I saw this movie once right after it came out, and the details are still burned into my brain. Many moments I felt like I had to look away from the screen; they were just too horrible to watch. I could definitely not bring myself to watch it again, even now.
Requiem for a Dream. I can never watch that one again.
I also saw that when it came out on video. I hadn’t thought about that movie in a long time. It’s pretty rough.
The Days of Wine and Roses
Magnolia
The Virgin Spring
Crime and Misdemeanors
Happiness
Paths of Glory
Grave of the Fireflies
Straw Dogs (the ORIGINAL)
Touch of Evil
Not a movie but I must add the stage play “We Bombed In New Haven”
Arquette was shockingly good in The Grey Zone. The movie was also directed by Tim Blake Nelson, I believe, who despite an impressive range of roles, will always be Delmar O’Donnell to me. “They loved him up and turned him into a horny toad!” He apparently based the movie off an adaptation of a play he penned as well. (based on someone else’s novel.)
Pulling one of out of left field here: The Secret Agent (1996). Terrible movie, great cast, sadness abounds. It just looks bleak. The colors, the griminess. And then the ending…
Joseph Conrad must have been a fun chap to pal around with.
HA! I remember going to a “horror film” party at a friend’s house, and we were striking out on anything actually being scary. Mostly we watched American versions of Japanese horror flicks.
Then we saw a Jacob’s Ladder VHS sitting on a shelf and someone said “eh, why not, might as well.” So we popped it in.
Cue one of us, after our whole (typically chatty) group was dead silent for the film’s first scene, blurting out “this movie has more creepy in its first five minutes than that last one did in its entire MOVIE.”
That was a great film.
Also, add me to the list of Grave of the Fireflies’ victims. I was okay until the flashbacks. I needed an entire day to recover from that.
Very late to the game here, but can I slot in The Constant Gardener?
Not many laughs in that.
…and while I’m thinking of Fiennes, how about The English Patient as well?
Sophie’s Choice
Brokeback Mountain
Come and See
Here’s another: The Wizard of Oz.
What could be bleaker than waking up and realizing you’re still stuck in gray, windy, dusty Kansas, surrounded by yokels and farm animals, and knowing you can never ever escape no matter how much you dream of it?
I haven’t seen most of these, but I made the mistake of watching Megan is Missing and have never forgiven myself. I can’t believe I didn’t quit halfway through, but being an optimist, I kept thinking something would happen to redeem the whole awful experience. Never happened.
Slightly off-topic, I guess, but related…if you want to talk bleak books, Gregory Maguire’s Oz retellings have done nothing but left me feeling empty inside at the end. I mean, I LOVE Wicked (the book and the show, different as they are), but both Wicked and Son of a Witch left me feeling like I had just swallowed a black hole. Pretty grim, kind of abrupt endings that just left nothing but a vague uneasiness that took days to get over for both of them. I haven’t had the nerve (if you’ll excuse the callback) to start A Lion Among Men for just that reason.
Not only was the subject matter depressing and grim…the characters and dialogue added to the extreme bleakness of life in that moment of wartime.
Winters Bone
The story was depressing and the setting was dismal.
Even though it’s been on Comedy Central many times and has a lot of Porky’s-like humor, I’d have to say The Last American Virgin.
Thank you for reminding me of West Texas.
This.
Yes. Jennifer Lawrence gave a very good performance in that.
Bleak - adj. - without hope or encouragement; depressing; dreary: a bleak future.
Many of the movies listed in this thread are bad. But are they really bleak? Somehow, I don’t get the feeling that it’s appropriate to describe them as bleak.
I suppose it’s subjective. Everyone has their own opinion of what constitutes “bleak”, I suppose.
Of recent movies, the Aussie true story Snowtown. Roger Ebert said:
and later
Since I knew most of the story I wish I hadn’t watched it really.