Good movies that depress you

[godgravity]

Heat. Mainly because of Al Pacino's little girl. Throughout the film he's constantly ignoring her, as he's trying to catch De Niro's character.

Spoiler

And Al Pacino ends up walking into a room seeing that his little girl cut her wrists in a bath tub and tried to commit suicide.

Didn't that also happen to be Natalie Portman?

Back on-topic: "Stay," which was directed by the guy who did "Monster's Ball" and one of the "Bond" films - I think the first with Daniel Craig?

"Stay" never fails to surprise me every time I watch it.. which has to be (no exaggeration here) at least 20 times now.

Every time I watch it, I see another 'easter egg' that I missed before. It has Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, and Ryan Gosling. One of my all-time favs. It's strange, occasionally disturbing, but definitely tough to put in a cliche of any story you've likely seen before... maybe one:

Spoiler

... it's most similar to Jacob's Ladder, I suppose, in theme. However, ALL of the critics PANNED this movie, saying it's plot was ENTIRELY NOT WHAT IT ACTUALLY WAS ABOUT. Some people have never heard of NDEs before, I suppose. One 'easter egg' I'd like to mention is that when they are in the 'fortune cookie' scene between Ewan and Naomi, the outside lights from all of the buildings appear to be travelling UP through the whole scene. This implies that the apartment they are in is descending DOWN. Also... count the twins, triplets, suitcases, shots of people's faces in the background. Not to mention some of the best transitional effects I've ever seen

... I could go on and on about this film. I recommend it to anyone who wants a good cry, and likes to talk about films after they've seen them.

 

[Virgilthepagan]

I think I'll just go straight for the big one, since other people mentioned Pan's Labyrinth already. The Seventh Seal is one of my all time favorite movies, and it hasn't aged gracefully, but it's one of the most depressing films you'll ever watch. Each character's arc ends in a way that says a lot about the human condition, and while parts of it is hopeful, the rest...well not so much.

 

[godgravity]

OMG. "Red, White, and Blue" Borderline 'gore-porn,' and VERY disturbing. There were SEVERAL scenes I almost could not watch. It's on Netflix I think. Check it out, if you've got the stomach and patience.

Pay attention to the story. It gets important to focus on the details as their behavior unravels. Dear God... I almost forgot that one. :\

 

[Milanezi]

The Road, needless to say that the book had an even heavier impact, it's anguish the whole damn movie, it's post apocalyptic with a heavy punch of realism

Spoiler

as the movie starts Viggo Mortensen, hides himself in the bushes with his son, while a bunch of people walk past, everyone is afraid of one another since the scarcity of food has led to cannibalism, anyway, one of the guys find them and and Mortensen shoots him in the head, which obviously alerts everyone else, as they hide he puts the gun - which now has only 1 bullet left, he had two before - inside his own kids mouth and teaches him how to pull the trigger etc, so if he ever gets captured he kills himself. THAT was heavy, and then three's the constant fear and the descent into madness when you realize that Mortensen himself has become paranoid of other people, moments of calm are followed by more torment, the characters are put into huge moral dilemmas in a world with no place for such doubts, it's brutal, and very very sad

.

No Country For Old Men, this Oscar winning mammoth was written by the same writer of The Road, and follows the same mood and pace. It's a "modern western" in my opinion, it's about Sheriff (mostly about him, Tommy Lee Jones, who sees the violence of "new days" - the movie is set in the 80's - and is terrified about it, his kinda justice will not work on the new generation, thus the title of the movie, but that's only the undertone of the film), a mercenary who's a total psycho (Javier Barden) and a badass dumb head citizen named Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), basically the story is that Llewelyn is out hunting when he comes by a bunch of dead people and lot of drugs, he quickly realises this was a drug deal gone wrong, but sees no money, he tracks the place, finds the money and keeps it, and then he's fucked: the local cops try to put the pieces together (horridly by the way) while said mercenary goes after the money, leaving a trail of blood wherever he goes, it plays slowly and desperately, it's not an action movie at all, but it's basically a man hunting man the whole film. Here's the depressive stuff, other than the slow pace that adds a strange sadness and realism of it's own:

Spoiler

Lwellyn goes through hell and back to escape Chygur, the mercenary psycho, and he manages to do so but he always leaves the scene fucked up, it's heavy because you can feel the despair and the pain, and he understands Chygur, he knows the guy is as stubborn as he is, now that he put in his mind the idea the he'll kill Llewelyn he WILL do it, it's not about the money anymore, but at a point he calls Llewelyn and says he's willing to make a trade, if he gives him the money he'll kill Llwelyn anyway but that's all, if not, he'll ALSO kill the wife; Llewelyn refuses... The story goes on and things get worse, his wife goes hide in her mother's place and Llewelyn goes to a hotel to plan his next move. All of a sudden we're back to Tommy Lee Jones, he FINALLY tracked down Llewelyn and, believing him to be a good guy who got himself into an ugly mess he can't really deal with, goes after him to convince him to quit the bs, when he arrives at the town he sees a bunch of cars in front of the hotel, he runs inside only to find Llewlyn lying dead, full of holes. Yeah, RIGHT, one of the main characters, and the one we spent most of the time with simply dies, just like that, there's no epic shootout, we don't even see him dying, hell it wasn't even the damn Chygur dude who kills him, it's the cartel people!!! It's a REAL death feeling, sudden, brutal, and not giving a fuck about the victim or anyone else, it just swoops life away and moves on. To make matters worse, Barden keeps his side of the promise, he finds Llewlyn's wife and after his usual strange dialogue kills her saying that her death is her husband's fault

 

[Milanezi]

Oh, forgot one!!!

The Killing Fields, it's about the Khmer Rouge taking a vietnamese reporter hostage, things deteriorate fast, as you see this guy falling deep in degradation while his american counterpart gets a pulitzer prize or something in the safety of his home, all the while feeling guilty that his friend was left behind. What's worse is that the actor who plays the vietnamese reporter lived a similar tale to that of the character, the actor himself was captured by the Khmer Rouge, oh but wait, there's more: once in the USA the ACTOR created a sort of Help Group to divulge the atrocities the Khmer Rouge still perpetuated and all, and then he was found shot at his home's doorway o.o

 

[Kitten DeLux]

All aboard the feels train
Grave of the fireflies - just cause
Watchmen - rorschach
Green mile - more feels
Akira - always felt sorry for him.

 

[saoirse13]

Heat. Mainly because of Al Pacino's little girl. Throughout the film he's constantly ignoring her, as he's trying to catch De Niro's character.

Spoiler

And Al Pacino ends up walking into a room seeing that his little girl cut her wrists in a bath tub and tried to commit suicide.

Have to agree with this, makes me feel abit down that part. (haha just remembered the daughter is played by Natalie Portman.

OP: Marley and Me never fails to depress the hell out of me, maybe not the answer you wanted but after having my own dog since i was 6 and had him for 14 years and then having to do the "humane" thing and have him put to sleep, it never fails to break my heart

There are so many more and not enough room to list them all.

 

[Rooster893]

Platoon. But hey, that was the Vietnam War.

 

[Vandenberg1]

Bucket List or Notebook / thread.....

No, really. I love old people. To see them suffer in movies gets me where gore never will. Schindlers List takes the cake tho for awfulness that I have seen, but there is a TRUEBLOOD episode where Eric, and the Vampire Elite get high of Lilith's blood and kill a whole family at a wedding. Seeing a little boy get killed along with his whole family left a bad feeling in my mouth. ;/

Other sad endings....

THE ROAD
OLD YELLER
BICENTANIAL MAN
EPISODE OF FUTURAMA where Leela met her parents
Glory
Last Samurai
EVIL DEAD (I felt bad for Brucey)

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Blakhawk Down is a pretty downer film.
I'm not sure if this counts, but the last few parts of Band of Brothers were pretty sad, especially Bastogne and Why We Fight.
Moon was also quite a downer.

 

[EHKOS]

Fight Club, because what they say is very true, and then I loose faith in humanity because there are so many sheeple who will never realise it. Also I feel like a rebel and then I cry myself to sleep.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Saving Private Ryan anyone? Seeing as all the really obvious ones are taken, I'm going with that. I shed a single manly tear at the end of that movie.

But yeah, Pan's Labyrinth and Requiem For A Dream would be my choices had they not been ninjad.

 

[Living Contradiction]

Five of my all-time downers

Schindler's List - The last WWII movie I ever watched and I vowed when I left the theatre it would be the last. That kind of pain doesn't need to be revisited again for me.

Kiwi! - A short film about a bird that works to achieve the dream of flying. I won't spoil the ending but if you choose to watch it, be warned that you will not smile.

Kafka - Beautiful use of black and white to show the starkness of post-WWI Czechoslovakia, the soulless drudgery of office work, and the nightmares that lurk in the dark.

Se7en - Horrible ending, but a hauntingly good film. I had to take a shower afterwards to get the shivers out of my skin.

Never Let Me Go - What if you could live another hundred years? Would you be willing to take the life of another to do it? What if that other met you in the street and knew who you were because that other was you? A chilling tale with a heartbreaking ending.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

Land Before Time:

To all those people that say Mufasa's death was hard to watch:


lol k.

 

[lechat]

another vote for never let me go
the movie actually focuses on a potential happy ending only to slowly kill (literally) any chance of it in the end
it's basically the joss whedan of movies

 

[trooper6]

Requiem for a Dream.
Last Exit to Brooklyn.
They Shoot Horses Don't They?
21 Grams.
Beloved.
The Elephant Man.
Bless the Beasts and the Children.
La Strada.
Sophie's Choice.
The Killing Fields.
Boys Don't Cry.
Brokeback Mountain.
The Children's Hour.
The Innocents.
Breaking Glass.
Monster.
Bamboozeled.
A Soldiers Story.
Precious.
Lord of the Flies.
All That Jazz.
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.


Hm...I could go on since I tend to watch a lot of really depressing movies...but I'll cut my list off there.

 

[Remus]

Blindness. It shows a stark reality of how horrible people can be to each other when stripped down to nothing. It's a movie everyone should see once, but any more than that could be considered a form of torture.

 

[puff ball]

a clock work orange anyone. omg the callousness with which that movie portrays rape is literally stunning but its still a good movie just hard to watch.

the last 15 minutes of one flew over the cuckoos nest as well. it is such a roller coaster ride of emotion to go from anger to cheering to extreme sadness back to cheering and so on in such a short time frame and pull it off is just impressive.

 

[Shocksplicer]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has one of the most depressing endings I've seen:

Spoiler

Joel and Clementine get back together, but they REALLY shouldn't, because they're only going to break up again. Then it's implied that they spend the rest of their lives repeatedly falling in love, falling out of love, having their memories wiped, then falling in love again.

 

[Goofguy]

I absolutely love Blade Runner but:

Spoiler

When Roy delivers his final line about how all the moments he experienced, his memories will be lost in time like tears in rain, I get somewhat depressed. Makes me realize that no matter what we see or do in this world, eventually those moments will mean nothing at all.