Top 5 Pessimistic Movies

[paeng]

Also,

The Seventh Seal

Manila in the Claws of Neon

La Bete Humaine

Jaguar

THX 1138

Casque d'or

Bicycle Thieves

The Wages of Fear

Bad Lieutenant

Testament

Salesman

Pixote

Threads

Glengarry Glen Ross

various films by Mikio Naruse and Stanley Kubrick

[damo]

saw black death recently (sean bean). much better than i thought it would be and definitely on the bleak side.

agree wholeheartedly about unforgiven. perfect script with no fat whatsoever and standout performances all round (love richard harris). the spaghetti westerns are my fave movies of all time (good, bad… just squeaks past once upon a time in the west cause of clint); but josey wales and unforgiven are very close behind. clint defo has a dark side – mystic river, million dollar baby, bird, gran torino etc all pretty bleak.

the alien movies aren't exactly optimistic (about aliens or humans) either. it left us with a cyborg and an alien-human hybrid experiment as the only characters evincing any 'human' values.

check out pessimistic comedy four lions by chris morris.

In no particular order, and off the top of my drunken head

The Divide (2011 I think)
The Cremator (1969)
NotLD (1968)
The Woman in Black (TV movie 1989 not the feeble-in-comparison 2012 remake)
Session No. 9 (2001)

Guaranteed to make anyone give up all hope

(If I had a sixth choice I'd throw in Polanski's The Tenant)

Etc. etc.
Mark S.

[Craig Lochawns]

"Shrek" makes me want to blow my brains out. Go figure.

[shivering]

My suggestion is The Hellstrom Chronicle.


See here:

Wikipedia (Links)

The_Hellstrom_Chronicle

Excellent thread.

[Karnos]

Hmm, I don't know. Surprisingly I haven't seen many pessimistic films, although I can think of the following.

-Apocalypse Now (One of my favorite films in general)
-Requiem for a Dream
-Cube
-Seventh Seal
-No country for old men
-The road

Sorry, I'm pretty sure there most be more, but I'm a bit pissed off today and dealing with a hangover, so my mind isn't very clear. However, thanks to Malone for recommending Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light, I just found a file of it and will watch it latter today. The premise, and the name of the film itself, plus the whole Swedish cast, reminds me a lot of Beyond Sensory Experience's album "No lights in our eyes", a great peace of calm, funeral ambient music from up north.

[MediaCult]

The most depressing film I've ever seen is definately Peter Watkin's 4 hour TV-movie Edvard Munch (1974). It's also one of my favourite films ever. Others I find depressing:

Der siebente Kontinent (1989)
Mysterious Skin
Der Todesking
The Burmese Harp
Ringu
Polanski's Macbeth
Fassbender's "Merchant Of Four Seasons" & World on a Wire
Amityville II: The Possession
Hitchcock's Marnie
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Blade Runner
Donnie Darko
Taxi Driver
The Hours (2002)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Tras el cristal (1987)
Lilja 4-ever (2002)
The Baby Of Macon

[waffles]

Quote Originally Posted by MediaCult

The Baby Of Macon

I've been dying to see this film and cannot find it anywhere.

[childeroland]

Kes. Balthazar. Welcome to the Dollhouse The Candy Snatchers The Great Silence

[MagnusTC]

Quote

Der siebente Kontinent (1989)

I second Der siebente Kontinent, one of the bleakest films I've ever seen. Other pessimistic films by Michael Haneke worth mentioning are Bennys Video (1992) and 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls (1994). And Fassbinder's Martha, that one was pretty depressing : )