Top 5 Pessimistic Movies

M

Malone

Grimscribe
Out of pure whimsy I thought I'd list my top five pessimistic movies. In no particular order:

1. L'Humanite - A 1999 film by Bruno Dumont telling the story of a socially awkward cop investigating a child murder in France. Grim, despairing and with amazing performances from untrained actors. Difficult to get hold of, but well worth it.

2. Winter Light - Bergman's bleakest. This story of a priest grappling with losing his faith while trying to deal with his feelings for his housekeeper is tough going. Also features a small but brilliant appearance by Max Von Sydow as a man struggling to come to terms with the dropping of the atomic bomb.

3. The Pledge - Sean Penn's movie about a cop on the brink of retirement who tackles one last case involving a child murderer is compelling. Jack Nicholson is outstanding in the lead role.

4. Unforgiven - My favourite movie of all time. A great ensemble piece starring Clint Eastwood as the weary ex-gunslinger forced into one last job.

5. March or Die - My favourite ever B movie. Gene Hackman stars as the jaded and weary Foreign Legion Commander assigned to protect an archaeological dig in the desert. Watch the desert take hold of Hackman and his new recruits.

Hope to hear of other black gems!
 
My top 5 movies for pure pessimistic pleasure, off the top of my head:

  1. Suicide Circle. because dead shine all night long. mass suicide is the hip new thing to do. Bored? Lonely? Irritated? Jump in front of a subway train. are you connected to yourself?
  2. The Mist. Frank Darabont does an awesome job displaying the worst in people, and the ending, oh that ending, oh how hard I laughed that laugh that is known only to pessimists and misanthropes, that hooray-we're-doomed cackle.
  3. Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. because of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tag9Pm3qtA owlman is the most pessimistic thing in a cape. I adore him.
  4. The Final. makes it seem miraculous that more kids don't shoot up their schools or grow up to be homicidal maniacs.
  5. Falling Down. more of a personal-scale pessimistic movie for me. I saw it 10 or so years ago, had an eerie sense that it was a dramatization of where my own life was headed, and watch it every year on my birthday as a reminder to not be that guy and not put myself in situations that could turn me into that guy.
  6. Cabin in the Woods. for overtly stating that society's pessimism and misanthropy are why horror movies are made and watched. there's a lot of love for Cabin over at this other thread, too.
 
Have you seen Von Trier's Melancholia. It's meant to be about depression, but it also works very well as a pessimistic film.
 
No particular order

1. Seven
2. They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
3. Apocalypse Now
4. Kids (Holy hell I was not ready for this movie. I thought it was going to be like a Disney kind of thing so I took a first date to it. Needless to say, it was also a last date.)
5. Man Bites Dog (French mockumentary and scathing satire that came out in 92 I think. Well worth watching)

I'd definitely second "Unforgiven" and "Cabin in the Woods"
 
in no particular:
requiem for a dream
the sound of insects
they shoot horses don't they?
open water
happiness
downloading nancy
leaving las vegas
affliction
antichrist
sleeping beauty
nil by mouth
trainspotting
eraserhead
dogville
once were warriors
narc
one flwe over the cuckoos nest
the last picture show
the pledge
cool hand luke
spider

to name a few
 
Here's a few:

Aguirre, The Wrath of God
Blade Runner
Unforgiven
Deer Hunter
A Clockwork Orange
1984 (Hurt, Burton)
Drugstore Cowboy
Taxi Driver
Assassination of Richard Nixon
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
The Wrestler (Mickey Rourke)
The Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Trainspotting
Leaving Las Vegas
They Shoot Horses, Dont They?
Requiem for a Dream
Apocalypse Now
Dead Man

A few girls I know would add the film Repulsion.
 
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tonalized said:
Have you seen Von Trier's Melancholia. It's meant to be about depression, but it also works very well as a pessimistic film.
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I wanted to like this movie. i heard the world ends in it, and I had seen Antichrist and thought I was in for more of the same. I was confused and put off by the wedding bit. the long wedding bit that takes up the first hour or so. i couldn't sort out who was related to whom and how or why everyone was so upset. after an hour of wedding nonsense, I shut it off and gave it the lowest rating possible on netflix.

If depression was the objective, Von Trier succeeded. I was in quite a funk after sitting through an hour of wedding nonsense with the expectation of cosmic-collision apocalypse.

on an unrelated note: i agree with Clockwork Orange, The Strangers, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Road, No Country For Old Men. all are wonderful, entertaining pessimistic movies.
 
Martyrs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNpDiQimK6U

there's a rather slow bit towards the end where I lost interest and played iphone games for a bit until the plot came back. If you've seen it, you can guess where, and if not, you'll pick up on it and realize it's a great spot for a bathroom break or to go make a sammich. Good ending tho.
 
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
 
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.
 
My suggestion is The Hellstrom Chronicle.


See here:

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hellstrom_Chronicle[/ame]


Excellent thread.
 
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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.
 
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
 
Der siebente Kontinent (1989)
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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 : )
 
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