A post in the HD forum got me thinking about films I just can't make it through and always seem to pass out during. In short, films to cure insomnia.

As mentioned in the HD forum thread, David Lynch's Inland Empire is one of these films for me.

For awhile, 2001: A Space Odyssey was another.

Others that come to mind:
Lincoln
The Tree of Life

Death Proof has always been the champion for me but the recent Dune has become a contender.

I straight up fell asleep in IMAX during Dune. Although we had a 9pm showing and that's normally about my bedtime haha

Blade Runner

Tess
Out of Africa
The Cure for Insomnia (clocks in a 87 hours!)

Don’t get me wrong, I love the movie but Blade Runner is my answer as well. The combination of a mellow soundtrack, slow, methodical pacing, and dark/constantly rainy scenes make it very difficult not to drift away while watching.

I like the movie a lot too.

The cure for insomnia aspect, I came across by chance. I was watching it in the middle of the day and fell asleep. When I woke up, it was already past midnight.

This is one of my go to Soundtracks to fall asleep too and, yeah, I admit to nodding off on the film a few times.

Not a specific movie, but for a long time my cure for insomnia was to turn on a Werner Herzog commentary track. Not because they're boring, but because his voice is so calm and soothing.

A movie I love and had fallen asleep to, though it's been a few years, is Lost in Translation.

I'm old enough now that I no longer have the strength to sit through movies that are deliberately boring. Police, Adjectiv, for example, is a movie that wants to show how mundane life as a cop can be and makes you feel the boredom.


I know some people are fans of this type of movie, but I can't say they do much for me other than knock me out.

Totally! Grizzly Man often has me nodding off.

Herzog and also Attenbourgh from the Planet Earth series. He sounds like Winnie the Pooh. :P

For me it's every movie, as soon as I lie down on the couch, or if it is getting late and I'm to comfortable on the couch. It's a gift and a curse.

I have a very high tolerance for glacial films (In fact, I'd much rather watch a good character drama than an action film), but Aguirre: Wrath of God, one of the most critically overpraised films in history, is a film I tried twice to watch, 25-30 years ago, and it just bored me to the brink of putting an ice pick into my brain. It's like staring at a blank wall for what seems like 3 hours, only far less scintillating. The second time, I was dead-set on understanding the acclaim, and practically pried my eyes open like the guy in A Clockwork Orange, but to no avail. I couldn't finish it. It didn't help that I consider Kinski a horrendous wild-eyed, raving ham.

I understand this, even if I disagree.

Don't get me wrong, A:WOG is a SLOW film. It's one of the slowest films I've ever seen (practically at Tarkovsky levels). I read one review in which it moved at the speed of a five-car pile-up. But I still find it compelling and, for the most part, utterly fascinating.

But I SO have to be in the mood to watch it.

For so many years, it was Magnolia. I have come to respect the film a lot more now than I did then. It's heavily flawed and ultimately it still doesn't work, but it's a fascinating mess instead of a snoozefest.

Anyway, try as I might, I've never been able to make it through Once Upon A Time In The West without passing out.

Same. That's why theaters with heated reclining seats is not a selling point with me. If I get too comfortable, I'm a goner.

When I was an undergraduate (about 30 years ago), I took an "Art of the Film" English elective. In the days before the Internet it was hard to see many cult and foreign movies, and we saw some interesting ones. The instructor didn't show famous art-house movies, but went really rare and obscure with many movies not available on VHS ... that we watched projected film reel copies the university had copies of. But one movie we watched made us tap out. When the lights came up the instructor was mad because everyone either fell asleep or snuck out in the darkness. I had to do some internet searching to remember what this celluloid Sominex was ... it was a 1975 French movie called India Song! It's on YouTube and it's pretty much how I remember it. Everything's slow. The camera moves slow, the music is slow, people move slow, people talk slow (with this off-putting technique of having all dialog be voice-over without anyone lips moving). Nothing seems to happen and it goes on for 2 hours, although it will knock out most viewers well short of that

I almost fell asleep during Dune. Actually I may have nodded off for a few minutes. I wanted to like it but it just didn’t do much for me.

This is a good one too. I’ve fallen asleep every time I’ve attempted to watch it.

I know this is a jokey post but there is one scene in this movie that does it for me. There’s a scene where Al Pacino is driving down the road with the windshield wipers going. The rhythmic back and forth of the wipers starts to lull him to sleep, and it starts to lull me to sleep too.

Except for a Kate Bosworth nude sex scene when she was hot in 2013 this was a snoozefest

That happens more in winter and you use a blanket and the movie is not really boring but you fall asleep like I did with Rambo Last Blood which was not boring but found that sweet spot on the couch.

Terrence Malick films should be filed under "S" for sleep.

Take Shelter