Heavy movies don’t literally weigh more than other movies, unless you’re still watching things on film, in which case, movies that go for three hours would take up more space – and be heavier to carry – than movies that were for 90 minutes. No, a heavy movie, for present purposes, is one that deals with intense themes, bleak stories, or proves capable of inspiring thoughts and feelings in viewers that might seem disheartening or soul-crushing.
Every year will have some notable heavy films, and 2022 had some noticeably harrowing ones, with Aftersun, Babylon (kind of), and Women Talking, but 2023 was even heavier, for some reason. Maybe the state of the world at that point proved particularly inspirational, or maybe it was just luck, or lack thereof. Anyway, to try and argue that 2023 might well have been the heaviest year for movies ever, here are a bunch of soul-crushing films that were released that year, starting with the fairly intense and ending with the downright despairing.
10
‘Anatomy of a Fall’
Anatomy of a Fall is all about a very difficult murder trial that was done in an isolated setting, involving a husband as the deceased and his wife as the main suspect, and with the only witness being their son, who himself is blind. It is simple as far as the narrative is concerned, and much of it plays out like a familiar kind of courtroom drama, but there are continually more complex things revealed and explored as things go along.
And then Anatomy of a Fall ends up being quite disarming, since it’s realistically about how, sometimes, people just don’t know. They might have to formally say they know something, but all the variables are overwhelming at a point, and then life keeps on going along, with other things not really feeling as sure anymore. Anatomy of a Fall takes a while to get troubling, but it’s bleak in the sense that it might well make you start to question so many things, both within the film and throughout your life at large. It’s all very anxiety-inducing, and it’s initially anxious in a quiet way, but then it becomes slowly overwhelming.
9
‘The Royal Hotel’
There were so many good movies in 2023 that something like The Royal Hotel will often get overlooked, since it’s just buried under the other stuff that was all a bit more high-profile. But, as a psychological drama/thriller film, this one was super underrated, and had a story that involves two young women who are backpacking across Australia, and the difficulties that come from them starting work at the titular establishment.
The town they’re in is male-dominated, and though nothing exceptionally bad happens straight away, there is constant unease because of how some people there behave, and then that behavior gradually gets worse and more dangerous. The Royal Hotel might not be subtle in how it looks at the psychological and physical abuse men are capable of inflicting on women, but if it’s something that’s somehow still relevant in the 2020s, maybe it’s not a topic that deserves nuance; like, if some people still aren’t getting it. The Royal Hotel goes to some dark places, but always for a good reason, and it’s one of 2023’s essential films (and one of its most gruelling, too).
8
‘The Boy and the Heron’
Sure, it’s animated, the main character’s a young boy, and some Hayao Miyazaki movies in the past have been kid-friendly (though not necessarily kids’ movies in the strictest sense of the term), but The Boy and the Heron is still surprisingly dark. It starts off with tragedy, including a parent’s death during wartime, and then there’s some further disturbing imagery as the film goes along.
Also, on a thematic level, The Boy and the Heron is pretty somber, since the adventure/fantasy portion of the movie eventually becomes focused on an old man and his struggles with legacy, facing his mortality, and thinking about how he might be remembered… or forgotten. And Miyazaki turned 82 the year The Boy and the Heron came out, so that side of it feels very personal and, in typical Miyazaki fashion, quite blunt and even brutally honest.
7
‘Saltburn’
Saltburn is difficult to talk about for a few reasons, one of them being the fact that it was very divisive, and then another being the way it plays out unexpectedly and keeps things twisty… and twisted. Hell, that’s a third reason. It’s a pretty alarming movie where some seriously unusual things are shown happening, and they’re hard to describe, but also, maybe the shock content here is itself a factor in Saltburn being divisive.
People have argued about what Saltburn is trying to say in terms of its satire, social commentary, and overall look at class warfare, but however you interpret it, things are not positive here. It’s dark and disturbing, but people don’t always agree on the extent of that dark and disturbing stuff, nor whether there was an intention behind some shocking parts of the film (beyond just shock value). In any case, it’s heavy, strange, and troubling, for a myriad of (oftentimes subjective) reasons.
6
‘Beau Is Afraid’
Admittedly, Beau Is Afraid isn’t quite as heavy as Ari Aster’s Hereditary or Midsommar, which were the two feature films he directed pre-2023. Both of those were full-on horror movies that unpacked grief, trauma, and mental illness, and some of that stuff also pops up in Beau Is Afraid, but this one is technically less of a horror movie and probably more definable as a very tense (and dark) comedic adventure movie.
Beau Is Afraid is heavy-going in the sense that it’ll make you feel like you’re having a panic attack for close to three hours.
It’s a little fantastical, or maybe it’s just a psychological dramedy, since the titular Beau is highly anxious, and what he sees in his mind and what’s actually happening around him keep contrasting and coalescing – one or the other – in supremely unpredictable ways. It’s heavy-going in the sense that it’ll make you feel like you’re having a panic attack for close to three hours, and in that way, it’s a little too effective at getting you inside the mind of its central character.
5
‘All of Us Strangers’
As was the case with Saltburn, it’s best not to talk too heavily about what makes All of Us Strangers heavy, since there are unexpected narrative turns here, and the film really keeps certain truths away from you for a while. It doesn’t have plot twists in a gimmicky kind of way, but it begins with one very mysterious occurrence, and then another that proves a little surreal, and gradually, things get stranger.
Also, since All of Us Strangers is such an exceptional movie, ruining it for anyone who’s yet to experience it would feel wrong. It’s one of those films you just have to give yourself to, and have faith that it’s going somewhere, remaining patient all the while before you’re eventually devastated a bunch of times in rapid succession. It concludes on a high quality-wise, and ends up being a difficult movie to shake, once seen.
4
‘The Iron Claw’
If you know about the Von Erich family ahead of watching The Iron Claw, you’ll probably be prepared for devastation. It plays out in a way that assumes you don’t know about the family, though, so here, things will be kept vague. There were numerous misfortunes and tragedies that befell different members of the wrestling family, and The Iron Claw lays almost all of them out in an unflinching manner.
You have to wrestle with a lot of heartbreak here, and the knowledge that these things did happen (maybe not exactly the way shown in the movie, but still) makes The Iron Claw feel even heavier. It’s up there among the darkest sports movies ever made, but there is a sense of perseverance and small moments of hope here that prevent it from being 100% harrowing (more just 96 to 97% harrowing, if that’s any consolation).
3
‘Killers of the Flower Moon’
2019’s The Irishman was far from a breezy watch, and, alongside 2016’s Silence, suggested that an older Martin Scorsese was even more willing to tackle somber, heavy, and sometimes slow/lengthy stories later in his directing career. It became more noticeable a trend with 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which was, like The Irishman, technically another Scorsese crime movie, but neither had the sorts of fun moments Goodfellas had at times, nor the sense of excitement felt throughout much of The Departed.
Killers of the Flower Moon is all about a horrific historical crime that took place on a massive scale and involved many people getting killed before anything proper was done about putting a stop to it. There’s an unpacking of greed and how it relates to the darker side of human nature here that’s truly punishing. Scorsese got some criticism for not focusing enough on the victims, but it feels like the movie is most concerned with showing how people used to get away with (and maybe still do) heinous crimes, both because of external corruption/laziness, and an internal ability to justify and/or ignore the terrible things done.
2
‘Oppenheimer’
It doesn’t go into depicting a full-on dystopia or post-apocalyptic society, since it’s based on real-life events, but one thing you come away from Oppenheimer thinking is that the world will probably end up in such a state eventually. You can hope not, but the film is about the creation of the atomic bomb, and then grappling with the way the world could be impacted should more of them be used in warfare.
And then there are other heavy things that happen throughout Oppenheimer; many, in fact, since this film’s very long. It’s well-paced, though, and it’s possible to find the whole thing engaging because of how well-acted and constructed it is, but it’s also difficult to call it entertaining the way most other Christopher Nolan movies up until that point had been.
1
‘The Zone of Interest’
Like Oppenheimer, The Zone of Interest takes place during World War II without focusing on combat. And, like Killers of the Flower Moon, it follows people who do – and live around – violent things, but treat it all rather normally. The horror comes about from the reactions, or lack thereof, to horrific crimes, especially in The Zone of Interest, where the acts of violence that were part of the Holocaust are only heard, and never properly seen.
The camera – and the main characters – are always just a short way away from the horrors, and that does feel horrifying for a number of reasons. It’s a bleakly realistic way to look at an especially mortifying part of an overall horrific (and worldwide) conflict, and The Zone of Interest is undoubtedly soul-crushing as a result. It’s worth watching just the once for sure, but it feels like the kind of film that would be almost impossible to willingly return to a second time.
The Zone of Interest
- Release Date
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December 15, 2023
- Runtime
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105 minutes
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Christian Friedel
Rudolf Höss
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Sandra Hüller
Hedwig Höss
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