6. Network (1976)
The other relatable social satire Paddy Chayefsky won an Oscar for. Network didn’t win Best Picture (it was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, so it was honestly a pretty good year). It did win several acting nods, including Peter Finch, who was too dead to collect his Best Actor Oscar in person.
To this day, however, people remember his speech. It’s the one where he’s mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it anymore. If you know the speech, but haven’t seen the movie, make it a point to change that. From start to finish, Network is filled with brutal shots at society, great performances, and a sense of doom that is as hilarious as it is depressing.
Watch if: You’re mad as hell.
Avoid if: You can take it a little more.
7. Repo Man (1984)
Featuring one of the all-time great Harry Dean Stanton performances, Repo Man is a brand of psychotic mayhem that is very easy to believe. Even as things descend into aliens, televangelists, and the realization that the world if badly controlled by unremarkable idiots.
Repo Man imagines we are doomed. It just goes about telling us that in a fashion that’s hideous and charming in equal measures. Emilio Estevez, who stars in this, had a fascinating run as an actor in the 80s. This movie might be his best work.
Watch if: You like your dystopias to look familiar.
Avoid if: UFOs are a no-go for date night.
8. Brazil (1985)
They don’t come much bleaker, dystopian, or hilarious than Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Even if you don’t care about the film’s long, troubled pre, ongoing, and post-production history, you’ll appreciate the way the movie sweeps you into absolute madness. This happens almost immediately, as we meet a bureaucrat (Jonathan Pryce) who dreams of better things.
Brazil moves fast, and it leaves you feeling absolutely helpless by the time it’s over. It also might be one of the funniest movies of the 1980s.
Watch if: You like movies about the little cog in the hellish machine.
Avoid if: You prefer things work out for those little cogs.
READ NEXT: The Best Modern Western Movies
9. Heathers (1988)
Forget about the recent CW reboot no one wants. The original 1988 film version of Heathers (which went on to become a pretty good musical) is pretty much as impressive and vicious now as it was more than thirty years ago.
Christian Slater gets away with doing his Jack Nicholson impression, as a brooding, potentially crazy new bad boy at a high school overrun with cocaine and life-or-death popularity contests. Winona Ryder undergoes one of the most startling transformations you are ever going to see. The two of them fly through this searing portrayal of not only high school, but also society.
Watch if: You hated high school.
Avoid if: You really hated high school.
10. Delicatessen (1991)
Pair this up with the Charlton Heston Soylent Green. You will never go grocery shopping again. This French cult classic depicts the lives of a butcher/landlord and his tenants. Everyone lives in a shitty apartment building in a shitty, terminal version of France in the not-too-distant future.
The butcher gets by with a straightforward scheme of murdering people who come looking for a job. The story is actually pretty simple. It just gets complicated as we see the lengths people will go to for wretched memories of an allegedly better time in their lives. Delicatessen is beautiful in its weirdness and satire, but it’s pretty ugly in everything else.
Watch if: You have a pretty strong stomach.
Avoid if: You hate being made to read your movies.
11. Fargo (1996)
Now one story in a universe that now includes 3 seasons of exceptional television, Fargo won a number of Oscars after its release. The most satisfying one might be for Frances McDormand as an extremely pregnant, brilliant, and relentlessly cheerful chief of police.
The movie juggles several narratives, all of which are largely focused on or connected to the kidnapped wife of a car salesman (William H. Macy). All of it is pretty funny, slightly depressing, and endlessly quotable. Nonetheless, at the center of one of the Coen brothers’ best movies is McDormand as Marge Gunderson. If the world is going to be okay, the movie suggests it will be from people like Marge. She’s one of the great heroes of film.
Watch if: You want to see a crime story with humor to spare.
Avoid if: You have a low tolerance for thick Minnesota accents.
READ NEXT: The Best Documentary Movies
12. Happiness (1998)
Writer-director Todd Solondz has mined several movies from thinking the absolute worst of humanity. Yet his best movies do have something resembling a heartbeat, perhaps even one of hope. Happiness takes us into some very dark territory as one of the best dark comedies around.
It is worth mentioning that Dylan Baker plays a loving suburban dad who tries to seduce his young’s pre-pubescent friends. So, when I tell you there is a heartbeat of hope in this ensemble piece, I’m asking you to look past a lot. If you can, you will find a movie that is fascinating, horrifying, and occasionally moving.
Watch if: You want to see a sprawling cast of actors doing some of their best work.
Avoid if: You aren’t ready to watch Dylan Baker enthusiastically try to have sex with a child.
13. American Psycho (2000)
The best thing about American Psycho as a black comedy? You can enjoy it on multiple levels. You can just focus on Christian Bale playing 80s Wall Street player and all-around psychopath Patrick Bateman. Bale plays Bateman as a ferocious, pathetic man, and he finds a lot of incredible moments to create from those two emotions.
We can laugh at Bateman from a comfortable distance, as Bale throws himself into a free-for-all of violence, scenery-chewing (the fun kind), and more violence. We can also appreciate that director Mary Harmon and screenwriter Guinevere Turner take glorious, mocking aim at a man who was very obviously glorified in Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial 1991 novel.
You can also enjoy American Psycho giving yuppies a treatment unlike just about anything anyone has ever tried.
Watch if: You hate Huey Lewis.
Avoid if: You love Phil Collins.
14. The Lobster (2015)
The Lobster is slow, depressing stuff, man. Director Yorgos Lanthimos (from a screenplay cowritten by Efthimis Filippou) forces us to watch his characters struggle and suffer for a 118-minute running time. It’s not that the movie is too drawn-out to appreciate, but the film’s humor is as somber as it gets. It also doesn’t let up for even a moment.
If you can live with that, then you will have room enough to appreciate pitch-perfect performances by Collin Farrell and Rachel Weisz. You will love the way this movie makes such an absurd premise, in which people who do not find life partners are transformed into the animal of their choice, so unbelievably chilling.
Watch if: You’re no longer on the dating scene.
Avoid if: You’re still searching for that special someone.
15. Sorry to Bother You (2018)
We have seen some brutal dark comedies on race relations in recent years. Sorry to Bother You is one of the very best dark comedies, while simultaneously being one of the best movies of 2018. A young man (Lakeith Stanfield) discovers that his “white guy voice” is the key to corporate fame and fortune.
The company in question resembles Amazon pretty closely. The tone and style of this movie’s universe pretty keenly resemble our own. Sorry to Bother You hits a lot of essential contemporary notes. In a lot of ways, it could be treated as a spiritual sequel to Repo Man. Both have an unflinching, believable depiction of the world. Both descend into madness, while still retaining that quality.
Watch if: You work as a telemarketer
Avoid if: You think race relations in America are just fine.
READ NEXT: 15 Best Sci-Fi Movies of All-Time
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.
