Space Adventure Cobra

Space Adventure Cobra, directed by Osamu Dezaki, is a Japanese animated film adapted from Buichi Terasawa's manga of the same name, about the notorious space pirate Cobra, hired by a bounty hunter to rescue her sister from a mysterious being. Dezaki used a distinctive visual language of split screens, "mirror splits," freeze frames, and screen wide wipe transitions; one critic described the film as "a mix of Barbarella, Zardoz, and Star Wars." A key factor in the film's cult status in the US was Matthew Sweet's 1991 music video for "Girlfriend," which used footage from the film and was played heavily on MTV, introducing it to a much wider audience decades after its release. Who it's for: anyone curious about a classic Japanese space pirate animation with a distinctive, experimental visual language, rediscovered as a cult favorite thanks to a music video decades after its release. Who it's not for: those wanting a modern, polished animation style, since the film embraces a psychedelic 1980s visual language.