The 20 most soul-crushing movies

Few animated films are as emotionally devastating as Grave of the Fireflies, which remains one of the most audacious films produced by Studio Ghibli. At the heart of the story are Seita and Setsuko, two children who struggle to survive in Japan as World War II nears its end. The film pulls no punches when it comes to depicting the horrors of war and those who must endure them on the homefront. The fact that neither child manages to survive to the end gives the film a particularly wrenching emotional impact, and even though they seem to be at peace in the afterlife, the film still is like an emotional punch to the gut.

Nella Larsen’s novel Passing  is the basis for the film of the same name. Tessa Thompson and Ruth Nega star as two Black women, one of whom has made a life for herself in the Black community of Harlem while the other has built a life for herself by passing as White. When they encounter one another in a hotel dining room, their lives are changed forever, with tragic results that will leave neither of them unchanged. Haunting and beautiful, Passing is a reminder of the dreadful power of American racism to destroy the lives of all it touches. 

There’s something remarkably devastating and soul-crushing about those films that feature cruelty to animals, and they don’t come much more wrenching than EO. The film centers on the adventures of the donkey, EO, who begins with a circus before wandering through various other places. Sadly, the film ends bleakly, as it’s strongly suggested he has wandered into a slaughterhouse. It’s a haunting and blunt way to end a movie and, as such, is a reminder of humanity’s unrelenting ability to destroy all that is beautiful in the natural world.

Throughout the ‘90s and into the ‘00s, Gregg Araki established himself as a key member of the movement known as New Queer Cinema. His films, including and especially Nowhere, capture the angst and ennui of Gen X. Its teenage characters all lead remarkably strange and sometimes surreal lives, all leading to a rather horrifying ending in which a young man explodes to reveal an alien inside of him. Nowhere is a strange and, at times, harrowing film, and its saturated color gives it an enduringly lurid appeal.   

Not every prequel can get an audience interested despite the outcome being known in advance, but there’s no question that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is one such film. Set before the events of A New Hope, it follows a disparate group of characters as they get pulled into the Rebellion and its efforts to destroy the Death Star. It is a rousing adventure film, but the ending is one of the bleakest in franchise history, as almost everyone perishes. Even though they know that they have succeeded and the audience knows they’ve sowed the seeds for the demise of the Empire, it’s still a haunting film that shows just how capacious the franchise can be in the right hands.

Addiction is always a tricky subject to address, but this hasn’t stopped a number of filmmakers from trying. One of the most successful is Darren Aronofsky, whose Requiem for a Dream is bleak and utterly compelling, focusing on four people with an addiction and their struggles. It’s unflinching in its depiction of the damage it causes. Particularly notable is the performance from Ellen Burstyn, who imbues her character, Sara Goldfarb, with a wrenching humanity as she slowly slides into the darkness of amphetamine psychosis. 

Based on the true story of the Von Erichs, a wrestling dynasty that achieved particular success in the 1980s. The emotional heart of the movie is Zac Efron’s Kevin, who watches as his brothers seem to fall victim to the family curse, all of them dying in a series of accidents. Efron imbues his character with a haunted soulfulness as he watches his family fall apart around him, and while he ends up making it out alive, it’s clear to him, and to the audience, that nothing will ever be quite the same again and that too much has been lost.

Based on Annie Proulx’s beloved short story, Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain  focuses on the doomed and tragic romance between Jack and Ennis (Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger). From the moment they meet during one fateful summer herding sheep, it’s clear that there’s something powerful between them. However, the world they live in cannot let their love endure, and so they both endure heartache. Brokeback Mountain is the type of film that is both devastating and beautiful in equal measure, and as such, it remains a powerful reminder of the crushing effect of the closet on the human spirit.

Martin Scorsese is undoubtedly a giant of cinema, and Killers of the Flower Moon will no doubt come to be seen as one of his breathtaking and devastating works. Based on the nonfiction book of the same name, its story centers on the marriage between Leonardo DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart and Lily Gladstone’s Molly Burkhart, particularly his efforts to gain her oil wealth. The film is a haunting reminder of the violence and exploitation that Indigenous people have endured and the fact that Molly’s story has been relegated to the blank pages of history. 

Alex Garland’s Civil War was one of the most unflinching and bleak pictures of 2024. Set amidst a civil war that has split the United States into several warning factions, it largely focuses on a group of photojournalists who are trying to get to DC in order to interview the President before his downfall. As they travel south, they confront the ugliness of a nation turned against itself, and there are some truly harrowing and devastating scenes that should strike fear into the heart of any concerned American. Ultimately, Civil War is a remarkably pessimistic film about the decline and fall of a nation into barbarism and self-destruction.

Based on the book by Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front largely focuses on Paul Bäumer, an eager young German who enlists in the army during World War I. However, as the film wears on, he finds his idealism slowly but surely destroyed. Ultimately, he becomes just another body strewn on the battle field, his identity not even recorded. Bleak and depressing as it is, this war film is a suitable and remarkably accurate adaptation of the original novel that stays true to its spirit.

Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, The Road  follows a nameless man and his son as they wander an apocalyptic landscape, facing everything from cannibalism to environmental devastation. Viggo Mortensen gives a memorable performance as the man, but even his formidable screen presence and charisma are enough to keep this film from being a mind-numbing slog. There is some reason for hope at the very end, but given the fact that this world seems doomed to continue its slide into death and desolation, it’s unlikely to last long.

Director Alfonso Cuarón is at his very best in Children of Men, depicting a sinister future world where humans no longer bear children. It offers a remarkably stark portrait of what life would be like when faced with such an apocalyptic event, and it likewise shows the chaos that follows when one young woman does manage to get pregnant. There are always signs of hope in Children of Men, but when all is said and done, this future is still a remarkably terrible one, and even in the end, it remains unclear whether there is any hope for humanity as a whole. 

While animation still struggles to escape the sense that it is only for children, a number of animated movies deal with remarkably mature themes. For example, The Plague Dogs tells the story of a pair of canines who escape from a medical laboratory. As they attempt to build their own lives beyond human influence, they are continually pursued by their former captors. The film has a stark aesthetic that works well with its haunting storyline, and the ending is suitably grim and ambiguous.

Based on the novel by Ian McEwan, Atonement focuses on the love between Keira Knightley ’s Cecilia Tallis and James McAvoy’s Robbie Turner, which is sadly derailed by the false accusations of Cecilia’s younger sister, Briony (played by Saoirse Ronan). It seems as if the two are reunited for a brief time, until the ending reveals the film’s narrative, which has largely been Briony’s fictional novel, which she wrote to make amends. Cecilia and Robbie died, the former in a collapsed tube station and the latter during the Evacuation of Dunkirk. It’s an ending that land like a punch in the gut. 

The franchise that began with the 1968 with Planet of the Apes continued with Beneath, which focuses on a new astronaut, Brent, who crashlands on a planet ruled by apes from the first movie. Things quickly spin out of control as the ruling Apes lead an attack against the Forbidden City, which mutant humans inhabit. In the end, Charlton Heston’s Taylor ends up setting off a doomsday bomb that obliterates the entire planet, leaving it uninhabitable. It’s a bleak and depressing ending that was a distillation of the many fears of the Atomic Age.

There’s always a built-in soul-crushing factor in films dealing with the Holocaust, but even so, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is remarkably bleak. Its story about the son of a Nazi who becomes friends with a Jewish concentration camp inmate seems like it’s going to be a moving story about the innocence of childhood. In the end, however, both boys perish in a gas chamber, leaving the characters and the audience shocked and devastated. It’s one of those films that reveals, in stark fashion, just how destructive the Holocaust was, both to those who perished in it and those who destroyed their souls by perpetrating it.

Planet of the Apes is widely regarded as one of the best sci-fi films ever made, and with good reason. It’s haunting and thought-provoking and boasts remarkable production values, particularly the make-up used to bring the titular apes to life. Furthermore, its story about an astronaut who crash-lands on a simian-ruled planet forces the viewer to consider their own place in the universe. It’s the ending, however, which still has the power to shock, as Charlton Heston’s Taylor realizes he’s been on Earth the whole time. Humanity, it seems, cannot help but destroy itself.

Directed by Lars von Trier, Melancholia takes place on an Earth threatened by a rogue planet known as Melancholia. The title of the planet and the film are both apt, as the various characters find themselves immersed in this quiet and despairing feeling, particularly once it becomes clear that the planet will collide with Earth and destroy it. The film ends with the apocalypse and the main characters accepting their fate. It’s a devastating ending to a film filled with angst and ennui. 

The works of Stephen King have had a mixed history with adaptation, but The Mist remains one of those that actually improves on the source material. Much of its runtime is occupied by small-town residents who struggle to survive an invasion of monsters from another dimension. In the end, a small group of survivors makes it out of town, but they agree on a murder-suicıde pact not to have to live in such a world. However, the end is a punch in the gut since the lone survivor realizes too late that the government has managed to push back against the creatures. In The Mist, sacrifice means nothing.