I came across Mr. Oizo in the early 2000s, if I recall correctly. He’s known for “Flat Beat”, which was famously used in a jeans ad. For good reason, it’s a really great track.
He has been making movies for a while now, but I only caught up with them the other year, and man, what a treat. His movies have a sort of self-aware Wes Anderson feel without much pretension. Most of them are silly, entertaining, and generally well executed. Nothing goes to waste in these movies, and it’s incredibly refreshing.
1. Mandibles (2020)
Mandibles is about two lowlife criminals who steal a car, find a gigantic fly in the trunk, and then get mistaken for old high school friends and invited to a vacation home. It’s silly, energetic, and youthful. It captures his filmmaking style without being too bizarre, while still being funny and surreal. Highly recommended!
2. Yannick (2023)
Yannick is about a young construction worker who attends a play called Le Cuck. The play is boring, so he stands up and interrupts the performance to tell the actors they should make it better, offering some earnest and honestly good ideas. The whole theater thinks he’s insane and treats him that way. Having traveled a long way to attend the play, only to be let down and disrespected, our protagonist hijacks the theater with a pistol, demands a typewriter and a printer, and sets out to rewrite the play. It ends with an incredible crescendo with a touching emotional high.
3. Smoking Causes Coughing (2022)
This movie is about a Power Rangers-inspired, monster-fighting team, except their superpowers somehow come from the deadly chemicals in cigarettes. The movie is kind of a flex in filmmaking, pulling out and executing all the classic special effects, costumes, and gore. Beyond the technical filmmaking, the story follows a series of bizarre, funny, and generally entertaining tales.
4. The Piano Accident (2025)
The Piano Accident is a movie about influencers and journalists.
5. The Second Act (2024)
It’s a bunch of funny dialogue between a group of great French actors. It’s set in a surreal restaurant run by a waiter who can’t pour wine without spilling it. Simple, satisfying, and worth a watch.
6. Keep an Eye Out! (2018)
This movie follows a suspect and the cop interviewing him. He is clearly innocent, but the evidence and circumstances keep stacking up against him. It almost feels like a bad dream you can’t wake up from.
7. Incredible but True (2022)
This is a funny movie about a couple who buy a house with a tunnel in the basement. If you go down the tunnel, you end up climbing down a ladder from the attic, sort of like a portal. Every time you go through it, you emerge six days younger, but two weeks pass for those outside it. The wife immediately becomes addicted to the tunnel and seeks to regain her younger self. Meanwhile, her husband gets two weeks older every time she goes through. He ages considerably while she ultimately becomes only a few years younger. The ending is shocking, and there are a slew of funny side stories, like the husband’s obnoxious boss flying to Japan to get a “smart penis” augmentation that he can control with an iPhone app.
8. Deerskin (2019)
Deerskin is about a serial killer who’s going through a divorce and his sycophantic assistant.
9. Wrong Cops (2013) / Wrong (2012)
I saw these when they came out, and I still really like them. They are surreal and don’t make much sense, but they’re entertaining, and it’s fun to watch the obnoxious characters develop on screen. Wrong Cops is the better of the two. The story about the psychic dog is really entertaining, and all the locations they shoot in are interesting on their own. These movies feature a lot of Mr. Oizo music, and it fits perfectly.
Wrong Cops trailer
Wrong trailer
10. Steak (2007)
Steak is very bizarre. It’s also really funny. It mixes a weird American letterman-jock aesthetic with a compulsive drive for plastic surgery, while everyone is obsessed with drinking milk and eating raw eggs. The old lifted square-body trucks they drive are really cool, too.
11. Reality (2014)
Reality is about a movie in a movie or something I can’t remember. Eric Wareheim steals the show.
12. Daaaaaalí! (2023)
It’s a movie about Salvador Dalí, and it makes about as much sense as his art!
13. Rubber (2010)
It’s a movie about a killer tire. Most of the movie is just full of “no reason.” In a lot of ways, it seems like a filmmaking flex. There are some funny scenes, but overall it’s pretty slow, though it does have a few good songs.
