10 Movies to Watch While High: Stoner movies made their own market in the 1970s, which is pretty clear. A whole generation loved movies like Up in Smoke, Fritz the Cat, The Chicken Chronicles, and Rockers. Cheech and Chong are a famous comedy duo. Look them up on Google. These two dumb actors are the only ones who can be blamed for a long line of stoner movies that no hippie could ever turn down.
When you’re high, your reality seems more real, and you often do silly things like talk about hypothetical things, overeat, laugh, do nothing, and lie down a lot. So, if you decide to watch something while high, you shouldn’t (and shouldn’t try to) look for hard-hitting, realistic stories. To put it more simply, you want an experience, not a story, a theme, or a nuanced performance.
We all know that not every movie is meant to be watched while high. So, I’ve tried to put together a few of them. There’s some drama, some horror, some crazy visuals, but most of them are just jokes that make you laugh without you having to think too much about them. Some of the usual suspects, like Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie (1980), Pineapple Express (2008), Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), etc., might not be on the list. This is mostly because I decided to go beyond Hollywood.
Not all of these movies are about stoners or marijuana, but these are the ones you’ll want to watch when you light up. Just don’t tweet about it.
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) (Dir. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
EEAAO is a movie like no other. It’s both a superhero movie and a political and social satire like no other. This movie has nothing to do with anything, just like No Smoking (2007), which is also on this list. You’re not ready for this ride. Most of you have probably already seen or rather lived through the movie, but for those of you who haven’t, roll, roll, and watch it now!
Michelle Yeoh is a gift to Hollywood that came from Asia. She is one of those actors who deserve great movies, not the other way around. I really want her to win an Oscar because she was amazing in Everything, Everywhere, and All at Once.
The story of the movie is absurd, but it actually makes perfect sense! Every frame of EEAAO pokes fun at mythology, art, politics, and philosophy. Every time the fast editing of “multiverse travel” lands on a sarcastic comment, it is because the editing is so smooth. Even a frame that lasts less than a second tells a story.
Daniels wrote the script with Jackie Chan in mind, but he eventually (and thankfully) realized that a woman would make more sense as the main character in a movie about a complicated relationship between a husband and wife. The husband is played by Ke Huy Quan. Because there weren’t enough interesting Asian roles in Hollywood, he stopped acting for twenty years. But in this movie, he gets to play over 200 different roles, which earned him an Oscar nomination. That’s quite a comeback!
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once will make you tired in the best way possible. Light up that joint and get on this rollercoaster.
Friday (1995) (Dir. F. Gary Gray)
Friday is a great 90s show. Most likely one of the best movies about life in the hood to come out of Hollywood. Even though it might not be as tight in terms of technicalities or direction, the heart and humor more than make up for it.
Most of the funny lines in the movie were spoken on the spot. Rapper Ice Cube and DJ Pooh wrote and starred in the movie because they didn’t like how the hood had been shown in movies so far, which was mostly as violent and dangerous. So, most of what you see on Friday is based on the person’s own life. Most of the characters and plot points come from their own lives.
Friday is more funny and cool than Bad Boys. But the movie also deals with the same problems that other living-in-the-hood dramas do, which gives it a big, warm heart. It’s less planned and made, or at least viewers have been tricked into thinking that.
In the 2015 movie Straight Outta Compton, Ice Cube’s son O’Shea Jackson, Jr., who played Ice Cube, said “Bye, Felisha!” F. Gary Gray is in charge of both movies.
Laugh with Friday every time you puff.
Go Goa Gone (2013) (Dir. Raj & D.K.)
India’s first “zom-com”? That’s so cool! And this is only the start. The zombie apocalypse in Go Goa Gone happens in… Goa! This Indian version of Shaun of the Dead (2004) is irreverent, smart, and funny enough to become a cult favorite.
Go Goa Gone isn’t an ideal movie. In fact, it’s not even close to being great. The movie went nowhere in the end, and the idea for it was much more interesting than what it turned out to be. Just too smart and not enough interesting. But dude! Are you really going to talk about the script while you watch “Rollin’ Doobies Up”?
It pushes a lot of our moral boundaries. Even though I’m not a fan of Saif Ali Khan or Vir Das, everyone does a good job, and the lines are hilarious! One of the most famous lines in modern Indian cinema is from this movie: “Dilli se hoon, b*****d.”
And we HAVE to talk about that crazy as hell music. How often do we hear a Hindi song with lyrics like “Bloody khooni Monday” or “Babaji ki booti”? There should be a movie just about that music.
Go Goa Gone is a trip about zombies that you can enjoy when you’re high.
Hausu (1977) (Dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi)
Hausu, which means “house” in English, is so strange and unusual that it can’t be put into a box or predicted. It has a lot of movie-like qualities, if you know what I mean. It’s irreverently self-aware, ludicrously shallow, playful, and almost innocently entertaining.
The idea for the movie came from Nobuhiko Obayashi’s pre-teen daughter. She was afraid that the mirror she used would eat her. He thought that adults couldn’t understand these ideas, but that kids could and that they could be made into movies. His daughter came up with many of the ways in which the House would attack the characters. So, basically, a 12-year-old Japanese girl helped write one of the most famous movies ever made.
Hausu is a classic of kitsch Japanese film, and most of the people who were in it weren’t even actors. Each of them only has one trait, which is how they were made. They have a plastic feel to them that doesn’t go away.
When a movie starts with the words “A Movie,” you can feel how strangely comforting its visual nonsense and cinematically crazy undertones are. Hausu is a lot like Phoebe’s dollhouse in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. It’s weird, funny, creative, and a lot of fun.
Hausu is an attack on all your senses with a mixture that works surprisingly well. Even if you haven’t smoked that joint yet, I’m sure you’ll be high.
Inherent Vice (2014) (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
“Doc might not be a good person, but he’s done good things.”
With Inherent Vice, director PT Anderson wanted the audience to be as confused as his main character, Doc. The movie is hard to understand, strange, funny, and always different.
Anderson hides his jokes in so many different themes that you almost have to watch it more than once to catch everything. Inherent Vice is a surprising pleasure that makes you want to watch it again and again. It doesn’t try to be anything it’s not, which is strange for a movie like this. The plot of the movie is… well, it’s hard to figure out. This movie version of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 book of the same name is too true to the book to make a good movie. But there is still way too much more to like about Inherent Vice.
Robert Downey Jr. was the first choice for the part, but Joaquin Phoenix got it in the end. Robert says that Anderson thought he was too old to play the part. Even though the movie had over 15 A-list stars, I really liked Josh Brolin. He was a great example of a man in the Eisenhower era, and it was fun to watch him.
Inherent Vice is told entirely in stoner mumble and hippie slang, so it’s best to smoke a joint or two while watching it.
No Smoking (2007) (Dir. Anurag Kashyap)
Let me start by saying that, with a few exceptions, I don’t like most of Anurag Kashyap’s work. And “Do Not Smoke” is one of them. When the movie came out, I couldn’t get enough of it, and I still can’t.
The movie is loosely based on Stephen King’s short story “Quitters, Inc.” and the stories about what happened behind the scenes are just as crazy as the movie itself. After Paanch was always late, Allwyn Kalicharan was put on hold, and Gulaal was only half done, Kashyap was sad and sent a mass SMS to his film industry friends asking for help. No one replied except for the actor John Abraham. John sent him a plane ticket to Los Angeles so he could get away for a while. There, Anurag wrote the dark allegory No Smoking, which is about being an individual.
But if you think that’s how John got the part of the main character, you’re wrong! Kay Kay Menon was the first person who was going to do it, but she said that the film should be done by a star. Then, Anurag talked to Shah Rukh Khan about the script. Khan thought about it for a long time before deciding not to use it. John was the only star who loved the script right away and said “yes” right away. For the role, he had to smoke 99 cigarettes every day, which hurt his lungs. You won’t understand this old movie, and that’s fine. Everything about it is strange and very addicting, from the visuals to the music to the story.
No Smoking is a great movie to watch after you’ve been smoking pot because it’s weird, surreal, and just plain weird.
Om Dar-Ba-Dar (1988) (Dir. Kamal Swaroop)
Om Dar-Ba-Dar isn’t really a movie. It’s a fantasy. Kamal Swaroop, who is in charge of making the movie, says that he “cannot think in words,” so the script is based only on his dreams and images. When Kamal was working with Richard Attenborough on Gandhi, the idea for the movie began to take shape. He kept the crowd under control and kept them amused by telling stories. Om Dar-Ba-Dar was one of the stories.
Even though the movie was never shown in theaters in India, it has a large cult following. After 26 years, it went to theaters for the first time in 2014. The film is perfect for a psychedelic experience because it has an absurdist, post-modernist, and non-linear plot. Remember how drunk we felt when we left the theater after seeing Dev D (2009) by Anurag Kashyap? So, Om Dar-Ba-Dar is the first time consciousness grew. Kashyap was and is still very moved by the movie. If “Emosanal Attyachaar” makes you feel good, the original “Meri Jaan” from Om Dar-Ba-Dar will blow your mind. Watch it right now on YouTube.
The movie is the exact opposite of how the rest of the world sees, understands, and knows Indian movies (looking at you, RRR!). I’m definitely the “Babloo Babylon se” (you’ll know what I mean when you see the movie), so I’m not going to pretend that I’ve understood the movie. However, I would HIGHLY recommend that you watch it, even if you aren’t high!
The Big Lebowski (1998) (Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)
The Big Lebowski is a kind of pop-poetry movie that has a lot of great humanism and clever humor. When it came out, critics said it didn’t work and was a confusing mess. But the US National Film Registry has decided to keep it because it is “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
It’s a great movie to watch while high because of the characters, the dream sequences, the quirky dialogue, and the eclectic music. And the fact that it’s probably one of the funniest comedies on screen doesn’t hurt.
Around 1991, the script was written. When the Coen brothers wanted to make it, John Goodman was filming episodes of Roseanne (1988), and Jeff Bridges was making Wild Bill. So, instead of hiring other actors, the Coen brothers decided to wait and make Fargo (1996) in the meantime. As the pot-smoking Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, Jeff Bridges gives one of the best 90s Hollywood performances.
This weekend, if you want to get high with your buddies and friends, just sit back and watch The Big Lebowski, dude. Life might not be meant to make sense.
The Holy Mountain (1973) (Dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky)
Someone once said that Alejandro Jodorowsky, the director, was “delectably weird, on purpose evocative, and a strange genius.” And the same words can also be used to describe his book The Holy Mountain.
It’s a crazy mix of psychedelia, religion, and violent surrealism that doesn’t make any sense. The movie often feels like it doesn’t know where it’s going, and that’s by design. People often think of The Holy Mountain as the peak and end of the short-lived and less well-known Panic Movement in movies. From 1962 to 1973, Jodorowsky, the Spanish director Fernando Arrabal, and the French writer Roland Topor got together in Paris to make a group that scared and amazed people with its chaotic performances and many artistic sides.
The Holy Mountain is a rebellious, unsettling, decadent, psychedelic, and funny journey. The humor is rich, subtle, and clever in the way it makes fun of people who are too proud to be politically correct. A lot of the movie was shot in a style called “guerilla.” During the shot of the helicopter landing in the street, the crew didn’t get any permits. Instead, they had an actor in a police uniform stop traffic while they shot and then ran away when they were done.
The movie is like a time capsule. It takes you back to a time when movies and audiences were open to anything. The Holy Mountain is a two-hour fever dream with violent images and strange, thought-provoking references to religion, sexuality, and spirituality that don’t make sense. You could use that pot to help you climb this mountain.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) (Dir. Eli Craig)
This movie is 100% crazy, but the best word to describe it is “hilarious.” It turns every horror/slasher trope on its head and has laugh-out-loud moments, blood and bluff, fun and games, and, believe it or not, heart! Tucker & Dale vs. Evil cleverly hides a social commentary about the difference between city and country life, first impressions, and making snap judgments without giving up creativity or laughs.
At its heart, it’s such a simple idea that you might wonder why no one thought of it before. But director Eli Craig cleverly stretches out what could have been a single joke that gets old by adding some funny situations and social commentary to the bloody gore. When you can’t stop laughing during the brutal killings and body parts being cut off, you might learn a lot about yourself.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is best at what it does because of how well the actors play their parts. Alan Tudyk is great as Tucker, and Tyler Labine is great as Dale. It could be a part where they just wink at the camera and act like fools, but their surprising sincerity and warmth will make you love them.
