Published Updated

Sort by

Hopelessness at the Oscars

Taken from the The World is Hell: Hopeless Cinema list.

These are Oscar nominated films that express pessimistic and hopeless world views, as suggested by original list creator, Darren Carver-Balsiger, and the larger LB community.

This list is open to suggestions and I will expand on it as needed.

  • All Quiet on the Western Front
  • I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
  • The Ox-Bow Incident
  • Rome, Open City
  • Bicycle Thieves
  • The Asphalt Jungle
  • A Streetcar Named Desire
  • Forbidden Games
  • Ugetsu
  • Gate of Hell
  • Rebel Without a Cause
  • The Defiant Ones
  • I Want to Live!
  • Some Came Running
  • The Bridge
  • The Virgin Spring
  • Through a Glass Darkly
  • West Side Story
  • The Children's Hour
  • The Manchurian Candidate
  • Hud
  • Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
  • Woman in the Dunes
  • The War Game
  • Seconds
  • Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
  • The Sand Pebbles
  • In Cold Blood
  • Planet of the Apes
  • Rosemary's Baby
  • Z
  • Midnight Cowboy
  • The Wild Bunch
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  • They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
  • Joe
  • Straw Dogs
  • A Clockwork Orange
  • Deliverance
  • The Ruling Class
  • Cries and Whispers
  • Touki Bouki
  • The Great Gatsby
  • Chinatown
  • A Woman Under the Influence
  • The Godfather Part II
  • The Day of the Locust
  • Taxi Driver
  • Face to Face
  • The Omen
  • Carrie
  • Network
  • Sorcerer
  • Autumn Sonata
  • The Deer Hunter
  • Apocalypse Now
  • All That Jazz
  • Raging Bull
  • Heaven's Gate
  • Mephisto
  • An American Werewolf in London
  • Das Boot
  • Missing
  • White Dog
  • Testament
  • The Killing Fields
  • Streetwise
  • Brazil
  • Ran
  • Blue Velvet
  • Full Metal Jacket
  • Au Revoir les Enfants
  • Bird
  • Mississippi Burning
  • Glory
  • Ju Dou
  • Boyz n the Hood
  • Cape Fear
  • Alien³
  • Unforgiven
  • In the Name of the Father
  • Heavenly Creatures
  • Shanghai Triad
  • Se7en
  • Leaving Las Vegas
  • Trainspotting
  • Breaking the Waves
  • Sling Blade
  • The Sweet Hereafter
  • Affliction
  • A Simple Plan
  • Fight Club
  • The Green Mile
  • Titus
  • Requiem for a Dream
  • Amores Perros
  • Dancer in the Dark
  • No Man's Land
  • The Man Who Wasn't There
  • Mulholland Drive