Best Charlie Kaufman Movies: Top 8 Mind Bending Films

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Who Is charlie kaufman?

Who Is charlie kaufman?

Who is Charlie Kaufman? The writer and director of films like Synecdoche, New York and Being John Malkovich is one of the most influential minds in cinema today. His intricate writing style and ability to think outside the box have led him to write some of the most creative screenplays in Hollywood.
Characterized by a surrealist bent, Kaufman’s work often involves meta-filmmaking, meaning that the film is about filmmaking itself. He also is known for his ability to create characters that are incredibly complex and nuanced. The films he has written have received critical acclaim throughout his career, including an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in 2004. His directorial debut came with Synecdoche, New York in 2008.
The Early Years
Kaufman was born Charles Simon Kaufman on Nov. 19, 1958 in New York City to parents Helen and Donald Kaufman. When he was a child, his family moved to Larchmont, N.Y., where he grew up with his two siblings, both sisters. He attended Hampshire College in Massachusetts with the intention of becoming a playwright but dropped out after two years because he felt like he had no idea what he was doing there or what kind of writer he wanted.

 

 

Best Charlie Kaufman Movies

These are the best Charlie Kaufman movies, ranked by movie fans with film trailers when available.

The films directed by Charlie Kaufman are listed below and include box office information. These top movies are listed by popularity, so only the most popular movies about Charlie Kaufman are at the top of the list. If there are any missing films, you can add them to the list yourself.

Tons of people would agree that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of the best movies ever made.

Featuring an all-star cast including Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst and Mark Ruffalo, this 2004 film won critical acclaim. There’s so much more to enjoy if you expand your horizons beyond these “best” films starring actors like Charlie Kaufman and Jim Carrey.

When you’re trying to choose a movie, it can help to rank the best movies by cult favorites, by awards and even by runtime, so that you don’t waste time watching a bunch of shorts or TV episodes on a DVD set when you could be watching feature films.

And don’t forget to check out our lists of new releases / coming soon and our movie times for suggestions of what new releases might be playing in theaters near you.

To vote on your favorite movies starring Charlie

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 science fiction film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry. It follows Joel Barish, played by Jim Carrey, as he undergoes a procedure to erase the memories of his ex-girlfriend Clementine Kruczynski, played by Kate Winslet.

Description & Review:

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind is set in an alternative reality where memories can be erased through technology. The film centres around Joel Barish, who struggles with his memories of Clementine Kruczynski after their relationship breaks down and she has him erased.

Jim Carrey gives one of his best performances as Joel; conflicted and confused over whether to remember or forget Clementine. He goes though a range of emotions, from manic and angry to lost and lonely.

His performance is very raw and real, making you feel every emotion he does on screen. He’s supported well by Kate Winslet, who plays Clementine with a good balance of strength and vulnerability that makes her character very likeable.

The script is a triumph for Charlie Kaufman, who manages to make a story about memory loss both entertaining and thought provoking at the same time. Kaufman blends elements of the sci fi genre with love story perfectly throughout the film

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [Blu-ray]
  • Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
  • Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst (Actors)
  • French (Subtitle)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • Audience Rating: R (Restricted)

Adaptation (2002)

Adaptation is a 2002 American comedy-drama film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. The film is based on Susan Orlean’s nonfiction book The Orchid Thief, with the script co-written by Kaufman, and stars Nicolas Cage as Charlie Kaufman and Meryl Streep as Orlean.

The film’s title refers to the process of adaptation, in which a writer modifies the story told by a novel, play, or other medium to make it into a film.

The main character, Charlie Kaufman, is hired to write the screenplay for The Orchid Thief, based on Orlean’s book about orchids and their smuggling. Kaufman becomes so engrossed in adapting the book that he struggles to divorce himself from the narrative in order to actually finish writing it.

He finds that his twin brother Donald has written a draft of the script based on his own life experiences, but refuses to allow Charlie to read it until he completes his first draft. He finds that Donald has changed the book significantly and is upset at having not been given credit for his work. Eventually Charlie surrenders himself to adapting the book literally at the expense of losing his own identity in the process.

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Adaptation [Blu-ray]
  • Adaptation
  • Nicolas Cage, Tilda Swinton, Meryl Streep (Actors)
  • Spike Jonze (Director) - Charlie Kaufman (Writer) - Jonathan Demme (Producer)
  • English (Subtitle)
  • Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
$22.97 −$10.98 $11.99
View on Amazon

Being John Malkovich (1999)

John Malkovich plays Maxine, a dowdy office worker who discovers the portal in a bathroom. She meets Craig Schwartz (John Cusack), a puppeteer who stumbles upon the portal and becomes famous as “Bert” performing in the puppet show within the movie.

Lotte Schwartz (Cameron Diaz), Craig’s wife, is jealous of all the attention Bert is getting.

Maxine and Craig become lovers, and they start to fantasize about what it would be like if they could take over John Malkovich’s body. They go to see LesterCorp’s CEO and owner Jackman (Orson Bean) and get permission to go into John’s brain for 15 minutes every day. The two puppeteers talk with each other through their marionettes, with Maxine in her own puppet show at LesterCorp headquarters, while Craig performs his own show at his apartment. The two share their lives with each other during their time in the portal.

Maxine encounters John Malkovich (playing himself) at a party thrown by LesterCorp for its employees. The portal has been open for three months, but no one knows how long it will last. The two fall in love through their puppets, but John abruptly leaves soon after when he realizes that

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Being John Malkovich (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
  • Factory sealed DVD
  • John Malkovich, John Cusack, Cameron Diaz (Actors)
  • Spike Jonze (Director)
  • English (Subtitle)
  • English (Publication Language)
$39.95 −$18.36 $21.59
View on Amazon

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Synecdoche, New York is a 2008 American drama film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams and Samantha Morton.

Hoffman and Keener play a theatre director Caden Cotard and his wife/assistant director Adele. As their lives unravel they move from Manhattan to a town called Synecdoche, New York. The title refers to theatrical terminology for the use of a part to represent the whole of an object (e.g., calling “a door” instead of “a door”), such as in the phrase “life is a stage”.

The movie opens with Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) interviewing for an artistic directorship at the New York City Ballet Company. He asks if he can have the position because he has been working hard for many years preparing for the job.

The interviewers reject his request for an explanation of why he should not be hired. A year later, after having spent all of his savings on constructing a miniature theater inside a model of a cow’s digestive system, Caden meets Adele (Catherine Keener), who also works in theater. The two become romantically entangled despite an age difference (she is 38 and he is 35). They

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Synecdoche, New York [Blu-ray]
  • Synecdoche New York - Blu-ray Brand New
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams (Actors)
  • Charlie Kaufman (Director) - Anthony Bregman (Producer)
  • English (Subtitle)
  • Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
$19.99 −$8.00 $11.99
View on Amazon

Anomalisa (2015)

“Anomalisa” is a stop-motion comedy film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, and co-written with animator Duke Johnson.

The film is based on Kaufman’s 2005 screenplay of the same name, which was adapted from his 2003 novel of the same name. The film follows a man crippled by the mundanity of life as he deals with his crumbling marriage and the possibility of having an affair with a woman he meets at a hotel.

The film stars David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Tom Noonan, who respectively provide the voices for Michael Stone, Lisa Hesselman, and all other characters in the film except for Michael and Lisa themselves.

It was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 88th Academy Awards. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards, where it won Best Screenplay.

In 2015, Fox Searchlight Pictures acquired the United States distribution rights to Anomalisa. The film had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on September 4, 2015.[4] It opened in a limited release on December 30, 2015 in Los Angeles and New York City before expanding wide on January 8, 2016.[5]

Anomalisa received critical acclaim upon its

Anomalisa [Blu-ray]
  • Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan, David Thewlis (Actors)
  • Charlie Kaufman (Director)
  • English, Spanish, Portuguese, French (Subtitles)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • Audience Rating: R (Restricted)

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) is a biography of the American author, game show host and inventor of the board game “Trivial Pursuit”, George Plimpton. The film was directed by George Clooney, who also portrays the lead character.

The film opens with a sequence which acts as a prologue of sorts to the main feature-length presentation. In it, we learn that by the year 1984, a game show has been launched in which contestants try to answer questions about knowledge and events in their lives that have occurred since they were born.

The star of this show is one Chuck Barris (played by Sam Rockwell), who is not only its creator but also its producer and an integral part of its on-screen presentation. As it happens, the competition is rigged and Barris himself does the choosing of winners and losers off camera – it’s all a ruse to make people believe that anyone can win at anything.

Barris’ personal life has hit a low ebb: his marriage to his wife Vikki (Elisabeth Shue) has broken down and he’s now working on another show – one in which he will interview ex-assassins in an attempt to discover what makes someone want to kill another person

Geständnisse - Confessions of a dangerous Mind
  • German, English, French (Subtitles)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • Audience Rating: Unrated (Not Rated)

I’m Thinking Of Ending Things (2020)

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

I’m not a big fan of romantic comedies. I’ve seen some good ones and some bad ones, but the genre just doesn’t do it for me.

However, I enjoyed this film because it was a bit different. In the movie, the male lead character, Jack (played by Analeigh Tipton), gets dumped by his girlfriend and he decides to search for another woman that he can call his soul mate.

He goes on a few dates, but he doesn’t have much luck. Then one day, he runs into someone from his past who suggests that he should try online dating.

Jack is reluctant at first because he has some past bad experiences with online dating and then eventually gives in and starts using a dating app called “The Break-Up app” to meet women. The app shows him various women based on what he tells them about himself and then he goes out on dates with several of them.

The premise of the movie is that Jack is doing this as an exercise to get over his ex-girlfriend (he really misses her) and through all of these dates, you see how Jack interacts with these women and if they are what he thinks they are looking for or not.

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FROZEN 2 [Blu-ray]
  • Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad (Actors)
  • Chris Buck (Director) - Jennifer Lee (Writer)
  • Spanish, English (Subtitles)
  • Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
$26.50 −$14.08 $12.42
View on Amazon

Human Nature (2001)

Human Nature is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on August 21, 2001 by Maverick and Warner Bros. Records.

The album was mostly written and produced by Madonna and Mirwais Ahmadzaï, with eight other contributors including Skylar Grey and Dave Sitek.

It features themes of love, freedom, sexuality, and spirituality, along with influences of pop, dance music and electronica.

The album is also notable for the increased presence of acoustic instruments such as guitars, drums, piano, synthesizer strings and wind instruments. Human Nature has an overall low-key and ballad feel to it which is a stark contrast from her previous upbeat pop-dance productions. Lyrically the album is quite dark in nature dealing with issues about love and freedom.

Human Nature received positive reviews from most music critics upon its release. Many praised Madonna’s new sonic direction as well as her songwriting; however some criticized her use of Auto-Tune on some tracks while others found that there were too many songs on the album.

The album was a commercial success reaching the top ten in twenty-four countries across the world including Australia, Canada, France, Italy & United Kingdom while reaching the number one spot in Spain and Switzerland.

Human Nature [Blu-ray]
  • Tim Robbins, Patricia Arquette, Rhys Ifans (Actors)
  • Michel Gondry (Director) - Charlie Kaufman (Writer) - Anthony Bregman (Producer)
  • English (Subtitle)
  • Audience Rating: R (Restricted)

What Is Charlie Kaufman Known For?

Charlie Kaufman is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is famous for being a part of writing the movies such as Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. But what exactly do we know about him and his work?

Terence “Terry” Ross Kaufman, better known as simply Charlie Kaufman, was born on November 19, 1958 in New York City. He grew up in Massapequa, New York with his parents Helen and Donald Kaufman and his brother Patrick.

Kaufman attended high school at Massapequa High School South during the 1970s. He was interested in writing from an early age.

In fact, he wrote his first play at the age of ten. After graduating from high school in 1976, he attended Boston University where he earned both his BFA and MFA degrees in film production. It was there where he met fellow school mate Spike Jonze (who later became a successful director himself).

After college, Kaufman moved to Chicago where he got a job as an advertising copy writer at an agency called Needham Harper Worldwide for seven years.

During this time, he wrote many short scripts which were eventually turned into the movie Being John Malkovich (1999). This was the beginning of his career as a screenwriter. Since then Kaufman

The post Best Charlie Kaufman Movies: Top 8 Mind Bending Films appeared first on Filmmaking Lifestyle.

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