In 1993, Jurassic Park took a Tyrannosaurus-sized chomp out of the box office, smashing records across the entire world and retaining them for all of five years before Titanic came along.
However, there was one country that beat everyone else to that historic punch in 1994: that country was New Zealand. Its tool? Once Were Warriors, Lee Tamahori’s drama film about poverty, alcoholism, and domestic violence that left me, and everyone else in my college film class visibly and, in some cases, audibly shaken.
Indeed, the tragedy of some of art’s most effective conduits is that some of them are just too difficult to stomach for repeat viewings. To honor these cinematic gut-punchers, the solemn participants of r/movies have offered to list some fantastic movies that they would not recommend in the absence of pre-established emotional stability.
An entire thread was quickly dedicated to the work of Gaspar Noé, an Argentine filmmaker whose works such as Irréversible, Climax, among others seem to have disturbed many a moviegoer with his use of camerawork, sound, and, of course, downright unsettling material.
Others cast their vote to Manchester by the Sea, a psychological drama that causes some serious damage to the film’s protagonist, with much of the collateral directed towards the audience.
One user pitched Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father as the film that they love, hate, and gives the yellow light on recommending. Perhaps a documentary has the added benefit of being non-fictional, which only serves to amplify this gutting story, but there’s no holds barred around these parts.
For those of you looking for something new to watch, it would be wise to scroll through this thread to make sure you’re not getting into anything you can’t handle. Then again, we assume most of you would prefer going in blind anyway, but don’t say Reddit didn’t warn you.