I think that most of the best movies are heartbreaking one way or another, there's an underlying drama to be exploited and explored. Although I need light/easy movies from time to time, I have a taste for this "dramatic" and emotionally intense movies.
My first set of top 10 movies (two of my first 10 movies have Julianne Moore as protagonist, I'll add two more of her movies in the next top 10
😉):
1. The Three Colors trilogy: Blue, Red and White (1993-1994, Polish-French)
Refers to three movies with independent plots that however intersect with each other at some point. The three
films are directed by
Krzysztof Kieślowski. A symbol common to the three films is that of an underlying link or thing that keeps the protagonist linked to their past. Amazing movies with extremely touching plots, but it’d take too long to describe them. My personal favorite is Blue. Juliette Binoche is the protagonist and she has to deal with the loss of her husband and her child. If you'd like to be consider a movie connaisseur, you HAVE to watch there movies, they are simply masterful.
2. Blindness (2008, Brazil, Canada, Japan, USA).
It’s an adaptation of the 1995 novel of the same name by Portuguese author
José Saramago about a society suffering an epidemic of
blindness. It explores the natural phobia to an unknown “illness,” the way we treat those afflicted by something we don’t understand, how society disintegrates and how a new social organization arises. The
book is better than the movie, but the movie is quite close to the original plot.
3. Arrivals (2016, USA)
Sci-fi movie... AMAZING. When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team--lead by expert linguist Louise Banks--are brought together to investigate (they actually use software that real linguists use!!). As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers--and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity. I
t’s a MUST see movie.
4. The lover (1992, France, Vietnam, UK)
I think it’s an
underrated movie, I cried like a little baby. Set in French Indochina in 1929, the film explores the
erotic charge of forbidden love. Jane March plays a French teenager sent to a Saigon boarding school, while Tony Leung is a 32-year Chinese aristocrat. They become involved in an ongoing sexual relationship. However, they both know that their love is doomed. She comes from a troubled family that includes a mentally-disturbed mother and drug-addicted brother. And he belongs to traditional wealthy Chinese family that has arranged a marriage for him.
5. City of God (2002, Brazil)
It's a violent and intense movie, that I think that is amazing. It’s a sweeping tale of
how crime affects the poor population of Rio de Janeiro. Though the narrative skips around in time, the main focus is on Cabeleira who formed a gang called the Tender Trio. He and his best friend, Bené, become crime lords over the course of a decade. When Bené is killed before he can retire, Lil' Zé attempts to take out his arch enemy, Sandro Cenoura. But Sandro and a young gangster named Mane form an alliance and begin a gang war with Lil' Zé. Amateur photographer Buscape takes pictures of the brutal crime war, making their story famous.
6. Children of Men (2006, British)
It portrays a
dystopian world. A futuristic society
faces extinction when the human race loses the ability to reproduce. England has descended into chaos, until an iron-handed warden is brought in to institute martial law. The warden's ability to keep order is threatened when a woman finds that she is pregnant with what would be the first child born in 27 years.
7. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, Spain, Mexico)
Set during the Spanish Civil War period, it’s a haunting
fantasy-drama detailing the strange journeys of an imaginative young girl who may be the mythical princess of an underground kingdom. Her mother recently remarried to sadistic army captain Vidal and soon to bear the cruel military man's child, shy young Ofelia is forced to entertain herself as her recently-formed family settles into their new home nestled deep in the Spanish countryside. The young girl soon ventures into an elaborate stone labyrinth presided over by the mythical faun Pan.
A very Del Toro movie style.
8. Head-on (2004, German)
Uff...
This movie is at another level of greatness. 40-year-old Cahit is brought to German psychiatric clinic after attempting suicide and sets out to start a new life, even as he longs for drugs and alcohol to numb his pain. Sibel is young, pretty and, like Cahit, Turkish-German.
She lives a lifestyle that is a bit too wild for her devout, conservative Muslim family and fakes a suicide attempt to try and escape them. But the incident brings shame upon her family, who insist that only marriage can save her. Sibel begs Cahit to marry her and he reluctantly agrees, perhaps in an effort to save her and to find meaning in his own life. Initially the two share an apartment and little else as Sibel sees other men and Cahit continues to have flings with his on-again, off-again girlfriend. Gradually, however, Cahit begins to fall in love with Sibel and she, in turn, comes to realize that she loves him - but not before an incident of jealous violence tests this fledgling romance.
The ending is heartbreaking.
9. Interstellar (2014, USA)
It’s a
science fiction film directed, co-written, and co-produced by Christopher Nolan. Set in a
dystopian future where humanity is struggling to survive, the film follows a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new home for humanity. Matthew McConaughey is AMAZING in this movie.
10. Lust, Caution (2006, China, Taiwan)
Spanning the late '30s and early '40s, the movie introduces us to Hong Kong teen Wong Chia Chi, a shy college freshman who finds her calling in a drama society devoted to patriotic plays. But the troupe's leader, Kuang Yu Min, isn't just a theater maven -- he's a
revolutionary as well planning to assassinate top Japanese collaborator Mr. Yee. Each student has an important role to play, and Wong puts herself in a dangerous position as Mrs. Mak; she befriends Mr. Yee's wife, and slowly gains trust before tempting him into an affair. Complications arise and the plan has to be postponed, but a few years later they have the opportunity of carry it on. Wong again gains intimate access to her dangerous prey, she must struggle with her own identity in order to pull off the performance of a lifetime. T
he ending is absolutely heart-breaking.
