then went on to ask: are there any really good movies that have no plot? Things got heated at points arguing about whether, for instance, Pulp Fiction or Requiem for a Dream had plots. I’ve compiled my quick list below, and I have to tell you I endured a LOT of pain perusing discussion threads on film web sites, reading commentary by the world’s unemployed film critics whose comments on a film like Requiem would go something like “the effects were kind of cool, but the movie had NO PLOT WHATSOEVER“. Which translated, clearly means “I really am quite stupid and didn’t get this movie at all but I DO have eyes in my head“. Have any suggestions to add?

	David Lynch is probably the master of making you think a movie has no plot when in fact it does. You may not care enough to figure it out, but it’s usually there all the same. Eraserhead for example has so much atmosphere that you don’t even notice it’s just a pretty straightforward “boy meets girl, knife meets chicken” story. I love David Lynch, but he finally got me with Inland Empire. I have NO IDEA what the film is about.
	Jim Jarmusch has made some of the best “plotless” films in contemporary cinema. Who cares where the story’s headed, when Roberto Benigni is the one taking you there? From the vacant longing of Stranger Than Paradise to the flip meandering of Down by Law to the stylish whimsy of Mystery Train, Jarmusch proves that it’s not so important where things begin and end as long as you get in the middle of things. And in the case of Mystery Train, multiple middles can overlap without even affecting each other.
	Two of my favorite films ever are by Michelangelo Antonioni, and both can give a very strong impression that there’s no plot stringing things together. Both Blow Up and The Passenger transport you to a sense of time and place that leaves you with a memory of having been somewhere, rather than having watched a film. I’ve seen both several times, and still don’t recall the “storyline” in any detail. And I don’t care, I’ll watch them both again.
	Although I haven’t seen Krzysztof Kieslowski’s entire Three Colors Trilogy, his film The Double Life of Veronique remains one the most beautifully compelling films I’ve ever seen, and I’ll be damned if I know if there’s a solid plot in there anywhere. But there are two lives playing out, and the mystery of what those two lives mean is story enough for me. Especially when set to the soundtrackby Zbigniew Preisner