THE MOVIES THAT DISTURBED ME MOST

I look back at the films that I can't unsee

At some point, every cinephile goes through that phase—the deep dive into the most fucked-up, transgressive, and extreme films they can find. Most people grow out of it. I definitely have. I remember sitting through Martyrs and a Spanish home-invasion nightmare called Kidnapped and hit my breaking point. I remember saying, I’m done. I can’t watch this shit anymore. Something in me snapped. Maybe it was getting older, maybe it was the way violence started to feel less like shock value and more like something genuinely upsetting.

But those films never really leave you. Some aren’t even gory—it’s their tone, the creeping sense of dread, the way they crawl under your skin and stay there. So I decided to make a list: the films that fucked me up, haunted me, and refused to let go.