Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947) is an avant-garde film written, produced, and directed by the Surrealist painter and Dada film theorist Hans Richter. It took three years and cost $25,000 dollars to produce.

The film, in which the main protagonist, Joe, sells dreams to his clients, consists of a montage of seven largely unconnected scenarios and is thus considered modernist in style as it rejects the traditional cinematic convention of narrative continuity. Richter collaborated with a group of avant-garde and Surrealist artists in the production of the film; Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Fernand Léger, and Alexander Calder all wrote and directed one or more of the seven scenarios, making this film a collaborative piece. The soundtrack was composed by John Cage, Paul Bowles, Darius Milhaud, and Louis Applebaum.

The film’s central themes include the question of the artist’s role in society and the place of the individual in the post-war era. Its reception upon release was mixed; some critics have argued that its Surrealist style was culturally outdated by 1947 (Berger, 2013).

In 2013, the film was restored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York through funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Fund, and The Film Foundation.