You're right of course. I really dug 'Alice', but haven't seen Faust yet. Svankmajer's "Otesanek/Little Otik" looks wonderful, but I haven't found one for rental yet.
Here's a movie I had to buy that probably isn't known very well, William Klein's "Mr. Freedom". A French satire of American hubris and coarseness, from ca 1968. Centered on an American supero and his efforts to rid France of the 'Red Menace', very witty, tongue in and piercing the cheek. The special effects look like a mixture of HR Puffinstuff (sp?) and any number of MST3K fare. Check it out if you can find it.
As far as movies probably available for rental now, I can't speak highly enough about "Love Liza" and "Irreversible" from the last year... both are downers to be sure and the latter is one of the most difficult movies to watch I've seen (up there with "The Piano Teacher" in the ick factor without actually being a horror movie). "Irreversible", along with "Zardoz" by John Boorman, imprinted Beethoven's Seventh symphony into my skull, burnt it into my eardrum.
And that's a good thing!
Justin