From The Deer Hunter to Misery, Nocturnal Animals to Mad Max: Fury Road, intense films have always played an integral part in our culture and movie discourse at large. Intensity can come in many different forms, whether it be high-octane car chases or slow, burning glimpses into a single character’s internal world. Either way, these films are bound to keep us engaged with their characters in ways we had never considered imaginable before. Intense films often push us to the limits of viewership, but for the sake of revealing something that may not be accessible in every genre. They may be hard to watch, but usually, their payoff is what makes these films well worth the view - whether that be for the better or worse. Here is what we consider to be some of the most intense films of all time, ranked.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
8 Nightcrawler (2014)
Open Road Films
In a performance that totally revitalized the actor’s career, Jake Gyllenhaal is deeply unnerving as wide-eyed con man/crime journalist Lou Bloom. Dan Gilroy’s 2014 film sees Gyllenhaal spiral out of control as he cruises the grimy streets of L.A. at night on the prowl for “the perfect crime.” Taking inspiration from films like Bringing Out the Dead, as well as Broadcast News and Network, Nightcrawler boldly challenges where we draw the line between participant and observer when it comes to the horrible things we see. It is a slow burn journey where audiences can do nothing but sit back and wait to see how Bloom will push the envelope next - what happens when no one is there to stop him?
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
7 Children of Men (2006)
Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 masterpiece Children of Men is perhaps one of the bleakest dystopian films ever made. The film sees a near-future in which infertility threatens mankind with extinction; after the last born child dies, civil servant Theo Faron joins the fight for hope amid Earth’s unlikely survival. It’s not just the subject matter of Children of Men which makes it such an intense ride (although this is certainly part of it - the film didn’t exactly succeed in attracting audiences on its Christmas day release). Emmanuel Lubezki’s brilliant cinematography utilizes techniques like single shots to make the film’s depravity feel devastatingly intimate. Children of Men also came out only a few years after the 9/11 attacks, capturing the lingering national sentiment of uncertainty over our future.
6 Prisoners (2013)
Alcon Entertainment
Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners puts any parent’s worst nightmare to screen and refuses to spare its audience the horror. The film follows two men driven to the limits of obsession as they hunt down a nameless kidnapper who’s imprisoned one of their daughters. What’s so maddening about this audacious crime-thriller, for both its characters and audience alike, is how quickly the hunt for the kidnapper appears to turn futile. The protagonists are driven towards the most brutal extremities of violence as the kidnapper’s identity only continues to grow more and more elusive. Prisoners never gives its viewers any place to hide - from the opening scene; it is transparent about how dark a universe we are getting into, where both the bad guys and the good ones are capable of evil.
5 Oldboy (2003)
CJ Entertainment
Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy is an excruciatingly stylish nightmare of ultra-violence and revenge. The film’s infamous story follows a man who is held prisoner in a basement cell for fifteen years, for reasons he is completely unaware of. When Dae-su is released, he is invited to play a twisted cat-and-mouse game with his captor that only grows more sinister and shocking by the moment. Despite its extremely modern stylization, which keeps viewers in the palm of its hand at all times, Oldboy has a noir-like pacing that makes its twisted reveals all the more viscerally captivating.
4 Whiplash (2014)
Sony Pictures Classics
Damien Chazelle’s dazzling debut doesn’t require violence to be one of the tensest movies ever made - even if we do see a fair amount of blood. Whiplash follows an ambitious young jazz drummer whose ruthless, abusive instructor pushes him towards peak obsession. The blood, sweat, and tears oozing from every surface of Chazelle’s film has led Whiplash to, in more than one instance, be compared to only the most brutal of sports films. Whether it comes to Fletcher’s extremely inventive catalog of insults or Neyman’s tireless ferocity and blisters, there is no moment in Whiplash that allows us to relax - or even breathe comfortably.
3 Saving Private Ryan (1998)
DreamWorks
The first twenty minutes alone of Saving Private Ryan are enough to render it one of the most gruesome, intense films in modern history, let alone war films. Spielberg’s legendary WWII epic finds a simple story that couldn’t be any more mired in moral complexity; a group of soldiers is tasked with finding Private Ryan, whose three brothers have all already been killed. On a mission that’s supposed to boost morale, how will the soldiers reckon with the constant threat of death? Saving Private Ryan, while being visually hard to watch at times, puts a human face to a war story, which makes it full of immense dread and hope alike.
2 Green Room (2016)
A24
Audiences will likely never be able to see Patrick Stewart in the same way after this A24 pulse-pounder. Green Room sees a group of young punk rockers held prisoner by skinheads after accidentally witnessing a crime. Once the violence starts, it never quite stops. The group finds itself desperately trying to fight their way out of the club’s green room to little avail. Of course, it’s the beatings, meltdowns, and horrifying political landscape of Green Room that make it so scary. But it’s also the unwavering tension between its characters; while the late, great Anton Yelchin gives paranoia a new name, Patrick Stewart (the neo-Nazi leader) manages to perpetually keep his cool. Green Room is as bone chilling as it is puke-inducing.
1 Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Thousand Words, Protozoa Pictures
Topping the list is Darren Aronofsky’s unforgettable portrait of addiction Requiem for a Dream. The film infamously follows four Coney Island residents on a devastating drug-fueled spiral of destruction, whose consequences will perhaps affect their lives beyond repair. The film is so unabashedly brutal that it’s almost universally considered a “non-horror” horror film - only its stakes couldn’t be any more real. The most tragic component of the film is easily getting to witness the protagonists’ many different hopes and aspirations, only to watch them rapidly sink out from under them. The legacy of Requiem for a Dream still lingers heavily on cinema and its viewers today. It’s hard to imagine Aronofsky’s bluish hellscape being forgotten any time soon.
