Most harrowing TV/film you have ever seen?

[Greensleeves]

Mine are:

Song for a Raggy Boy - beautifully made film, but I never, ever want to see it again
Sophie's Choice
Escape from Sobibor
Scum
Touching the Void

"Simon Birch" - a very underrated and not very well known film, but worth seeing if you get a chance (but keep the tissues nearby).

The Deer Hunter. So much of it harrowing.
I also found Squid games hard to watch, on a different level to the Deer Hunter though

Earthlings and any film about the meat and dairy industry. Their reality is as barbaric as the worst horror movie imaginable. I can't understand how as an animal loving society we overlook their suffering.

The pianist

On a similar theme , about 30 years ago Channel 4 showed "The Animal Film" which was 4 hours long and they showed it without any commercial break because of the impact of it ,.
It was relentless . Just when you were reeling and thinking "this cannot get worse" the next wave of the hideous use and abuse of sentient animals hit you .

Of course it happens behind closed doors and people don't want to think about it .

Welcome To The Dollhouse.
Not the most harrowing but definitely bleaker than I remembered. I was bullied so badly in high school and I remember watching this as a young adult. I sympathised with Dawn and thought some parts were funny. I saw that someone had uploaded it to YouTube so watched it. Now I'm a parent and my child is part of the LGBTQIA+ community all I see is how she is let down by every adult. When she runs away and no one misses her I felt like my heart would break.😭

The Handmaid's Tale.

3 girls (the one about the young girls who got groomed by Asian gangs), The boy in the striped pyjamas, and the lovely bones really got to me

Definitely going to watch this. I've not seen it in years. Thank you.

I found Angela's Ashes to be harrowing. Losing so many babies and being abandoned by her husband and judged by sneering relatives and neighbours. No wonder Frank wanted to go back to the US.

Ravenous starring Robert Carlyle. Cannibalism. A fantastic, hypnotic performance by Carlyle and disturbing images and a sense of dread that has stayed with me for, fuck it - years.

Once We’re Warriors

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.

Both absolutely brilliant, but will never watch again.

And Trainspotting because of the sheet scene🤑

WERE Warriors. Bloody autocorrect

This is a great film and I totally know what you mean about the sense of dread. A very sinister and bleak film but I really like it.

I once watched a tv remake of Boudicca which had a brutal scene in it where Boudicca was tied up and lashed while watching her daughters be raped by multiple guards. It was awful and has always stayed with me.

Wolf Creek 1 and 2 both made me feel queasy even though I usually like horror films. Have to say the actor who plays Mick is brilliant though and quite comical in murdery kind of way.

Just thought of another…

Eden Lake

horrible ending and just uncomfortable to watch the whole way through

Let Him Have It, about the Derek Bentley case. I couldn’t watch the end.

Some old American film I can’t recall the name of, it’s several decades old. Poor family, lots of kids, wife is terminal and they make it their mission to find all the kids homes before she passes away and then at the end on her deathbed her mind imagines them all in the room.

Wolf Creek because I’m Australian and that shit really occurs, and not infrequently. I was unsettled watching Hostel thinking that likely they same, based on everyday occurrence but because I’m not from that part of the world it didn’t have the same effect.

The worst thing I have ever seen though was an episode of Futurama where, after he falls into the cryogenic chamber, Fry’s dog waits for him year after year and pines until it dies of old age. Wasn’t a dry eye in our house including teenage boys at the time. If repeat comes on tv now I have to flick off immediately.

Has An American Crime not been mentioned yet? It usually turns up in these threads. Or The Girl Next Door which is another version of the same true crime.

We studied La Haine and Irreversible at A Level and it was quite a lot for a group of 16/17 year olds to grasp and digest. Quite difficult really.

There was also a documentary film I watched on Netflix I think about childhood cancer, called The Lion Inside or something like that. That was absolutely heartbreaking and I cried and cried.

Trainspotting was another one. When baby Dawn dies, that is so awfully sad. And Tommy. Really sad film actually.

Yes , Eden Lake is nasty because it could happen and it accelerates .
The final scenes when she goes into the bathroom and realises where she is ........

The Selfish Giant(2013 ) left me sobbing so much I’ve never forgotten it.
A film inspired by an Oscar Wilde short story.
It’s about two teenaged boys growing up in poverty in West Yorkshire.

I'm another one who watched War Zone and can’t look at Ray Winstone the same any more. I mean it shows what a fabulous actor he is but he played that part so well I hated him!

The Changeling really had me sobbing

Schindler’s List
The Pianist
Threads and When The Wind Blows (another child of the nuclear 80s here. Was traumatised for months)
Lilya4Ever (DD2 showed me this one! Horrifying beyond belief)
Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo
Come and See

The Accused I think will stick with me forever as will the war zone.
Nil by Mouth
The Pianist
Hotel Rwanda

Oh and the murder scene in American History X