Top 5 Dream Sequences

"I feel like I've been in a coma for the past twenty years. And I'm just now waking up."
Here are the finest five of them all.

5) The Big Lebowski (1998)
We're entering the Dude's world, as the dream starts. Saddam's handing the bowling shoes, Julianne Moore's in a naughty warrior suit and the Dude is shaking his ass to the rhythm. Dozens of feathered Busby Berkeley dancers are lining up along the bowling aisle, and the Dude's hovering below their skirts, with a stupid smile on his face. And then it turns to a nightmare, when the evil little red people want to cut off his fingers. Funny and amazingly executed, it fits perfectly to the wacky attitude of the film. The Dude abides.

4) An American Werewolf In London (1981)
Our young sight-seeing leading man has just been molested by a wild animal and watched his best friend die. This kind of stuff is meant to haunt you in your dreams. But one would naturally expect a werewolf in our hero's nightmares. And this is the actual trick. When Nazis with terrifying masks and 12inch knives and Uzis come barging through the door, you believe it's the real thing, and you mouth a repeated "what-the-fuck" monologue, just as our twisted hero wakes up. And then "holy crap" becomes your current obsession, since the curtains rapidly open to reveal a Nazi attempting to slit the beautiful nurse's neck. No, wait, it's just another dream...

3) American Beauty (1999)
Watch Lester Burnham, a simple, middle-aged, depressed man whose highlight-of-the-day is masturbating in the shower. He has been asleep for most of his life, but now he's awake. So, where's the harm in daydreaming about your 16-year-old daughter's cheerleader friend, unzipping her top and exposing her rosepetal-shooting breasts. Or even better, giving your dangerously under-aged object of your fantasies a flowery bath, her being so dirty and all... I bet Lester's highlight-of-the-day ain't masturbating anymore...

2) Trainspotting (1996)
Going cold-turkey from the junkie's eyes. We actually don't know if it's a nightmare or a hallucination, but it doesn't even matter. We watch in awe as Renton gets a visit from his not-so-close friends, from his under-aged one night stand, to a ceiling-walking dead baby. It's not about getting out of drugs, it's about standing up to your sins and facing your guilty past. It's a way of cleaning up your soul, and Danny Boyle makes it quite clear that it takes pain and suffering for his front man to find redemption.

1) Brazil (1985)
Jonathan Pryce experiences the same dream again and again, only each time it turns out in a different way. So, we watch as our witless protagonist Sam Lowry becomes a hero in his dreams, where he flies with his wings above fields and kisses the pretty girl. Just like the threatening and nightmarish portrayal of the future bureaucratic world of Terry Gilliam, the dreams become nightmares as the mood of the film swings. When the winged, sword yielding hero faces a giant Samurai, in order to free the slaves and his loved one, it's one of the best inner-battles ever captured on screen. Truly unique dream sequences in a style only one man can direct, Terry Gilliam is the definition of personal cinema.

Contenders
Only daydreaming and hallucinations count, not visions and dark thoughts, cause the list would be endless. Carrie, Friday the 13th, The Cell, The Descent, they didn't make it. Nightmare on Elm Street franchise has too many to remember, and there are too many to mention from the horror genre. In Donnie Darko, Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr. you can't quite tell what's a dream and what's not. Waking Life, Vanilla Sky's lucid dream and Alien 3's chestbursting scene came close. Flatliners' amazing capture of near-death experiences came 6th, Rosemary's Baby devilish rape came in 7th, Spellbound came in 8th. Movies like the Matrix, Fight Club and Ghostbusters would fill in the top 20.