20 Great Films That You’ll Only Want To Watch Once

Sometimes movies lend themselves well to repeat viewings. They either inspire good feelings, leave you with many unanswered questions that only a second watch will answer, or just provide so much entertainment value that you can't wait to watch the whole thing all over again. But what about the other type of "great film," the one that, while it may be an excellent movie, you never, ever want to watch it again. The type of film that is widely acclaimed and highly praised, but leaves such an impression on you after just one viewing that you have no desire to re-visit it. Believe it or not, such films do exist. A movie can be truly great yet leave you with no desire to watch it again. This could be for a number of reasons, be it that it's disturbing, confusing, exhausting or mentally draining. Below, you'll find 20 fantastic movies that we recommend watching once, and only once. Again, these are all excellent films, well made and almost universally praised, but each one is a viewing experience that you likely won't want to subject yourself to again. So, with that in mind, read on for our list of 20 great films that you'll only want to watch once. 1) Requiem For A Dream Requiem For A Dream is widely hailed as acclaimed director Darren Aronofsky's masterpiece - which is a bold statement considering his resume also boasts modern classics such as The Wrestler and Black Swan- but it's that good. Despite its brilliant filmmaking, hallucinogenic-like cinematography, and unforgettable score from Clint Mansell, it's a tough movie to get through once, let alone endure on repeat viewings. There's always a chance that you're like me and are inexplicably drawn to depressing and morbid film experiences, but most viewers of Requiem For A Dream will wonder how anyone could find actual enjoyment from something so cold. This isn't just a harrowing and realistic depiction of drug addiction, but a heavy reminder that an addiction of any kind can promptly set a life on a self-destructive course. All of this is heightened by brilliantly methodical performances from Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Ellen Burstyn, and even Marlon Wayans. They are absolutely haunting, especially considering that they went to such extremities as ditching sugar from their diet for 30 days, all to further understand what a craving feels like. Jared Leto even went as far as befriending drug addicts. As for Ellen Burstyn, she was 100% robbed of an Oscar. No one that sees Requiem For A Dream will ever forget her scenes, hell, they're realistically probably scarred for life from them. It's a riveting work of excellence that is sure to put viewers off from trying drugs for life, and in all fairness, that's one profound statement. You may only want to watch it once, but its imagery and message will stay with you forever. 2) Brokeback Mountain Brokeback Mountain, the most honored film of 2005, was monumental for its controversial subject matter, which accelerated the acceptance of the LGBT community to mainstream audiences. It was an epic tale of forbidden love, where Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist cried, sweated, and bled in order to end up in each other’s embraces. Almost a decade ago, this film spread like wildfire, but with a small taint of taboo: the average viewer refrained from watching it in order to avoid the “squeemish” romance or worse, being labeled gay themselves, so they watched it once, away from any judging eyes. However, as our society has made leaps and bounds in acceptance, Brokeback Mountain is noted here because of the excruciating emotional pull that could have filled lakes with the amount of tears that were shed watching this. With only a couple of planned outings a year, the impossibility of a happy ending grew more apparent as the film went on. In their final meeting, where they sparred with words of torment and heartbreak, the very potent, “I wish I knew how to quit you” was spoken (see video below), followed by the devastating, “It’s because of you, Jack, that I’m like this!” The realization that these two could have led seemingly happy lives had they never met emerges, but more importantly, that they could have led even happier lives had Ennis built up the courage to be with Jack. The stakes were raised to the highest level, and with it came a brilliant film; one that could lead to days of depression and screaming at flannel shirts if watched more than once. Brokeback Mountain...I swear... 3) Inland Empire David Lynch’s three hour twisted love/hate letter to Hollywood is nearly impossible to watch. Eschewing the sleek noir stylings of his previous films Blue Velvet, Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire was shot in Poland on DV with mostly natural light and barely any screenplay - the script for that day’s shooting was written fresh everyday, with the film apparently making itself as it evolved in different directions. But does anyone know what Inland Empire is actually about? No. Nobody knows what the film’s about, and that’s the joy of it. It’s not supposed to be about anything, but everything makes sense somehow. In watching the film, it’s clear that it’s not the jumbled mess you’d expect, and that somewhere - on some deep, undisturbed level, something important is happening. It was well-received critically, being named one of Sight & Sound magazine’s thirty best films of the 2000s and amongst The Guardian’s “10 most underrated movies of the 2000s,” but audiences were mostly baffled by it. One scene is haunting in particular, but will sound totally ridiculous being explained here - at the bottom of a darkened path, a female figure emerges from the gloom. It’s walking vaguely towards the camera, but soon straightens its path and heads right forwards. As it gets closer it becomes clear that the figure is Laura Dern, and she’s coming right for us. Her face slowly fills the frame and subtly distorts into a pale, horrifying mask. It’s really horrible, on par with the creature behind the dumpster in Lost Highway, and it makes everyone here at We Got This Covered shiver just to think about it. Seriously, all of us. 4) Irreversible Irreversible is great, really really great. Any film about which Roger Ebert called “a movie so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable" can only be great, right? Well, it is. Most of the notoriety that surrounds the film is based on a gruelling ten minute rape scene that happens in the middle, and rightly so - it’s truly horrific, made all the worse for the unwavering camera angle that the director Gasper Noé adopts throughout: a steady long shot that shows you exactly what a rape would look like in real time. It’s a scene that stays with you for the rest of your life. The rape sequence is the basis of the film, and colours the events that come before and after it, because the scenes are shown in reverse order, like Memento. The film begins in swirling chaos (literally - Noé’s floating cinematography swirls and spins the audience around the action onscreen, never offering a place of stability or comfort) and incredibly brutal violence, becoming more intense as the rape scene approaches and we understand what must have happened. So far, so horrific. The genius of Irreversible, and ultimately what gives the film its heart and soul, are the scenes that occur after (before) the rape. The relationship between the two leads, Alex (Monica Bellucci) and Marcus (Vincent Cassel) is so passionately, genuinely loving, shot through with warmth and emotion, that what has happened (is about to happen) disturbs us all the more. If Noé wasn’t such a great director, then Irreversible wouldn’t be as horrific as it is. A real moral quandary of a film, but so worth it. 5) Audition Most of Takashi Miike’s films could go on this list, but Audition stands out because of its thrilling double whammy of torture both psychological and physical. You could call it a feminist J-horror, if you wanted to boil everything great about it into a glib zeitgeist-y soundbite. The film concerns an aging widowed film director named Shigeharu Aoyama who, at the behest of a producer friend, holds auditions for a movie that he never intends on making simply to interview young, willing females to potentially take on as a lover. To him it's the perfect scheme - he can specify the age, height, weight and looks of potential partners without shame or embarrassment. They can then simply announce that the project's cancelled with a book full of nubile actresses to pick from. Unfortunately for Shigeharu, the actress he picks, Asami, is a dangerous psychopath. He’s initially attracted to her shy nature, but that serene exterior hides a whole wealth of emotional trauma. Scarred physically and mentally as a youngster, Asami starts a campaign of terror against Shigeharu, which all culminates in Asami’s apartment. This is what the film has been building toward and it is really, really horrible. The fun of Audition is seeing such a young, innocent, normal-looking woman wreak havoc over a man’s life. She destroys him, just for the fun of it. It’s surprising, and very modern, offering a vision of equality through horror. Takashi Miike’s unique vision rarely leads you astray, and Audition doesn’t change that. It’s an excellent film, one of the few truly memorable examples of J-horror from the last twenty years. If you were looking for a Western parallel, the closest would probably be i, adapted from the Stephen King novel. It has the same themes of obsessive love and female-to-male torture, but without the fan aspect. Audition dwells more on the psychological effects of Asami’s torture more than Misery does, in which Paul Newman stays more or less compos mentis throughout. A world cinema classic, but not one to watch over and over again. Or more than once, in fact. 6) Elephant Partly structured around the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, Elephant is a fictional account of a school shooting, perpetrated by two marginalized, male teenagers. It is written, directed and edited by Gus Van Sant, and features a cast of hitherto unknown young actors. Van Sant’s choice to continue working on the script throughout the filming process – giving the young performers room to improvise and help determine the direction of scenes – creates a naturalistic feel to the piece that is both chilling and, ultimately, devastating. The setting is a non-descript high school in a non-descript community. There is nothing special or significant about it – there are no specific social problems depicted here that aren’t evident in every town and every educational institution catering to teenagers. There are cliques and bullies and disaffected youths; there are children dealing with problematic home lives and struggling with academic pressure; then there are two friends – Alex (Alex Frost) and Eric (Eric Deulen) – who we see calmly buying weapons on the internet and planning an armed assault on their school. The subject matter of the film is disturbing enough, but it is the tone in which Van Sant sets out this chain of events that makes it both a masterpiece, and a movie you’ll only want to watch once. What he succeeds in doing is presenting a fictional, narrative story about a horrific crime, entirely without judgement. The whole thing is cold and matter-of-fact – reflecting the demeanour and attitude of the two murderous boys perfectly. This overall atmosphere of cool detachment only compounds the horror, as the teens begin to stalk the halls, picking off their fellow students one by one. Elephant is a film that will stay with you long after its upsetting final scene has played out. It is uncomfortable, because Gus Van Sant employs no dramatic trickery here. There is no spoon-feeding, or suggestion of how the audience should feel about what they are watching. He simply holds a mirror up to society and invites us to take a look at what we are doing – and not doing – to our teenagers. Then he leaves us alone - holding that mirror and staring into the abyss - listening to our own thoughts, and drawing our own conclusions. Truly, there is nothing scarier than that. 7) Black Hawk Down Ridley Scott’s war film is based upon the book of the same name by Mark Bowden, and is produced by Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer. The film depicts The Battle Of Mogadishu, which took place in October 1993, after Somali militia – under the command of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid – declared war on the UN personnel that remained behind after the withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces that had been deployed during Somalia’s devastating civil war. In the political upheaval, Aidid had proclaimed himself President of Somalia, and US forces were sent to capture him. The film shows US forces outside of Mogadishu capturing warlord Osman Ali Atto, who had been supplying arms to the militia, and then moving to capture two of Aidid’s most trusted advisers - Omar Salad Elmi and Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdiid. What follows is a brutal and sustained battle, as US forces - on the ground and in the air - come under fire from heavily armed Somali fighters. US Rangers are dropped in wrong locations, military personnel are shot, wounded and killed, and helicopters (Black Hawks) are brought down with RPGs. As small pockets of US forces are trapped and pinned down, the battle becomes a rescue mission, with traumatized soldiers working against the clock to recover their brothers-in-arms. The film caused some controversy upon release, with eye-witnesses questioning its accuracy. Make no mistake – this is the American version of what happened on that dark October night. No Somali actors were used, nor were any Somali consultants employed. In fact, Somali audiences unsurprisingly took great exception to the finished film as a whole. Likewise, as is often the case with American war films, the involvement of other nations was effectively removed from the narrative, with the military contributions of both Malaysia and Pakistan either missing or greatly reduced. The historical inaccuracies and omissions are one of two reasons why this is a film you’ll only want to watch once. The fact that this is essentially a biased depiction of American forces being attacked by dehumanized Somali Bad Guys makes for uncomfortable viewing, as it is clear that much has been left out of the story. But, those factual issues notwithstanding, it is disturbing viewing because it is a technically proficient portrayal of a terrifying war-zone battle – and the fact that we know these were real people only makes it more harrowing. Dispensing with the usual character introductions and backstories, Ridley Scott employs an all-star cast of intensely talented actors to draw the audience in. Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Sam Shepard, Jeremy Piven, Orlando Bloom and Tom Hardy all feature as US military personnel under the most extreme stress. The brutality of the warfare gives way to palpable terror and heartbreak as we find ourselves with isolated soldiers of a downed Black Hawk being overrun by hostile forces – members of the world’s mightiest military dropped on a front-line and rendered powerless in the face of unimaginable rage and death. There is no happy ending here – not even for those that made it back to the UN safe-zone. For the audience, this film is an endurance test in which - if you make it to the end - you are rewarded only with the knowledge that you just watched the end of 19 American soldiers and 1000 Somalis in a military mission that failed to meet its primary objective. 8) Revolutionary Road As director Sam Mendes’ film adaptation of Richard Yates’ 1961 novel of the same name, Revolutionary Road is scripted by Justin Haythe, and is an award-winning period drama. Steeped in the claustrophobia of 1950s middle-class suburban America, the film depicts the gradual deterioration of a marriage and a family unit. Two young adults - full of hope and aspiration – meet, marry, and move to Revolutionary Road when they are expecting their first child. As monotony sets in, Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April (Kate Winslet) begin to feel that their dreams and ambitions are slowly and effectively being squeezed out of their empty lives, while their relationship begins to asphyxiate. The growing resentment between them manifests in adultery and blistering fights until an unexpected and unwanted turn of events drives April to extreme measures, with devastating consequences. Separately, the two central performances are incredibly detailed and very different portrayals of people whose unhappy lives are unravelling. DiCaprio’s Frank is a powerful rendering of a man trapped in a prison of his own design – riding relentless waves of bitterness and regret. Winslet’s April is a heartbreaking depiction of a woman slowly suffocating inside the narrow pigeonhole that a sexist society has shoe-horned her into. Combined, these roles make Revolutionary Road a study in lives wasted. While it is masterful filmmaking as a whole, it is almost certainly a film you’ll only want to watch once. 9) We Need To Talk About Kevin This film adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s book of the same name is, without doubt, a horror film masquerading as a psychological drama. Written and directed by Lynne Ramsay – with Rory Stewart Kinnear co-writing – We Need To Talk About Kevin deliberately plucks at the darkest fears of every parent, while delivering one of the most chilling movie villains of all time. Told in mixed chronology - using flashbacks as a narrative tool - the film introduces us to a teenage Kevin Katchadourian (Ezra Miller), who resides in a prison and receives visits from his mother, Eva (Tilda Swinton, in a career-best performance). This meeting sets the tone for all that follows, as it becomes clear through unspoken signals that this is a mother who is terrified of her child – and rightly so, as Ezra Miller lays before us a character that chills you to the bone with one, menacing glance. It transpires that Kevin is imprisoned for doing something very bad at his High School – although the story allows the details of his crime to unfold slowly, and in their own time. Outside of the prison, we find that Eva – formerly a successful travel writer – now lives alone in a near-derelict home and works for a travel agency, close to the prison – enduring growing hostility from those in her community. As a painful anniversary approaches, Eva begins to recall the events that led her to this point in her life – remembering how Kevin was a difficult and detached child. As a new mother, she struggles with growing evidence of his disturbed nature, all the while having her concerns dismissed by her husband, Franklin (John C. Reilly), who enjoys a closer bond to his son. As Kevin grows, so does the tension within the family – forcing Eva and Franklin further apart, and causing Eva to fear for the safety of her younger child. Eventually, as the full horror of Kevin’s crime is revealed through the eyes of his mother, we discover the real reason for her to now be living alone, and for her resigned determination to continue visiting her murderous child. Having a basic idea of his crime from the beginning of the film gives the subsequent 100 minutes an uncomfortable and terrible sense of inevitability to them – but that’s before the horror has even started. We go into the story thinking that it will be a dramatic exploration of the impact of a high school massacre on the mother of the assailant, but with its final two scenes, this film unashamedly and brutally rips your throat out. We Need To Talk About Kevin will remain embedded in your darkest corners, and you’ll only want to watch it once. 10) The Hurt Locker The film that led to the first ever Best Director Academy Award win for a female director is a fictional story based on the real-life observations and experiences of screenwriter and journalist Mark Boal, when he was embedded with a US Army EOD team in Iraq in 2004. Kathryn Bigelow helmed the tale with Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty in the roles of front-line military bomb disposal operatives. The film is part study of the war-time conditions facing troops in Iraq, and part psychological study of the type of personality that would choose to face the kind of danger created by bomb violence, and the psychological damage it inflicts. Opening with the quote: “The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug,” it is clear from the outset that this is a film in which we will watch one man – Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner) – battle his own demons, while battling a more visible enemy. While the narrative and ‘message’ of the film is something that audiences of war films are perhaps familiar with, it is the nature of the scenes through which that narrative plays out that proves to be a harrowing experience for viewers. Kathryn Bigelow presents the story in a series of climactic scenes – each more gripping and tense than the last. As violence spirals out of control, and James witnesses greater and greater death and destruction, he begins to struggle with the processing of it all. His seemingly reckless behaviour disturbs his team until they are forced to call his judgement into question – all the while dealing with their own difficulties in dealing with trauma. This is a masterclass from Bigelow, who balances the deliberate ratcheting up of tension against the emotional trauma to these characters, perfectly. What we are left with is a picture of the irrevocable psychological damage to young men with homes and families and lives ahead of them, and – while it is an important document of the time – you’ll only want to watch it once. 11) Buried A ‘psychological thriller’ that takes place entirely inside a coffin, Buried features Ryan Reynolds as Paul Conroy – a US truck driver working in Iraq, whose convoy was ambushed. Thrust into the action from the first frame, we become aware of Conroy’s predicament along with him, which immediately creates barely tolerable tension. We quickly discover that he has with him a lighter, flask, flashlight, knife, glow sticks, pen, and mobile phone – on which he receives a phone call from his kidnapper, demanding a ransom of $5 million. The remaining 90 minutes of the film follow a range of communications between Conroy and various key figures outside, as he tries to orchestrate his own rescue. Written by Chris Sparling, and directed by Rodrigo Cortes, Buried is a technical achievement of staggering proportions. It demonstrates exactly how to create nerve-jangling action scenes – with a phone - without ever leaving a box. It is simply the sound that we hear along with Conroy, and the reactions expressed on his dimly lit face that leave us to fill in the blanks with our own imagination – just as the trapped character is doing. Conroy runs the gamut of extreme emotions from confusion to anger, to panic, to desperation and grief. There’s shock at the sudden realisation of his situation, followed by slow-burn horror as the implications become clear. Though it is essentially a ‘real time’ movie, it zips by, feeling much quicker than its actually running time - and we are as breathless by the end of it as Conroy himself. Ironically, despite it being the best performance of Ryan Reynolds’ career, it is that which makes this film such a traumatic experience for the audience. With physical movement greatly restricted, he conveys everything in his tone of voice. The result is that we feel what he feels – right down to the final, devastating reel. While that is an astonishing thing to behold, you won't want to do it more than once. 12) Enter the Void Dying is the ultimate trip. Or at least it is in Enter the Void, a living, breathing hallucinogen from Argentinian filmmaker Gaspar Noe. It's one big, dizzying, intoxicating sensory experience, an orgy of psychadelic, neon-colored sights, thumping sounds and resonating emotions. Swirling through a narrative about drugs, bad choices, and reincarnation, Noe moves his camera through the landscape of Tokyo, allowing it to zoom over rooftops as if every building was a set. It's not an easy watch, but a polarizing experimental head trip that pulls euphoria and emotions of grief and despair out of viewers as if he or she were living it. Enter the Void will either blow your mind or give you a seizure, but you've never seen anything like it before and you probably never will. 13) Martyrs To box in Martyrs as an extreme slice of torture porn would be too reductive, as this is a morally sticky, fearlessly horrifying, and unrelentingly gripping Gallic horror film about human trauma and suffering. Pleasant, right? Not exactly, but it packs a visceral and emotional punch as we follow two female friends, one of whom sees a physically scarred specter and falls even deeper into madness. On more than one occasion, the film is brutal and painfully shocking, making you cringe and wince. Oh, and the climax is a true jaw-dropper that will burn into your brain. 14) 12 Years a Slave Raw and unflinching without being gratuitous, 12 Years a Slave makes all other race-based films look like Disney specials. Who would want to watch a bogus, cowardly depiction of such an ugly, shameful time in American history anyway? If Quentin Tarantino took free artistic license with last year's Django Unchained, director Steve McQueen and screenwriter John Ridley adapted the 1853 memoir of Solomon Northrup for 2013's feel-bad movie of the year with only a twinkle of hopeful but unsentimental relief in the end. A searing work of art that passes more as a historical horror film than preachy eat-your-broccoli cinema, it's certainly a must-see, which, perhaps, only needs to be seen once. Even if it's for the most demanding, tough-skinned viewer, 12 Years a Slave is unshakably harrowing, worth the effort, and too indispensable to ignore. 15) Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire Despite the rather unwieldy title, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire is unsparing, harsh, and genuinely gut-wrenching. A morbidly obese, illiterate 16-year-old African American girl from Harlem named Clareece, “Precious” Jones is moody and damaged, and for good reason: she's been molested by her skeezy father, pregnant with two of his children, treated cruelly at home by her layabout mother (Mo'Nique), and to top it all off, she's HIV-positive. Newcomer Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe towers with her powerful and courageous performance as a withdrawn shell of a human being overcoming her downtrodden, abusive homelife. Screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher doesn't whitewash the miseries of Saphire's 1996 novel, nor is it just one hard knock after another, but it's alternately upsetting and uplifting. Painful in Precious' miseries and triumphant in her fantasies, Precious is heartbreaking but hopefully told with raw honesty, emotions, and a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. The biggest surprise is caricatured comedian Mo'Nique, who turns in an ever-believable, shattering, ferociously intense performance as Precious's abusive, despicable monster of a mother, Mary; her final key scene shows this pathetic character full-through. Though the film is not an easy watch, it's not meant to be. Even if it had nothing else to offer than Sidibe's sympathetic powerhouse performance, Precious is something special and hard to shake off. 16) Spring Breakers Spring Breakers is hard to articulate into words. That's meant as the biggest compliment, not only to the film itself but to writer-director Harmony Korine (who wrote 1995's controversial Kids at just age 19). A divisive, rule-breaking provocateur that many will refer to as an enfant terrible next to Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, and John Waters, Korine makes films that go one of two ways—they are either artlessly exploitative pieces of ego-stroking junk (1997's Gummo and 2009's Trash Humpers) or hypnotic, unforgettable pieces of art (his latest). Simultaneously transgressive and transcendent as a film can get, Spring Breakers is vividly shocking, alive, satirically pointed, poignant, and head and shoulders above anything else independent cinema's bad boy has ever done. An intoxicating shock to the system, one hell of a trip, and an audacious film that's actually about something, Spring Breakers shakes you up, lingers in your mind, and might even outrage many who miss the point. It's one of those misunderstood films that is not so easy to label or categorize, nor should it be when so many are misguided in their marketing anyway. Love it or hate it, one will probably never forget it. Mission accomplished, Harmony. 17) May Edgy new filmmaker Lucky McKee made his auspicious debut (and first screenwriting credit) with May, the underground answer to Re-Animator. May is a weird, mousy veterinary technician with a lazy eye. When she was young, her nutso mother told her, “If you can't find a friend, make one,” by giving her a glass encased porcelain doll named Susie (look but don't touch!) that she still talks to as a young adult. Minus not having telekinesis, she's pretty much Carrie White. May has more than just a few screws loose and heads off the deep end into madness and sadness, going to horrific lengths to steal parts from those who wronged her in order to sew herself together a friend. May is one odd, sick, freaky little picture, and a cult film in the making to be sure. And as a psychological character study and horror show à la Frankenstein, it's effectively disturbing, compelling, and stylishly directed. The unshakable opening image of a screaming May bleeding from having stabbed her eye will stick with you, as will the weirdly poignant last shot that might've been laughable if not in McKee's subtle hands. 18) Melancholia Danish film auteur Lars von Trier continues to vie for our attention by making arthouse films about fragile, masochistic women. If 2009's punishingly pompous Antichrist was his horror film, and an angry, arrogant reaction from the director's publicized depression, then Melancholia is his sci-fi disaster movie and hopefully results in no relapse of a mental breakdown. This one has no slicing of female genitalia, but it's as visually mesmerizing and emotionally hopeless as the end of days could be. What with Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and Mike Cahill's Another Earth, it seems the most ambitious of filmmakers had a mutual epiphany: play a family drama against cosmic events. Casting a spell with an otherworldly beauty and sprawling vision, von Trier's Melancholia is a beautifully profound meditation on depression and human existence. This proves von Trier has finally found a soul and a point in himself as a filmmaker. This time, depression has brought out the best in him, but now Mr. von Trier, take your Lexapro. 19) American History X An unflinching, powerful film, American History X examines the ways racial prejudice and hatred tear at a family, centering on a former neo-Nazi California skinhead (Edward Norton) who returns from prison reformed and tries to prevent his idolizing younger brother (Edward Furlong) from going down the same wrong path that he did. Through black-and-white flashbacks, we are shown how Norton's hatred spawned itself, in which he had at one time transformed into a racist murderer. Norton gives a socko, explosive, full-embodied performance in director Tony Kaye's important film that's very intense and brutal to watch, but hard to forget, packing an emotional powerhouse. Thinking of the curb stomp still makes me cringe. Check it out below and see if you feel the same way. 20) Happiness Writer-director Todd Solondz's Happiness, his follow-up to 1996's Welcome to the Dollhouse, is a startlingly courageous and wickedly ironic assessment of the human condition. This Robert Altman-esque tapestry of really interesting, complex characters, includes completely different sisters Joy (Jane Adams), Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle), and Trish (Cynthia Stevenson), living in the Garden State. Each vignette is compelling and, with harsh honesty, tempered with humor. Dylan Baker somehow makes a pedophilic psychologist, who drugs his son's friend, not only tormented but unexpectedly empathetic; his wife (perfectly played by Stevenson) is living in a all-American facade of PTA meetings. No one is especially happy, but either tell themselves they are, strive for it, and toast to it. You want a forced happy ending? See Stepmom. It's not a complete bummer.