20 Serial Killer Movies You Must See Before You Die

12. American Psycho (2000)

Christian Bale gives a performance that is both electrifying and deeply disturbing in this adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' infamous novel, American Psycho. The plot centres on a charismatic yuppie named Patrick Bateman who has a panache for nice restaurants, Phil Collins and murdering people on a whim. Directed by Mary Harron, American Psycho is - much like the book on which it was based - a hard film to decode: it has been praised as both a thrilling satire and as a feminist statement, and derided as a work which glorifies violence and also as a shallow adaptation of a far better book. Make you own mind up about American Psycho, though, a film which takes the idea of a serial killer as a reflection of a certain type of narcissistic and materialistic individual, and produces some of the most dizzyingly shocking and hilarious scenes in modern cinema.