10 Movies That Unexpectedly Confused Audiences

Though Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive is often criticised for not being the high-octane action film suggested by its marketing, it was nevertheless a moody, stylish art-house riff on typical Hollywood thrillers. Above all else, the simple narrative ensured nobody could be confused by it.

And so, when Refn announced his follow-up would be a Thailand-set thriller starring Ryan Gosling as a bare-knuckle boxer looking to avenge his brother's murder, it seemed like audiences knew exactly what to expect.

Except, Only God Forgives wasn't just a warmed-over Drive retread, but a slow, surreal, sparse thriller crammed with obtuse visual metaphors, bizarre Freudian allusions, and only the bare minimum dialogue possible. Seriously, Gosling has only 17 lines in this thing.

As a result, all but the most ardent Refn acolytes were left unsure what to make of the end result, for though Refn didn't simply repeat the success of Drive, many probably wished that he had.

The film's refusal to give the audience much concrete in terms of character motivation or narrative form is perhaps best characterised by the scene in which Gosling's protagonist Julian finds the corpse of his murdered mother, Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas), before cutting her open and placing his hands inside. Yup.

At this point in time it's clear that Refn is an agitator who loves to toy with what audiences expect both of him and cinema as a whole, patently refusing to give them the catharsis and the sheer information they expect out of a movie.