10 Dark Films For Dark Times

When Fight Club reached cinemas in 1999, critics took note of the film's satire of materialism, but the rest of the picture left them baffled. Writing in the Evening Standard, Alexander Walker famously called the film, "not only anti-capitalism but anti-society and, indeed, anti-God."

Like most critics, he missed the point: the film shows what happens when people lacking purpose or direction blindly follow a charismatic leader. The leader in question is Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), the alter ego of an unbalanced office worker (Edward Norton), who blames empty consumerist culture for leading people to believe they can be movie stars and millionaires when in fact they’re corporate slaves working jobs they hate to buy stuff they don’t need.

This strikes a chord and it’s not long before Tyler is inducting people into Project Mayhem, a glorified terrorist group whose first rule is, “You do not ask questions about Project Mayhem.” By portraying corporations as the worthy target of their wrath, he’s able to convince his followers to carry out his orders even when they involve destruction on a mass scale.