A Glean movie guide
Unsettling Masterpieces
Cinema that leaves a mark.
High-quality films that are difficult to watch but impossible to forget.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Come and See
A harrowing, unflinching look at the atrocities of war through the eyes of a young boy.
The invasion of a village in Belarus by German forces sends young Florya into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha, who accompanies him back to his village. On returning home, Florya finds his family and fellow peasants massacred. His continued survival amidst the brutal debris of war becomes increasingly nightmarish, a battle between despair and hope.
- 02
Oldboy
A stylish South Korean masterpiece that blends extreme violence with a devastating psychological twist.
With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged and tortured for 15 years, a desperate man seeks revenge on his captors.
- 03
Requiem for a Dream
A sensory assault that captures the tragic, spiraling descent of four individuals into drug addiction.
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
- 04
Hereditary
An intense exploration of inherited trauma and grief disguised as a terrifying supernatural horror.
Following the death of the Leigh family matriarch, Annie and her children uncover disturbing secrets about their heritage. Their daily lives are not only impacted, but they also become entangled in a chilling fate from which they cannot escape, driving them to the brink of madness.
- 05
Seven
A grim, atmospheric crime thriller that leads to one of the most famously bleak conclusions in cinema history.
- 06
The Vanishing
A chilling study of obsession and the banality of evil that culminates in a truly haunting finale.
Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation when they stop at a busy service station. Saskia is abducted in broad daylight and three years pass with no answers or closure surrounding her disappearance. Rex has nearly given up all hope when he suddenly begins receiving letters from her abductor.
- 07
Midsommar
A bright, sun-drenched nightmare that uses folk-horror to dissect the collapse of a toxic relationship.
Several friends travel to Sweden to study as anthropologists a summer festival that is held every ninety years in the remote hometown of one of them. What begins as a dream vacation in a place where the sun never sets, gradually turns into a dark nightmare as the mysterious inhabitants invite them to participate in their disturbing festive activities.
- 08
Raw
A provocative and visually striking coming-of-age story that uses cannibalism as a metaphor for awakening.
In Justine's family everyone is a vet and a vegetarian. At 16, she's a gifted teen ready to take on her first year in vet school, where her older sister also studies. There, she gets no time to settle: hazing starts right away. Justine is forced to eat raw meat for the first time in her life. Unexpected consequences emerge as her true self begins to form.
- 09
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
A cold, clinical thriller that forces a family into a surreal and impossible moral dilemma.
Dr. Steven Murphy is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon who presides over a spotless household with his wife and two children. Lurking at the margins of his idyllic suburban existence is Martin, a fatherless teen who insinuates himself into the doctor's life in gradually unsettling ways.
- 10
Prisoners
A relentless, high-stakes drama that explores the disturbing lengths a parent will go to for their child.
Keller Dover is facing every parent’s worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minutes turn to hours, panic sets in. The only lead is a dilapidated RV that had earlier been parked on their street.