The Most Challenging Films You Will Ever See
Movies where your stance as an audience member will be tried, worked over and more often than not tired out. Whether it be because of prolonged silence, excessive length, confusing plots that enrage the brain or good old fashioned graphic violence and sex, these movies will surely test you to the limits of your squeamishness... either that or your attention span.
No particular order.
No particular order.
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- DirectorCharlie ShackletonStarsCharlie Shackleton10 hours of paint drying on a wall.
- DirectorSteve OramStarsSteve OramTom MeetenJulian Rhind-TuttHave you ever imagined how life would be if humans were apes in modern life? That's the situation in this deeply thought-provoking mind-boggle.
- DirectorClaude LanzmannStarsSimon SrebnikMichael PodchlebnikMotke ZaïdlClaude Lanzmann's epic documentary recounts the story of the Holocaust through interviews with witnesses - perpetrators as well as survivors.
- DirectorTodd SolondzStarsJane AdamsJon LovitzPhilip Seymour HoffmanThe lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.
- DirectorGaspar NoéStarsMonica BellucciVincent CasselAlbert DupontelEvents over the course of one traumatic night in Paris unfold in reverse-chronological order as the beautiful Alex is brutally raped and beaten by a stranger in an underpass tunnel.
- DirectorFinn CallanStarsHector O'DonnellSam WilkesFinn CallanAfter a silent, masked individual encounters a man with a television for an arm; horror, euphoria and madness ensue.
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniStarsPaolo BonacelliGiorgio CataldiUberto Paolo QuintavalleIn World War II Italy, four fascist libertines round up nine adolescent boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of physical, mental, and sexual torture.
- DirectorTommy WiseauStarsTommy WiseauJuliette DanielleGreg SesteroIn San Francisco, an amiable banker's seemingly perfect life is turned upside down when his deceitful fiancée embarks on an affair with his best friend.
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsKarolina GruszkaKrzysztof MajchrzakGrace ZabriskieAs an actress begins to adopt the persona of her character in a film, her world becomes nightmarish and surreal.
- DirectorErmanno OlmiStarsLuigi OrnaghiFrancesca MoriggiOmar BrignoliPeasant life in a feudal farm in rural Italy at the end of the 19th century.
- DirectorChantal AkermanStarsDelphine SeyrigJan DecorteHenri StorckA lonely widowed housewife does her daily chores, takes care of her apartment where she lives with her teenage son, and turns the occasional trick to make ends meet. However, something happens that changes her safe routine.
- DirectorGus Van SantStarsElias McConnellAlex FrostEric DeulenSeveral ordinary high school students go through their daily routine as two others prepare for something more malevolent.
- DirectorAndrei TarkovskyStarsMargarita TerekhovaFilipp YankovskiyIgnat DaniltsevA dying man in his forties remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments and things that tell of the recent history of all the Russian nation.
- DirectorJohn WatersStarsDivineDavid LocharyMary Vivian PearceNotorious Baltimore criminal and underground figure Divine goes up against a sleazy married couple who make a passionate attempt to humiliate her and seize her tabloid-given title as "The Filthiest Person Alive".
- DirectorLars von TrierStarsWillem DafoeCharlotte GainsbourgStorm Acheche SahlstrømA grieving couple retreat to their cabin in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage, but nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.
- DirectorRuggero DeodatoStarsRobert KermanFrancesca CiardiPerry PirkanenDuring a rescue mission into the Amazon rainforest, a professor stumbles across lost film shot by a missing documentary crew.
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsThanapat SaisaymarJenjira PongpasSakda KaewbuadeeDying of kidney disease, a man spends his last, somber days with family, including the ghost of his wife and a forest spirit who used to be his son, on a rural northern Thailand farm.
- DirectorShaun MonsonStarsJoaquin PhoenixUsing hidden cameras and never-before-seen footage, Earthlings chronicles the day-to-day practices of the largest industries in the world, all of which rely entirely on animals for profit.
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsRyan GoslingRooney MaraMichael FassbenderTwo intersecting love triangles. Obsession and betrayal set against the music scene in Austin, Texas.
- DirectorPeter GreenawayStarsRichard BohringerMichael GambonHelen MirrenAt Le Hollandais gourmet restaurant, every night is filled with opulence, decadence and gluttony. But when the cook, a thief, his wife and her lover all come together, they unleash a shocking torrent of sex, food, murder and revenge.
- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsKeir DulleaGary LockwoodWilliam SylvesterAfter uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins: a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer HAL 9000.
- DirectorJulia DucournauStarsGarance MarillierElla RumpfRabah Nait OufellaA young woman, studying to be a vet, develops a craving for human flesh.
- DirectorNicolas Winding RefnStarsRyan GoslingKristin Scott ThomasVithaya PansringarmJulian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent death.
- DirectorTakashi MiikeStarsTadanobu AsanoNao ÔmoriShin'ya TsukamotoAs sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of achieving.
- DirectorPascal LaugierStarsMorjana AlaouiMylène JampanoïCatherine BéginA young woman's quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tormented her as a child leads her and a friend, who is also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.
- DirectorMichael HanekeStarsNaomi WattsTim RothMichael PittTwo psychopathic young men take a family hostage in their cabin.
- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsMalcolm McDowellPatrick MageeMichael BatesIn the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
- DirectorRémy BelvauxAndré BonzelBenoît PoelvoordeStarsBenoît PoelvoordeJacqueline Poelvoorde-PappaertNelly PappaertA film crew follows a ruthless thief and heartless killer as he goes about his daily routine. But complications set in when the film crew lose their objectivity and begin lending a hand.
- DirectorGaspar NoéStarsPhilippe NahonBlandine LenoirFrankie PainA horse butcher's life and mind begin to break down as he lashes out against various factions of society while attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
- DirectorWes CravenStarsSandra PeabodyLucy GranthamDavid HessTwo teenage girls heading to a rock concert for one's birthday try to score marijuana in the city, where they are kidnapped and brutalized by a gang of psychopathic convicts.
- DirectorFrederick WisemanDocumentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside the Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater where people stay trapped in their madness.
- DirectorTobe HooperStarsMarilyn BurnsEdwin NealAllen DanzigerFive friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.
- DirectorSrdjan SpasojevicStarsSrdjan 'Zika' TodorovicSergej TrifunovicJelena GavrilovicAn aging porn star agrees to participate in an "art film" in order to make a clean break from the business, only to discover that he has been drafted into making a pedophilia and necrophilia themed snuff film.
- DirectorBernardo BertolucciStarsMarlon BrandoMaria SchneiderMaria MichiA young Parisian woman meets a middle-aged American businessman who demands their clandestine relationship be based only on sex.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsJean-Paul BelmondoJean SebergVan DoudeA small-time crook, hunted by the authorities for a car theft and the murder a police officer, attempts to persuade a hip American journalism student to run away with him to Italy.
- DirectorJonathan GlazerStarsScarlett JohanssonJeremy McWilliamsLynsey Taylor MackayA mysterious young woman seduces lonely men in the evening hours in Scotland. However, events lead her to begin a process of self-discovery.
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsBrad PittSean PennJessica ChastainThe story of a family in Waco, Texas in 1956. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence and struggles with his parents' conflicting teachings.
- DirectorBen RiversStarsÓliver LaxeAt the heart of the film's multiple narratives is an adaptation of A Distant Episode, the savage short story set in Morocco by American author Paul Bowles, first published in 1947. Moving between documentary, fiction and fable, "The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers" observes its protagonist, filmmaker Oliver Laxe, directing his own film Las Mimosas in Morocco, only to walk off set and into Rivers' narrative. Shot against the staggering beauty of the Moroccan landscape, from the rugged terrain of the Atlas Mountains to the stark and surreal emptiness of the Sahara, with its encroaching sands and abandoned film sets, Laxe is drawn into a hallucinatory and perilous adventure of cruelty and madness to form a multi-layered excavation into the illusion of cinema itself. "In a café in Morocco, about 50 years ago, Paul Bowles overheard a man, high on kif, say the title of this film. And so he wrote a story around this statement, a story that moves between different planes of reality. I read the story, and the story behind the story, and the strange phrase kept circling around my mind, creating images and dreams. This film is a manifestation of these images, along with obsessions about cinema and how far we will go to make it". Oliver Laxe.
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsJack NanceCharlotte StewartAllen JosephHenry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.