10 Movies You Have To Watch TWICE To Understand

10. Shutter Island

Shutter Island, as any Martin Scorsese fan will tell you, is one of the legendary filmmaker’s most complex works. Based on Dennis Lehane’s novel, with which it shares it name, it’s a psychological slice of neo-noir starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Marshal Edward Daniels. Daniels is tasked with discovering the truth of Shutter Island after a patient escapes a secure facility.

What’s the truth of Shutter Island? Well, it’s tough to say. Throughout the course of this baffling, engrossing tale, the viewer finds that nothing is as it seems. Daniels has personal reasons for taking the assignment: Andrew Laeddis is (supposedly) there, the man who killed his wife. It all seems to follow simply enough, but several cryptic clues and revelations later, we’re reeling from the truth: ‘Daniels’ is actually Laeddis himself (the names are anagrams of each other), held here for the murder of his wife. The whole staff were in on this elaborate test of Laeddis’ grip of reality, which he ultimately fails.

As he’s taken away to be lobotomized at the film’s conclusion, viewers are tempted to start the whole thing all over again with all this befuddling information in mind.