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!"
Can't make up my mind on Persona and Mulholland Dr, so I won't throw them in...
The Player
Black Swan
The Killing
Requiem for a Dream
The Curse of the Golden Flower
not in the top 5, but the movie that I've found to be most cynical is Dogville
I don't think Mulholland Dr is is cynical.
My list of cruel, cynical movies includes:
1. In The Company Of Men
2. Lust, Caution (also Ang Lee; far more cruel than Ice Storm)
3. The Lover
4. Closer
5. The Ice Storm
I will try to list some yet-unmentioned:
The Mudge Boy
Christiane F.
Mysterious Skin
Character (1997)
Mountain Patrol (2004)
To be honest, I could argue that I would feel spiritually violated if I watched family movies, romantic comedies, or anything with Paul Blart Mall Cop, Tyler Perrry, Queen Latifah...
Happiness.
shareBrazil
John Carpenter's The Thing
Escape from New York
American Psycho
Chinatown
Soylent Green
Planet of the Apes
etc.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe..." - Roy Batty, Blade Runner
[deleted]
-Thank you for smoking
-Wag the dog
-The Ides of March
-Crimes and misdemeanors
-Dr. Strangelove
-Visitor Q
-Pulp Fiction
-Fight club
-Battle Royale
-Amour
Requiem for a dream
The ice storm
Virgin suicides
Lord of war
Magnolia
Happiness
shareI can't believe some of the responses on this thread, as there are several that are actually fundamentally optimistic, even if they don't a saccharine ending. In any case, dark, cynical and spiritually violated aren't the same thing (Amour is extremely dark and bleak, but it's not cynical, for example). Anyway, as for cynicism:
-Chinatown (Polanski's best, IMO)
-The Tragedy of Franz Woyzeck (dark and cynical)
-Dr. Strangelove (cynical comedy - a comedy about nuclear war, no less)
-No Country For Old Men (far more cynical than Fargo - basically it's fecklessness versus evil)
-The Damned