Watch at your own risk: 20 movies that will ruin your day

Westerns don’t come much bloodier or more disturbing than Bone Tomahawk, which blends a healthy dose of horror into the genre conventions of the Western. The primary antagonists in the film are a group of cannibalistic Indigenous people referred to as Troglodytes. The most day-ruining scene in the entire film occurs when the tribe bisects a man while he’s still alive, and the film depicts the whole scene in viscerally upsetting detail. It’s the kind of scene that, once seen, is never forgotten. 

The Fox and the Hound is one of the most depressing and somber Disney films. Its story about the unlikely friendship between the fox, Todd, and the dog, Copper, can only end in one way: their permanent separation. In the world that the film imagines, it’s ultimately impossible for two such different creatures to ever really maintain their friendship, and the film ends with them separated but having achieved a fragile peace. It’s a bittersweet ending that suggests that Disney doesn’t always have to lean into the happy ending to be successful. 

While Disney often produces animated films that are uplifting and optimistic, other studios have taken a different approach. The year 1982, for example, saw the release of The Plague Dogs, which focuses on a pair of canines who escape from a lab and are then hunted by humans who believe they’ve been exposed to bubonic plague. They almost escape, but as the film ends, they are swimming to an island that may or may not exist. It’s a bleak ending devoid of hope, and it drives home the film’s message about the cruelty of humanity toward its animal counterparts. 

Given that Requiem for a Dream focuses on a group of characters who struggle with drug addiction, it’s the kind of film that lends itself to day ruining. Arguably, the most wrenching story in the film is that of Ellen Burstyn’s Sara Goldfarb, whose addiction to amphetamines leads her down a terrible road from which there is no escape. As a whole, the film is haunting, and it demonstrates the extent to which movies can explore the human condition in all of its brutal complexity.

Don Bluth built his reputation by creating animated gems exploring darker territory than their Disney counterparts. The Land Before Time is emblematic in this regard, and there are few moments in animation more devastating than when Littlefoot’s mother succumbs to her wounds, leaving her son to make his way through the world alone. Though the film has a happy ending, it’s quite an emotionally wrenching journey, and the ending is more than bittersweet. Some griefs, the film asserts, must simply be lived with and accepted.

The aptly named Melancholia is a look at what happens to people when confronted with the inevitability of doom. In this case, doom comes from the rogue planet Melancholia, which is fated to collide with Earth and bring about oblivion. In the end, there is nothing that anyone in the film can do to prevent the extinction of all life on Earth, which makes the film a fitting commentary on contemporary anxieties about climate change and its potential to destroy human life on this planet. 

Few films are as uncomfortable to watch as the ironically named Happiness. The film deals with some very heavy and often very disturbing subjects. The first third of the film is particularly upsetting, and Dylan Baker is particularly disturbing as Bill Maplewood. This film is definitely not for the faint of heart, and, in leaning so much into the darkness and despair of the human condition, it leaves little room for optimism. 

The Dutch film The Vanishing is a good example of a film with a simple story that nevertheless manages to be terrifying. It mainly focuses on the efforts of the main character, Rex Hofman, who tries to find out what happened to his girlfriend, who, it turns out, was kidnapped and killed by a sociopath. The ending, in particular, is a real day-ruiner, as Rex, who has put himself in the hands of the killer, finds himself buried alive, subjected to the same fate as his girlfriend, and with no hope of rescue.

Michael Haneke directed the Austrian and American versions of Funny Games, and both are haunting films designed to ruin the viewer’s day. Both focus on a pair of young men who take a family captive and then proceed to torture them, even going so far as to control the film itself when the family seems on the cusp of escaping. When, in the end, they start the whole process all over again with a different family, it’s the film’s way of saying that evil will always find a way to replicate itself. 

Rogue One is regarded by many as one of the best of the recent Star Wars films, if also one of the most depressing. After all, it focuses on the various heroes responsible for getting the plans of the Death Star to the Rebels, so it was probably inevitable that all of the main characters were going to die in the end. This is indeed the case, and while their sacrifice is not in vain — they help to set in motion the destruction of the Death Star and the eventual demise of the Empire — it’s still a very grim and depressing way to end a Star Wars movie.

Based on the novel by James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk focuses on Fonny Hunt, a young African-American man who is falsely imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. He remains in prison right up until the end, largely because the legal system has made it impossible for him to get a fair trial, leading to him taking a plea deal. It’s a haunting and beautiful film — a powerful reminder of the extent to which the American justice system too often destroys the lives of African-American men.

Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan are perfectly matched in City of Angels, in which he plays an angel, and she plays the human with whom he falls in love. After he gives up his immortality, the two start a romance, but it all comes crashing down when she is killed while riding her bike. Still, Cage’s Seth manages to find some solace in the unique experience of being human, but even the film’s slightly optimistic ending isn’t quite enough to shake off the feeling that his sacrifice has been for nothing.

American cinema is fixated on the bonds between dogs and boys and the heartbreak that results when the former dies. This is certainly the central theme of Where the Red Fern Grows, which focuses on Billy Coleman and his relationship with a pair of Bluetick Coonhounds. Of course, one of them is wounded and dies as a result of a cougar attack, with the other losing the will to love. Though Billy ends up going with his family to Tulsa, this is an undeniably depressing movie and another tragic example of the “dog dies in the end genre.” 

EO is a deceptively simple story focusing on the donkey EO, who is freed from a circus and wanders through the world, seeing humanity in all its cruelty and kindness. It’s the end, however, which is truly depressing since it’s heavily implied that the poor donkey has wandered into a slaughterhouse and has been killed. The donkey's beauty and simplicity are sharply at odds with the abrupt and deeply saddening ending, forcing the viewer to confront the bleak nihilism of modern life.

Atonement features several fantastic performances, including from the likes of Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, who play a pair of star-crossed lovers whose romance is interrupted by Saoirse Ronan’s Briony falsely accusing McAvoy’s Robbie Turner of having råped another young woman. Thereafter, the two go their separate ways, and while it seems as if they are reunited at first, this is revealed to be a fiction written by an aging and dying Briony, seeking absolution for her wrongs. It’s a truly devastating end, and the film is an emotional gut punch that will leave no viewer unscathed.

Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, The Road well deserves its reputation for being one of the most depressing movies of the 21st century. Set in a future where the Earth is essentially uninhabitable, its story about a boy and his father who wander from place to place is remarkably bleak. Even though the ending is somewhat happy, it’s still clear that there is no real future for humanity in this blasted and lifeless world, and the film delivers its nihilistic take with subtle yet undeniable power.

Homophobia always lurks in the background of Brokeback Mountain,  which focuses on the ill-fated love of Heath Ledger’s Ennis Del Mar and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Jack Twist. Unsurprisingly, given that their affair plays out during the 1960s and 1970s, their romance ends in tragedy when Jack is killed, leaving Ennis to grapple with his feelings. It’s a haunting and beautiful film, and it’s one that is an enduringly powerful reminder of how many lives were destroyed by homophobia and how generations of queer men were denied the happiness they deserved.

No movie that focuses on the unlikely friendship between the son of a Nazi and a Jewish concentration camp prisoner is going to end happily. This is certainly true for The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which focuses on the bond between Bruno and Shmuel. The ending lands with a gut punch, as both boys are killed in the gas chamber. The film highlights the rampant cruelty of the Nazi regime, which ends up destroying one of their own, but it’s definitely not a feel-good type of movie.

There’s something uniquely devastating about a film that focuses on children struggling to survive during war, and Grave of the Fireflies is particularly depressing. Its focus on a pair of siblings trying to survive in a war-torn Japan is wrenching enough, but the fact that both of them end up dying by the end makes it nearly unbearably devastating. This is one of those films designed to make the audience cry, and not even the reunion of the siblings in the spirit world is enough to lift the pall of gloom that it casts. 

Few Stephen King adaptations are quite as devastating as The Mist. For most of the film, the audience watches as a group of people living in a small town grapple with horrifying monsters unleashed by the titular mist. In the end, a group manages to escape, but faced with a horrifying future, they agree to a pact, leaving only one alive. However, as soon as he’s killed everyone, including his son, it seems that the army is there to save the day. It’s a beautifully depressing ending, certain to ruin even the brightest days. Human action in such a world is, it seems, futile.