Movies are meant to make audiences have some type of reaction. They are meant to make you go through different emotions while watching. They are meant to make you think about it even after the movie has ended. Filmmakers have not done their jobs if audiences did not feel at least one emotion during the course of the movie. Even if people just laugh or cry, the movie has done its job because it evokes an emotion or a feeling.
Some movies, however, cause audiences to experience seriously negative or unpleasant emotions. That is not necessarily a bad thing. The movie still did its job, but sometimes a movie can do its job a little too well. Over the course of time, there have been numerous movies that have caused such a visceral reaction, that people have actually walked out before the movie was over. Here are ten movies where audiences famously walked out without watching until the end:
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10 Deadpool (2016)
20th Century Fox
Before Deadpool was released in theaters, Ryan Reynolds warned parents that it was not going to be the typical family-friendly superhero movie. If there is anything to know about Wade Wilson a.k.a Deadpool, it’s that he says and does whatever comes to mind. He does not hold any thought back. So when parents brought their young children to see the foul-mouthed mercenary, they were appalled by his language and actions. If notorious funny-man Ryan Reynolds is warning people about the content of a movie, we should probably listen.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
9 The House That Jack Built (2018)
TrustNordisk
Lars Von Trier has pretty much exclusively made films that are difficult to watch. His 2018 horror movie, The House That Jack Built, is no exception. The film is said to have had over a hundred walk-outs at France’s legendary Cannes Film Festival. The film centers around a man, played by Matt Dillon, who is a sadistic serial killer that specifically targets women, so he can kill them by extremely graphic, disturbing methods. It comes as no surprise that audiences were not able to stomach this particular movie.
8 A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Warner Bros.
Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange is held in high esteem within the film community. It is considered to be one of the most influential films of all time. The movie is about a delinquent young man named Alexander DeLarge, whose main interests are beating up strangers, raping anyone he pleases, and listening to Beethoven. Nothing about that description seems remotely inviting, so it seems fitting that audiences continuously walked out. In fact, the movie even caused multiple violent crimes to occur throughout England, so the movie had to be pulled from theaters.
7 Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Miramax
Quentin Tarantino is known for including some pretty gruesome and violent scenes in his films. Of the ten solo feature-length films he has directed, every single one of them includes at least one over-the-top, violent scene. Although Reservoir Dogs actually caused people to leave during the movie. During the film’s torture scene, five people walked out of the screening at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain, including iconic horror movie director, Wes Craven.
6 Raw (2016)
Focus World
French director Julia Ducournau does an excellent job of making her audiences physically uncomfortable. Raw follows a young girl from a vegetarian family who is forced to eat raw meat for the first time in her life when she goes away to veterinarian school during a hazing ritual. There is not a single scene of this film that is not physically distressing after she takes that first bite of meat, as it turns her cannibalistic. It is an exceptionally well-made film, but is absolutely stomach-churning.
5 Alien (1979)
If anyone brought their children to see this movie in 1979 thinking it would be a fun space adventure similar to Star Wars, they would have been sorely mistaken. Alien is Ridley Scott’s perfect blend of science fiction and horror. The aliens are as gnarly and nasty as can be. The famous scene where an alien bursts out of a guy’s chest particularly upset moviegoers.
4 Under the Skin (2013)
StudioCanalA24
A Jonathan Glazer film produced under A24 was bound to cause some strong reactions. The story follows an alien who inhabits the body of a young woman. She lures men to their deaths in order to learn more about them. It is a somewhat disturbing premise, although it was received well by critics. The body horror and death was surprisingly not the reason that some audience members walked out though. According to The Hollywood Reporter, people walked out because there’s little dialogue and the pacing is purposefully slow.
3 Swiss Army Man (2016)
A24
Daniel Radcliffe has certainly taken on some odd projects in his post-Harry Potter career. Swiss Army Man is definitely one of those odd projects. It stars Radcliffe as a rotting, talking corpse who frequently passes gas, and Paul Dano as the lonely man who befriends him. It is actually quite a funny movie, but the gross rotting corpse was a bit too much for some audience members. Although, it did do well with critics, receiving a 72% on Rotten Tomatoes.
2 Titane (2021)
Diaphana Distribution
Both of Julia Ducournau’s directorial features have made this list, unsurprisingly. The summary for Titane states that it is about a former firefighter who is reunited with his missing son of ten years after a series of unexplained crimes. That is true, but not in the way the audience would think going in. The main protagonist, Alexia, is an underground car show dancer who happens to have a metal plate in her head due to a car accident from her childhood. This can all be deduced from the trailers and promotions, but what is not to be expected is Alexia getting pregnant by having sex with the car she usually dances on.
1 The Exorcist (1973)
It probably comes as a surprise to exactly no one that The Exorcist would make this list. It is one of the most iconic horror movies of all time, and has been a huge inspiration to the genre. An actress struggles to save her young daughter after she is possessed by an evil demon. The demon tortures the poor girl for weeks on end, violating her body the entire time. People were so scared of The Exorcist that not only did people walk out of the theater, but some moviegoers actually went to the hospital. To this day, people are still terrified of this movie.
