Very much so. I didn’t want to go into more details for fear of verging on spoiler territory. Suffice it to say I needed a hot shower after viewing the movie to wash away the icky film it left on my psyche.
Dancer in the Dark
Pi
Susan
Yes, on the same level as Grave of Fireflies
What is it with Asian movies – they make Greek Tragedy look like sit-coms
ddgryphon
Kes
Sweet Sixteen (Ken Loach)
Sling Blade
Night of the Living Dead
Safe (Todd Haynes)
The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover
Come and See (Emel Klimov)
Paths of Glory
Fail-Safe
And I’ll second Last Exit To Brooklyn, Requiem for a Dream and La vie revee des anges (The Dream Life of Angels).
Damage, with Jeremy Irons - so depressing you could lose a major organ just watching it.
The Comfort of Strangers, with Christopher Walken - one of those “I cannot believe they just did that” movies.
After Dark, My Sweet - Just horribly sad and pathetic.
Your Friends and Neighbors - lots of horrible people with depressing lives.
Memento - sort of a revenge-y ending, but the thought that all the horrible stuff you just saw happen is going to happen to this guy is pretty sad.
It took me about 45 minutes to uncurl out of fetal position.
Oh, yeah, and:
Leon (the Professional) - poor, sad, hound dog-eyed Jean Reno gets me every time.
“very bad things”
aptly named, good movie, felt bad about humanity and the world in general after that one.
::bookmarking thread for movies to never, ever watch::
I’ve said it before in another thread but…
Farewell My Concubine just may be the saddest movie I’ve ever seen.
Some real downers on this list, and I wish to add Louis Malle’s Pretty Baby to the list. I saw it several years ago and still feel all slimy when I think about it. What the hell was Brooke Shields’ mother thinking when she signed her daughter up for that?
Just off the top of my head:
Leaving Las Vegas
My Life as a House
Cider House Rules
Leaving Las Vegas has a scene that shocked and upset me so badly that I almost ran from the theater wracked with sobs.
Another couple I forgot:
Eraserhead, directed by David Lynch. 'Nuff said.
Shoah. Eight-plus hour documentary of the Holocaust. A powerful, powerful movie, and emotionally numbing if you sit through all of it in a single sitting. Nothing but interviews (survivors, guards, witnesses, everybody), with no editorializing that I can remember. Not a depressing movie so much as one that sticks the worst of humanity in your face, making denial an impossibility.
For some reason, that name sounds like a bad kung-fu movie to me.
Probably because it sounds like Xiao Xiao.
I’ve seen some of my least favorite movies of all time named in this thread: Doom Generation, Happiness, Your Friends and Neighbors, Kids. I have nothing but hate and disgust for all of those.
However, I rather liked Brazil and Cider House Rules.
Terminator 3 & Miracle Mile for the same reason
oh yeah, The Rapture (with Mimi Rogers) & Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal
Did you see the international cut? The movie is a lot better when you see it as it’s supposed to be seen. When I watched, I felt concerned that a lot of people would mistakenly think the movie glorified violence and even pedophilia instead of showing us how kids can be a friend to even a hardened killer.
I watch very few movies and even fewer depressing ones. The most depressing movie I ever saw, I think, was Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. I was actually suicidal afterwards (it didn’t help that I was 16 and somewhat unstable).
No one’s mentioned Affliction yet? That movie starts off as a downer and just keeps getting more depressing as it goes along. I wanted to down a whole bottle of Zoloft by the end.
Also, we covered this subject before in this thread.