10 Movies That Hated Their Own Audience

Lars von Trier's The House That Jack Built is without question the most controversial movie of last year, a film following a serial killer (Matt Dillon) as he ventures out on a number of his murderous excursions.

Wildly divisive among critics and audiences, many likened the film to an act of torture for numerous reasons.

First and foremost, it's graphically violent, showing numerous murders of women and children in ways that basically feel tailor-made to shock, and also to further repulse those who have accused him of relying on shock value in the past.

The film is also 155 minutes in length and includes numerous sequences where the focal characters have tangential conversations about architecture and the utility of murder, with von Trier even passing unsubtle commentary on his own body of work.

And even if you can somehow stomach all this, von Trier layers the entire stew with an extremely offputting air of black comedy, walking such a fine line between hilarious and f***ed up that you'll often feel unsure of quite what to feel.

It's a brilliant experiment albeit one that's certainly not for everyone, and that's precisely the point - it feels like an attempt by von Trier to further enrage his critics, drumming up greater publicity for himself and revealing his most loyal cheerleaders in the process.

If there has ever been a film that actively chastised its own audience simply for showing up, it surely has to be this. Or the final entry onto our list...