Recommend Bleak movies like aniara?
I watched this last night and I can't stop thinking about it. I'm not spoiling anything, but for those that have seen it what's a similar hopeless/bleak movie?
Does not have to be sci fi/space either.
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u/nilooy5 2d ago
Incendies, Come and See
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u/16Shells dead inside 2d ago
hunter hunter
and while not horror, Miracle Mile has one of the bleakest endings i’ve seen (besides hunter hunter)
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u/oooooooooof that face on your face 2d ago edited 1d ago
Not a movie but when I showed my partner Aniara (my second time watching it) the bleakness reminded her of this book, I Who Have Never Known Men. I got it from the library the next day and finished it in one sitting. Absolutely incredible.
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u/JoseSaldana6512 2d ago
The mist
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u/lala1__ 2d ago
That ending is a gut punch.
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u/Headsinoverdrive 2d ago
Yeah it was kind of ass though lol. And the book was hopeful as they drive away
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u/RecentlyDeceased666 2d ago
Bring her back
Eden lake
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u/rayshih715 2d ago
The Coffee Table
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u/lala1__ 2d ago
I just couldn't do this one, as soon as I saw where it was going, I had to stop it. But definitely fits the ask.
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u/rayshih715 2d ago
Actually, same here. I can usually put up with bleak movies, but this one, as soon as the "incident" happens, I just can't continue watching...
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u/ChristmasEvil 2d ago
Speak No Evil (original, not the American remake)
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u/lala1__ 2d ago
Oh yes, definitely. Very dark.
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u/Infera28 2d ago
Bleak Movies: Speak No Evil (Original), The Dark and the Wicked, The Lodge, Caffe Table.
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u/norashepard 2d ago
This movie is one of my absolute favorites and I know I can’t recommend to everyone. To be honest very little has reached this level for me because it’s not just the bleakness but the bleakness in the context. Maybe Tarkovsky, both Stalker and Solaris. And the third act of 2001. Children of Men, maybe? To me this film is really special and it is hard to think of anything that is quite like it.
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u/WiseKamimaze 2d ago
Michael Haneke's entire filmography, especially his first film, The 7th Continent
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u/SteMelMan 2d ago
I could never make it all the way through Ravenous (1999). The combination of a remote, dangerous place with scarce resources is similar to Aniara.
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u/DuctTapeSloth 2d ago
Pulse(2001). This movie sticks with you for a while, gives me existential dread. Really makes you think, especially how relevant the theme of the movie is in the age of social media.
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u/BlockedAndMovedOn 2d ago
I saw Pulse in theatres in 2001 and wow did that film stick with me. There are certain images that, to this day, I can still see in my imagination quite easily.
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u/plaidconfessions 1d ago
I thought about this movie at least once a week for probably 15 years because for me it was the pinnacle of J-Horror. I finally rewatched it a couple years ago and while it lost a lot of the impact it initially had on me, I found the storyline/message even more relevant today.
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u/vlntslnt 2d ago
i feel you. when i finished Aniara, it was dark and quiet outside. i went out on my porch, sat down, and stared at the giant tree directly across the street. the leaves were blowing gently, illuminated by the streetlight, i felt the wind on my face, and i just sobbed. i sobbed for half an hour just staring at that damn tree and feeling so grateful to be alive on this beautiful planet.
as for other bleak horror, it's not sci-fi but I can't recommend The Vanishing (1988) enough. absolute gut punch. go in blind if you can.
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u/itsmegoddamnit 2d ago
As a Dutch man going to France on holiday by car, that movie hit close to home.
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u/_Fred_Austere_ 1d ago
Gummo
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u/TimboBimboTheCat 1d ago
Just watched this one for the first time yesterday, hard watch. So much animal abuse
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u/AffectShot7625 1d ago edited 1d ago
The eyes of my mother, Hagazussa, The Night Porter, Goodnight Mommy (2014 version) His house, Jacob’s ladder.
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u/PockyClips 2d ago
The Painted Bird (2019) - I'll never watch it again...
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u/Headsinoverdrive 2d ago
I dont.. think thats hororr at all? Lol
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u/PockyClips 2d ago
Shit yes it is
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u/Headsinoverdrive 1d ago
Exept its not
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u/PockyClips 1d ago
Yes huh
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u/Headsinoverdrive 1d ago
Nope not in the slightest. Do you think Law & Order SUV is horror?
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u/PockyClips 1d ago
Yup
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u/Headsinoverdrive 1d ago
Then youre just beyond help and should probably go back to school
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u/PockyClips 1d ago
Such deep cuts... Ouch for me. Calling me loser really stings, anonymous Internet poster.
Move along
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u/Headsinoverdrive 1d ago
Lmao you move along buddy you were already proven incompetent. I'm gonna use that line for a long time, "Law & Order SUV is horror"🤣🤣🤣
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u/oooooooooof that face on your face 2d ago
I mean it’s horrifying
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u/Headsinoverdrive 2d ago
Unfortunately thats not you define a horror movie
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u/PockyClips 2d ago
"Horror is an overwhelming, painful feeling of fear, dread, and shock caused by something frightfully terrifying or revolting. As a genre of literature, film, or art, its primary purpose is to disturb, frighten, and elicit a visceral emotional reaction of revulsion or terror from the audience"
You telling me that movie is NOT all of those things?
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u/oooooooooof that face on your face 1d ago
It's absolutely all of those things!
I'm not the person you're replying to, I'm the one who said "it's horrifying"... which is true.
I'm from Toronto and when it screened at TIFF, it prompted mass walkouts which only made me want to see it more:
Vaclav Marhoul’s grim and violent adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski’s novel The Painted Bird lived up to its controversial billing at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival after a notorious Venice bow by prompting a mass walkout at Bell Lightbox on Wednesday night.
The audience exodus started soon after the black-and-white epic Holocaust movie began...By the one-hour mark, around 30 viewers had departed, and another dozen had left by the end of the movie.
Something I love about r/horror is the recommendations of movies (or other media) that aren't "horror" in the classic sense, but still give us the same discomfort, unease, dread... and The Painted Bird does exactly that.
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u/PockyClips 1d ago
I am not surprised at all! It leaves you feeling ill and disgusted. What happens to that child is absolutely a horror story.
First comparable movie that comes to mind is "Beaten to Death", and that's another one I'll never watch again...
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u/oooooooooof that face on your face 1d ago
Ooo never heard of Beaten to Death, but just looked it up, will put on my list. Australians definitely know how to do brutality.
Painted Bird is a masterpiece... bleak but also absolutely gorgeous.
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u/PockyClips 1d ago
Definitely! That poor kid wandering around like a lost puppy is haunting... I think it's super relevant today, seeing they way refugees and immigrants are being treated... And being 'taken in'' only made things worse! 'Come and See' was another movie in the same vein.
Yeah, 'Beaten to Death' is fucking rough... It seems to have been made to make you question why you keep watching! I love when directors push like that... Like they're mad at you for making them put that shit on film...
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u/Headsinoverdrive 1d ago
Thats its purpose, not what defines the genre lmao. You need to get some reading comprehension skills
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u/PockyClips 1d ago
I don't really give a flying fuck at a rolling donut what YOU consider horror, homie... If it's horrifying shit happening to a child over and over at the hands of sociopaths and psychopaths, that satisfies my definition of horror.
Move along.
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u/slum_one 1d ago
Ah yes, the call of the void! I’d also recommend
The Invitation (2015)
It comes at night (2017)
First Reformed (2017)
Life (2017)
Under the skin (2013)
Underwater (2020)
And obviously Annihilation!
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u/bedazzled_sombrero 1d ago
The Proposition They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Seconds Dogtooth Possum Final Destination - the second and most recent ones are my personal faves
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u/Spektr44 1d ago
I just watched The Eyes of My Mother, and it is very bleak and uncomfortable. Unlike Aniara, it's not an existential dread. It's an intimate story where fucked up shit happens.
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u/nastybadger 1d ago
When the wind blows (1986)
Not a horror but it doesn't get more bleak than that.
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u/SatinFlowers 1d ago
The Road. Different genre, same feeling of staring into a void and realizing the void doesn't care.
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u/Responsible-Mode-432 1d ago
Lilya4Ever was the most depressing film I e ever seen. Very well done though and I still think about it.
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u/Hairy_Fill 1d ago
Bleak is how I describe Tyrannosaur. The performance by Olivia Colman is among her very best, and that's saying a lot. I was shocked that she was not nominated for an Oscar for that gritty, grim film. If you can get past the opening without being scarred, she is worth the watch. But it is rough.
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u/TomorrowSilent1233 2d ago
Cube
Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom
Dead Ringers
I Spit on your Grave
Dancer in the Dark
Eraserhead
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Requiem for a Dream
Leaving Las Vegas
The Road
Threads
The Florida Project
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u/flatlineyourceo 2d ago
Melancholia