Best Movie With a Really Dark, Tortured Character.

[Fuzzy LaRue]

I saw "Man on Fire" with Danzel Washington last night. A brilliant performance as a man with nothing to live for, who finds a reason to live, then has it taken away from him. Awesome, Awesome Movie.

"A Prayer for the Dying" with Mickey Rourke as an IRA operative who blows up a school bus full of little girls instead of the army truck that was his target and cannot forgive himself and seeks redemption.

[quisp]

1. Has to be Blue Velvet!

I got chills just typing the name.

and they don't get darker or more twisted.

[Minstrel Boy]

20. Suave!

Man, you're one suave f*cker!

Absolutely agree.

Frank Booth may be evil as hell, but he's tormented as hell, too. Which makes him much more interesting a character.

Here, watching Dorothy Valens sing:



The f*cker's in f*ckin' love, and it's tearing him up.

[Burma Jones]

2. A List

Lord of the Rings - Gollum and Wormtounge
Citizen Kane - Charles Foster Kane
Star Wars - Darth Vader
Midnight Cowboy - The entire Cast..


AND THE GREATEST OF ALL:

Taxi Driver - Travis Bickle

[Crankie Avalon]

13. Taxi Driver...

...definitely.

[sui generis]

3. Donnie Darko

yes I'm a member of the cult

[Kelli372]

18. I second that!

[ComerPerro]

28. Third

[warrens]

32. Fourth

[livetohike]

4. The Shining

"All work and no play......"

[speedoo]

5. Psycho. Disagree on Midnight Cowboy.

Tony Perkins played a truly sick person.

And, I disagree about Midnight Cowboy. The Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman characters were basically good hearted but very, very flawed. Their flaws and the circumstances of their lives created the tragic element of the film.

[jobycom]

6. "A Dream of Passion", and William Mundy, "Unforgiven"

Both leads in ADOP have dark, painful pasts, but Ellyn Burstyn's character is in prison for murdering her children to get revenge on her cheating husband. She goes from sweet and innocent to brutally chilling at the blink of an eye, then back again.

Best movie no one's ever seen.

The Unforgiven is full of dark characters, but Mundy, a former criminal who has become a peaceful pig farmer slowly begins to transform back into the brutal killer he once was. The final showdown is maybe the most horrific scene I've ever watched.

[DoNotRefill]

7. Bad Lieutenant...

Harvey ROCKS!!!!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

8. The Wizard of Oz

Man, Dorothy had an EVIL streak

:scared:

[Fuzzy LaRue]

10. Does She Ever!!!!

Kills a woman. Steals her shoes and then paints the avenging sister as a bitch!

[demnan]

9. Amadeus

which was about Salieri, not Mozart.

[Union Thug]

11. Polanski's Repulsion

[arwalden]

12. "Prick Up Your Ears" "Oleander" "Bad Seed" "Whatever Happened To BabyJane"

[riverwalker]

14. the preacher in "Rain"

he keeps trying to convert Sadie Thompson and ends up lusting after her, then he kills himself.

[Crankie Avalon]

15. In its own way...

...Crumb.

If you've seen it, you'll know what I mean.

[Surf Cowboy]

16. Unforgiven, definitely, but don't forget the Mel Gibson material,

"Lethal Weapon", and the Mad Max trilogy.

[EstimatedProphet]

17. Blade Runner

Both Deckard and Roy Batty are dark characters, and for an interesting twist, the villain shows the hero the light.

[NoSunWithoutShadow]

19. Leaving Las Vegas

Nicolas Cage was hopeless.

[Crankie Avalon]

21. Cape Fear...

...the remake with DeNiro (never saw the original with Mitchum).

"...as it says in Galatians III..."
AHAHAHAHAHAOHHHAAHAHAHAH!!!! (laughing in the theater)
"Ah'm the do-right man!"
"...goin' to the promised land...glugglugglug (and the the eyes stare out from just above the water)"

[Kazak]

22. Fire Walk With Me...

I've always loved Leland Palmer...doesn't get much more twisted.

[asthmaticeog]

23. The Man With The Golden Arm.

Sinatra junkie tour de force. Anyone who hasn't seen it absolutely must. I insist.

Also, Donnie Darko, as mentioned above.

[Rambis]

24. Bad Lieutenant

I couldn't even sit through it. It was effective at making the guy out to be the scumbag that he was.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103759/

[Anaxamander]

25. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)

And I'm not just talking about Leatherface, I'm talking about his whole sick, twisted family. I'm still surprised by the number of people who have never seen this horror classic.

[TX-RAT]

26. Pit and the Pendulum

Vincent Price

[BigMcLargehuge]

27. M with Peter Lorre as a child killer

hunted by both the cops and the criminal underground. Has three great flawed and dark characters:

Lorre's Character, of course, a man compelled to kill, although we never learn anything about him until the last reel.

Schranker, the leader of the underworld who sneaks back to Dusseldorf after a prison break and organizes all of the disparate criminal elements into a hunting force to find and try the killer. Schranker is also a murderer.

"Fatty" Lohman, the harried police detective who doesn't have enough information to draw any good suspects and has to deal with an increasingly terrified and paranoid population who begins to blame HIM for the increasing body count.

The film makes a statement about Weimar Germany, the depression following the end of WW1, the oppressive nature of city life (realized through ants-eye views of enormous structures like telegraph wires and poles), it's also a stellar police procedural, a caper movie, a suspense film, a horror film, and a statement about capital punishment.

This is the film upon which all other thrillers are built.

[Minstrel Boy]

29. great choice

And as you say, it worked on so many levels.

[BigMcLargehuge]

30. it's one of my all time favorites

and certainly Lorre's best work. He manages, at the end, to make the audience sympathize with him, AND HE KILLS CHILDREN!

M is a triumph still undefeated in the genre of the modern thriller.

[skygazer]

31. Just watched "The Cooler"

Really liked Alec Baldwin's character. He's so twisted, it's ridiculous. He does have feelings but they're so tied up with his violent role as a gangster type casino boss that it makes them almost obscene.

[Culture Mind]

33. saw Man on Fire too

and i forgot to take it back to Blockbastard! Shit, i'm gonna owe :-(

[skypilot]

34. "Jacob's Ladder"

*