Dylan O'Brien's Mind-Bending 2020 Thriller Will Leave You Confused (In A Good Way)

We all love a good mind-bender, as evidenced by the success of Christopher Nolan's "Inception" back in 2010. But if you've worked your way through all the best mind-bending movies and are looking for something a little more off the beaten path, and/or happen to be a fan of Dylan O'Brien, then "Flashback" is for you.

In 2025, O'Brien delivered his best performance yet, proving he's the next Robert Pattinson. That performance came in "Twinless," a dark comedy that saw the actor play twins, one of whom is grieving the other. Given the film's reception, ("Twinless" maintains a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score today) many viewers might well be asking, "Where can I get more Dylan O'Brien?" Well, his underrated "Maze Runner" films, a dystopian sci-fi trilogy which recently shuffled off the Netflix server, are worth hunting down for fans of the actor. Those looking for something a little more obscure, however, should be intrigued by "Flashback."

Also known as "The Education of Fredrick Fitzell," this 2020 mystery thriller is one of O'Brien's most perplexing films. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The movie sees him play an office worker who's forced to dig into the recesses of his own mind to solve the mystery of a girl who disappeared in his high school days. It makes for a strange and often compelling ride that unfortunately didn't make much of an imprint in the recesses of our own collective mind upon its initial release.

"Flashback" is written and directed by Christopher MacBride, whose only prior feature was the 2012 found footage horror "The Conspiracy." That film was well-received by critics and seemed to bode well for its writer/director's future. For whatever reason, however, MacBride's next project didn't arrive for another eight years, and when it did, it was a heck of a lot more complicated plot-wise than "The Conspiracy."

"Flashback" stars Dylan O'Brien as Fredrick Fitzell, an IT drone who, after visiting his sick mother (Liisa Repo-Martell) in the hospital, starts to experience disturbing visions of a former high school classmate. This girl, Cindy Williams, is played by Maika Monroe, star of the biggest indie horror box office hit in a decade, "Longlegs." Fred soon learns that Cindy went missing after a new drug called Mercury spread through the school — a drug that he and his friends also took frequently. In a desperate search to find out what happened and stop his visions, Fred contacts old friends before realizing that he must venture inwards to solve the mystery of Cindy's disappearances.

As the film goes on, it becomes a sort of multiversal adventure, marrying past, present, and future timelines to create a truly disorienting thriller that, yes, will leave your mind fully bent. The deeper Fred goes, the more he questions his reality, and the more we question what in god's name is going on. In a way, that makes the film more effective, as we're aligned with Fred in his confusion. That said, you'll probably need a couple of viewings to figure this one out, but then no mind-bender should leave you fully informed after just one watch.

"Flashback" premiered at the 2020 Sitges Film Festival before eventually making it to theaters in April 2021. This was, however, a limited theatrical release that preceded the film's video-on-demand arrival on June of the same year. Otherwise, "Flashback" sort of passed as quickly as Fred Fitzell's visions, which is a shame, because the film is at least worthy of more than a fleeting limited theatrical run.

On Rotten Tomatoes, "Flashback" earned a critic score of 52%, which isn't quite the same triumph as "The Conspiracy," which managed 86%. That said, "Flashback" was a more high profile movie with more reviewers chiming in. What's more, it was always going to be a tougher watch simply because of its confusing timeline shenanigans. Still, at a time when multiverse movies were proliferating at alarming speed, "Flashback" represented a nice little alternative to Marvel's hopeless attempts. Either way, plenty of critics liked the movie.

Dennis Harvey of Variety was particularly complimentary of MacBride, praising him for being "in full control of the modestly scaled feature's refined aesthetics and storytelling focus, smoothly maintaining viewer interest if not always our full involvement." The Guardian's Leslie Felperin, meanwhile, found the film "reasonably compelling to watch" and described it as "somewhere between schlock and genius," which is a suitably confusing way to describe a movie that clearly aimed to perplex.

Where exactly does the film fall between those two extremes? Felperin didn't seem sure, but that's one of the intriguing things about "Flashback:" It's hard to pin down. If you fancy taking on the challenge, the movie is available on all the usual digital rental platforms, but can also be seen for free on the Roku Channel.