Marvel's latest film is already a hit with critics and is guaranteed massive box office takings, but Doctor Strange is also the most overtly psychedelic mainstream film in years.
The Scott Derrickson-written and directed movie has a whopping 97 percent fresh rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with critics praising its astounding visual effects.
The story of a surgeon who becomes a sorcerer, Doctor Strange features freakiness like astral projection, parallel dimensions and the multiverse.
Such far-out grooviness from Marvel might seem odd to mainstream audiences who only know the Disney-owned films, but old-school comic fans will be very familiar with it - and delighted with the film's faithful modern take on Steve Ditko's '60s art.
Just how full-bore the psychedelic imagery is pushed in the film may raise eyebrows, but it's far from the first explicitly trippy movie to hit the big screen here and buzz Kiwis out.
Here are five of the trippiest films ever to grace cinema screens in New Zealand.
The Holy Mountain
Funded in part by the Beatles, Alejandro Jodorowsky's surreal fantasy is crammed with full-on psychedelic and religious imagery that flipped many a wig back in 1973. It's a pretentious, overblown trip that has to be seen to be believed and it played again earlier this year at the inaugural Controversial Film Festival.
Enter the Void
European bad boy auteur Gaspar Noe stated he wanted to "intoxicate the audience, using film as the intoxicant" with this. He most certainly achieved that goal with this visual journey through death, DMT, sex and the afterlife, making for a truly unforgettable, mind-bending experience at Auckland's Civic Theatre in 2010.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Dubbed the "ultimate trip", Stanley Kubrick's epic spans the prehistoric dawn of man through to future travel beyond the infinite. It's largely sparse on dialogue, delivering mind-expanding meditations on humanity and artificial intelligence more through beautiful images than words.
The Cell
Despite the terrifying combo of Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughn on the cast, this Tarsem Singh film delivers ample trippiness. Released in New Zealand in 2001, it had hugely impressive visual effects for its time, used to tell a tale set mostly inside the colourful and bizarre mind of a serial killer.
Psyched by the 4D Witch
Like Doctor Strange, this insane 1972 film also deals with parallel dimensions; but it is heady in a very different way. There's subliminal imagery, telepathic dialogue, occultism, hypnotism and weird sex all filmed in "trans-etheric vision" and with an infectious, groovy soundtrack. It's perhaps the trippiest film to ever play the Incredibly Strange Film Festival, which is a monumental achievement.
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Doctor Strange is in New Zealand cinemas now, including Auckland's IMAX, which is the most immersive way to experience it.
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