10 Films that blew my mind

The best films are the ones that you can't stop thinking about days, weeks even months after you first watch, whether it's a twist you never would've suspected, a unique narrative or beautiful cinematography. Here are my top 10 films that blew my mind.

Beware spoilers ahead.

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Screenplay by: M. Night Shyamalan

It would be wrong to talk about films that blew my mind without including the most well known twist in cinema. The Sixth Sense. During the first hour and a half of the film it is a good supernatural thriller but there's nothing too special or rememberable about it, this is why I put it last on my top 10 list as I feel that the film is fairly mediocre until the end where it changes from a good film to an amazing film.

The twist is that the main character, the child psychologist Crowe who is working to help a troubled child, Cole Sear, who claims to be able to see and interact with dead people, is actually dead and Cole is only able to talk to him because of his gift of being able to communicate with dead people.

Although this film is quite polarising as some people found it amazing and unique whereas others found it overrated and boring. In my opinion this film is not overrated because it was done in such a smart way because all the signs are so clear but the audience just don't notice for example, Crowe never communicates with anyone other than Cole. The first time I watched The Sixth Sense I couldn't stop thinking about it hours after because the ending completely changed my perspective of the film and every part of the film is purposeful.

The Sixth Sense blew my mind because it is a completely different film once you know the ending.

Director: Ari Aster

Screenplay by: Ari Aster

Hereditary was a great film whether you like horror or not, the cinematography is beautiful and although there is the odd jump scare there are also so many emotional moments which many other horror films lack.

Hereditary follows a family who seem to have inherited a sinister force that results in many horrific deaths. The most memorable death and the only reason this film is on the list is the death of Charlie. This is because the film is set up as if Charlie is the main character or at least has a pivotal part of the story but only around 30 minutes into the film Charlie's head is chopped off as her brother drives high speed down a highway to get her to a hospital as she is having a severe allergic reaction and she sticks her head outside to get some air and is met with a pole to the face. You could hear everyone in the cinema gasp. The chilling silence that fills the rest of the scene and then the harrowing scream of her mother who finds her decapitated body in the backseat is bound to leave anyone speechless.

Hereditary blew my mind because of Charlie's chilling death which changed what I had expected of the film completely.

Director: Christopher Nolan

Screenplay by: Christopher Nolan

I was about 14 when I first watched Memento and the main thing I remember from that first watch was that I was very confused for nearly the whole film but once I wrapped my head round what was going on I could appreciate how intelligent and well done this film is. I have watched it again since and found it so interesting to watch again once I know how it ended, also the fact that a film that starts with the end and ends with the start manages to make sense in its self is an achievement.

The film follows a man, Leonard Shelby who is unable to make any new memories while he tries to find and kill the man that killed his wife. Leonard tattoos himself to remember what he needs to know and he carries around polaroids and notes that help him understand who he is chasing but the twist is that Leonard accidently killed his wife by not giving her an insulin shot and he leads himself to believe that his friend Teddy killed her so future him would follow Teddy and kill him even though he is innocent. All that story but told backwards, no wonder I was confused first time I watched it.

Memento blew my mind because it was one of the smartest films I've ever seen.

Director: Jon S. Baird

Screenplay by: Jon S. Baird

Filth is the perfect title for this film as it sums it up perfectly. This film really is filthy from start to finish with hard drugs in nearly ever scene, nudity round ever corner and even a sex scene with Hitler, but this film doesn't shy away from filthy topics and taboos which is what makes it so great and fitting as the main character Bruce is a misogynistic, homophobic, racist who happens to be a police officer. He is determined to get the promotion at work and does everything he can to humiliate and manipulate his co-workers so he gets his way, also throughout the film there are two characters who are quite mysterious as there is Bruce's wife who narrates stories about Bruce but is never seen with him and there is the crazy doctor who torments Bruce. Bruce also only really has one friend who he treats horribly as he spikes his drinks, tries to steal his wife and imprisons him for a crime Bruce committed. It is hard to say what Filth is about as there is so much going on it's hard to narrow it down into a couple sentences.

In the end it is discovered that Bruce's wife left him and took his daughter and the narrator was actually Bruce dressing up and pretending to be her and the crazy doctor was actually a tapeworm that was living inside Bruce and made him do all the evil things he did, a bit of an odd story but it is done so well that it all makes sense and is even heart breaking. Even though Bruce is a horrible person you can't help but feel sorry for him as you watch him descend into complete madness and even though he presents everything that is wrong with the world I still found myself crying in the final scene where he commits suicide and I don't really understand how the filmmakers and actors managed to break my heart when he died even though he was full of hate and was horrible to everyone that he met. That's how you know you have made a great character, when you can make them as unbearable as possible but still make the audience feel for them.

Filth blew my mind because it made me love a character who was a complete arsehole, to put it nicely.

Director: Matt Palmer

Screenplay by: Matt Palmer

The best way to describe Calibre is a nightmare, it feels like a fever dream you can't get out of because it is simply so stressful. I had to take a tea beak halfway through just to slow my heart rate down and this is why this film is on my list. The stress starts very early on in the film when two old friends, Vaughn and Marcus, decide to go hunting and stay in the nearby village, the moment the film really starts is when Vaughn takes his aim at a deer but accidently shoots a child and then Marcus kills the father out of self defence, in a moment of panic they bury the bodies and decide to act like nothing happened to not make the villagers suspicious. My personal favourite scene is when Vaughn and Marcus go for a meal out with their victims family members who mention that they are missing, the acting in this scene is amazing and you can feel the anxiety the characters are filled with.

Everyone in the village goes out to look for the father and child and Vaughn and Marcus join as to not raise suspicions and the tension is unbearable as the family members walk past where they were buried, after a long hunt the dogs find the bodies and Vaughn and Marcus run away but are caught by the villagers who then torture and kill Marcus and let Vaughn go home as he had a child on the way.

The thing that makes this film so good is the pure anxiety that you feel from start to finish and I have never watched a film so stressful that I have had to take a couple breaks because I simply couldn't handle the stress of watching it. The acting is amazing especially from Jack Lowden who plays Vaughn as you can see how much distress the character is in just with his eyes.

Calibre blew my mind because it kept my heart racing from start to finish and put me on the edge of my seat more than any other film I have watched before.

Director: Martin Scorsese

Screenplay by: Laeta Kalogridis

Obviously there can't be a list about shocking films without Shutter Island, I knew before I first watched it that there was a twist but as soon as the film started I forgot about that and didn't even try to figure out what the twist was because the film was so beautifully shot and the story was so captivating. The isolating and dreary island is perfect for the unsettling film and there is so much symbolism and clues right from the start that show the outcome.

Shutter Island is about two detectives who go to Shutter Island which is a mental institute for criminals which is on a small island. They are brought there to investigate the disappearance of one of the patients, it is discovered at the end that one of the detectives is actually a patient at the hospital and the whole investigation had been an attempt to help the patient to stop his delusion.

This film isn't just good because of the twist at the end the entire film is so thrilling to watch and the acting is immense, it also leaves the question of whether the main character actually is a patient or a detective who they are just trying to keep at the facility and although it most likely is that he is a patient it is also fun to think about the alternative.

Shutter Island blew my mind because the entire film is great to watch and the twist just adds to an already great film.

Director: Damien Chazelle

Screenplay by: Damien Chazelle

Whiplash is one of the films that made me so fascinated by narrative and cinematography and made me realise I wanted to get into film. Everything about this film adds to it from the lighting changes to the slight changes in the tone of the colours depending on what character is on the screen.

Whiplash follows an aspiring drummer Andrew who attends one of the best music schools in America and when he gets into jazz band the instructor Fletcher torments him and uses abusive methods to make him the best. This torment drives Andrew to extremes which include him crashing his car anhe is seen dragging himself out the wreak and running with blood running down his face to get to a show so he doesn't miss his performance. Andrew files a report against Fletcher which gets him fired and by chance they meet at a jazz night at a bar and Fletcher invites him to play with him one more time. Andrew happily accepts but soon realises that it was one last chance for Fletcher to torment him as he isn't given any of the correct sheet music and embarrasses himself in front of hundreds of people in the audience. This is my favourite moment in the film as Andrew is about to give up but he returns on stage one last time and performs a solo that leaves the audience and Fletcher speechless but in the last moments you see on Fletchers face that this is what he wanted all along as he wanted to push Andrew so far that he will become one of the greats.

Whiplash blew my mind because although the story is simple it is powerful and has the perfect ending.

Director: David Fincher

Screenplay by: Jim Uhls

Fight Club is one of those films you can watch a hundred times and still enjoy it like it's your first time watching it. Even when you know the twist at the end the film is still amazing throughout and the twist isn't what makes the film.

Fight Club is about a man who suffers with insomnia who, by chance, meets the outgoing Tyler Durden and they end up starting an underground fight club, this fight club slowly turns into a cult that causes anarchy and a plot to blow up offices. The twist is revealed that Tyler is actually a figment of the narrators imagination and the narrator had created the fight club and turned it into a cult all by himself and this is resolved by the narrator shooting himself in the jaw which kills Tyler.

Fight Club is such a good film because it doesn't need the twist to be a great film as the characters are entertaining, the narrative is thrilling and the cinematography is depressingly beautiful. Another reason that I love this film is the fact that you can't take in everything in one viewing because there are so many small details that show that Tyler isn't real but unless you know it you most likely wont notice.

Fight Club blew my mind because I never saw the twist coming and watching it back the clues were right in front of me.

Director: Sam Mendes

Screenplay be: Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns

1917 is so much more than a war film, although the narrative is very simple it is still so emotional and thrilling. The main reason that 1917 is so high up on this list is the fact that it is filmed to look like it is one shot and it is done so well that it is near impossible to see the cuts bar one or two. The dedication and precision that has to go into making a feature length film look like one shot has to be praised and the overall cinematography of the film is beautiful and makes it impossible to turn away.

1917 has a very simple narrative as it is just about two soldiers who have to cross no mans land and travel to a different battalion to send a message to cancel the attack that they had planned as it is a trap and would result in the death of 16,000 men one of which is Blake's (one of the soldiers sent) brother. Although the story is simple the film is still captivating and heart-breaking. It leads you to believe that Blake is going to be the main character but he shockingly dies in the first half which made me realise in that moment that this is so much more than a war film.

I have only seen 1917 once although I wanted to go to the cinema to see it a hundred times again but when I left the cinema after seeing it I was crying my eyes out from sadness for Lieutenant Blake who had just been told his brother had died, happiness for Schofield for making it alive and I was just overwhelmed by how powerful the film was. The scene where Schofield runs across the battlefield, knocking down soldiers as he runs was beautiful to watch and I found myself not blinking throughout that whole scene because of how tense it was.

1917 blew my mind because it is so unique to see a one shot feature length film done so well and still have so much emotion and power.

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Screenplay by: Aaron Guzikowski

Prisoners is the number one of my list for many reasons. It's not an easy watch as it is so intense and violent but it is worth every second. It blurs the line of villain and hero, good and evil, love and hate and violence and protection. The closest to a protagonist in this film is a violent detective and a man that tortures a mentally impaired young adult and the antagonist is an abuse victim who has a severe learning disability and the woman that takes care of him.This is what makes this film such an incredible watch because it makes you question what is good, what is evil and whether either of those matter.

Prisoners follows the hunt for two young girls that go missing, all signs point to a character called Alex who is an adult with the IQ of a 10 year old and after the police free him as they find no evidence to prosecute him, the father of one of the missing girls takes it into his own hands and kidnaps and tortures Alex to extremes. Detective Loki is a violent detective who is head of the case and becomes obsessed with finding the girls, in the end the girls are found and it is discovered that the woman who we were led to believe was Alex's aunt is actually a serial kidnapper and Alex is in fact one of her victims who was kidnapped when he was a young boy. There is so much more to this film and so many more stories within it that would need pages to tell.

The cinematography of this film is beautiful and sets the mood for the film amazingly. Set in a snowy suburb of America makes it the perfect backdrop to the unsettling film. The acting is mesmerising especially Jake Gyllenhaal's performance as Detective Loki as the character is harsh, violent and cold yet he manages to make every scene emotional and heart-breaking.

Prisoners blew my mind because the narrative is so intelligent it made me question what is right and what is wrong and whether sometimes it is right to do something wrong and wrong to do something right.

If you read this far down or skipped to the end to see what was number 1 thank you very much for reading (or skipping), this is my first blog and I hope you enjoyed.