In the early 90's the French filmmaking duo of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet exploded on the scene with their stunning Paris post-apocalypse cannibal fantasy feature Delicatessen.

They immediately followed it up with an even more ambitious sci-fi fantasy The City of Lost Children.

Like the dark French children's novel Roald Dahl never wrote, City of Lost Children tells the story of Krank, a demented scientist who lives on an island rig with clone assistants, and systematically steals children for their dreams which help stop Krank's pre-mature aging.

When orphan Miette and carnival strongman One (played by Ron Perlman!) decide to put a stop to Krank's plan and rescue the children, they go on an odyssey as singularly visual in cinema as any of Terry Gilliam's 1980's movie greats.

Filled with incredibly inventive visuals and sequences that are wonderfully perverse in being both very childlike and very dark and adult (City is actually rated R!), there is no experience quite like this movie.

Many of the creative team here would go on to create and/or shot wonderful movies like Amelie, Fight Club, Uncut Gems using all the cinematic wizardry they created to tell this dark, wonderfully dangerous fable.