Written, produced, and directed by Tommy Wiseau, this inept 2003 melodrama has become a Rocky Horror-style cult favorite. Wiseau stars as an eerily placid and good-natured banker whose live-in girlfriend is secretly getting it on with his best friend, though the filmmaker often strikes out in different directions, only to bump into the wall and come back. As someone who’s watched more bad movies than you can imagine, I’m mostly immune to the so-bad-it’s-good aesthetic, though I can see how, viewed in a theater at midnight after a few drinks, this might conjure up its own hilariously demented reality. Poignantly, Wiseau has now repositioned the movie as a “black comedy.”
The Room
R • 1 hour 39 min • 2003