What movies have left the biggest impact on you?

Let's use this thread to list movies that truly left a mark on you, both while watching and long after the credits rolled.

It isn't necessarily about whether the acting was great or if the plot was tight.
The criteria is simple: these films had to change how you see the world. They forced a shift in perspective so profound that you weren't quite the same person once they ended.

Back when I was a kid, I used to catch Charlie Chaplin movies on PBS. They always seemed to be running around the 12 or 13-minute mark. I finally sat down to watch one again after ages, and man, it hit me just as hard as it did back then. In my book, he’s hands down the most brilliant comedian to ever grace the 20th century.

Then there were all those horror flicks. That stuff was pure trauma. 🙂 It especially 😠

As an adult, though, one movie stands above the rest for me. Evil Dead ☕

The sheer innovation, those wild camera movements... it's insane. Every little detail, all that pure, unadulterated fun. Forget all that other nonsense; Evil Dead is actual art, and Bruce Campbell is the greatest God around, locally and beyond. Groovy ☕

That's it, go ahead and run. Run home and cry to mama! Bu-hu.

Claiming a movie changes who you are might be a stretch. But here are a few that came close...

1. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. If I’d missed that one, I’d probably still be a well-adjusted person. It’s all this idiot's fault; everything went downhill after that. 🙂

2. SAW, the original. My god, what a ride. It isn't even about the gore; it's that feeling when you walk out of the theater wondering how you'd actually handle those scenarios... plus, as an engineer, there's this creepy realization of just how much "creative" potential exists in those designs... What am I capable of? Where do I draw the line? How powerful is the survival instinct? Am I the kind of person who would bite my own leg off just to stay alive? It makes you wonder what actually matters—is anything more important than life itself?

3. Pan's Labyrinth. Do I even need to explain? Forget the fact that it's a completely different yet strikingly similar film to Life is Beautiful. Totally different approach, yet a phenomenal level of creativity in the storytelling... For me personally, WW2 was something I knew facts about, but I lacked the visceral understanding of the horror; that non-cognitive gut punch. These two films hammered it home.

4. Inception. Saito is to blame. His hands at the start of the film, that tiny, microscopic detail... it performs inception on the viewer. Do I have an idea? Any idea at all? Why don't I dream, and if I do, what's the subtext? Am I just empty?

5. The Edge. Maybe a weird choice; but seeing a man stripped of the comforts of his artificial world, forced to face a brutal, hairy embodiment of Nature, exposed in all his weakness; left to realize that through the catharsis of accepting his own frailty, he can find enough defiance and survival instinct to avoid despair and succumb to The Circle of Life...

Respect.

The Wizard of Oz aka The Wizard of Oz (1939)

I can't even remember exactly how old I was when they used to broadcast this on TV.
Maybe 7 or 8 years old? That was the moment I realized the world isn't just some bright, colorful playground.
That wicked witch character... 🙄 man, I can still see her standing right in front of me.

Seriously, best movie ever made! 😍

This trilogy completely altered my perception of reality:

1. Dark City (1998)
2. The Truman Show (1998)
3. The Matrix (1999)

Dogville, without a doubt.

It's the number one movie on my list.

It’s such a unique experience that I need to be in just the right headspace to sit through it. Honestly, I practically need a month of mental prep before watching it. 😁

Requiem for a Dream - man, that was heavy. Intense, visceral, and just totally gut-wrenching. It’s a brutal look at how drug addiction absolutely destroys lives. I’ve seen people criticize it for being too stylized—claiming it almost acts like some kind of pro-drug propaganda—but honestly, I never got that. Like, who in their right mind would even think about using after sitting through a movie like that? You'd have to be completely out of your mind.

Ever since I watched The Hitcher (1986), I can't look at hitchhikers the same way again. It really changed my perspective. Then there's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), which is one of those movies that just sticks in your head for days, completely shifting how you think about things. It’s in that same heavy category as A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Papillon (1973).

That’s a tough one. I keep spotting this weird pattern in certain movies, and honestly, it’s starting to feel like a blueprint for my own life.

Spartacus (1960)
Jim and Jules (1962)
Easy Rider (1969)

For me, "Jim and Jules" really hits home—it shows how life can climb out of the daily grind and turn into this beautiful harmony, a total rush of images, sounds, emotions, and hope... only to just crash and burn all over again.

Dogtooth. This is absolute bottom-of-the-barrel nonsense. Total brain rot. 🙏

Elizabeth Perez17 said:5. The Edge. It might seem like an eccentric pick; but you have a man stripped of the comforts of his own artificial reality, forced to face a brutally primal, hairy embodiment of Mother Nature himself. He’s left completely exposed in all his inadequacy, forced to confront reality and, through a catharsis of accepting his own weakness, find enough grit and survival instinct to keep from spiraling into total despair and surrendering to The Circle of Life...

...only to end up finding peace by moderating some random American message board. 🙏

If I had to pick just one, it would definitely be A Clockwork Orange (1971).

Westworld (1973) It’s all about that creeping paranoia, those deep-seated fears, basically like facing some prototype Terminator 🙏
Logan's Run (1976) You’ve got that classic teenage rebellion, messy romance drama, and that desperate scramble to escape the system 🙏

Richard Johnson42 said:Dogtooth—honestly, just licking the keyboard at this point. Nothing else to say. 🙏

Oh, really? Do I even care how much it changed your perspective? 😁

casualgull said:If I had to pick just one movie, it would definitely be A Clockwork Orange (1971).

Likewise—though, it wasn't exactly a total mindset shift or anything, more like my first real brush with... well, actual cinema. You know, movies as art. I was about 14 at the time, and it finally clicked how powerful film can be, and how many weird little worlds exist outside of my own bubble. Later on, I realized they're just slightly more insightful and imaginative ways of looking at the same old world we live in. 😁

Kill Bill, without a doubt😍

I honestly can't remember the title, and I didn't even sit through the whole thing

But toward the end, the main guy—some Italian scientist or big-shot businessman type—just tosses his handheld device off a cliff into the ocean where all this corporate data is stored

He basically walks away from it all just because he wants to spend his final months solely with his wife, who's battling cancer

Man, after watching that, I’ve totally pivoted to pure hedonism—I am officially done with everything at college that's been stressing me out!

The Basketball Diaries
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112461/

I watched this back when I was playing high school basketball and drugs first started showing up in my neighborhood. This movie actually sparked a conversation about addiction that I didn't need, and it's honestly the only film I've ever seen that had a direct impact on the course of my life. Long story short, I stayed clean and steered clear of everything else.

The only thing I ever touched was some weed on occasion—strictly recreational. Nothing else has ever interested me. That's been my stance from the moment I saw the film until now.

American Beauty and Easy Rider... If I’m being honest, Easy Rider is probably the most heartbreaking film I've ever seen, but those two are definitely etched into my memory forever.

The Devil's Advocate. My absolute favorite 🙂

Chopper - honestly, I can't even explain how much that hit me
Child's Play - watched this when I was 6 and spent half my childhood terrified my toys were gonna crawl off the shelf while I slept
Prince of Darkness - saw it at 7 and that’s basically what hooked me on horror forever
Ninja movies - that's where my love for fight films started
Platoon and Full Metal Jacket - really made me sit back and think about the reality of war
Citizen Kane - makes you stop and reflect on family and life in general
Every single Stanley Kubrick movie - absolutely phenomenal. Just pure bliss. They definitely left the biggest mark on me

Movies don't actually change who I am; I just happen to see pieces of myself reflected in certain ones 😁