MovieChat Forums > The Ice Storm (1997) Discussion > Top 5 cynical films?

Top 5 cynical films?

posted 19 years ago by lilianelle
171 replies | jump to latest

OK, indulge me. What are your top 5 films that leave the audience feeling cynical, dark, or spiritually violated? (Not that that's a bad feeling for a film to give...)

In the Company of Men
Your Friends and Neighbors
The Ice Storm
The Magdelene Sisters
Amores Perros

"It's a good deal...it's a good deal for ME!"

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] juanpabloroma-1 16 years ago

Barfly
Buffalo 66
All That Jazz
Lonesome Jim
Audition (Takashi Miike's)
Taxi driver
The Wall
A Clockwork Orange
The Thin Red Line
The Dark Side of the Heart, 1 and 2
Pi
Raging Bull
Bringing Out The Dead
Fat Girl
The Remains of The Day
The Fourth Man
Welcome To L.A
The Lost Weekend
...and many more....

;-)

[–] lubin-freddy 15 years ago

Let me repeat a post I put on this thread a while ago:

I don't see "The Ice Storm" as cynical. It was dark, but that was a dark period. It showed people, normal people, trying to do their best at a time when the national moral compass was disintegrating.

I still think that it's true, and that viewing the film as cynical makes it difficult to appreciate the great humanism of Ang Lee.

As for cynical films, I think that you have to look in the past. We live in a cynical age, or to be more exact, in an age when cynicism is marketed. So it's hard to be genuinely cynical, within a "cynical" culture. I suggest watching the films of two great directors: Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder.

Sturges, for example, satirized the idea of war heroes, during WWII in Hail the Conquering Hero. He made fun, in his own cynical way, of family values, the virgin birth, sex, etc., in films such as The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, The Palm Beach Story, and Sullivan's Travels. In the latter he even turned his cynicism inward.

Wilder brought his world weary "I've-seen-it-all" European cynicism to Hollywood in films such as Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Stalag 17, and many others. I can't imagine, even today, a film with such biting cynicism towards the media as his underrated Ace in the Hole.

Compared to the above mentioned films, much of today's "cynicism" seems like user-friendly posing!

"Sometimes you have to take the bull by the tail, and face the truth" - G. Marx

[–] carti 15 years ago

Breaking the Waves

[–] rivieran 15 years ago

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry

[–] MariaLoathesDTWig 15 years ago

the ice storm
american beauty
american psycho
to die for
being john malkovich

OSCARS 2010 : COLIN FIRTH/MELANIE LAURENT/ CHRISTOPH WALTZ/MO'NIQUE

[–] ZOE69 15 years ago

Garage ---- pat shortt as josie

[–] Phantom3dx 15 years ago

Broken Flowers
Capturing the Friedmans
The Stepford Wives
Little Children
Happiness

If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

[–] keatoncooper 15 years ago

I feel it necessary to address one or two films, this one in particular as it is the forerunner to at least three films that are listed prominently in these message boards, these include: The Ice Storm, American Beauty and In the Bedroom. All these films probably wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for Ordinary People.

I'm glad to see that people aren't forgetting to include foreign films as well. Seen No Man's Land several times on the boards, not The Vanishing, which, if we're being honest is entirely bleak. And then, let's not forget Aguirre: The Wrath of God, well it's foreigness really depends also on which dub you watch, but since Herzog is German and so was Kinski, and the better dub is German, I'd say as much. And even though Wings of Desire is ultimately a a happy tale, I think Wenders did an excellent job at portraying the dichotomy of Berlin. He didn't sugarcoat it, that's for sure.

www.myspace.com/le_bon_crouton

[–] Merphisto 15 years ago

> Duvar - Le Mur - Die Mauer - The Wall (1983) by Yilmaz Güney

[–] Zoomorph 15 years ago

Top favorites:
Naked
The Ice Storm
Eye Of The Beholder (1999) (sad surreal thriller very underrated on imdb)
Requiem For A Dream
...?

I haven't seen many others, but will check some out thanks to this thread. :)

~ Observe, and act with clarity. ~