10 Films Actors Wanted You To Hate

Naked is one of writer-director Mike Leigh's very best movies, but also surely his toughest to sit through, and that's largely thanks to the near-unbearable brutality of David Thewlis' starmaking central performance.

Thewlis plays Johnny Fletcher, a nihilistic Mancunian drifter who flees to London after a sexual liaison gets out of hand.

The rest of the movie sees Johnny bouncing from one depraved scenario to the next, exploiting people to his own end with a ruthlessness that's horrifying yet tough to look away from.

Watching Naked all the way to the end requires viewers to simply dive down the rabbithole with Thewlis, because if you're the sort who requires a movie protagonist to be likeable, this'll have you running for the hills within the first three minutes.

The film as a whole is deeply concerned with hate, and specifically the means through which society breeds misanthropy, and so few would blame you for viewing Naked as an intensely nasty piece of work, least of all Thewlis himself.

After all, it wouldn't be nearly as effective if audiences felt any other way.