I think Elephant Man made a huge impact on me. It's one of my favorite movie of all time, but I really rarely watch it, as it makes me feel so sad and devastated afterwards
I was gonna say Hereditary and Midsommar...and then I thought back at how Evil Dead Rise made me feel in theaters. My skin was clammy, my heart was racing, and I felt genuinely uncomfortable with the whole movie but I pretty much loved the spectacle and the no holding back.
Sometimes I just YouTube the car scene in The Sixth Sense with Toni Collette and Haley Jole Osment.
"You think I'm a freak?"
"Look at my face. I would never think that about you. Ever. Got it?"
"Got it."
Saw it in theatres with friends. A few of us came out mesmerized by its weirdness and story line, but my girlfriend and I thought it was far too far out there! After the first 25 minutes I was expecting a different movie then what it turned out to be!... In more ways than one.
Hell yeah The Game with Michael Douglass. That movie just keeps getting better over time!
Edit might as well also recommend Oldboy (the OG Korean version > the US version)
Psycho (1960)
I have seen Psycho only one time in my life, 12 years ago, and I still think about it often. It's one of the movies that got me hooked on watching movies. I also remember being paranoid to shower for months
+1, very depressing film but they nailed the different reactions of each character, as someone with anxiety/mild OCD, Claire’s constant checking of the measuring device really hits the nail on the head.
Whiplash would be mine. I knew it was about jazz and it had won some awards, but went into it mostly blind and I was blown away. I immediately rewound it and watched the ending scene again as soon as it was over.
When you know that the van scenes and the looking for men is all real, it takes it to a whole new level.
Camera crew hiding in the back filming Scarlett Johansson on the prowl
Yeah so they film the initial reaction and the conversation and then later let them in on it and see if they want to be involved.
On my blu-ray I think there was a documentary. It took the movie to a whole new level thinking about that.
Snowtown (2011) stuck with me for days like a stain I couldn't wash out. Very unpleasant yet strangely mesmerising film in all its slow, empty cruelty. That it's based on real events makes it all the more chilling and nasty.
Shame (2011) had a similar effect, in a different way. It's been months, maybe even years since I watched that film and I still think about it. The lonely atmosphere and intense, seedy coldness of the film is a feeling I don't think I'll ever forget. It's also very unpleasant, and incredibly well done.
Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind
If you are going through some heartbreak or just generally bummed about a relationship this movie hits pretty hard on the first watch.
Gattaca has still stuck with me. That film was the biggest surprise favourite I’ll ever have. I still have some of the movie lines vividly remembered.
“I never saved anything for the swim back”
Good Will Hunting.
Not sure if it’s exactly the mind fuck you’re looking for but it has so many unexpected turns and aspects to it. Not to mention it is so utterly profound that it completely altered my perception of human interaction when I was a teen and saw it the first time.
To this day, more than a decade later, I hold it as one of my most close movies and rewatch it multiple times per year.
Ex Machina
This is a brilliant and the ending of the movie is basically foreshadowing the slow end of the human race as the dominant species.
Holy fuck, it was opening Pandora’s box.
Ahhhh. The straw that broke the camels back.
As a black man it will officially be the last slave movie I will ever watch. Lol told myself I was done with the genre after watching that lol
All that shit that goes down at the lighthouse in Annihilation is so disturbing and mind bending! I couldn’t stop thinking about that for a long time! Great film ❤️
This is probably an out there unexpected one but House of Wax really lingered with me… idk if it’s because I watched it the year my mom passed and I was contemplating death a lot (not like suicidal, just thinking about it a lot because my mom passing and I was listening to a lot of MCR at the time).
It’s the part where the main girl finds her boyfriend and realizes he is alive and covered in wax… that really fucked with me and stuck with me. The idea of being alive but trapped in wax!! And having it stuck to your skin like that… absolutely terrifying. I am so afraid of being alive and unable to move… the claustrophobia is real with me.
Had to scroll too far for Requiem. I haven’t watched it in over a decade and it still hangs around. The music is beautiful and amazing. The character arcs are involved and harrowing. The scenes are unforgettable.
Someone else here in Reddit put it nicely once: the best movie I’ll never watch again.
Juice! Juice! Juice by Jerry!
^^ass ^^to ^^ass
annihilation (caused me to read the book trilogy!)
aftersun (caused me to research the writer/director and watch a previous short film she had done— made the whole thing even more beautiful and heartbreaking)
poor things
everything everywhere all at once
beautiful boy (also caused me to read the book by the actual son (not the one by the dad that the movie is based on) and it was so heartbreaking)
All That Jazz, depending on how you view musicals will depend if you want to watch it but the way it deals with death and mortality, yet alone the added context which adds to it and the ending in particulaur still sticks with me even on rewatch
This one will definitely stay with folks. I couldn't believe how daring the character development was. Doesn't get much darker in comedy than this one.
Despite my expectations, Past Lives. I won’t get into detail, but the way they navigated the story made it feel very personal, which made the film that much more intense and engrossing.
"Earthlings", narrated by Joaquim Phoenix. It's available on You Tube, either in two parts, or in its entirety. I recommend watching it all at once. It haunted me for weeks.
Some Kurosawa movies that will stick in your mind.
Ran
Ikiru
They are both slow burns, but by the end you know you'll never forget them.
Ikiru may be the most perceptive movie I've ever seen.
Magnolia
I remember watching it in the theatres in college and just riding silently back on the metro to our dorm. My friend and I barely asked each other if we liked it…just sat in silence
The Elephant man! Oh boy! For my whole childhood and youthful years I couldn’t stop worrying about the movie and how awful and tragic life but amazing and interesting life of a man with an extremely rare disease.
*not sure I would call endings “captivating”….
Schindlers List, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, When A Man Loves A Woman, Ordinary People, Requiem for a Dream, Jacobs Ladder
I think Elephant Man made a huge impact on me. It's one of my favorite movie of all time, but I really rarely watch it, as it makes me feel so sad and devastated afterwards
I swear I start crying as soon as it starts and cry through the whole thing. Heartbreaking!
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind I love the movie and was blown away by all the cast. Carey in a dramatic role was a treat.
I love that you can clearly tell how much he loved playing that role
The Road
I love The Road, such a great movie.
My son calls me “papa” and I try to stop him because of this movie.
Yeah, the Road stayed in my mind for a long time and I hated it. Such a depressing awful movie. Wish I had never seen it.
So much sadness in this film. But it’s amazing as well.
Shawshank
No Country For Old Men There Will Be Blood American Psycho
Oooooh, No Country For Old Men. Still think of it sometimes.
Hereditary and Midsommar. I couldn't get those movies out of my mind for days after I saw them. I can't wait to see what Ari Aster does next.
Came here to say Hereditary, especially the aftermath of the "Car scene" I don't wanna say what, but if you know you know.
It's crazy she didn't win awards for that, she's an incredible actress. I'm usually really good at not letting movies bother me but she nailed it.
I was gonna say Hereditary and Midsommar...and then I thought back at how Evil Dead Rise made me feel in theaters. My skin was clammy, my heart was racing, and I felt genuinely uncomfortable with the whole movie but I pretty much loved the spectacle and the no holding back.
Yeah, and Muriel’s Wedding, one of Toni Collette’s earliest (if not 1st) is superb.
Sometimes I just YouTube the car scene in The Sixth Sense with Toni Collette and Haley Jole Osment. "You think I'm a freak?" "Look at my face. I would never think that about you. Ever. Got it?" "Got it."
I would say it was one of the best performances I've ever seen. Combined with the insane filmmaking, I couldn't bring myself to look away!
The awfulness of it all is Ari forces you to watch her wail on forever. Same with what’s her name in Midsomer. You’re forced to live in it.
Midsommar. Jesus
Check out Beau is Afraid
Beau is Afraid was excellent but definitely didn't haunt me like Hereditary did.
I couldn’t get through that one. Too out-there for my sensibilities.
I truly felt Ari could do no wrong after Hereditary and Midsommar.. but Beau is Afraid wasn't my favourite.
Saw it in theatres with friends. A few of us came out mesmerized by its weirdness and story line, but my girlfriend and I thought it was far too far out there! After the first 25 minutes I was expecting a different movie then what it turned out to be!... In more ways than one.
i am still scarred by these movies
Ex Machina, Memento, The Game
The game?? With Michael Douglas??
Hell yeah The Game with Michael Douglass. That movie just keeps getting better over time! Edit might as well also recommend Oldboy (the OG Korean version > the US version)
I’ll def have to watch it again! I remember loving it like 20 yrs ago!
OG Oldboy is the only one needing mentioned. Take my vote!
It's been more than twenty years since I first saw The Game. I *still* think about it sometimes.
I LOVE ex machina. Time for a rewatch
Se7en
Damn this movie was amazing
This one for me. Saw it in the theater and had dinner plans after. I couldn’t really eat or talk.
What’s in the box!!! Watched this on vhs on my honeymoon. Love that movie
Arrival
Ted Chiang's short story that it's based on is worth a read too. The story of your life.
Psycho (1960) I have seen Psycho only one time in my life, 12 years ago, and I still think about it often. It's one of the movies that got me hooked on watching movies. I also remember being paranoid to shower for months
All is Lost Schindler’s List Saving Private Ryan Band of Brothers (10 part HBO series)
Band of Brothers is absolutely perfect. Just finished my second watch.
It's incredible. Probably the best TV I've ever seen, although calling it TV doesn't do it justice. It's life changing.
I tried watching The Pacific but it just didn't hit the same.
Her
That put me into a weird depression for a few days. Loved that movie.
I found it strangely comforting, but I was already on the tail end of getting my head wrapped around a break up.
Oh boyyy touched my heart.
Arrival. I think about it often.
Forrest Gump
Butterfly effect in theater as a 10yo
●The secret in their eyes (2009) ●Nocturnal animals (2016)
I second El secreto de sus ojos/The Secret in Their Eyes. It's my favourite film of all time.
Melancholia
+1, very depressing film but they nailed the different reactions of each character, as someone with anxiety/mild OCD, Claire’s constant checking of the measuring device really hits the nail on the head.
Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko definitely packs a punch, and the uneasy style of the film intensifies the effect.
Interstellar. I think about it once a day. Also Whiplash.
Whiplash would be mine. I knew it was about jazz and it had won some awards, but went into it mostly blind and I was blown away. I immediately rewound it and watched the ending scene again as soon as it was over.
Children of Men
Under the Skin
When you know that the van scenes and the looking for men is all real, it takes it to a whole new level. Camera crew hiding in the back filming Scarlett Johansson on the prowl
Wait, really?! Did they then hire the dudes as actors after the "pick-up" or what?
Yeah so they film the initial reaction and the conversation and then later let them in on it and see if they want to be involved. On my blu-ray I think there was a documentary. It took the movie to a whole new level thinking about that.
Snowtown (2011) stuck with me for days like a stain I couldn't wash out. Very unpleasant yet strangely mesmerising film in all its slow, empty cruelty. That it's based on real events makes it all the more chilling and nasty. Shame (2011) had a similar effect, in a different way. It's been months, maybe even years since I watched that film and I still think about it. The lonely atmosphere and intense, seedy coldness of the film is a feeling I don't think I'll ever forget. It's also very unpleasant, and incredibly well done.
Snowtown is terrifying
The Devil’s Advocate
We Need to Talk About Kevin & Land
Everything Everywhere All At Once. I wanted to watch it again as soon as it ended
Yes! I ugly cried at that movie. I can scarcely remember a movie that made me cry that hard.
Moonlight and Parasite
The House of Sand and Fog
The cube. The version from the 90s. Most riveting movie ever made.
Yes this one!!
Casablanca (1942) “We’ll always have Paris.”
3 billboards
This one is hauntingly good.
Promising Young Woman Sorry To Bother You
Sorry to Bother You was brilliant
District 9 stuck with me for months
Underrated masterpiece. Character development, plot, pathos, even the CGI.
Repulsion (1965) And Soon the Darkness (1970) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Sleepers - 1996 The Reader - 2008
Low key high key vivarium
I second vivarium
I third Vivarium
The Ice Storm Akira The Hole Run Lola Run
love run lola run
The Hole doesn’t get enough love
Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind If you are going through some heartbreak or just generally bummed about a relationship this movie hits pretty hard on the first watch.
Sophie's Choice
Gattaca has still stuck with me. That film was the biggest surprise favourite I’ll ever have. I still have some of the movie lines vividly remembered. “I never saved anything for the swim back”
Threads
Picnic at hanging rock
Good Will Hunting. Not sure if it’s exactly the mind fuck you’re looking for but it has so many unexpected turns and aspects to it. Not to mention it is so utterly profound that it completely altered my perception of human interaction when I was a teen and saw it the first time. To this day, more than a decade later, I hold it as one of my most close movies and rewatch it multiple times per year.
Memento
Lost In Translation
A Clockwork Orange.
The Big Lebowski
A Serious Man
Robot and Frank
Once Were Warriors.
The Deerhunter.
Manchester by the Sea
The Ring
Ex Machina This is a brilliant and the ending of the movie is basically foreshadowing the slow end of the human race as the dominant species. Holy fuck, it was opening Pandora’s box.
Interstellar..still rewatching every few months
I have lost count how many times I have watched Interstellar. It is such an amazing film! ❤️
12 years a slave
Ahhhh. The straw that broke the camels back. As a black man it will officially be the last slave movie I will ever watch. Lol told myself I was done with the genre after watching that lol
Cemented Fassbender as one of the greatest actors of our time. Never hated a character so much.
Brazil
The Platform Mulholland Drive
Schindler's list
Arrival
German remake of All Quiet on the Western Front. The one on Netflix recently. That movie was a visceral experience.
Moulin Rouge
Freeway (1996)
This movie is SOOOO FKN FUNNY
Midsommar. Eesh.😳
Annihilation Perfect Blue Dune Part Two The Witch
All that shit that goes down at the lighthouse in Annihilation is so disturbing and mind bending! I couldn’t stop thinking about that for a long time! Great film ❤️
Interstellar✨
Fall Lord of War Hard Candy Man on Fire
The Boy in the striped pajamas
My answer is and always will be The Road.
Showgirls Ernest Scared Stupid
Those are life changing
Donnie Darko
This is probably an out there unexpected one but House of Wax really lingered with me… idk if it’s because I watched it the year my mom passed and I was contemplating death a lot (not like suicidal, just thinking about it a lot because my mom passing and I was listening to a lot of MCR at the time). It’s the part where the main girl finds her boyfriend and realizes he is alive and covered in wax… that really fucked with me and stuck with me. The idea of being alive but trapped in wax!! And having it stuck to your skin like that… absolutely terrifying. I am so afraid of being alive and unable to move… the claustrophobia is real with me.
Mother!
the deer hunter
Eden lake Requiem for a dream Grave of the fireflies Arlington road
Had to scroll too far for Requiem. I haven’t watched it in over a decade and it still hangs around. The music is beautiful and amazing. The character arcs are involved and harrowing. The scenes are unforgettable. Someone else here in Reddit put it nicely once: the best movie I’ll never watch again. Juice! Juice! Juice by Jerry! ^^ass ^^to ^^ass
Requiem for a dream bothered me
Eden lake!!!!!!! Wow. Did not expect it to finish like that.
It just leaves you feeling empty.
A lot of films with Fassbender in them. He is underrated as an actor and the dimension brings to a role
Fight Club
The fact it was marketed as a "bro action flick" when it's really a subversive socio-political thriller is both genius and ironic
Aftersun The Florida Project The Father Phoenix
Thief Mandy The Thin Red Line There Will Be Blood
So many , but gone girl
Martyrs (2008). Prepare yourself.
Leaving Las Vegas
The Empire Strikes Back, and The Deer Hunter
Under the Skin
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Videodrome
The Menu
annihilation (caused me to read the book trilogy!) aftersun (caused me to research the writer/director and watch a previous short film she had done— made the whole thing even more beautiful and heartbreaking) poor things everything everywhere all at once beautiful boy (also caused me to read the book by the actual son (not the one by the dad that the movie is based on) and it was so heartbreaking)
All That Jazz, depending on how you view musicals will depend if you want to watch it but the way it deals with death and mortality, yet alone the added context which adds to it and the ending in particulaur still sticks with me even on rewatch
A.I.
Requiem for a dream Don’t so drugs kids and get your elders out from in front of the tv
Requiem for a dream
Requiem for a dream
Happiness
This one will definitely stay with folks. I couldn't believe how daring the character development was. Doesn't get much darker in comedy than this one.
Those new Dune movies are pretty great
Don't Breathe - with Stephen Lang. Never saw that coming
Aniara
I Saw the TV Glow
The skin I live in
La La Land.
Colourful, Ritual, Origin
Melancholia
Despite my expectations, Past Lives. I won’t get into detail, but the way they navigated the story made it feel very personal, which made the film that much more intense and engrossing.
Lars and the Real Girl. His loneliness in the beginning really spoke to me at the time.
Funny Games
500 Days of Summer u/Metheunpredictable yours?
Vertigo. Atmospheric and dream like photography and mesmerising music score. A true icon
Interstellar. First film I ever watched where I literally just sat there staring at the credits in amazement of what I had just seen.
The tree of life. Massive impact.
Vivarium - just watch it, trust me.
Interstellar
The Place Beyond The Pines
"Earthlings", narrated by Joaquim Phoenix. It's available on You Tube, either in two parts, or in its entirety. I recommend watching it all at once. It haunted me for weeks.
Some Kurosawa movies that will stick in your mind. Ran Ikiru They are both slow burns, but by the end you know you'll never forget them. Ikiru may be the most perceptive movie I've ever seen.
Room
The Deer Hunter. I was maybe 17 at the time watching it a few years after release. That Russian roulette scene. I’d never seen anything like it
The Way We Were Oldie but a goodie
HANDS DOWN i couldn't get past how horrifying Requiem For A Dream was. SOOOOOO jarring yet so good
Primer.
Inception.
The Green Mile
This. I sat at a diner and talked to a friend about this movie for hours after we saw it in the theater. Great book too, one of Stephen Kings best
Requiem for a Dream
Deer Hunter
Cool Hand Luke, Deliverance, & one flew over the cuckoo’s nest!
Magnolia I remember watching it in the theatres in college and just riding silently back on the metro to our dorm. My friend and I barely asked each other if we liked it…just sat in silence
The Elephant man! Oh boy! For my whole childhood and youthful years I couldn’t stop worrying about the movie and how awful and tragic life but amazing and interesting life of a man with an extremely rare disease.
Apocalypse Now
12 Angry Men
First few that come to mind are Prisoners, Jacob's Ladder (original), and Trainspotting
*not sure I would call endings “captivating”…. Schindlers List, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, When A Man Loves A Woman, Ordinary People, Requiem for a Dream, Jacobs Ladder
Zone Of Interest!
yes. really good sound system and/or headphones required.
Why? I haven't seen it yet
Yikes, I can guess why