8. A History of Violence
David Cronenberg directing this film gave it a strange mix of madness and fragile tension that completely elevates the source material in every way. On the surface the story is a simple crime thriller but Cronenberg digs deeper than that to present viewers with a sinister and immoral world of moral ambiguity. While Cronenberg is known mainly for his brilliant films in the "body horror" subgenre he is able to bring the visceral touch that he gave to his horror features to a more grounded and realistic story here. The intrigue surrounding the shootings at the beginning of the film is a great source of suspense but the film's greatest asset is the lurking menace of violence that Cronenberg always keeps just under the surface. When watching A History of Violence you can believe anything can happen at any moment. After all, it is from the same director who is most famous for blowing up someone's head in one of his earliest movies, Scanners, and turning Jeff Goldblum into a man/fly abomination.