15 Feel-Bad Movies That Make You Feel Like Sh*t

15. Happiness

Has indie director Todd Solondz ever made a film that isn’t miserable and misanthropic? Often featuring a cast of unlikeable misfit characters and exposing the grim underbelly of seemingly perfect suburbia, his movies don’t exactly make for comfortable viewing. Happiness, his third and most controversial film, is no different so don’t let its misleading title fool you.

Focusing on the lives of three sisters, it’s a portrait of family life at its most dysfunctional. Eldest sister and suburban soccer mom Trish is supposedly happily married to successful psychiatrist Bill, who is actually a paedophile that has taken to raping his son Billy’s friends but assures Billy he would never molest him – he’d just ‘jerk off instead’.

Middle sister and writer Helen is outwardly successful but ultimately dissatisfied with life while youngest sister Joy is caught up in a string of crappy jobs and even crappier relationships. They’re also surrounded by a cornucopia of characters – their separating parents Mona and Lenny, obscene phone caller Allen and sleazy Russian taxi driver Vlad – who are all equally dysfunctional too.

Bet Christmas dinner round theirs is a riot.