50 Movies Where Evil Won
22. Irreversible
Plot: In this revenge drama, which is shown in reverse chronological order, Marcus (Vincent Cassell) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel) go after the man who assaulted Alex (Monica Bellucci), Marcus' girlfriend and Pierre's ex.
Because this powerful and audacious (if unpleasant to watch) work unfolds in reverse chronological order, viewers don't realize that evil won for quite a while.
One of the earliest scenes shown (as in, one of the last in the story chronologically) shows a man violently attacking Marcus in a BDSM nightclub. Pierre then steps in and, in an infamously gruesome scene, beats the attacker to death with a fire extinguisher. At the time, it's assumed that this man was the rapist who attacked Alex, but when that event is shown later in the film, it turns out that the man who was killed wasn't the culprit after all.
In the earlier scene, a man (Jo Prestia) is shown watching the fatal beating with amusement - he is the real attacker, and gets away scot-free while Pierre is arrested and Marcus is left with horrendous injuries. This one is just a completely miserable story all around.