If you’re looking for the standard rock-music doc with rousing concert footage and tell-all interviews, look elsewhere. Written almost entirely by Roger Waters—the cerebral, tortured frontman of Pink Floyd—this surrealistic hallucination was called by Roger Ebert “without question the best of all serious fiction films devoted to rock.” Riffing on Pink Floyd’s 1979 album The Wall, the film follows a successful but drugged-out rock star as he looks back on his troubled childhood from the confines of a Los Angeles hotel room. He’s chased by memories of his lonely upbringing and toxic personal relationships in a disorienting swirl of flashbacks and psychedelic animation. Trippy, visionary and at times deeply disquieting, Alan Parker's Pink Floyd: The Wall—now screening at Hot Docs for its 40th anniversary—is a truly experimental cinematic experience.

Tickets: $15 (Members from $10)