Great Movie! (Never Want to See It Again!)

The Pianist, a masterpiece but so painful to watch

Brokeback Mountain

The Deer Hunter

Manchester by the Sea

Requiem for a Dream

Salo

Raging Bull

Passion of the Christ

Leaving Las Vegas

Atonement

Apocalypse Now

Platoon

Star 80

Woody Allen’s entire body of work, like to, but can’t bring myself to.

An obscure movie from 1964 called "One Potato, Two Potato," with Barbara Barrie and Bernie Hamilton.

Absolutely devastating ending. I don't think I could sit through it again.

Several of Aronofsky’s movies, the aforementioned Requiem for a Dream and also mother!

quote[“Schindler’s List”]

I remember PBS played the movie a few years after its release without commercials. I started watching and decided I could not sit through it again.

This is easy: Grave of the Fireflies.

Schindler's List

12 Years A Slave

Both masterpieces in filmmaking in my opinion but both also way too brutal to ever sit through again.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

SOPHIE'S CHOICE

AMERICAN BEAUTY

I was glad to have seen Schindler’s List alone. Wept like a baby…

Bohemian Rhapsody.

After I’ve the truth. It was game over.

^ Learned the truth.

What truth?

For me, there are actors I want to see in movies, but won't rewatch.

Any Michael Douglas movie is one and done. It's the same for Jack Nicholson and Liam Neeson.

Then there are actors I've disliked, but they flesh out a range of characters perfectly and I'll watch again.

Anything by Tarantino. Good the first time but...

Only Scorcese I would watch again would be Taxi Driver.

Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Michael Bay... once is enough.

[quote]Requiem for a Dream

Another vote for Requiem for a Dream, I don't even like thinking about this movie.

Definitely Requiem for a Dream. Saw it when it first hit DVD 20 years ago and it's still so fresh in mind that I've never had the desire to rewatch it. I can recall certain scenes from that film vividly all these years later. That's the mark of a brilliant movie, but it's not the kind of movie one pulls out very often.

A few horror films like The Hills Have Eyes, Last House on the Left, and Martyrs are obviously landmark films in the genre, but they disturbed me so much that I'd rather not watch them again.

Dancer in the Dark. Incredible movie. I could NEVER watch it again.

BLUE VELVET.

Citizen Kane. EGO EGO EGO. I could barely get through it when I was In high school.

[quote]Anything by Tarantino. Good the first time but...

I agree except for Jackie Brown.

A Patch of Blue. It's so sad and it leaves me gutted.

TESTAMENT GALLIPOLI

R32 Oh, God, I forgot about Testament! Devastating.

The Secret in their Eyes (El Secreto de sus Ojos), the Argentinean movie.

Oh, God, Testament. Talk about a movie that makes you want to throw yourself off a cliff after watching it. Never again.

Some of you seem to have amazingly stable lives, and not need to watch a weepy movie every once in a while. Testament is one of my go to movies, losing each each time she has to bury another child and then the garage scene. I bet y’all only watched Sweet Hereafter only once as well!

“The Road” did an amazing job at creating a bleak, desolate, post apocalyptic world and was terrifying. I would like to watch it again, but it was to close to the reality of what’s to come, especially of late, to watch again.

Another vote for Last House on the Left.

I was on a first date and we saw Testament and was reduced to a sobbing mess. I was so embarrassed.

I don't think I could watch Irreversible again, either. I have seen Requiem for a Dream several times, mainly because the acting is so damn good. Ellen Burstyn should have won an Oscar for it.

Hello Dolly!

Roma

Synecdoche, New York

The Artist

Nomadsland

Uncle Boonmee

All Bresson's movies

Mississippi Burning

Precious

R42 I’m always torn, I know it’s a good movie, but I know I don’t understand a big part of it and should watch it again, but it also was exhausting the first time.

[quote]Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Michael Bay... once is enough.

I made a great movie? I must not have been paying attention.

The squid and the whale.

Melancholia

That one where Adam Driver sings Being Alive.

Sophie’s choice 😢

Hereditary. My favorite horror movie since Rosemary’s Baby, but I never want to be disturbed like that again.

Titanic.

* which one?

Hotel Rwanda

Sophie’s Choice

Dog Day Afternoon. Too sweaty and tense for me.

Leviathon. Great Russian film but so painful, once is enough.

I don’t know if it’s a great movie, but Funny Games is a movie I never want to see again.

[quote] The squid and the whale.

YES.

I hope I never see any film again where Laura Linney's teenage son complains about the smell she leaves behind in the bathroom.

Or when a 12 year old jerks off and spreads his jizz on the library books. Yech.

I did like Billy Baldwin’s character, he was pretty decent.

R57 r58 it's one of those movies that feel compelled to show how grimy everyday people are. But I don't want to see that onscreen. I want to be awed and INSPIRED.

Dancer in the Dark. That ending hurt.

Dick Tracy

Midnight Cowboy

Deliverance

The Sorrow and the Pity

Zodiac

Silence of the Lambs

In the Bedroom

45 Years

Hiroshima Mon Amour

Last Year at Marienbad

Two Women

La Strada

Bambi

Freaks

In Cold Blood

Trolls World Tour

Journey of Hope, about a Turkish family trying to immigrate to Switzerland. Absolutely gutted me.

No Man's Land - about the Bosnian war.

I WW'd several of the references to Testament. One of the best American movies and sadly unappreciated. I'm so please DL approves. Silence Of The Lambs only once? I must have seen it ten times. Love it.

Not all of us have an appetite for chianti and fava beans, R66.

I’ve not seen Testament, but I googled it and it sounds similar to the movie Threads. That is one in my won’t watch again list.

I’d much rather be destroyed in the initial nuclear blast than to have to live in the aftermath. It’s hopeless.

[quote] Trolls World Tour

Are you mad, sir?!? There is nothing, not even Yellow Submarine, that is more fun to watch stoned. They should give away a Blu-Ray of it with every ten pack of pot gummy bears you buy at the dispensary.

R69 I meant to type Troll 2. Auto correct, darling.

The Baby

Looking For Mr. Goodbar

Blue Valentine

Taxi Driver

The Tin Drum

The Conformist

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

The Pawnbroker

The Exorcist

Jaws

Happiness

Magnolia

I’m surprised no one has mentioned Saving Private Ryan, perhaps the most gruesomely brutal film ever made. Brilliant filmmaking, but just too disgusting to ever want to sit through it again.

R77, if you grew up with a family of hardcore aspy WWII fans, you can't watch the genre because of flashbacks.

"That's the Wong caliber!"

Along the lines of "Testament", I'll add " A Dog and his Boy". It should be funny, but it's too accurate.

Se7in is one of the movies I cannot watch again. I have watched many Nightmares on Elm Streets, Halloween, Alien, Friday the 13th, but can't bring myself to watch event movies that have actually happened, such as Schindler's List, and Selma. I have never rewatched Sophie's Choice, as the choice ripped me to the core. But I did read the book afterwards. I have never watched the complete Saving Private Ryan. After watching the first 20 minutes of the brutal war depiction I was emotionally drained, and turned it off.

Another vote for Saving Private Ryan, or at least the first half hour or so. I saw it in the theater and thought it was brilliant, but my fists were clenched and I felt like I didn't breathe for the D Day landing.

Also Requiem for a Dream and Kids, both too depressing and upsetting to sit through again.

Requiem for a Dream

Also United 93. Well written and made, but no desire to see it again.

[quote] Trolls World Tour

aka Datalounge: The Movie

Gynecological psychodrama DEAD RINGERS

Platoon and the Killing Fields. Great films, but I couldn't watch them again.

Boys Don’t Cry

Requiem for a Dream.

Someone mentioned The Sweet Hereafter. I’ve seen it many times. One of the finest films ever made.

Missing (1982)

Amour (2012)

I tell people that Malick’s THE THIN RED LINE is the most beautiful film ever shot and my ultimate favourite, and it is, but I’ve only seen it twice in full and may never watch it again because it’s too heartbreakingly sad and sends me into an existential depression spiral.

The deleted scenes reel is manageable for me, though, so I watch that if I feel the mighty need.

United 93 is a film I won’t watch even once. I know it’s going to be depressing as shit, so I’ve avoided it.

Perusing this list and having watched most of the mentioned films, there is only one that I was in numbed awe of but will never ever watch again. And that would be Sophie’s Choice.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Schindler's List

Cabaret

Terms of Endearment

Out of Africa

Chariots of Fire

Traffic

A Star is Born - all versions

Anything Woody Allen

Any sports movie

Anything Spielberg except for Jaws

Trainspotting

Paper Moon was difficult to watch again knowing how dysfunctional father/ daughter have been for the last 45 years.

I just read a synopsis of Testament. Christ, that sounds brutal.

I’m enthralled by the artistic achievement of United 93, have also seen many times. The same for a lot of these.

Requiem for a Dream

Million Dollar Baby

Hachi: A Dog's Tale

Grave of the Fireflies

Well the critics said Birdman and Spotlight were great. I thought they both stunk. You can't always trust rotten tomatoes I guess. I sat through both once but will never watch again.

I cannot imagine watching BIRDMAN or SPOTLIGHT ever again, and I liked them both a bit better than R100.

[quote]I tell people that Malick’s is the most beautiful film ever shot and my ultimate favourite, and it is, but I’ve only seen it twice in full and may never watch it again because it’s too heartbreakingly sad and sends me into an existential depression spiral.

I'll never watch THE THIN RED LINE again because it was so incredibly slow and dull. Yes, the cinematography was gorgeous, but it went on....and on.....and on. Each "on" is for each time I thought the movie had ended but didn't.

I loved SPOTLIGHT and would definitely watch it again.

We should do a thread of movies we know will be great but won’t watch because we know they’ll be too harsh: 12 Years A Slave.

Precious

OP is not talking about movies you hated, so won't watch again, but movies that were moving/well-made/artistic, but you don't want to see them. There are so many lousy films I'm sorry I ever saw, but those deserve their own thread.

I agree with 90% of the ones posted here. Although, if a film is so "great," would part of that greatness be that you'd want to see it over and over? No, I guess not.

Monster.

Precious. Compelling story, great directing, great acting. Hard to watch.

This thread finally got me to watch Requiem for a Dream, which I liked, although it felt like the film went over-the-top with the tragedy of the situations it put the characters in but ignored their interiors, other than Ellen Burstyn. (And neglected Marlon Wayans!)

I could watch Zodiac and Silence of the Lambs many times, but I know without watching that I couldn’t make it through 12 Years a Slave.

I watched Spotlight with my (very Catholic) family in the theater right before Christmas, we all cried in anger during the scene of the kids singing at Christmas Mass.

Mysterious Skin

"Brazil"

"The Deer Hunter"

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Jacob's Ladder (original); I'm Thinking of Ending It

Fight Club. Saw it in the theater when it came out and actually liked it but for some reason I actively avoid it whenever it's on TV or Cable. Don't know why? Maybe there's something about the world it depicts and the mood and atmosphere that I just don't want to enter again.

Henry:Portrait Of A Serial Killer

Farewell My Concubine.

Whatever wins the Oscars each year

The Constant Gardener

Nomandland - Seeing Frances McDormand naked and shit in a bucket was a 'never want to see that again' moments.

100+ replies and none of the three best answers? You sluts are slipping.

Martyrs Audition Antichrist

Not a movie, but limited series The Underground Railroad, it was stunningly beautiful in its cinematography, set designs and costumes, and I’m bummed that it’s gotten so little recognition in awards nominations, the South African actress and Joel Edgerton gave outstanding performances, but again the brutality of enslavement is just so hard to watch even at this distance in time and verges on torture porn like those Hostel and Saw movies.

HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG.

Babette's Feast

The Crying Game.

Breaking the Waves

Another vote for the films mentioned by R1 R2 R3 and R4.

Not a movie but Jewel in the Crown. I read about it here of course and am glad I watched it but I don't need to see it again.

Another vote for Bambi (I threw up in a Lyon's Tea Shop ater Mum took me to see it).

Sophie's Chooce

Platoon

Lassie Come Home

^*Choice (not Chooce, of course)

Another vote for Bambi (50 years later and I'm STILL traumatized)

Shoah

Farewell My Concubine

Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens)

Anklaget (Accused)

House of Sand and Fog

R77 And one of the worst scripts ever written, pretentious beyond bearing, only the first half hour is worth seeing.

Forrest Gump

Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution".

I don't know how much play it got in the West, but it was slowly and inexorably heartbreaking.

In my view, an unsung and underrated masterpiece.

Raging Bull.

If it's directed by Lars Von Trier I'll see it once, but I have to be sober. I'll have weed afterwards.

Dogville made me appreciate NK. Melancholia gave me back my KD.

MOONLIGHT. Well acted and well intentioned but 1) it brings up too many painful memories of growing up gay and black and 2) there wasn’t enough sex.

I agree with everyone above who mentions Requiem for a Dream. I'll add Last Exit to Brooklyn, another adaptation of a Hubert Selby, Jr book.

I second Dogville--yeesh, that was rough.

Requiem for a Dream made me physically ill in the theater during that final brutal montage. It's one of several reasons I decided not to see Black Swan.

I saw Don't Look Now in a film class in college and could never watch it again. That final scene is fucking terrifying.

I don’t remember all of Mala Noche, but the scene of being trapped in the tunnel with the rats is enough for me to pass up another viewing. Come to think of it 1984 is another because of the rat mask they are going to put on Winston’s face and he says to do to Julia instead. Maybe I have a being terrorized by rats in movies phobia?

Two Colin Farrell movies come to mind:

The Killing of a Sacred Deer & The Lobster

TKoaSD was totally messed up. I saw this on an airplane and when it was over I quickly put something else on to get that out of my head. (I believe it was Aquaman or Justice League or something dumb like that). Barry Keough was good as the weird guy. Just look at him eat spaghetti. Nicole Kidman is also in it.

The Lobster wasn’t bad. I liked the premise, could’ve done without-spoiler spoiler spoiler- what happened to Colin’s brother- but I have no desire to see it again.

We Need to Talk About Kevin.

I’m so glad I never wanted kids because idk what I would’ve done if I had gotten stuck with a psycho like Kevin. For example, he purposely used diapers until he was like seven just so his mom would have to change him because he wanted to make her suffer. The mother got a life sentence when she had him.

Tilda Swindon was the mother, John C. Reilly the dad, and Ezra Miller was teen Kevin.

The Bostonians

Rear Action Girls (Lesbian dildo porn flick from the 1980s)

Audition

A Serbian Film

Ichi the Killer

Dead Man Walking

Charlotte's Web - I got a blood nose crying so hard.

1900

In The Realm Of the Senses

Talented Mr. Ripley.

Agree with Sophie's Choice, but that might be more Great Performance! Mediocre Movie!

Dead Man Walking is another for me.

I get how you feel about Kevin, but I read the book, then watched the movie, and have seen it probably 3 times. I found it fascinating in a horrible kind of way. Ezra Miller was perfectly cast as Kevin. When I read the book he was just as I pictured him.

Mother.

Throughout most of the movie I was so frustrated that Jennifer Lawrence didn’t just leave. Get in the car and go to a hotel and get away from that madness. But. Guess she couldn’t, she was trapped, or something.

I didn’t care for this movie but I guess it’s praised by some.

Rescue Dawn

Two Anton Yelchin (RIP) movies- Green Room and Alpha Dog

I knew the outcome of Alpha Dog going into the movie, but I was hoping for a different one when the time came :(

Green Room was intense.

I liked The Mudge Boy but have no desire to rewatch. Richard Jenkins and Emile Hirsch star in it.

The Shape of Water

How many creepy fucking movies has Hirsch been in, anyway?

Where the Lilies Bloom- a film I saw many years ago , about a bullied and raped girl in a small Sothern town, set in the 50's or 60's.. I remember it as lyrical and beautiful but the subject matter was truly sad. Still, I've never forgotten it. It really was unforgettable but I doubt I could bring myself to watch it again.

Aurore An American crime

Both films are about child abuse.

The new Adam Driver movie, Annette is the newest one and done.

The only thing missing were the rhinoceroses...

The Phantom Thread! I was bored to tears during this movie. The only good part was when the guy nearly died from eating mushrooms, and then went out mushroom hunting again. Or something like that.

The Last King of Scotland. Forrest Whitaker and James McAvoy were great, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget what happened to the wife. Horrifying.

I turned Annette off 45 minutes in. Good lord

Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, Magnolia. I guess half of PTA's filmography. I only enjoy sections of his films but never as a whole despite the great acting, cinematography, and directing.

Citizen Kane

Intolerance

The Vietnam scenes in The Deer Hunter

Sunrise (1927)

Marley and Me. I was gutted at the end. Never again.

A Monster Calls. Not many people heard of this movie, but it was good. It’s about a kid whose mother is dying of cancer and he starts to imagine this tree on the hill by his house turns into a monster and comes to talk with him. Liam Neeson is the voice of the monster. Sigourney Weaver plays the kid’s stern but loving grandmother.

I saw it about a year after my mom died of cancer, and there’s one part (the kid’s big secret) that I completely understood. Very emotional movie.

R162 Get under seen film that is very gruelling stuff indeed.

The backstory of the novel itself adds a whole other layer of pathos to A Monster Calls.

Sunshine (1999). Ralph Fiennes, Rosemary Harris, and William Hurt. So sad.

Requiem for a Dream, probably because I was quite young when I watched it, around 15 y.o, but God what a dark, depressing movie. Also Schindler's List.

[quote] That's not good acting he's simply annoying. Pacino is no de Niro.

Pacino's performance was the only thing I could remember about Heat, not DeNiro's. Whether that's good or bad is up for debate. I found his acting in Heat entertaining in an over-the-top Faye Dunaway sort of way.

Not a great movie though the acting is great, especially Juliette Lewis- Natural Born Killers. I used to watch it on a loop when I was a teenager.

Schindler's List Dances With Wolves

Both great--but sad/depressing enough so I don't need to see them again.

I loved Heat! All the actors were good! Pacino played well against De Niro. I loved them. That scene in the coffeeshop/diner when they were finally face to face was perfect.

Here’s one you won’t have heard of—TOPAZŪ (eng: TOPAZ, aka SEX DREAMS OF TOPAZ, 1992), a ‘pink’ film (I.e. hardcore erotic drama) based on the cult short story collection TOKYO DECADENCE (1988) written by director Ryū Murakami (no, not the famous one, the other one who brought us the equally-disturbing LOVE & POP).

Gives me pains in my chest to think about that film, sometimes. Such existential horror, but expertly told in a way that doesn’t make use of outright gore or shock/sensationalism or pathos. It’s a realistic, candid, and even tragically and hopelessly optimistic look at transactional sex in the post-war age and what that means for identity & connection, and it’s just so fucking bleak.

There’s a couple of fetish scenes I can’t forget, and deeply wish I could—not because they’re the most disgusting porn ever put to film, but just because they’re so depressing and unfair and bathetic. Not recommended as a watch if you majorly struggle with anything sexual in life.

R170, you don't understand the game.

I have a vague memory of seeing it, R171. I remember some very degrading scenes but only conceptually--I must have blocked it. Gave me a bad impression of Tokyo society!

[quote] I'll never watch THE THIN RED LINE again because it was so incredibly slow and dull. Yes, the cinematography was gorgeous, but it went on....and on.....and on. Each "on" is for each time I thought the movie had ended but didn't.

Poor R102 really didn’t get it.

The film is an immersive transcendental meditation; think of it as one long intermittent monologue. You aren’t meant to watch it so passively, waiting for the exciting moments and counting down the runtime. You’re meant to take it in without spectating; see without watching.

You move with it, it moves with you. The characters are entering your consciousness to become parts of you, and likewise you part of them. That’s the whole theme of the narrative—“every man has the same soul, we’re just all different faces”.

^^^forgot my closing point, sorry...

THE THIN RED LINE is an important and anomalous film, in that it’s a war-themed picture that is primarily about Life rather than Death—how war impacts Life, how war changes Life, how war can even extend and serve Life in a strange way.

And when we say Life in this context, we mean all living things & systems on Earth, down to the amoeba and the stardust that will outlast us by millions of years. That’s the ultimate point.