In this series, Close-Up Culture pair movies with songs that share the exact same atmospheric DNA.

This week we ask: What if your favourite indie albums are secretly the perfect soundtracks to cinema’s most striking arthouse films?

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1. Climax (2018) + Currents – Tame Impala

Hypnotic, sensual and increasingly sinister, with beauty slowly giving way to something darker.

2. The Lobster (2015) + Congratulations – MGMT

A bizarre, deadpan world where romance becomes another absurd social rule to escape.

3. Drive (2011) + Is This It – The Strokes

Cool surfaces, lonely nights and the feeling that something violent is waiting just beneath the neon.

4. The Green Knight (2021) + Bloom – Beach House

Dreamlike, hypnotic and strangely timeless, as though the whole film exists inside a half-remembered song.

5. Ex Machina (2014) + xx – The xx

Minimalist, intimate and quietly seductive, with technology turning desire into something unsettling.

6. Midsommar (2019) + Punisher – Phoebe Bridgers

Sun-bleached, haunting, and quietly devastating, capturing the slow-burning grief and final, apocalyptic collapse of a dying romance.

7. Swiss Army Man (2016) + Multi-Love – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Odd, playful and unexpectedly tender, turning loneliness into something wonderfully strange.

8. The Neon Demon (2016) + Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming – M83

Glittering surfaces and dreamlike excess conceal something increasingly nightmarish underneath.

9. Annihilation (2018) + Kid A – Radiohead

A familiar world becomes beautifully alien as identity, nature and reality begin to dissolve.

10. Paterson (2016) + Tell Me How You Really Feel

Quiet, observant, and deeply poetic, finding a distinct, rhythmic beauty in the mundane details of everyday routines.

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