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

After the first chapter you get desensitised, which is kind of the point.

Any animal ones, Hatchi/Dogs purpose/Marley/Watership down. Once,but never again.
Hostel, because i feel it happens.

I'm wondering if I'm either broken or using a different meaning of harrowing. A lot of the films mentioned are tragic, very upsetting, scary, etc etc. But mostly not harrowing.

Schindlers List, Sophies Choice and the Pianist. All amazing and, I would say, harrowing.

Who Will Love My Children, Step Mom, tragic. Make me cry buckets.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas makes me angry. Its so shit. I've never understood why people think it's so good. (But of course totally get that we all like different things)

The Human Centipede part 2 I actually turned off it was so distressing. I've got a couple of friends who like to recommend the worst films ever to me (as in scary, not bad.) They've advised I don't even read a Synopsis of A Serbian Film. So of course I did. Never gonna watch that!

Hotel Rwanda, it was almost unbearable but also made me want to urge everyone I knew to watch it, felt too important not to.

The boy in the striped pyjamas. You realise fairly quickly how it is going to end. Made me cry and cry.
My boy Jack. If you have sons who are young adults it will touch your soul.And make you eternally glad you didn't live at the time if the first WW.

I, Daniel Blake really upset me. I live about 10 mins from where it's set, and the real life misery of it really, really got to me

I Daniel Blake. Just broke me when not much else filmwise has.
Once Were Warriors has a sequel called What Becomes of the Broken Hearted btw.

My husband rarely cries. We watched toy story 3 and he was in bits.
Up also made him cry. He was a widower when I met him ( widowed in his 30s). The part if the film where the old man looks back on his life with his first love is so moving.

Lots of The Handmaid's Tale is harrowing.

I agree with you, @IstayedForTheFeminism - many of the films mentioned are tear-jerkers but not harrowing. I mean, Toy Story 3?!

I went to the cinema to watch something nice. There was a trailer on for Kujo the killer dog before the main film. The child in the car screaming in terror as the crazed dog attacks it was horrific.

I can’t believe no one’s said ‘Blood Diamond,’ what the little boys go through when they get taken away to be child soldiers is absolutely heartbreaking. It put me off a pink diamond ring I’d had my heart set on!
Not so much harrowing as haunting is ‘Dreams of a Life’ about Joyce Carol Vincent. I just can’t get the image of her body on the settee while the tv plays on for 2 years out of my head.

Someone already mentioned it but the Russian WW2 movie Come and See, some of the scenes were completely traumatizing.

Oh God yes! And based on a true stories too... a mix up of the 3 Bethnal Green girls who went to become ISIS brides and the Manchester bombing.

Schindler's list

Boys don't cry 😭

Yes to Once were Warriors - one of the most horrifically realistic depiction of domestic abuse ever (and far too close to home for me).

And Watership Down was really upsetting a child. That Art Garfunkel song can still set me off now.

The Lovely Bones and The Hostel

Midsommar is the most WTF thing I have ever seen - I can't believe it hasn't been mentioned yet.

Save Ralph

I haven't watched it my my DD has and she described it to me

I had forgotten about this but yes I would agree with you on that! And also it's like 3 hours long! I don't think that helps.

That wasn't harrowing, it was laughably crap.

Midsommar is an excellent film if you get it, but I wouldn't say it's harrowing. Maybe the cliff scene would upset you if you're sensitive to gore.

Last time a thread like this came up, I watched Mysterious Skin.
Joseph Gordon Levitt is excellent in it, brilliant film but omg.
If you watch it, don't say you weren't warned.
Also White Dog.

I know it's been mentioned but I don't think Dd has ever forgiven me for recommending Requiem for a Dream to her!
I love that film, she was horrified, but loved it at the same time.

The Pianist
Escape from Sobibor
Schindlers List (I watched this in Germany which seemed to make it more upsetting)
Twelve Years a Slave
Once were warriors

I found Leaving Las Vegas a harrowing and difficult watch I still think about it sometimes even though I saw it many years ago