Given that Bruno Dumont features so prominently in this list, it is fitting that his countryman and primary influence should be responsible for the best film on it. Based on Leo Tolstoy's The Forged Coupon, the film chronicles a single forged 500 francs banknote's devastating effect on the life of an unwitting recipient, Yvon Targe. After being arrested for using it to pay for a meal, Yvon subsequently loses his job. To pay for his wife and young daughter, he accepts the offer of being a getaway driver for a gang of robbers. Unfortunately, Yvon is once again caught and this time sent to jail. As if his life wasn't ruined enough already, he learns that his daughter has died and that his wife is leaving him. With nowhere else to turn, Yvon fully accepts his criminal fate even after his release from prison, right to its inexorable conclusion. L'Argent ranks among one of the darkest and cruelest tales ever told on film. Bresson's famously ascetic, minimalistic style only heightens the impact of the story's emotional brutality. It is a tale far more frightening than any horror film because of its firm grounding in reality, both social and psychological.