10 Great Films That Are Ugly On Purpose

10. Natural Born Killers

Despite its mixed critical and commercial reception, Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers is one of the most boldly provocative films of the 1990s, and arguably the director's last truly visionary movie.

Stone takes the prototypical Bonnie and Clyde formula and gives it a jolting amphetamine injection through not only his unsubtle critique of American culture, but also his intentionally offputting visual style.

From first frame to last, Natural Born Killers is a pure assault on the senses, containing an insane 3000 cuts which took Stone 11 months to edit, while the film's overall visual identity is defined by queasily neon-soaked imagery and sudden camera angle changes intended to disorient the viewer.

While critics and general audiences alike weren't sure what to make of Stone's film, its wilful ugliness ingeniously held up a mirror up to the very ADD-riddled mass media culture Stone was satirising, exposing its shallow stylishness in the process.