Great Movies While High: Director Terry Gilliam Films

Terry Gilliam is a visionary director whose style is a surreal mix of fantastical storytelling, animation and social commentary. A member of the legendary comedy group Monty Python, his decades of cinematic output include everything from the satire of films like Brazil to the openly imaginative fun of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Time Bandits.

Gilliam’s mix of surreal storytelling and animation makes almost every one of his films a must-see for stoners looking for something mind-blowing. The visuals are consistently mind-bending, whether it’s to comment on the dangerous inefficiency of bureaucracy (personal favorite Brazil and his most recent, The Zero Theorem) or to tell a trippy story (many of his stories fall into this category, with favorites including 12 Monkeys and the Robin Williams-vehicle The Fisher King).

If you’ve read this far and haven’t heard of Monty Python, you should stop everything else you’re doing and watch some Monty Python right away (The Holy Grail is a great start point, but they have so many classic bits from their “Flying Circus”), which set the stage for scores of other comedies that have come in the decades since. The absurd humor that he honed during Monty Python has permeated many of his films, which he will often mix with his signature style of commentary.

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”

One of the most immediately weedist-friendly Terry Gilliam movies is the Hunter S. Thompson adaptation Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Staring Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson and Benecio del Torro as his “lawyer,” the movie follows the book’s dark journey into all kinds of drugs and then some. Like all of his movies, the visuals are pretty incredible even when stone-cold sober, so after a good sesh, it’s one of the best movie trips available.

Terry Gilliam is an auteur whose truly unique style is perfectly suited to anyone wanting to watch something awesome while high.