What is the most depressing film you have ever seen? (Fiction only)

[banned from Kos]

Mine is 'Jude' starring Kate Winslet and directed by Michael Winterbottom.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/jude/

Its a haunting great film.

[jimlup]

1. "Melancholia"

Released this year and an awesome film but deeply depressing if you haven't been there yet.

[knowbody0]

4. I agree

melancholia was so very haunting and difficult to watch. Loved it.

[banned from Kos]

7. Oh, its Lars von Trier - missed it

and 'Breaking the Waves' as well as 'Dancer in the Dark' are hauntingly depressing and worthy of nomination.

[Avalux]

53. I just watched this a few weeks ago and I agree. I have another too:

Trois couleurs: Bleu

http://www.qwipster.net/blue.htm

[PassingFair]

72. Oh, that was a HAUNTINGLY beautiful movie. I can never forget the pool scenes.

Last edited Mon Feb 20, 2012, 01:05 PM - Edit history (1)

It WAY outstripped the other two movies in the trilogy.

Juliette Binoche was on a ROLL in those years.

I also remember "Damage" with Binoche and Jeremy Irons.....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104237/

also a depressing, but memorable movie.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. An old movie, "The Pawnbroker."

I was bummed out for days after seeing that one.

[mucifer]

32. Great movie. I should see that again.

[Major Nikon]

3. The Road

I wanted to slit my own goddam wrists halfway through. It's a good movie, but very extremely depressing.

[dogknob]

21. I didn't see that movie because I read the book and had the same reaction n/t

[cliffordu]

5. Testament

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086429/

This film will break your heart.

Seriously.

I saw it once and it haunts till this day.....

[WCGreen]

42. when she is going for the last bit of peanut butter and the way the people were all slowly

falling apart....

The two parts that haunt me.

[cliffordu]

60. Her putting the batteries into

the answering machine and hearing, finally, her husbands voice, confirming the fact that he stayed in the city....and died..

One of the most heartbreaking scenes in the entire history of film.

That, and her daughter asking what love between a man and a woman was like, right before the daughter died.

[CrawlingChaos]

8. 'Umberto D' and 'Requiem for a Dream'

'Umberto D' reduced me to actual sobs and it took me awhile to recover. It's just a simple story of poverty and desperation, but very powerful (and the dog angle is a gut punch for me).

RFAD, needless to say, is bleaker than bleak. Leaves you with a bad feeling that lingers.

[LonePirate]

10. RfaD is the most terrifying and depressing movie I have ever seen. I can never watch it again.

The Road based on Cormac McCarthy's book is another terrifying and depressing film.

[Saving Hawaii]

12. Requiem for a Dream is very painful to watch.

[valerief]

9. 1984. Oops, sorry. You wanted fiction. nt

[sakabatou]

11. Grave of the Fireflies

[PassingFair]

28. Biggest tear-jerker EVER. nt

[PassingFair]

29. "The Seventh Continent"

I get depressed just THINKING about this movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seventh_Continent (warning, spoilers)


Fiction, but based loosely on a real event.

Ugh.

[Chan790]

13. Irreversable.

I really love Gaspar Noe's experimental work as a filmmaker and his willingness to fuck with his audiences in subtle non-visual ways. (During the murder scene and the rape scene that bookend the film, he dubs in a inaudibly-low-frequency tone pitched exactly to cause nausea and headaches. He wants his audience to be as discomfited physically as they are by the events on the screen.)

That said, there is a realization from almost the first scene of this film told entirely in reverse that none of the major characters are ever going to be even close to okay ever again. A man is dead, two other men looking only for revenge find it hollow and bitter, the woman they both love has been raped so brutally that it's implied that she will commit suicide mere seconds after the close of the narrative because she can't live with it, everything is forever fucked, everybody's life is ruined by two senseless impulsive violent acts. The entire film is, as one reviewer called it: "A simultaneously beautiful and terrible examination of the destructive nature of cause and effect, and how time destroys everything."

So, yes...it's a depressing film. It is however so powerfully acted that it made stars of its' cast of unknowns including Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel.

[banned from Kos]

15. Saw that. It was brutal.

You made me think of 'Bully' although they have little in common.

[siligut]

51. Even Monica Bellucci naked couldn't make-up for that fight scene

I was able to watch the rape, it was horrible, but never did watch all of the bar scene.

[Odin2005]

14. District 9

[Saving Hawaii]

19. No way. Depressing but not that depressing.

[Odin2005]

37. Black South Africans treating the aliens as they had been treated by whites...

...under apartheid was extremely disturbing and depressing.

[nolabear]

16. Breaking the Waves

Grooooaaannnnn...

[petronius]

20. That was my immediate first thought as well

And now I can't even come up with another candidate...

[Populist_Prole]

17. 'The Forest for the Trees'

German movie ( real title 'Der Wald vor lauter Bäumen' ) from 2003 about a socially inept school teacher. Subtitled, but so what; I like foreign movies. Anyway, it is a good film and I'm glad I watched it, but her faux pas made me literally squirm. . Once I literally had to pause the movie and get up and walk around a few minutes. I didn't know whether to feel sympathy for her or smack her upside the head. Gripping.

[Behind the Aegis]

18. "Dancer in the Dark" and "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas."

Dancer in the Dark

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

[RiffRandell]

41. I was going to say Boy in the Striped Pajamas as well.

My ten year old is about to read the book.

[dogknob]

22. Looks like Dancer in the Dark might be the champ...

... I was going to say that as well.

Honorable mentions:

The Godfather Part II

Children of Men

Silent Running

Paths of Glory

Watership Down

...

[Art_from_Ark]

24. Watership Down was definitely depressing

Forrest Gump was pretty depressing to me as well, as were Soldier Blue and Little Big Man.

[Frank Cannon]

27. Dancer in the Dark wins, hands down.

I wanted to drink a half-gallon of liquid drain cleaner after I saw that movie.

I find some of the other films mentioned in this thread, including Grave of the Fireflies, to be incredibly sad but not as terribly bleak.

[Aristus]

23. Idiocracy.

It was supposed to be a comedy, but I was depressed for days after watching it...

[Doc Holliday]

47. I know what you mean.

Thank goodness Judge put some light moments in there....although even some of the lighter moments produced more grimace than grin-- for instance, the emphasis of medical research on hair renewal and boner pills. That and the general stupidity of the people, the Circus Insane of their "media", and the prospect that an average guy from the present would be the smartest man in the world in the future....not exactly a shining vision of Things To Come.

Although the concept of the "gentleman's latte" is somewhat appealing.

[dogknob]

52. There you go with that Fa&&ot talk again!

[Bad_Ronald]

25. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

I know this is a strange selection. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is, without question, one of the best films ever made, and Jack Nicholson's performance in this film was perhaps the best in his long & illustrious career. But, I'll be pickled puddle water if this wasn't the most depressing film I ever saw.

My mom dragged me to see this movie at the tender age of 6. Most if not all of the dialogue went over my prepubescent cabeza, but I was astute enough to see what an evil cow Nurse Ratched was. At the end, when they lobotomized R.P. McMurphy & brought him back to the ward, and chief saw what they had done to him, I cried my eyes out. Even the Chief's iconic getaway couldn't cushion the blow. At age 6, I had no conception that such places even existed in the world, and that people could do that to other people. It actually made me afraid of nurses.

That flick fucked me up until my mother had the opportunity to take my to see another child-friendly opus that summer of 1975...Jaws. After that, not only did I posses an irrational fear of nurses, but of the ocean & sharks. My biggest fear that summer of 1975 was that I would have one my legs bitten off by a shark, and that I would be taken to the hospital where nurse Ratched would treat me by having my brains carved out of my skull.

[MountainMama]

83. Dude!

No offense, but what was your mom thinking? Wow.

[AsahinaKimi]

26. Let The Right One In

About a boy who falls in love with a girl, who happens to be a vampire.

[RZM]

66. I just watched that the other week

It was kind of sad but not too depressing.

[HappyMe]

30. Leaving Las Vegas

Pure despair on film.

[Doc Holliday]

38. Agreed.

My wife, who is a huge Nicholas Cage fan (for reasons I don't quite get), cannot stand to watch this film. I loved it-- I thought it was a depressingly accurate portrayal of terminal alcoholism, deftly executed by an actor and director of considerable talent.

Of course, the wife felt the same way about Swing Vote and Kevin Costner. I guess she just can't stand to see her favorite actors playing losers.

[dogknob]

48. Swing Vote was great!

Costner's great. The girl is fabulous. Supporting cast perfect. Great story and Dennis Hopper's campaign ads are friggin' hilarious!

[SCantiGOP]

55. I was looking to see if anyone listed Leaving Las Vegas

One of the few movies I wished I had not seen afterwards.

[LeftinOH]

31. The Mist. I'm scarred for life after seeing that. n/t

[mucifer]

33. Brazil.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

34. "Glory" and "Sid and Nancy" --

Both so depressing to me I've only watched them once.

[HappyMe]

36. Oh man.

When 'Sid and Nancy' came out my sister and I went to see a special pre-view midnight showing.

We were supposed to go have a couple of cocktails afterward. We just walked back home in silence.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

46. There was something really gutwrenching about that film.

I had the same response as you -- left with no words. Maybe because it all felt a little too real? I dunno...

[skypilot]

35. 'Synecdoche, New York'...

...with Philip Seymour Hoffman. An amazing movie but I will NEVER watch it again.

[HughBeaumont]

39. Too many to list, and I've made a decision . . .

. . . I'll just read synopses of depressing movies from now on.

I can't sit through another Mist, Happiness, Boy in the Striped Pyjamas or Irreversible again. Life is hard enough without making it harder by watching doom, despair, agony and undeserved death.

Mist super pissed me off because the filmmakers used Dead Can Dance's "The Host of Seraphim", one of my favorite songs of all time, as the background music for that anguishing-beyond-belief ending. Then again, the song's actual video is depressing in itself, a montage of squalor, starvation and concubines.

[geardaddy]

40. Revolutionary Road

[RiffRandell]

43. Big time!

I forgot about that one! That's how I always describe it---completely depressing. The kitchen scene is good though!

[dana_b]

44. that movie came to my mind as well as

"She's So Lovely". Sounds like their are some real depressing movies in this thread though.

[elleng]

45. Sophie's Choice

Can't even think about it.

[dogknob]

49. O da troot! I don evaknow wat is da troot!

[beac]

85. The only movie I've ever been to where

the audience members from the previous showing were all walking out sobbing. I'd read the book already and thought I was prepared but, no, I was sobbing at the end too.

[hedgehog]

50. Requiem for a Dream, hands down!

http://addictionflix.com/requiemforadream.aspx

[Iggo]

75. Cannot unsee.

[classof56]

54. On the Beach--both versions

The first with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, the second, the Australian version with Armand Assante, Bryan Brown, Rachel Ward and a lot of other actors who realistically and gut-wrenchingly portrayed the destruction of Earth because of politicians' actions. Assante's prayer at the movie's end was sad beyond measure. Same emotions evoked in the original version. The end of mankind--how painful and heartbreaking to contemplate. One can only trust nuclear war can be averted before it is too late for all of us.

Along that line, also found Testament, which someone else mentioned, profoundly sad and disturbing. Glad to see a bunch of movies in this thread that I will make sure to never watch.

Hope and blessings to us all.

[fadedrose]

56. Snakepit

I was just a kid when I saw it, and never rewatched it to see if it was really that bad, but it got to me...

I've seen clips of it now and then, but don't have any desire to see it. Once was enough.

[Taverner]

57. Requiem for a Dream, Brokeback Mountain and Brazil all tie

All for different reasons

And all three are excellent

[w8liftinglady]

58. Toss up. "The Boy in Striped Pajamas" and "Hurt Locker"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914798/
Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887912/
Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.
(Came out on my son's third deployment)

[bathroommonkey76]

59. Blue Velvet. nt

[GoneOffShore]

61. Can I have some popcorn now?

[Moondog]

62. It's a tie between "The Name of the Rose" and "Blue Velvet".

[WilliamPitt]

63. Gallipoli

[LeftyMom]

64. The Last King of Scotland.

Honorable mention for The Road and Children of Men.

[XemaSab]

76. You made me watch Children of Men!

I wouldn't say it was the most depressing film ever, but it was definitely haunting.

[alphafemale]

65. Agree with many of these. I have to add Atonement to the list.

That movie tore me up. Those young people all started that fateful day with such hope and promise. I was really weeping at the end of that.

As a side note the same young actor also was in Last King of Scotland mentioned above.

Edit to say I saw it within the past week so it is still heavily with me.

[GermanDem]

78. I was bawling by the end!

It was all so well acted! That scene in the cafeteria, when they see each other again... he would have deserved an Oscar just for that scene, it was heartbreaking.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

67. Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers

About three sisters, one of whom is dying slowly and painfully while the other two are completely frozen (not to mention screwed up) emotionally and unable to offer any comfort.

I saw it when I was in graduate school after attending a matinee performance of Bertolt Brecht's The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagony, the theme of which is "people are nasty."

Two downers in a single day. Aaargh.

I actually saw Cries and Whispers again when it was on Turner Classic Movies while I still had cable, and it was still really depressing.

[dogknob]

68. Antonioni's "The Passenger"

with Nicholson and the (recently) late Maria Schneider.

[ScreamingMeemie]

69. "Longtime Companion" and "Grave of the Fireflies"

I remember watching "Longtime Companion" and being heartbroken for weeks.

[mikeargo]

70. Mystic River

[Brickbat]

71. The Killing Fields, and The Deer Hunter.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

73. Sweeney Todd

[dawg]

74. Unfaithful.

Because I basically lived it.

Except for the bashing someone to death with a snowglobe part.


Diane Lane is certainly gorgeous to look at, though.

[charlie and algernon]

77. Threads

A British TV Movie about how the citizens of Sheffield survive in the years after a nuclear war.

[Burma Jones]

79. Monster's Ball

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster%27s_Ball


An Oscar for Halle Berry and well deserved

[hifiguy]

80. "La Strada" and Werner Herzog's

"The Story of Kaspar Hauser" though "Sid and Nancy" is right up there. "Melancholia" sounds like a film I would probably find well worth watching.

[Vidar]

81. The English Patient.

[GoCubsGo]

82. Ulee's Gold

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120402/

Not THE most depressing film I have ever seen, but it's up there, and hasn't been listed yet.

[MountainMama]

84. Schindler's List

Yeah, he saved a lot of people and Ralph Fiennes is excellent...but so depressing when you think about the big picture. I remember leaving the theater with my (then) husband. People were whispering to each other, and I told him, "I feel like I've been to a funeral."

[GermanDem]

88. I felt the same way about "The Pianist".

Still, great movie, and it ultimately ends on a positive note.

[BrendaBrick]

86. American Beauty

Depressing (overall) - yes. Also, a whole lot of other feelings. Written (in part) by Alan Ball. A rather savvy and sophisticated American film actually - which is quite rare outside of Woody Allen ~

[WiffenPoof]

87. They Shoot Horses Don't They

A very depressing film...enough to up your meds.

Wonderful performance by all concerned.

-P