Lists of avant-garde films

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This is chronological list of avant-garde and experimental films split by decade. Often there may be considerable overlap particularly between avant-garde/experimental and other genres (including, documentaries, fantasy, and science fiction films); the list should attempt to document films which are more closely related to the avant-garde, even if it bends genres.

List by decade

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Avant-garde Works that are experimental or innovative

The avant-garde are people or works that are experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society. It is frequently characterized by aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability.


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Avant-garde metal subgenre of metal music

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Tinto Brass Italian film director

Giovanni "Tinto" Brass is an Italian filmmaker. In the 1960s and 1970s, he directed many critically acclaimed avant-garde films of various genres. Today, he is mainly known for his later work in the erotic genre, with films such as Caligula, Così fan tutte, Paprika, Monella and Trasgredire.

Experimental film, experimental cinema or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms and alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, particularly early ones, relate to arts in other disciplines: painting, dance, literature and poetry, or arise from research and development of new technical resources.

Paracinema is an academic term to refer to a wide variety of film genres out of the mainstream, bearing the same relationship to 'legitimate' film as paraliterature like comic books and pulp fiction bears to literature. Sconce describes this as 'an extremely elastic textual category'.

In addition to art film, horror, and science fiction films, "paracinema" catalogues "include entries from such seemingly disparate genres" as badfilm, splatterpunk, mondo films, sword-and-sandal epics, Elvis flicks, government hygiene films, Japanese monster movies, beach party musicals, and "just about every other historical manifestation of exploitation cinema from juvenile delinquency documentaries to ... pornography.

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Ralph Steiner American photographer

Ralph Steiner was an American photographer, pioneer documentarian and a key figure among avant-garde filmmakers in the 1930s.

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Castro Street (1966) is a visual nonstory documentary film directed by Bruce Baillie.

Avant-garde refers to a style in experimental work in art, music, culture, or politics.

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Aimless Walk is a 7:54 min. 1930 film by the Czech filmmaker Alexander Hammid.

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