4. Prisoners (2013)
Another disturbing movie that coincidentally stars Jake Gyllenhaal is 2013’s Prisoners, in which Gyllenhaal appears alongside Hugh Jackman, Paul Dano, Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, and Melissa Leo. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Prisoners follows the disappearance and subsequent search for a six-year-old girl in a small Pennsylvania town.
As Prisoners‘ story begins with every parent’s worst nightmare, its status as one of the most disturbing non-horror movies is probably unsurprising. However, Prisoners simply uses child abduction as its jumping-off point, with both Jackman’s desperate father and Gyllenhaal’s tired but determined police officer serving as explorations of the different ways that people deal with impossible situations. Both actors deliver career-best performances in this unbelievably tense thriller.
Prisoners is, in turns, upsetting, disturbing, and bleak. Its examination of grief and anger and the relation between the two is truly something to behold, and the performances of Jackman and Gyllenhaal are sympathetic but unsettling as both men succumb to their own emotions. There’s no mistaking Prisoners for a horror movie – it doesn’t scare in the way that a horror movie might, but it evokes a number of strong and complicated emotions, and that makes it deeply disturbing.