10 Heaviest Movies of the 2010s, Ranked

The best cinema is one that taps into the very core of human emotion. The kind of filmmaking that digs deep into the darkest corners of the human psyche to bring forth stories that sit heavy in your chest long after the credits roll. The 80s and 90s were full of such films. Movies like Schindler’s List, The Green Mile, and Grave of the Fireflies proved how powerful and devastating the medium could be.

Those classics clearly set a high bar for sadness, but the more recent era has proven that filmmaking can be just as punishing. So, if you’re looking for something more modern that still carries that same weight, we’ve got you covered. Here are the 10 heaviest movies of the 2010s that are just as depressing as the classics.

10 ‘Midsommar’ (2019)

Midsommar starts with Dani (Florence Pugh) dealing with the shocking murder-suicide of her family, which leaves her emotionally shattered and clinging to a relationship that is already falling apart. The film follows her as she tries to get out of her shell and go to a midsummer festival in Sweden with her boyfriend and his friends. But in classic horror movie fashion, things go very, very wrong once they arrive at the festival.

People willingly throw themselves to their deaths, those who survive are beaten to death with a giant mallet, and others are methodically cut open and displayed while still alive. It is truly some of the most disturbing imagery ever put on screen. The group slowly realizes they are mere pieces on a board being moved into place for increasingly violent pagan rituals. What makes it even more horrifying is how everyone smiles through it, pretends to be their friend, and gently manipulates them at every step. Every step of the way, you can feel that no one who enters this place is meant to leave, and the film delivers on that promise.

9 ‘Prisoners’ (2013)

Prisoners follows the abduction of two young girls in Pennsylvania and the subsequent search for the perpetrator by the police. Cinematographer Roger Deakins drenches the film in muted colors and soaking rain to create a world that feels extremely bleak and devoid of hope. Unlike most crime thrillers, the suspect is caught early on, but he turns out to be mentally impaired and speaks in cryptic riddles. The film keeps you questioning whether the character really is that way or if he is a psychopath pretending to be innocent.

Where the movie becomes truly heavy, though, is in the grief of the parents. When the police are forced to release the suspect due to a lack of evidence, one of the fathers takes matters into his own hands. He abducts the man and tortures him over several days in a desperate attempt to find the girls. You see a good man lose his humanity and go to extreme lengths to protect those he loves, and you are forced to wonder if you would do the same thing in his position. And when you finally find out why the girls were kidnapped, it is truly horrific and leaves you genuinely angry at the cruelty and senselessness of it all.

8 ‘Uncut Gems’ (2019)

Uncut Gems follows Howard (Adam Sandler), a jeweler with a severe gambling addiction who is constantly chasing the next big win. He keeps making reckless bets, and every time it feels like he might slow down, he doubles down instead. It is a panic-inducing rollercoaster ride of a movie that only goes up in intensity.

The way it is shot also adds so much to the anxious nature of the movie because the camera never stops moving. People are always yelling over each other, and the scenes sometimes get so overwhelming that they feel like full-on panic attacks. It is the kind of movie you watch once and maybe never again because of how draining it is to sit through.

7 ‘Room’ (2015)

Room follows Ma (Brie Larson) and her 5-year-old son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), who have been held captive in a tiny shed for seven years. The boy was born in captivity and has never seen the outside world, so his mother has to create a whole universe for him within the four walls. The first half of the film is set entirely within the room, and you realize how this boy's entire world is just this one space.

It is heartbreaking to watch Jack process reality because he thinks things like squirrels and dogs aren't real. He refers to them as "TV" and believes they are just flat images made of colors rather than physical beings. When his mom tries to explain that forests and oceans are real, Jack dismisses her because he logically cannot understand how such massive things could fit into his small world. And it is even more disturbing when he finally escapes, because the vastness of the outside world is terrifying to him, and all he wants is to go back to his room.

6 ‘Her’ (2014)

Her follows a lonely man named Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) who spends his days ghost-writing emotional letters for other people while barely holding himself together. After his marriage ends, he develops a deep friendship with an advanced AI operating system named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), which soon deepens into love. What follows is a deeply melancholic and profound exploration of modern loneliness and Theodore's desperate need for connection and intimacy.

The movie first shows you how happy Theodore becomes. You see the honeymoon stage of the relationship, where he feels excited to wake up again and to experience the world through the eyes of this new love. He laughs more, walks differently, and feels alive in a way he has not in a long time. But even during the happiest parts of Theodore’s relationship, there is always an undercurrent of sadness. You can feel how badly he needs this connection. His relationship with the AI fills a void, but it also makes you question what defines a "real" relationship, and whether a mere digital voice can truly replace human connection.

5 ‘Pihu’ (2018)

Pihu is a Hindi-language film inspired by real events. It tells the story of a two-year-old girl who is left alone in her apartment with her mother’s dead body after her mother commits suicide. And the little girl has no understanding of death or what has happened. She talks to her mother, makes a mess in the hope that her mom will wake up to clean it, and even plays her mother’s favorite TV show to try to wake her up. There is a scene where she stands in front of a mirror that has her mother’s suicide note written on it and uses it to put on lipstick, completely unaware of what the words mean or why they are there. The gap between her innocence and the tragedy surrounding her is enough to make a grown man cry.

The film also constantly reminds you of just how vulnerable children are. Pihu (Pihu Myra Vishwakarma) drops her doll off the balcony and tries to climb over the railing to retrieve it, not realizing that she could fall and die. She nearly sets the apartment on fire while trying to cook because she is hungry. She even eats her mother’s sleeping pills, thinking they are candy. Once the film ends, it is impossible to shake the thought that there are children out there in the real world who face similar neglect and trauma every day.

4 ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ (2011)

We Need to Talk About Kevin is easily one of the darkest movies ever made because of the subject matter it tackles. The film follows Eva (Tilda Swinton), a mother reflecting on her deeply troubled relationship with her sociopathic son, Kevin (Ezra Miller), leading up to a high school massacre where he kills several classmates. The movie refuses to hand you easy answers about why Kevin turned out the way he did. It forces the viewer to grapple with whether his behavior was something innate or a result of Eva’s visible detachment over the years.

It zooms in on themes of maternal resentment and the difficulty Eva faces bonding with Kevin from the very beginning. At one point, she outright tells her toddler that she was happier before he was born, and you can see how that shapes their relationship. Kevin’s violent tendencies emerge slowly but clearly as he grows older. He is cruel and openly hostile toward his mother, but turns docile and charming around his father, who consistently dismisses Eva’s concerns until it is too late.

3 ‘Manchester by the Sea’ (2016)

Manchester by the Sea is a film about anguish and the most intense sort of grief. It follows a depressed janitor named Lee (Casey Affleck), who is drawn back to his old hometown after his brother’s death, but the reasons why he originally left still weigh heavily on his soul. On top of that, he is named the new guardian of his teenage nephew, but he struggles to stay with him in a place that holds so much heartache.

There are no Hollywood happy endings here. Lee does not suddenly get over his grief. The film demonstrates that some pain is permanent, and some grief cannot be fully recovered from. One of the movie’s most harrowing moments is the police station scene, where Lee, overwhelmed by guilt and despair, grabs an officer’s gun and attempts to shoot himself. That scene has been clipped endlessly on social media, but watching it in context in the full film is even more gut-wrenching. So, if you haven’t seen Manchester by the Sea yet, it is definitely worth checking out.

2 ‘Blue Valentine’ (2010)

Blue Valentine is an excellent movie about how people fall in love and then eventually fall out of it. The film constantly cuts between the early days of the relationship and the later years when everything has fallen apart. When Cindy (Michelle Williams) becomes unexpectedly pregnant by another man, Dean (Ryan Gosling) steps up and chooses to raise the child as his own. In those early years, they are extremely charming together, and you can’t help but root for them. That is also what makes the movie hurt so much, because you know how it all ends.

It’s a story of a marriage breaking down between two people who once deeply cared for each other, but allowed frustration and resentment to grow until there was nothing left to save. It shows how love doesn’t always end with one big fight. More often, it fades quietly over the years, with each small argument and every unspoken feeling that chips away at what once felt unbreakable.

1 ‘12 Years a Slave’ (2013)

12 Years a Slave is the heaviest movie of the decade because it depicts a systemic, historical evil with unflinching honesty. It starts with Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free man, being drugged and abducted before being sold into slavery in the American South. The movie is renowned for its brutal and graphic scenes of violence, including prolonged beatings, hangings, and sexual assault. Director Steve McQueen uses long and stationary takes that force you to bear witness to the brutality and dehumanization.

There is a nearly three-minute sequence where Solomon struggles to breathe on his tiptoes while being hanged, all while life on the plantation continues normally in the background. It shows how everyone had become desensitized to such horror. The auction scene is another disturbing moment noted for its banal depiction of the slave market. Slaves are stripped of their clothes and poked and prodded like cattle, and children are torn away from their mothers once sold, treated as mere commodities without regard for their familial bonds. It breaks your heart to see that this level of cruelty was once the norm of our civilization.