9. The Machinist
Original Title: El Maquinista The only film on this list to have both a director and star who aren't Spanish, Barcelona shot thriller The Machinist is best known as the film Christian Bale made right before he took on the role of Batman and became a massive star. Existing on a diet of just a tin of tuna and an apple a day, Bale lost 28kg (a third of his body weight) to play emaciated paranoid insomniac Trevor Reznik. He would repeat the same pattern of becoming scarily skinny for Rescue Dawn and The Fighter before beefing up again for each of the Batman sequels respectively. Director Brad Anderson was coming off the back of creepy asylum set horror Session 9 and has done good work on TV shows Masters of Horror and Fringe. Here he does an admirable job of creating an unreliable, off-kilter world to show his guilt-ridden protagonist's increasingly poor grip on his sanity, but the film really belongs to Bale. More than just a stunt, the extent of Bale's weightloss is extremely disturbing, giving him the appearance of a concentration camp victim. Obviously completely committed to the role, Bale dials his usual intensity up to 11, all wide eyed stares and slurring speech, to give a performance that's as compelling as it is disturbing.
See this if you liked: The Machinist liberally borrows from some of the better high concept psychological thrillers of recent years sharing elements of Memento and Fight Club's style and plot beats. Although it may not seem massively original after seeing those, it's a fair bet that fans of dark thrillers about identity will also enjoy this one too.