El Topo

El Topo (1970) is Alejandro Jodorowsky's cult acid western, free to watch online on iFILM. A black-clad gunslinger known as the Mole rides across the Mexican desert with his six-year-old son, leaving dead bandits in the sand behind him.

Jodorowsky directs and stars. After making the boy bury the totems of his childhood, the Mole abandons him for a woman and sets out to kill the four gunfighting Masters who live in the wastes. Every duel plays like a parable about pain, faith and betrayal. Halfway through, the film drops him into an underground cave full of outcasts, and the man who climbs back out is something close to a revolver-toting saint.

Shot cheaply in Mexico, El Topo invented the midnight-movie circuit: it ran for months in New York, and John Lennon pushed his manager to put it into proper release. Blood, biblical imagery and pure surreal nonsense all run together here, so it is not a film for everyone — but if you love strange, uncompromising auteur cinema, it sticks with you for years. Stream El Topo (1970) online on iFILM.