# Do you like thrillers with really sadistic, brutal criminals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 21, 2025, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954 "2025-06-21T21:59:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/61 "2025-06-24T01:27:44Z")
There are a lot of shows and movies I would have liked to watch that are too brutal for me. Watched the first three episodes of _Breaking Bad_ and it’s probably some of the best TV I ever saw, but it was emotionally exhausting and clearly wasn’t going to get any cheerier. Watched the first season of _Game of Thrones,_ great TV, noped right out (apparently missed all the gratuitous rape and a staggeringly bad finale. Pity.) Watched several episodes of _The Walking Dead._ Great show, was enjoying it behind schedule when that infamous episode happened and that squelched any desire to see it play out. I came for zombies, not sadists. Movies I really want to see that I haven’t been able to watch: Reservoir Dogs, The Green Room, High Life, Schindler’s List (pretty much all Holocaust films), Sev3n (read the entire script), Saving Private Ryan… Hereditary, Midsommar… I’ve missed a lot of good ones. There are a lot of movies and shows that rise to the level of good art that I don’t have the constitution to watch. I did watch _Silence of the Lambs_ because I read it first, as homework for a developmental editing course. It was pretty much exactly the book and just as good. That final scene with Clarice stumbling around in the darkness was really well executed on the page as well as in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/62 "2025-06-24T02:10:29Z")
I stopped watching _Breaking Bad_ but finished _Game of Thrones_. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/63 "2025-06-24T02:20:49Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Movies I really want to see that I haven’t been able to watch: Reservoir Dogs, The Green Room, High Life, Schindler’s List (pretty much all Holocaust films), Sev3n (read the entire script), Saving Private Ryan… Hereditary, Midsommar… I’ve missed a lot of good ones. There are a lot of movies and shows that rise to the level of good art that I don’t have the constitution to watch. We should get together for binge-watches of _Poirot_ and _Colombo_. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/64 "2025-06-24T02:24:51Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I stopped watching _Breaking Bad_ but finished _Game of Thrones_. Both of those have their fair share of blood and brutality. I would think that GOT has more, because of the many battle scenes with thousands of soldiers. If you made it through GOT, you should be able watch the entirety of Breaking Bad, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/65 "2025-06-24T02:40:24Z")
I don’t mind gore. It’s cruelty and pain and fear and evil that bother me. GOT is kind of over-the-top, and not realistic. BB was. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/66 "2025-06-24T11:17:19Z")
I stopped BB after IIRC 2 seasons, when I realized I did not care about any of the characters. No matter how well done, if I don’t care what happens to a single character, I won’t watch it. IIRC, years back I watched the 1st season of GoT. Got bored w/ the 2d. My wife and I tried again recently. Didn’t finish the 1st or 2d ep. Just too much ugliness. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/67 "2025-06-24T11:34:00Z")
No, I don’t. I can only watch a narrow range of films which do not have graphic sex or violence, and which do not condone drug or alcohol abuse. Low tolerance for Bechdel Test failures. I make exceptions because there’s very little out there like that which isn’t inanity for children. Wish that was not so. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/68 "2025-06-24T12:57:22Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I make exceptions because there’s very little out there like that which isn’t inanity for children. Wish that was not so. I wish it weren’t so surprisingly refreshing when I encounter a movie that is really good, but is just about people, without absolutely horrific things happening to anyone. Seems to be more common in smaller budget, independent type films. Possibly one reason I tend to like well done romcoms. I’d far rather just pass a couple of hours pleasantly and benignly than have some horrible image seared into my memory. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/69 "2025-06-24T13:02:06Z")
And from the other side of the camera, there’s the example of Mandy Patinkin, who unexpectedly just walked away from _Criminal Minds_: > Many weeks before his departure, in a videotaped interview carried in the online magazine _Monaco Revue_ , Patinkin told journalists at the [Festival de Télévision de Monte-Carlo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_de_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_de_Monte-Carlo) that he loathed violence on television and was uncomfortable with certain scenes in _Criminal Minds_ . He later called his choice to do _Criminal Minds_ his “biggest public mistake” and stated that he “thought it was something very different. I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year. It was very destructive to my soul and my personality.” (From his Wikipedia bio.) ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/70 "2025-06-24T13:49:18Z")
I don’t like the “criminal mastermind” -type of character and I especially hate when it takes a 12 episode story arc to nail him/her and I especially especially hate when they escape/return from the dead 2 seasons later for more mayhem. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/71 "2025-06-24T13:57:56Z")
I don’t mind the character type, as long as they accomplish things on their own. Someone having an unlimited number of mooks as their “superpower”, however, takes me right out of a movie. That’s why I dislike a lot of action type thrillers (_Fast and Furious, Mission Impossible_, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/72 "2025-06-24T17:25:29Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Watched the first season of _Game of Thrones,_ great TV, noped right out (apparently missed all the gratuitous rape and a staggeringly bad finale. Pity.) And yet they TONED DOWN the rape, Daenerys Targaryen was 13 in the book. I never made it passed the first episode. I’m no prude and I wasn’t clutching my pearls or anything, it just seemed unnecessary. A good writer can make you hate or like people with much less and George R. R. Martin is Dan Brown with a beard. **Andor** is a perfect example of tight character development with far less violence. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/73 "2025-06-24T17:31:41Z")
I mostly enjoyed _Game of Thrones_ until the red wedding. That’s when i lost interest in it. The books were worse, there were whole sections i would recommend skipping. I stopped reading them when i got to that point in the tv series, though. ---
**Author:** ![Kelevra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/97f17d/32.png) [@Kelevra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kelevra)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/74 "2025-06-24T17:46:30Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > A good writer can make you hate or like people with much less This is my opinion exactly. I’ve set down books and dropped series because to me it’s just lazy writing. The world has enough horror in it without adding gratuitous violence to my entertainment. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2025, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954/75 "2025-06-25T17:57:21Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I stopped watching _Breaking Bad_ but finished _Game of Thrones_. I watched all of _Breaking Bad_ and didn’t get past two episodes of _Game of Thrones._ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-like-thrillers-with-really-sadistic-brutal-criminals/1019954.md?page=3)