Science fiction and horror have long been relegated to the low expectations of genre pulp despite the fact that some of the most stirring works of literature and cinema have come from speculative territory. No filmmaker since F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang has done more to plumb the human psyche with sci-fi and horror than David Cronenberg. The Canadian writer and director has done some amazing things for the advancement of cinema, mixing blood-curdling concepts with cerebral ideas, even elevating camp to a new level of terror. For those who have never delved into the strange worlds Cronenberg constructs, here are a few good places to start.

eXistenZ

In 1999, David Cronenberg helmed a little-seen and now cult-bound film starring Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It follows the players of a video game that takes place in its participants' minds. This is a nice entry-level Cronenberg film because it's just weird enough to settle viewers into a different world, or at least a world like our own only with different rules. This is far from Cronenberg's best, but it's still a worthwhile experience.

The Fly (1986)

Kurt Neumann and James Clavell first adapted George Langelaan's short story for the screen in 1958. It was little more than a B-movie with a higher budget, complete with a ridiculous monster costume. When Cronenberg updated the story for a 1980's crowd, he focused less on the popcorn science fiction of the original and more on the inherent terror of the concept. Jeff Goldblum plays Dr. Seth Brundle, a socially awkward genius whose experimental transporter technology accidentally fuses his DNA with that of a common house fly. The result is a gradual transformation that is equally invigorating and terrifying. The real wonder of Cronenberg's take is that Brundle's psychological transformation is just as disturbing as his physical monstrousness.

Videodrome

If you've been following up to this point, you should have developed the constitution for 1983's Videodrome. It stars James Woods as a television programmer named Max Renn who lives in a dark future that is utterly desensitized to sex and violence. When he gets his hands on a video tape that pushes the boundaries of the already ultra-violent material on television, Renn spirals into a mind-bending mystery that heightens his paranoia past the breaking point. With its claustrophobic atmosphere and unconventional ending, Videodrome is the quintessential David Cronenberg film.

With the above three films under your belt, it's just a hop and skip into some of the advanced movie-going in Cronenberg's canon. It should be no problem to jump into the psychological horror of Dead Ringers (one of Jeremy Irons's best roles), the nearly impossible to follow plot of the adaptation for William S. Burroughs's essentially unadaptable book Naked Lunch, or even see the hidden layers of the otherwise straightforward creature-feature The Brood.

Though as much as I enjoy the overtly weird, creepy films of David Cronenberg, my favorites are his more reigned-in dramas. His two most recent films A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007) are crime dramas that approach brutality with a stark, novel sense of unflinchingly clinical morality. His 1996 adaptation of J.G. Ballard's novel Crash deserves a much bigger cult than it already has, especially for its stunning cast and chilly atmosphere.

David Cronenberg is one of the greats, bringing a unique, highly literate touch to what are essentially monster movies and science fiction comics come to life. His upcoming film, The Talking Cure, is an adaptation of Christopher Hampton's stage play about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. What better subject for a master of psychological drama than the fathers of psychoanalysis?