13 Intense Movie Performances That Are Incredibly Difficult To Watch

1. Ezra Miller - We Need To Talk About Kevin

Few early performances have ever been as profoundly affecting as Ezra Miller's haunting, alien turn as Kevin Khatchadourian in Lynne Ramsay's adaptation of Lionel Shriver's psychological drama about a fictional school massacre.

Tilda Swinton's performance as his mother was similarly affecting, but her portrayal of a mother unravelling as she attempts to look after a child who seems like evil incarnate and openly hates her is too sympathetic and engaging to be difficult to watch (which is its chief power), but as the modern day Damien, Miller is like car crash acting.

His picture of contempt is sold completely, and he drags around a looming sense of dread that something bad is going to happen, which eventually it does on an unimaginably horrible scale, as he kills first his father and young sister, and then his schoolmates with a bow and arrow. The entire film is a creeping situational horror from which there is little respite, and Miller's despicable child killer is the traditional slasher, atypically given far more focus than the likes of Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers.

Which intense film performances do you think deserve to be on this list? Share your picks below in the comments thread.