The 20 most intense non-horror movies

Rosamund Pike gives one of her best and most unsettling performances in Gone Girl, based on the novel of the same name by Gillian Flynn. In the film, she portrays Amy Elliott Dunne, a young woman who frames her husband for her own disappearance. Gone Girl  often puts its toe right on the line of horror territory, particularly since Amy proves quite ruthless in her attempts to get revenge on her husband for having an affair. As with so many David Fincher films, it never lets up, and the ending is as chilling as anything that has come before it. 

The Vanishing neatly straddles the line between horror and psychological thriller. On paper, it’s about a man’s attempt to figure out what happened to his girlfriend, who was kidnapped and buried alive by a sociopath. At a deeper level, however, it’s about the darkness that can exist in the heart of even ordinary people, and the ending is just as bleak, if not bleaker, than anything one might see in a more traditional horror film.

Don Bluth has a well-deserved reputation for creating animation that was willing to go places Disney didn’t dare. The Secret of NIMH, for example, may be a film about a mouse trying to move her children to safety, but it grapples with some weighty material, including the drug testing on animals. Moreover, there are some pretty terrifying visuals, particularly once the heroine, Mrs. Brisby, visits the rose bush where the rats are living. The sequence contains some remarkably beautiful, but often very frightening, imagery, which helped to cement Bluth’s reputation as one of the 20th century’s most unique animators.

Happiness may take the award for being one of the most horrifying movies that isn’t a horror movie. In large part, the horror stems from the first third of the film, which focuses on a father's predatory behavior toward one of his son’s friends. The story features a truly terrifying performance from Dylan Baker, and it’s the kind of film that sears itself into the viewer’s mind. Though it is often described as a black comedy, it is perhaps more accurate to describe it as a tragicomedy about the foibles and despair of humanity.

American chattel slavery was inarguably one of the most horrifying institutions ever devised, and it is brought to intense and devastating life in the film 12 Years a Slave. Based on the true story of Solomon Northup, it follows Northup (portrayed by Chiwetel Ejiofor) as he is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the American South. The film is unflinching in its depiction of what human beings suffered under this system, and as such, it is a searing reminder of America’s original sin.

Based on the novel of the same name by Richard Adams, Watership Down focuses on a group of rabbits who set out to find a new home. The film is notable for its uniquely austere form of beauty and its intensity, showing just how precarious life can be for animals in the world. Indeed, some violent sequences may be surprising for those who continue to view animation as primarily a medium for children’s films, and this is precisely what makes the film itself such a remarkable creation. 

The powerful but devastating Night and Fog was one of the first films to really grapple with the ugly realities of the Holocaust, and for this reason, it continues to make for uncomfortable viewing. That's also what makes it such necessary viewing. It stands as a reminder of just what people are capable of doing to one another. Its influence continues to be felt and, given that it was made just a decade after the liberation of the concentration camps, it also stands as a form of historical documentation, ensuring that the horrors of the Holocaust are never forgotten.

Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, The Act of Killing includes interviews with men who were responsible for the Indonesian mass killings of the 1960s. It’s a wrenching and haunting piece of cinema, particularly given the fact that the murderers not only remain free but are also often still men of prominence and stature in Indonesia. It’s not a film for the weak, but its intensity brings home just how important it is to hold those who commit mass murder to account, even as it also acknowledges just how difficult that is to do.

Darren Aronofsky has always had a penchant for using cinema to explore the depths of the human experience. Requiem for a Dream, for example, tackles the weighty and disturbing issue of drug addiction through four separate characters. Arguably the most devastating of the four focuses on Ellen Burstyn’s Sara Goldfarb, and it remains one of the most harrowing and powerful performances of her long and storied career. The film shows the darkness that often envelops those who fall prey to the disease known as addiction.

Mel Gibson pulls no punches in The Passion of the Christ, which focuses on the travails that Christ faces during his trial and crucifixion. Gibson immerses the viewer in the fraught and terrifying world of 1st Century Judaea, showing how much Christ suffered on the way to his death. Though for some the film can be too much, for others its very intensity and viscerally upsetting nature is precisely what makes it such a compelling and transcendent piece of religious and cinematic art.

Although Grizzly Man is a documentary, it possesses a searing power that cannot be denied. Director Werner Herzog uses the format of the documentary film to examine the life of wildlife activist Timothy Treadwell, who was devoted to the brown bears of Alaska but ended up being eaten alive by one. Herzog’s film is a harrowing and haunting look at a deeply disturbed man whose inability or unwillingness to acknowledge the power of nature played a major part in his eventual demise. 

Charles Laughton was far better known as an actor than he was as a director, and in fact, he only ever directed one film: Night of the Hunter. Set in West Virginia, it stars Robert Mitchum as a criminal who pursues a pair of children whom he believes are key to the whereabouts of stolen money. It’s one of Mitchum’s most chilling performances, and the film is overall remarkably intense, a perfect piece of Southern Gothic with some film noir sensibilities thrown into the genre mix.

Todd Haynes and Julianne Moore engage in one of their most fruitful and disturbing collaborations in the film Safe, in which Moore plays Carol White, who appears to be suffering from a mysterious environmental illness. It’s a fascinatingly intense film, and Moore gives a haunting performance. Much of Safe’s remarkable power stems from the essential ambiguity at the center of its story, as it refuses to definitively say whether what she has experienced is real or merely the product of her own tormented and claustrophobic imagination. 

While many of Christopher Nolan’s most beloved and acclaimed films play around with narrative, Insomnia  is a more traditional thriller. Al Pacino stars as Will Dormer, whose accidental shooting of his colleague — combined with the relentless daylight of Alaska and the tormenting from Robin Williams’ murderer Walter Finch — drives him to the brink of madness. It’s a perfectly executed thriller film that captures its protagonist's tormented state of mind. It also features a truly terrifying performance from the late Robin Williams.

Even though Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is ostensibly a children’s movie, there’s no doubt that it remains a bit of an acid trip. Several aspects of the film make it intense, ranging from Gene Wilder’s committed but slightly deranged performance to the moment when Wonka takes the children on a boat ride that is the stuff of nightmares. Although Roald Dahl, the author of the book, didn’t like it, there’s no question that it comes close to capturing the author’s own slightly demented approach to children’s literature.   

Guillermo del Toro has repeatedly shown that he has a unique sensibility. Many of his films are fantastical in every sense of the word, and that includes Pan’s Labyrinth, with its story about a little girl in Francoist Spain who encounters a magical and dangerous world. The film may not be horror, per se, but there’s no doubt that it’s a very intense film filled with startling and sometimes downright terrifying visuals, including both the faun of the title as well as the being whose eyes are in its hands.

Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting remains a harrowing piece of cinema, focusing on a group of heroin addicts eking out a living in Edinburgh. Boyle doesn’t pull any punches in his depiction of the depths to which drug addiction can lead a person, and there’s even a scene featuring the death of a baby. The film may not be a horror movie, but it definitely leaves an impression on the mind of the viewer, thanks in no small part to the intense performances from actors such as Ewan McGregor and Ewen Bremner.

Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List remains one of his most powerful works. Based on the novel Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally, it offers an unflinching look at the horrors of the Holocaust and those who both aided it and fought against it. While it doesn’t shy away from the darkness and the horror, it also shows that it is possible for the human spirit to endure even the most terrible of events. Hatred, no matter how violent it may be, will always be defeated.

Darren Aronofsky brings his considerable directorial talents to bear in Black Swan , which stars Natalie Portman as a ballerina whose drive for perfection and the lead role in a production of  Swan Lake leads to her gradually losing her grip on reality. The film is an exquisitely crafted psychological thriller that immerses the viewer in the psyche of a troubled yet driven artist. It is also one of Portman’s most fascinating roles, and she perfectly captures the feeling of being under relentless pressure and the toll that art takes on the body.

Based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name and directed by the Coen Brothers, No Country for Old Men  features a particularly terrifying performance from Javier Bardem. He portrays the psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh, the antagonist to Tommy Lee Jones’ weary cop Ed Tom Bell. The film is tightly woven and terrifying, due both to Bardem’s searing performance and its rather cynical look at human nature and American civilization in the 20th century. The film’s world is truly no place for old men, or young ones, either.