5. Antichrist (2009)
He (Willem Dafoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are a married couple whose toddler son fell out of a window and died whilst they were having passionate sex. She is so devastated, she is in a psychiatric hospital for a month. Not making any progress, her therapist husband whisks She away from the hospital and takes her to a country retreat in order to administer therapy to her himself. Horrific violence, torture, sex and death ensue. My goodness! This film is so unremittingly morbid, I don't know where to begin. The opening sex scene, with hardcore inserts, juxtaposed with a child falling to his death is ghoulish beyond belief. And then we have She's dissertation in which She believes that all women are inherently evil, the deer with a dead baby deer hanging half way out of it, the self disembowelling fox who states "Chaos Reigns". Not an easy film to watch, von Trier wanted to make a horror film. When he started to make the movie he was laid low with crippling depression from which he thought he might never recover or make another movie. Thankfully he recovered, but he seems to have channelled all the remnants of his debilitating illness into the script and production of Antichrist which is a heavy going, disturbing and morbid film. It is also a brilliant and absorbing movie, with two amazing performances from Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg who really bring the despair of the film to life. If you like strong dramas and you aren't too squeamish, Antichrist may just be the very movie to hit your sweet spot.