Nonlinear narrative

Beginning a non-linear narrative in medias res (Latin: "into the middle of things") began in ancient times and was used as a convention of epic poetry, including Homer's Iliad in the 8th century BC.

The surrealist film jumps into fantasy and juxtaposes images, granting the filmmakers an ability to create statements about the Church, art, and society that are left open to interpretation.

[10] Godard's Week End (French: Le weekend) (1968), as well as Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls (1966), defy linear structure in exchange for a chronology of events that is seemingly random.

[12] Other mainstream nonlinear filmmakers include Michelangelo Antonioni, Peter Greenaway, Chris Marker, Theo Angelopoulos, Agnès Varda, Raúl Ruiz, Carlos Saura, Alain Robbe-Grillet.

[13] In the United States, Robert Altman carried the nonlinear motif in his films, including McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Nashville (1975), The Player (1992), Short Cuts (1993), and Gosford Park (2001).

[8] Other important nonlinear films include Atom Egoyan's Exotica (1994), Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), and Karen and Jill Sprecher's Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001).

Noé's 2009 film Enter the Void also used an uncommon narrative structure as a man recalls his life through flashbacks at the time of his death, induced by the use of psychedelic drugs.

[15] Richard Linklater used nonlinear narrative in Waking Life (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006); Gus Van Sant in Elephant (2003), Last Days (2005), and Paranoid Park (2007).

Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai explored nonlinear storylines in the films Days of Being Wild (1991), Ashes of Time (1994), Chungking Express (1994), In the Mood for Love (2000), and 2046 (2004).

An example is Showtime's horror drama Penny Dreadful, which features one episode per season that is entirely devoted to exploring key moments in Vanessa Ives' (Eva Green) past.

Another example is HBO's drama The Leftovers, whose ninth episode is set in the past and explores the lives of the main characters before the critical event that drives the story took place.

Using a similar storytelling technique, Netflix's original series Orange Is the New Black explores the lives of the main characters in prison and also some important part of their past before they became inmates.

A notable example is the AMC drama series Breaking Bad, which in the beginning of its final season showed a neglected and lonesome Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and then explored what had happened to him.

Using the same formula, FX's Emmy Award winning legal drama Damages starring Glenn Close, begins each season with an intensely melodramatic event taking place and then traveling back six months earlier.

An example is the sitcom Arrested Development which, in its fourth season, made heavy use of nonlinear narrative, devoting each episode to explore the story of each of its characters separately.

Other examples of nonlinear narrative in American television are: 12 Monkeys, A to Z, Alcatraz, American Horror Story, Better Call Saul, BoJack Horseman, Daredevil, Dopesick, Fargo, The Flash, FlashForward, Forever, Gotham, Grounded for Life, Hannibal, Heroes, House of Cards, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Person of Interest, Pretty Little Liars, The Returned, Revolution, Sense8, Undone, The Vampire Diaries, Wayward Pines and The Witcher.

!, Monogatari Series, Yami to Bōshi to Hon no Tabibito, Touka Gettan, Rental Magica, Ergo Proxy, Fullmetal Alchemist, Axis Powers Hetalia, Hidamari Sketch, Mekakucity Actors, Princess Principal, The Garden of Sinners and (partly) Boogiepop Phantom.

Some video games mimic film non-linearity by presenting a single plot in a chronologically distorted way instead of letting the player determine the story flow themselves.

In Façade the player is put into a situation that lasts approximately 10 to 15 minutes in real time, yet the events recalled seem to have a basis in years of dramatic history.

They allow for individuals to navigate within the story through links, images, audio and video, consisting of multiple subtopics that do not force the audience to make their next selection based on what their previous experiences are.