13 Most Pretentious Movies Of All Time

Here's something for you to mull over: movies are just called movies because they're literally just pictures that move. Isn't that a fun fact? Isn't that so very entertaining? It is, right? Much in the same way that movies are meant to be entertaining.

For whatever reason though, some directors don't believe in this whole 'fun' idea. Instead, they believe that movies should confuse and, sometimes, just outright anger the audience.

What's worse is that there's only two types of reaction to these films. The first are the people who don't understand what in the name of holy hell these films were meant to be about and, as a result, feel stupid for not getting it. Because what director doesn't want to belittle their audience's confidence in their intellect? The second category are the people who actually claim that they did understand the film... except they didn't understand it because there was nothing to understand.

Before we begin, let's be clear: there's a distinction between a complex film and a pretentious one. Is There Will Be Blood complex? Damn straight it is. However, that film is actually good and has some merit beneath all the posturing.

What we're talking about here is something different and something way less entertaining...

Darren Aronofsky brought us Requiem for a Dream, Pi, The Wrestler and Black Swan - each one a certified classic. Those are actually perfect examples of what was discussed in the intro, in fact.

Are these movies perhaps a little "up themselves"? Sure they are, but they at least have a clear cut plot, for the most part, and a message to boot. The Wrestler in particular is his most straight forward film and, man, it is heartbreaking.

So what happened with mother!?

mother! falls into a lot of the usual pitfalls that many arthouse films tend to. The plot, for one thing, is entirely incoherent - this is very much down to the audience getting the sense that Aronofsky is biting of more than he can chew, what with trying to cram all of existence into a single film. It's also not helped by the dialogue in any way, which is clunky as hell.

Advice to writers: just because your dialogue is confusing and doesn't sound like anything a human being would say does not mean it's profound. On top of all this, the violence in this film is gratuitous and unnecessary and lends precisely nothing to the plot.

This movie is such an absolute mess that not even Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem can save it.