10 Most Nerve-Wracking Scenes In Non-Horror Films

Marathon Man is generally considered one of the best thrillers of 1970s, featuring a vulnerable but determined performance from Dustin Hoffman squaring off against a paranoid escaped Nazi war criminal (Sir Laurence Olivier) out to collect diamonds he extracted from the teeth of Jewish prisoners.

Hoffman is largely an innocent bystander, accidentally roped into the conspiracy be his murdered undercover government agent brother. After he makes it back to Hoffman's apartment before dying, Olivier becomes convinced he provided him information that would prevent him from safely retrieving his bounty, so he tries to torture it out of him the only way a 1970s dentist knows how - by being a 1970s dentist.

"Is it safe?" Became a catch-all line in popular culture at the time, given the film's popularity, and the dental torture includes jabbing scalpels into the gum line and worse. But it's what we don't see that's ultimately the most disturbing, as the camera pans away after Olivier explains how much more painful it is to drill into a live nerve than a dead one.

Somehow, William Goldman's (who also scripted) novel is even more sadistic.