3) A Bigger Splash – Paul Kills Harry
For close to two hours, Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash is a psychodrama, perhaps a mild erotic thriller, as a young woman (Dakota Johnson), her father (Ralph Fiennes), his ex (Tilda Swinton) and her new lover (Matthias Schoenaerts) navigate choppy sexual waters in a remote Italian village. Fiennes’ Harry has designs on Swinton’s Marianne, and Schoenaerts’ Paul has his eye on Johnson’s Penelope, but the film’s never any riskier than that.
Then, as it ambles towards its climax, old friends Harry and Paul drunkenly clash in the pool at Marianne’s villa one night, and Harry – up to this point ostensibly our leading man – is carelessly drowned by Paul. Our main character is dead, and thus the film turns into a killer thriller just as Guadagnino is about to wrap things up.