Donnie Darko

"I want you to watch the screen. There's something I want to show you."

Fifteen years before Stranger Things combined sci-fi, coming-of-age themes, and Spielbergian eighties nostalgia, director Richard Kelly arrived with the same concept in his groundbreaking debut, Donnie Darko. Despite initial distribution difficulties, the film gradually became the first genuine cult classic of the new millennium.

Donnie is a troubled high school student who sees a psychologist, suffers from sleepwalking, and has a humanoid rabbit named Frank as his imaginary friend. Frank tells him the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. During this countdown, Donnie must navigate the pitfalls of suburban teenage life, narrowly escape death from a falling airplane engine, follow Frank's bizarre instructions, and above all keep the space-time continuum intact.

Richard Kelly describes his film as The Catcher in the Rye reimagined by Philip K. Dick. The screenplay merges coming-of-age anxieties with a Kafkaesque fractured reality, taking the form of a dynamic, formally inventive vision with a nostalgic soundtrack featuring Echo and the Bunnymen, Tears for Fears, and Duran Duran. The cast includes Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, whose careers were launched by the film, alongside Patrick Swayze, Drew Barrymore, Mary McDonnell, Katherine Ross, and Noah Wyle, known from the series ER.