The Essentials
1. Dead Ringers (1988)
The horror is strictly psychological here, and, for all its exotic elements, uncomfortably recognizable in its depiction of how we need other people to shape who we are.
2. Videodrome (1983)
The best of Cronenberg's early films is also the most elusive, offering a grim meditation on media, violence, and desire that keeps its conclusions to itself.
3. Naked Lunch (1991)
Part hallucinatory biopic, part freewheeling adaptation of William S. Burroughs' most potent ideas, its imagery shocks, but the depiction of how creators risk disappearing into their own fictions truly haunts.
4. A History Of Violence (2005)
Come for the brilliantly executed thriller. Stay for the typically unsettling exploration of identity and humanity's ever-present potential for brutality.
5. Shivers (1975)
As shocking today as when it caused outraged headlines in Canada upon its release, Cronenberg's first commercial feature remains a brilliantly blunt, bloody satire of human sexuality in antiseptic surroundings.
Miscellany:
Cronenberg has dabbled in commercial work between films, including a 1990 ad for Nike that bears his unmistakable stamp.
And in 2000, he contributed this short to the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival, a kind of Videodrome in miniature, with an unsettling directness in place of slime.
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