50 Movies Where Evil Won

Plot: A young bride trapped in a loveless marriage in Victorian England begins an affair with one of the workers on her husband's estate and embarks on a brutal rampage of vengeance against those who oppress her.

Lady Macbeth is a criminally underrated masterpiece of British cinema, one which triumphs as an effed-up revenge tragedy and as a stunning showcase for Florence Pugh, who immediately announced herself as one of the very best actresses of her generation here. 

One of the many things that makes Lady Macbeth so outstanding and unique is that it doesn't treat Katherine's (Pugh) revenge as some triumphant fantasy. If anything, she's worse than her abusive husband and father-in-law are. Not only is she a violent murderer, but she even kills an innocent child towards the end, just so that the boy won't inherit the estate and drive her lover away. 

Her lover Sebastian (Shogun's Cosmo Jarvis) is wracked with guilt and confesses to the police, only for Katherine to calmly turn his accusation back on him, and frames him and another innocent servant (Naomi Ackie), one whom Katherine has bullied and traumatized throughout the film, for all of her crimes. And so, Katherine gets away with everything. 

This isn't your grandmother's period drama, that's for sure.