13 Intense Movie Performances That Are Incredibly Difficult To Watch

12. Ralph Fiennes - Schindler's List

The mark of a truly good villain is not just that they are memorable, nor even that their image transcends the limit of their film universe (like Darth Vader's costume has) - though both are important - it is more the scars they leave. Like a great horror movie, their most important impact arguably takes place outside of the cinema, when you recall and recoil at their most heinous crimes.

Ralph Fiennes is a master of such performances: he brought an immediate, awful elegance to Voldemort, a snarling, grotesque animalness to Red Dragon and more than any other performance, he got completely under the audience's skin as Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. The Nazi commandant is the archetypal mega-villain, cold, power-crazed and aloof, and like Tarantino's Hans Landa (who owes this performance a major debt) he is worryingly put in a job that takes advantage of his worst attributes.

Fiennes' performance is particularly difficult to watch because it completely defies expectations: he is set up as a redeemable villain (which is played when Schindler lectures him on real power) but then his evil escalates, and he drives himself under the audience's skin like a shard of ice. Perversely, he is charismatic and irresistibly watchable, but we are then punished for ever accepting that dynamic.