Top 5 Most Disturbing Movies Ever Made

While this is a subjective list, all the movies mentioned here are objectively depraved. Being a truly disturbing film does not make it inherently bad. Featured here are some genuinely brilliant films, some even critically acclaimed and considered essential. However, making grotesque films is hardly unique and is well congested with nonsense and pseudo-intellectual trash. Here are my top 5 most unholy, sickening, foul, disgusting, abhorrent, and vicious films like them or not. TRIGGER WARNING THESE FILMS ARE ALL EXPLICITLY GRAPHIC AND DEPICT EXTREME DEVIANT BEHAVIOR.  

1. A Serbian Film (2010) Dir- Srdjan Spasojevic

BAD

Illegal in many countries, A Serbian Film puts forth some of the most despicable and vile things imaginable and writes a movie around them. It’s as if the creators were trying to envision the most fucked up things they could think of and whimsically decided to make it into a movie. In attempting to summarize its qualifications for making it on this list, I found they were innumerable. Reading the plot on Wikipedia is enough to induce nausea as well as mental and emotional anguish. Perhaps the vilest part about this film, it tries to be smart and philosophical while literally and figuratively masturbating over excessive rape and violence. 

2. Saló or The 120 Days of Sodom (1977) Dir- Pier Paolo Pasolini

GOOD

Woof. This film is challenging. While it may seem Pasolini’s loose adaptation of Marquis De Sade’s novella is nothing more than depravity, sexual deviancy, obscene torture, and imaginative murder - some real sensibilities are giving it its critical acclaim. It’s in the Criterion Collection for god sakes! Saló is undeniably iconic as it is uncomfortable. While it is hard to watch, to look away would be to fall for Pasolini’s trap. This movie revels in the beauty and strength of humanity, condemning fascism, and authoritarianism. It puts humanity on trial, both its capability for perversion and destruction and its capacity for resilience and unity. 

3. Antichrist (2009) Dir- Lars Von Trier

GREAT

I struggle with Lars Von Trier. While his films seem masturbatory in seeking to shock his audiences, he is undeniably a breathtaking filmmaker. Antichrist is bleak yet gorgeous and layered with substance and complexity. But, it is a Lars Von Trier film, so we inevitably await the horrible. There are only three instances that qualify this movie for this list. Yet they are single-handedly the most gruesome sequences I have ever seen. 

4. Irréversible (2002) Dir- Gaspar Noé

BAD

I struggle with Gaspar Noé for the same reasons I struggle with Lars Von Trier. He is a capable, strong filmmaker, but his breadth of work is highlighted by grotesque and often senseless brutality. Lars can make these things beautiful to his credit, while Gaspar Noé seems to revel in being downright atrocious. The infamous scene putting Irréversible on this list is a 10 minutes long rape scene, one shot, uncut, just rape. This scene is more repulsive than a man having his head repeatedly bashed until it is pulp, which happens earlier in the film.

5. Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985) Dir- Hideshi Hino

BAD

This infamous entry from Hideshi Hino garnered controversy for being mistaken for an actual snuff film. There’s no story to be found in Guinea Pig 2, No plot, nor character development. It is merely a man dressed as a samurai drugging and abducting a young woman and proceeds to dismember her. Most of the gore in this one is entirely unconvincing; at times, it’s even laughable. But, Guinea Pig 2  makes it on this list for being entirely gore-porn and nothing more.

Runners Up

Martyrs (2008) Dir- Pascal Laugier 

Begotten (1991) Dir- E. Elias Merhige

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) Dir- Ruggero Deodato