10 Films Actors Wanted You To Hate

Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers is one of the most controversial movies of all time, a Bonnie-and-Clyde-on-crack crime thriller in which Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis star as Mickey and Mallory Knox, a mass murderer couple who inevitably become glorified by the insatiable mass media.

In every essence of its being, Stone's film is an intense provocation to the audience, to push the bounds of taste and style.

Accompanying the many scenes of ruthlessly brutal violence is a deeply discordant editing style, ensuring viewers are constantly kept off-keel and unsure of what might happen next.

But the film's real triumph is Harrelson and Lewis' focal performances, which are absolutely in thrall of every lurid aspect of Stone's vision.

Harrelson in particular is a stomach-churning depiction of unforgiving psychopathy: a vile human being yet also darkly hilarious enough to give viewers the occasional guilty chuckle.

There's no denying that the actors knew what they were getting into when they signed on for such a risky project with a director known for his left-field style, and so rather than try to balance out Stone's eccentricities, they instead gladly leaned into the ugliness and somehow made the end result even more nauseating.

Simply, it's tough to imagine either Harrelson or Lewis being disappointed at the film's mixed reviews or hand-wringing from pearl-clutching media outlets - if anything, quite the opposite.