According to several manuals of screenplays from the United States, a film is divided into three acts. The first: the beginning, the presentation of the film universe that will come to be explored during the duration of the film. The next: the development of a possible conflict presented in the first act; it is where the climax lies. The latter: the ultimate end, an epilogue; in this, the resolutions of the clashes created previously are the key of the moment.

Of course, a movie is fully analysed. But the last impression, the last glimmer, the final glance, is what marks the viewer. Some film endings capture the viewer both by surprise (“The Shining”), by the drama (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”), by one last sigh (“The Revenant”) or perhaps by the redemption (“Gone with the Wind”).

As classic and melodramatic aspects of cinema, they cherish endings that cause intense and often dramatic emotions. Meanwhile, modern cinema searches for empty endings, reflecting, most of the time, on the inside of their characters.

On this list are dramatic, surrealist, poetic, and enigmatic endings. Here are 10 great movies with powerful endings.

10. The Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra, 2015)

One of the most poetic pieces in the last few years, “The Embrace of the Serpent” is, without a doubt, a masterpiece of Latin American cinema. Ciro Guerra directs with as much propriety and delicacy needed to touch on such delicate points as colonization and exploration.

The movie is about the journey of Theo, a sick German explorer, and Karamakate, an Native, through the the Amazon jungle in a search for a rare and miraculous plant. Forty years later, another foreigner, Evan, takes the same journey with Karamakate.

At the end of the movie, they arrive to a mountain and Evan is able to taste the rare plant. In the moment, Karamakate applies the mixture on Evan, the explorer passes out, and there is a sequence of oniric and hallucinogenic images. They refer to the genesis of the universe, taking the movie away from its previous scenery; also, the camera floats among the mountains, while heavy music and ritualistic whispers can be heard in the background.

The whole movie is black and white, until Even passes out. From this point on, “The Embrace of the Serpent” starts having color, with labyrinth forms that reminds one of a serpent’s movement. Such hallucinations, conducted in a masterful way, gift the viewer with oniric projections caused by the magical plant.

9. Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)

One of the only three English-language movies from the director, “Blow-Up” was a manifest of the ‘60s. Fed up of living in an artificial world, Thomas, a well-known fashion photographer, ends up shocked by a photo of a possible murder. Chased by models and by a mysterious woman, Thomas becomes increasingly apathetic about the world he is living in.

The movie ends with a group of mimes doing mimicries of an imaginary tennis match in a park. Under the puzzled look of the photographer, the group keeps playing, until the supposed tennis ball is thrown out of the court. They all stare at Thomas; he, feeling uneasy, goes to the lawn and picks up the ball, giving it back to the mimes. Still observing the match, he starts hearing the ball bouncing on the tennis court.

Here, Thomas is in the middle of a crisis. The monotony of his life took him to the limit; he doesn’t know if the murder really happened or if it was just a projection of his unconscious, striving for some action. He identifies himself with the mimes, who make up actions to satisfy their unexciting existences. When he least expects it, he starts believing the mimes’ fictitious match. When just the crudity of life does not satisfy someone, they try to do something more dynamic out of it, even if it costs them their sanity.

8. Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969)

Dennis Hopper, as well as a very great actor, proved himself a virtuous director by performing his highest work with “Easy Rider.” Placing on the screen a small part of the hippie culture of the United States, the director marked a whole generation of young people who were inspired by the daring and courage of the two protagonists of this piece. Certainly, its impact came together with the fantastic choice of soundtrack, which still echoes in the imaginations of old young hippies.

“Easy Rider” tells the story of two bikers, Billy and Wyatt, who cross the southern U.S. to make a drug sale. Finishing the deal, the two return to travel incessantly through the country as fast as they can to arrive in time for Mardi Gras, one of the most famous celebrations in the world. During their arduous journey, the pair crosses paths with eccentric figures who expose, in their own way, a piece of American society in the 1960s.

Coming to the end of his journey – after acid trips, murder, and involvement with prostitutes – Billy and Wyatt tread their way back. In the midst of this, they encounter two men in a van who, when analyzing their hippie look and non-standards, shoot at the protagonists, killing them. Extremely abrupt, this end is potent and highlights, in addition to the bias of society’s great slice of hippie ideology, the very volatility of human life.

After going through great adventures and transcendent experiences, the two end up murdered by a single shot, fired by a completely random person. Unlike the entire film, Hopper leads the scene with rawness, trying to exploit the maximum amount of realism present at the time, thus making a harsh denunciation against American social organization.

7. The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)

Alongside Godard, Varda and Resnais, François Truffaut is one of the great masters of the French New Wave. Before becoming a filmmaker, he was a critic and writer of the legendary film magazine Cahiers du Cinema.

During his childhood, he spent much time inside the French Cinematheque watching and analyzing American cinema classics. With that, he created an exceptional cinematographic repertoire that helped him build his virtuous career as a film director.

Considered the opening film of the French Nouvelle Vague, “The 400 Blows” is the most autobiographical film from the French director, with the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud playing Antoine Doinel.

In this film, the young Doinel rebels against impositions from his family and his archaic school education. By breaking family ties and committing small criminal offenses, the boy faces an authoritarian and repressive boarding school that makes him rethink his interpersonal relationships.

Perhaps one of the most iconic finales in movie history. Somewhat simple, the end of “The 400 Blows” shows, poetically and intimately, Doinel running alone toward the sand on a beach. There would be no more perfect scene to close such a work of art.

Here, the loneliness and teenage angst of the protagonists are explored with the famous close shot of Leaud’s face. Running toward the immensity of the sea, the unknown, the scary, the enchanting, Doinel traces his tortuous path.

6. The Holy Mountain (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973)

Alejandro Jodorowsky is a complete artist: a poet, writer, filmmaker, and actor. Based in Chile but with family of European origin, the director based his career both in Mexico and in the United States.

Working from the absurd and psychedelia, Jodorowsky is considered one of the most megalomaniac filmmakers in history. His utopian project to adapt the iconic book “Dune” counted on several stars (like Salvador Dalí) and a budget completely outside his standards.

The director’s most acclaimed work is, without a shadow of a doubt, “The Holy Mountain.” In this, a thief, with strong similarities to Jesus Christ, walks through a strange and religious city.

Filled with Christian and pagan symbols, the protagonist travels through destroyed scenarios and unimaginable beings. One day, a spiritual mentor – played by Jodorowsky himself – leads him to an enclosure with seven more people, each representing a planet in the solar system. They must ascend to the top of the Holy Mountain and take the place of the Gods.

The end of this maximal work of surrealism is totally the antagonism of what was expected. There is no clash between mortals and gods. There is, however, a clash between film and viewer. Upon arriving on the mountain, Jodorowsky presents a quick dialogue between the master and his apprentices, and then reveals what he least expects in a film: the camera itself.

In a master shot, the entire team is exposed and the entire cast looks directly into the center of the lens. Were the spectators the gods? Or the apprentices of Jodorowsky’s character?

Narratives have existed since prehistory. At the Caves of Chauvet in France, the Neanderthals tried to tell their daily adventures through iconographic reports in the form of drawings. With the advent of writing, the narratives became increasingly complex. Then, the troubadours and novels of cavalry appeared in the Middle Ages.

Later, more fictional narratives gained strength: from the 15th century, names like Thomas More, Molière, Don Miguel de Cervantes, and William Shakespeare appeared. A strong movement that gave more strength to fictional stories was German romanticism, led by Goethe.

Another great author who completely revolutionized the direction of literature was James Joyce, with his masterpiece “Ulysses,” who defied all the limits of his platform. After this, others emerged and marked their names in world history, such as Sylvia Plath, Gabriel García Márquez, Machado de Assis, Eugene Ionesco, Hermann Hesse, Julio Cortázar, and Marguerite Duras.

Obviously, literature is the great basis of every narrative. However, photography and, later, cinema became other ways of telling a story. When the movie “L’Arrivée d’un Train à la Ciotat” was shown in the Saloon Grand Café, the whole world of storytelling suffered a great revolution; a new machine for articulating narratives was invented.

Most of the films, until 1915, followed the same pattern of achievement, with simple narratives. However, from the studies of Edwin Porter and D.W. Griffith, the world of cinema became another. Here are 10 movies that changed how stories are told in cinema.

1. The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915)

The importance of D.W. Griffith and the 100 plus films he made in the history of cinema is undeniable. His early studies of the scene and its more detailed aspects were precursors to any motion picture. Easily, the trajectory of the seventh art took place before and after Griffith.

In the days before 1915, films were composed of small acts recorded by a static camera without any movement or articulation of the cinematographic mechanism. In “The Birth of a Nation,” the filmmaker began to carry out experiments with what later was called cinematographic language.

Griffith’s masterpiece, quoted above, tells the story of two southern families at the height of the American Civil War. Addressing the conflict and its relationship with both groups, “The Birth of a Nation” explores the tensions between the North and the South amid uneven moments in history. From the murder of President Abraham Lincoln to the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan, the film portrays the controversial American society in a revolutionary and, yet, controversial way.

With outstanding audience success, the feature changed the way everyone told stories in movies. Utilizing camera movements and a number of daunting scenes for the time, Griffith introduced a new method of filming that lasts to this day. Concepts like master shot, close shot, and panoramic were brought to the world through this film. Still, “The Birth of a Nation” surprises by its duration: 190 minutes, something completely outside the standards of its era.

Before him, the vast majority of movies used to be short-lived, completely objective. After D.W. Griffith, nothing was the same. Cinematographic language was born. The classic aesthetic was born. The future of Hollywood came to the fore.

2. Meshes of The Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943)

Deconstruction. Leaving aside the vanguards of the 1920s and postwar Italian neorealism, Maya Deren is the great name of the beginning of the revolutions against the parameters already imposed by the Hollywoodian industry.

An anthropologist, ist, dancer, photographer, and mother of experimental cinema, and the first filmmaker to win a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, Deren established herself as one of the great names of modern art and anthropology; her studies of voodoo in Haiti and her experiments with dance are recognized in her media.

“Meshes of the Afternoon” is Deren’s first film, running approximately 13 minutes. Co-directed with her ex-husband Alexander Hammid, the plot tells the story of a woman who sees a strange figure in her condo and then falls asleep.

In her dreams, she finds herself pursued by her own figure, until she awakens and comes across her husband. Between diverse symbols, mirrors, and attacks with knives, Deren constructs a mystical and imposing oneiric universe that changed the destinies of cinema.

“Meshes of the Afternoon” is the first film considered a psychodrama by contemporary writers. Her plot approaches the surrealist films of the 1920s, exploring the world of dreams and the unconscious. Deren tells this story through seemingly disconnected repetitions and scenes. Moreover, with a language that respects no classical convention, this quintessential seventh art is certainly one of the most influential films of the 20th century.

3. Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the great authors of cinema, always challenging ethical and cinematic limits. Even though he was an Englishman, the master of thriller built his entire career in the United States, shaping his aesthetics from the workings of the Hollywood industry. Rarely awarded by the Academy, Hitchcock was revered by European cinema icons Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut – the latter of whom wrote a book with a compilation of interviews with the Englishman.

One of the first partnerships between Hitchcock and legendary actor James Stewart, “Rope” tells the story of two college kids who murder one of their classmates. Their premise is to prove that, by being superior, the two would be able to commit a perfect crime without leaving any leads. The men then hide the corpse in a room and have a party there. The plan begins to fade when a former high school teacher arrives at the compound.

In this film, Hitchcock dares to the fullest and performs an experiment that would inspire several other filmmakers like Aleksandr Sokurov and Alejandro G. Iñarritú: a film shot in one take. Of course, “Rope” had not been recorded in just one outlet, since the cameras of the time did not allow such a feature.

However, the director creates invisible cuts, which give the impression that the camera never stops. Although a forerunner of sequenced films, this masterpiece of the 1940s follows the premise of a clear and cohesive narrative, according to the rules of classical cinema.

4. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)

The biggest name in modern Asian cinema, Akira Kurosawa is one of the only non-American filmmakers to be mentioned in The Hollywood Reporter’s list of the 100 Best Movies in History.

Awarded an Oscar for his contribution to the seventh art, Kurosawa holds grand prizes in his resume, such as a BAFTA, a Golden Bear, and a Golden Lion. His filmography includes works like “The Seven Samurai,” “Dreams,” “Yojimbo” and finally, the film in question: “Rashomon.”

At the height of the 11th century, during a storm, a lumberjack, a priest, and a peasant seek shelter in the ruins of a historic gate in Rashomon. There, the priest recounts a crime involving the rape of a woman and the murder of her husband. However, over the course of the film, other views on the crime are presented: from the murderer himself, the raped woman, a woodcutter, and finally, the ghost of the murdered. Thus, the crime is reconstructed from fragments of other interpretations.

In “Rashomon,” the great narrative move is the multiple perspectives that tell, in different ways, the same story. In this, there is still no conclusion regarding which version is true, since the ideal truth is something unattainable. In this way, one concludes that the stories tell much more about the person than the person says about a story. Personal positions and ideologies always stand ahead of the search for truth.

5. La Ronde (Max Öphuls, 1950)

One of the great influences of Stanley Kubrick, Max Öphuls was a German filmmaker who worked for much of his life in France. His career was not strongly recognized by the public back then.

The story of his departure from Germany is controversial and political, due to the rise of the Nazi Party and Third Reich in his homeland. Because he was Jewish, Öphuls sought exile in France, and later in the United States where he made some films, among them “Letter from an Unknown Woman.”

In “La Ronde,” a type of master of ceremonies begins the film, warning the viewer that everyone will see a series of stories that, in the end, will connect, thus completing the waltz of love. All of the tales, set in France, involve the theme of love and are interconnected by characters from the same universe, who configure this cyclical structure in the film.

In this film, the narrative merits are present precisely in the organization of several dramatic nuclei that are interchained by some characters. Going beyond, love, the great thread of this film, is explored in a masterful and equitable way among the acts. Even with numerous characters in a short film, Öphuls builds them in a creative and three-dimensional way, escaping possible cliches and lazy conventions of the genre.

Sex, violence, murder, and perversion have been forever present in mankind. Since the wars between Athens and Sparta up to the technological conflicts these days, the of use physical force and violence are explored as forms of moral and psychological domination. In cinema, violence began to be exploited when society lost its little modesty; thus, filmmakers decided to portray this part of everyday life.

Other factors that gained prominence from the flexibility of society were the iconographic representation of explicit sex, rape, and also eschatology. Hippie culture, which was seen as an affront to the bourgeois elites, helped in pushing for the rights to express such content in cinema. It’s undeniable, too, that in the underground, the content quoted has always been explored in a more explicit and experimental way.

In this list, scenes of violence, explicit sex, and grotesque acts included in great films will be described. Here are 10 great movies that are hard to finish.

1. Last Tango in Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972)

One of the great names of modern Italian cinema, Bernardo Bertolucci is also a controversial figure in cinematic history. Working with masters such as Sergio Leone and Pier Paolo Pasolini, he became one of the most influential and original directors of his generation. His major works came from international partnerships with France and the United States, directing icons such as Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Jean-Pierre Leaud, and Peter O’Toole. His resume features varied awards, such as an Oscar for Best Director and a BAFTA for Best Film for his work “The Last Emperor” (1987).

Of course, his most controversial film is his psychosexual drama starring Brando and Maria Schneider: “Last Tango in Paris.” In this 1972 movie, a lonely widower travels to Paris to forget the suicide of his wife. However, he ends up falling passionately in love with a young French woman. The two, then, live an intense and anonymous relationship purely based on sex.

The great debate that permeates this film is relative as the infamous rape scene with a stick of butter. After the recording, Maria said she felt violated after that sequence, since she had no idea that something like that would be recorded. Then, both the protagonist and director became poorly liked by the most enlightened audience.

Scenes like this make this film hard to finish. With a slow rhythm and high sexual content, Bertolucci creates a monotonous but deep and reflective atmosphere. However, the visceral and somewhat violent passages of sex leave the spectator uncomfortable and with some fear of what may come over the course of the film.

2. Saló (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975)

The second Italian director on the list, Pier Paolo Pasolini is a very important name in cinema and the political militancy of the 1960s. A poet, writer, communication theorist, and filmmaker, with a vast and enviable repertoire of talents.

Of extreme detail and istic character, his films are appreciated and worshipped by students and film teachers. In addition, he always sought to criticize the high society, such as “Pigsty” and the Catholic Church, as it did in “Decameron.” It also had an intrinsic link with the proletariat and communist parties – elements present in almost all of his work.

In “Saló,” Pasolini shaped one of the most disturbing films in cinema history. In this, a group of young Italians is captured by fascists allied with the government of Mussolini in the 1940s. There, they undergo several perverse trials to sexually please their kidnappers. Filled with deaths and torture, the teenagers are ravished in every possible way, while their now-owners enjoy the freedom and enjoyment of life.

Perversion is perhaps the word that best defines “Saló.” Inside the film, the 12 captured youths are forced to pass through three circles filled with depravity and violence. In the first of these, they are raped to satisfy the sexual desires of the fascists; in the second, the circle of feces, all are obliged to participate in eschatological rituals where they ingest feces; and finally, the circle of blood, in which torture, physical violence, and death dominate the environment. Only such a description can disgust the reader, as the film will certainly cause one to vomit.

3. Raw (Julia Ducournau, 2016)

At only 35 years old, this young French filmmaker and actress has been nominated and awarded in Cannes several times. Her first feature film, “Raw,” was a complete critical and public success.

With a medium-sized budget and a little-known cast, the director was able to extract a visually stunning and narratively intriguing film. Filled with blood and violence, countless viewers reported vomiting during the movie showings. This is how, splendidly, Ducournau is building her film career. Is she the new big name of the postmodern French cinema?

The plot follows the young vegetarian Justine, who is about to enter the first year of her college in veterinary medicine, where her sister studies. Soon, on their first day, freshmen must pass a traditional university ritual: eating a piece of raw meat.

Reluctant and against her will, the protagonist ends up ingesting the food. Days later, however, the taste of the flesh did not seem to have came out of her mouth; the girl, now, is fascinated by such flavor. This paranoia is developing more and more, until Justine decides to taste human flesh.

In “Raw,” several factors make this work a difficult film to watch until the end. From extremely convincing performances – which leave the viewer terrified and dazzled – to extremely real practical effects, everything makes the audience believe that it is very close to reality. In addition, all scenes involving cannibalism mixed with totally visceral sex are recorded explicitly, so that no details of the actions on screen are lost.

4. Paradise: Love (Ulrich Seidl, 2012)

Austrian director Ulrich Seidl is one of the most hated filmmakers on the planet in recent years. Severely criticized for his irreverent, carefree, and disrespectful way of filming, Seidl continues with his style of making films that defy the boundaries between documentary and fiction. His famous trilogy of “Paradise: Love,” “Paradise: Faith” and “Paradise: Hope” had great success in festivals in Europe, but above all, the trilogy left people angry and disgusted.

Nominated for the Palme d’Or in Cannes, “Paradise: Love” is the main pillar of this iconic trilogy. In this film, Teresa, a 50-year-old Austrian woman, travels to Kenya. However, the purpose of the tour is not the stunning beaches or the beautiful landscapes: Teresa is there for sex tourism.

By joining with another middle-aged woman, the protagonist begins to enjoy more of the services of Kenyans – who begin to charge increasingly higher prices for work. This makes her think about her own personal image and appearance.

The language of this 2012 work is expressed as if it were a fictional drama. However, over the course of the film, it becomes more explicit that the director takes advantage of the lack of command of the language of the Kenyans to designate tasks that are completely subhuman to them.

In one scene, a man dances naked for four women, without understanding at all what it is; he only does it because he knows he will be reimbursed. Sequences like this can leave anyone’s jaws dropped and leave them utterly abhorred.

5. Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 1997)

Michael Haneke is one of the most versatile and virtuous filmmakers nowadays. An example is the comparison between two completely different films: “The Piano Teacher,” a sexual thriller; and “Amour,” a delicate film about passion.

With awards from Cannes, the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, and a César, his resume is certainly one of the most complete of current cinema. His most awarded movies are “Amour” and “The White Ribbon.”

One of his first feature films is “Funny Games,” nominated for the Palme d’Or in Cannes. In this film, a quiet Austrian family goes to their country house to enjoy the holidays with their little son.

After settling in the house, the family receives a visit from two young men, Peter and Paul, who appear to be two people of extreme courtesy. However, such behavior lasts a short time and the two begin to psychologically and physically torture the three members of the family, using sadistic and violent games.

With this short synopsis, one can already imagine the content of the work. Violence, torture, sadism, and psychological pressure are just some of the challenges this simple family faces with both young men.

In “Funny Games,” the spectator is put to the test every few moments, because with each new minute, another type of violence is committed. No one escapes the hands of Peter and Paul, not even the family dog. Screams, groans of pain, and sounds of flesh being torn apart by the knives and weapons of the two young men dominate the film, leaving anyone uncomfortable who may be watching the movie.

Since the writing of the Bible, it has been found the first iconographics reports of the battles between good and evil. God vs. the Devil; such a clash goes on in countless cultures around the world. Years earlier, Plato’s dialogues presented the idea of ​​an absolute moral good, shortly before the creation and establishment of monotheism.

In cinema, from its beginnings, antagonisms are very present – the spectator always has something or someone to whom he feels himself identified. In The Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith established within the classic norms of cinema, the advent of well-defined heroes and villains in the films.

Thus, the tradition of Hollywood follows the molds of these rules, always making clear this Manichaeism. However, from the 1960s, with the advent of modern cinema movements around the world, the line between good and evil became less obvious and more confusing between the characters.

Here are 10 great movies that blur the line between good and evil.

1. The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke, 2000)

One of the great masters of the contemporary cinema, Michael Haneke collects stunning movies that challenge the spectator. Since Funny games, one of his firsts masterpieces, he became famous in Europe and in the entire world.

In The Piano Teacher, the director was nominated for the Palme d’Or and Isabelle Huppert, the leading actress, won the award for Best Actress, in Cannes; the movie was a commercial and critic success. Years after its debut, The Piano Teacher stills shocks and amazes many people, who claim the piece as one of Haneke’s best movies.

The 2001’s movie is about Erika, a peculiar piano teacher whose rigid methods cause disorder within her music school. Her personal life, however, is a bit more curious than her professional one: she is a hard attendant of sex shops and pornographic cinemas.

Dealing with family problems with her mom, Erika tries to relieve her heavy existence with sexual games between herself and Walter, a young talented piano student. This relationship creates a dark pyschosexual drama, that sickens the viewer.

This thrilling sex battle leads the spectator to question the character of both Erika and Walter. As they go deep in their obscure games, the teacher shows a submissive personality towards her lover – unlike the one shown in the piano classes.

Furthermore, The Piano Teacher addresses a debate about sadomasochism. There are two dominant opinions: sadomasochism as sexual liberty or, in the other hand, a simple act of violence and submission. To crown this heavy masterpiece, an astounding ending: Erika, is left completely alone and humiliated by Walter, walking away from a theater. All her vividness and deepest secrets had blown away with her former lover.

2. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

Certainly, Apocalypse now was one of the most disturbing pre-productions of all time. The movie got notorious in the whole world, nominated for multiple Oscars and winning several awards in Cannes. Inspired by the novel Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, this piece its a film manifesto from the 70’s. This Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece almost cost him his reputation and, also, his life. Even with all those problems, this film is a truly mark of the postmodern cinema.

The plot tells the story of Willard, a Captain of the US Army, who gets the hard mission of killing Walter Kurtz. This former US Colonel was accused of betrayal: the myths beyond this man are that he got mad and was treated like a god by some vietcongs. Willard, then, travels through all the extension of the river Nùng, in the wild Camboja, where he faces several provation.

In this movie, Coppola strongly criticizes the romanticization of the war, believing that it just causes pain and horror to humanity. Besides that, some characters, like the Lieutenant Killgore, shows another point of view: he says that war turns kids into men.

Here, is the first dichotomy between good and evil in the movie. Then, analysing Colonel Kurtz, the spectator also can’t get a clear image of this enigmatic and somber war veteran. Is he a true hero who claims for liberty to the vietcong Indians? Or is he simply a megalomaniac who likes to feel like to be praised like a god?

3. The Secret in Their Eyes (Juan José Campanella, 2009)

One of the greatest filmmakers of the Argentinian postmodern cinema, Juan José Campanella made, in this movie, his greatest critical and commercial success. Winner of the Best Foreign Movie Award, The secret in their eyes is a neo-noir movie about Benjamin, a former Buenos Aires detective, who wants to write a book about a case that he investigated thirty years ago. Evoking his past, he comes across some mysteries never imagined. Beyond all those secrets and intrigues, Benjamin still tries to seduce a past lover.

In this movie, the greatest debate between good and evil happens right on the flashbacks of the inquiry. While Benjamin investigates the brutal case of the murder of a young lady, the viewer starts questioning the methods used by the detective. Moreover, the legal environment proves its corruption; therefore, the lack of reliability of the juridical mechanism and its problems regarding the population are exposed.

Finishing this captivating drama, it is discovered that the widow, Ricardo Morales, keeps his wife’s murdered in a private prison. The discussion about doing justice with your own hands, here, is roused; seeing the legal justice failing with his wife, Morales, then, kidnaps Pablo Sandoval, the murderer, and tortures him. So, in the end of all of this fantastic thriller, the spectator doesn’t know what’s good and whats evil.

4. Pietà (Kim Ki-duk, 2012)

Definitely, Kim Ki-duk is a very versatile filmmaker: from Bi-mong to Arirang, the director approaches completely different themes with distincts cinematic resources. His amazing curriculum has a great number of awards, like the Silver Bear, in Berlin, the Silver and the Golden Lion, both in Venice. With a recurrently violent esthetics, Kim Ki-duk’s movies are difficult to watch, always letting the spectator uncomfortable. In Pietà, it isn’t different: this 2012’s piece is full of blood and ultraviolence.

A man called Kong-do works as a violent debt collector, like a hitman, who hurts his clients. However, when a strange and unknown woman appears in his life claiming to be his mother, Kong-do starts to change his way of living. Before, a merciless criminal, now, the young man turns himself into a sweet and childlike son. Discovering love, he quits his former job to give his alleged mother more attention.

The great discussion that blurs the line between good and evil in Pietà resides in the relation of Kong-do and his supposed mother. At first, the man is described as a cruel and pitiful human being. However, after the emergence of the mysterious woman, he is completely changed, becoming an emotional man.

So, is Kong-do in his essence a bad man or his character is shaped by a violent society? With the relationship with his mother, the protagonist gains the empathy of all the public, which begins to see the former hitman as a good person, who only needs compassion and affection.

5. Biutiful (Alejandro G. Iñarritú, 2010)

Controversy. No word could describe better the cinematographic life of Alejandro González Iñárritu. Exploring themes with his usual sensibility, the Mexican director lives in a constant love and hate relationship with cinephiles around the world.

Some say that he is a misunderstood genius, meanwhile other claims Iñárritu as an egomaniac, pretentious, who dreams to be the new Terrence Malick. Besides that, the filmmaker collects several awards in the Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA and Cannes.

Exploring an unknown part of Barcelona, Biutiful shows to the viewer the poverty, misery and crime of this giant Spanish metropole. Uxbal is a divorced man with two children, Anna and Mateo, and sells illegal medicines in the streets, hiring Chinese families in subhuman conditions. Suddenly, during a routine exam, the protagonist discovers a terminal cancer and starts chemotherapy. Then, Uxbal tries to deal with the feeling of guilt and impotence against life.

Obviously, Uxbal mixes up the spectator’s head when the issue is good and evil. While taking care of his two sons with love and fondness, the main character basically slaves Chineses in the streets of Barcelona. However, the family drama that they go through – the discovery of the cancer and the very poor living conditions – sensitize the spectator.

In the end, there is the redemption for Uxbal: his death. His passage to the other side is lyrical and beautiful. Dying with regret and guilty, the man conquest the affinity of the spectator, who, now, tries to understand this controversial person that is Uxbal.

The scene. The cinematographic equivalent of theatrical acts. It can easily be understood as the backbone of the movie. In this time unit, space and action are some of the main elements of the cinematographic articulation. In the more traditional cinema, the scenes have linking facts between them – usually, there is a bridge that makes the link among two different scenes. As in modernity, especially on the new waves and on vanguards, the movies have few connection between scenes – fact that can be easily observed at Un chien andalou, creating a huge disconnection on the plot.

Also in modern cinema, the scenes start developing more and more, having as such cinematographic articulation and dramatic curves as a full movie. The soviet grandmaster Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the countless cineasts that works meticulously in each one of the scenes in his pieces, leading them to reach extremely dilated proportions of time. Another soviet, now from the 20’s, Sergei Eisenstein cuts his scenes as much as he can, with a lot of editing.

Scenes can have lots, few or even just one shot. It can have the duration of a frame or compose a full movie. It can be a landmark in the history of cinema. Here are the 20 most perfect scenes of cinema history.

20. Underground scene (Possession – Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)

Possession is definitely Andrzej Zulawski’s masterpiece. With an usual violence and gore – both of them being director’s trait -, the movie easily transits among thriller and horror. Very controversial, Zulawski got involved in many controversies regarding Polish government’s repression during the filming of his movies. Therefore, he formed a big part of his career in France.

Zulawski’s piece is about Anna and Mark, a couple that faces matrimonial problems during their child’s childhood. After many fights, Anna decides to abandon her family. Then, Mark starts investigating her to find out why she left – suspecting an affair. However, getting deep into this mystery, he finds out that his wife has a relationship with a weird and exotic creature.

Now, regarding the most significant scene on the movie: Anna and her mental breakdown on the subway. After a frustrated attempt of reconciliation made by Mark, Anna goes shopping and, after entering the subway, she undergoes the beginning of her possession process by the monster. In between screams, fluids and a frenetic ballet, the director composes a strong and expressive scene, that works as a synthesis of the aesthetics of the movie. Horror, monstrosity and drama together with Isabelle Adjani’s acting and an impeccable directing result in this iconic moment in Possession.

19. Encounter with Madeleine (Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

Alfred Hitchcock is certainly one of the major directors that has ever lived. His way if filming changed the course of suspense thriller movies. Very rigid during the filming, he always strived for perfection in terms of his movies. It wasn’t different in Vertigo: its plot is full of mysteries and mental and psychological confusions that compose one of the greater thriller movies of cinema history. The movie is about a private detective, Scottie, that is hired by his friend to watch his wife, Madeleine. The reason: her husband believes that she is possessed. However, Scottie and Madeleine start to develop attraction towards each other.

In the scene mentioned here, one of Scottie’s first espionage occurs: he follows Madeleine and ends up in a high society restaurant. There, he sits on a bar and just observes as she leaves the establishment. Here, Hitchcock conducts the sequence with mastery: silently, he creates an atmosphere of doubt and curiosity, using a subtle “game” of point of view. The character remain apart in distance, affinity and frame. But, with just a few glimpses, it can be observed in Scottie a fascination for the stunning beauty of Madeleine.

18. Cyprian Norwid’s poem (Ashes and Diamonds – Andrzej Wajda, 1958)

It could be just another cliché movie about the World War II, but Ashes and Diamonds is the contrary. With its title inspired in a poem from Cyprian Norwid, polish writer from the XIX century, Wajda is able to give poetry to a very tragic and violent history movie. The piece is about two soldiers, Maciek and Andrzej, that are supposed to kill a communist leader from the Soviet Union. During a stay in a hotel, Maciek falls in love with Krystyna, the hotel attendant. But this brief romance extends itself until hours before the end of his mission.

After one night sleeping together, Maciek and Krystyna walk around areas bombed by war. In this scene, they walk by corpses, wreckage and a Norwid’s poem written on a catacomb. There, they think about the meaning and symbology of the poem. Wajda articulates the scene in a very lyrical manner, using hardly perceptible cuts, making the actors movementation around the scenario very natural. Also, the poetry in the scene leads to the thinking of a reconstruction post-war, as, like Norwid said, from ashes comes diamonds. The scene ends with the couple lost in thoughts, going back to the hotel in silence.

17. Ending (The Embrace of the Serpent – Ciro Guerra, 2015)

One of the most poetic pieces these years, The Embrace of the Serpent is, without a doubt, a masterpiece of latin american cinema. Ciro Guerra directs with as much property and delicacy needed to touch in such delicate points as colonization and exploration. The movie is about the journey of Theo, a sick german explorer, and Karamakate, an indian, through the the Amazon jungle in a search for a rare and miraculous plant. Forty years later, another foreigner, Evan, does the same journey with Karamakate.

In the end of the movie, they arrive to a mountain and Evan is able to taste the rare plant. In the moment Karamakate applies the mixture on Evan, the explorer passes out and there is a sequence of oniric and hallucinogenic images. They refer to the genesis of the universe, taking the movie away from its previous scenery; also, the camera floats among the mountains, while a heavy music and ritualistic whispers can be heard in the background.

The whole movie is black and white, until Even passes out. From this point on, The Embrace of the Serpent starts having color, with labyrinth forms that reminds of a serpent’s movement. Such hallucination, conducted in a masterful way, gift the viewer with oniric projections caused by the magical plant.

16. Psychiatrist (Annie Hall – Woody Allen, 1977)

Annie Hall is the synthesis of the figure that is Woody Allen. This movie makes no exception to a current theme in his movies: they always originate from psychoanalysis. Alvy, an ex-comedian, falls in love with Annie, an aspiring singer with a difficult personality. She has been doing analysis for fifteen years, but Alvy thinks she’ll need more sessions: after moving in together, the marital crisis starts and the relationship between them get worst. With mixed feelings and incommunicability, the couple are in a very hard situation.

The scene here could not be other than this: the iconic scene of the psychiatric appointment. In one of the best shared screen scenes of all time – if not the best -, Alvy and Annie express their conflicting feelings to their therapists.

The most excellent part of this scene is the editing; the viewer’s attention happens through the pauses that each character do during their lines: when one of them pauses, the other speaks. It makes evident the different perceptions a same event has. With his usual dialogs of extraordinary quality, Woody Allen does one of the most original therapy scenes of cinema history.

15. “Porque te vas” dance scene (Cría Cuervos – Carlos Saura, 1975)

Porque te vas is a single by the french singer Jeanette, that got popular after the movie release. In Cría Cuervos, a masterpiece of spanish cinema, Ana remembers her childhood after twenty years of her father’s death, trying to understand her relationship with her sisters, Irene, the firstborn, and Maite, the younger.

Orphaned, the three of them live under custody of their aunt, a controversial figure that tries to create love ties with them, but struggles due to her strong personality. Clearly unstable and devoid of maternal affection, Ana starts to believe that she has the power to communicate with her deceased mother and to interfere in the life and death of the people around her.

In this scene, the girls play in their room when, suddenly, Ana puts a song in her vinyl player: Porque te vás. They enjoy the song while they cut out women’s magazines, until they are interrupted by her aunt, that says that she is leaving. Ana turns up the music and the other sisters start dancing in tune, while the protagonist watches. Silently, she moves towards Irene and starts dancing next to her.

The director commands this action with almost no meddling, letting the actresses command the scene. Here, Ana has one of the few individual freedom moments in the movie; she feels free. When she stays next to the older sister, she feels safe. The song, combined with the lightweight choreography, creates a peace and serenity environment, a rare moment in Ana’s life.

Since D. W Griffith’s studies and the advent of the Hollywoodian rules and narrative – strongly appearing in The Birth of a Nation – the average viewer got used to the false illusion that classic cinema provides. After that, multiple cinematographic styles moved away from such basic principles.

Movies that stray away from this tendency are usually deemed to be cult, weird or even irritating. Using a slower aesthetic, that preserves the image as it was shot, with no editing whatsoever, these aspects cause a feeling of strangeness to the viewer. T

he opposite is also true: masterpieces that deconstruct the sense of what is real in the narrative and subvert classic cinema norms, drive the viewer to a state of paying poor – or almost none – attention to the cinematographic vehicle.

Retrieving from the state of attention necessary to follow the movie string of thinking, the viewer gets bored with his passive condition of spectator, tending to focus their attention in something else.

In many occasions, due to the lack of focus, sleeping becomes the best option when who is watching realises they got lost into a cinematographic language that seems to be not much of a Hollywoodian Dream. These are the 10 Masterpieces that may make you fall asleep:

10. Hour of the Wolf (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)

There are no words to describe Ingmar Bergman. Author of numberless masterpieces like Cries and whispers, Persona, The Seventh seal and Scenes of a marriage, the Swedish collects challenging films.

His filmography is consistent and has as main themes the human anguish, fear, delirium of the mind and the weight of existence. Multiple times, approaches horror movies – being influenced by German expressionism and by Carl T. Dreyer’s Gothic cinema.

In Hour of the Wolf, a painter and his pregnant wife are recluse in a small desert Scandinavian island. There, the artist shares sketches of his terrifying visions with his wife.

During the nights, both of them stay awake thinking about the tale regarding the “wolf hour”, in which spirits get more susceptible to walk among the living. From a certain moment, they start to be tormented by vampire-like and folkloric figures.

With strong Gothic tendencies, Bergman’s movie is about strong themes like human fear and paternity. The actors, coming from theater, bring powerful dramatization to the characters – offering near-visceral performances. Besides, the poetic force of the movie is an element that causes estrangement to the viewer that is not used to such directing style.

Also, the spectator finds the confusions between reality and onirism weird: the monstrous characters are among both of these perceptions. Clearly, in Hour of the wolf, the viewer is found helpless and shocked with such aesthetic beauty and philosophic strength the movie provides.

9. Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971)

The extraordinary Italian director Luchino Visconti adapts a romance from the successful German author Thomas Mann: Death in Venice. Known for his political movies during the Italian Neorealism period, Visconti, moves away from his social themes in this movie. Nominated to the Oscar’s for the best costume design, the movie also made a quite good impression on Cannes Festival, where it was nominated for the biggest award: the Golden Palm.

Death in Venice is about a classical composer that, due to health problems, travels to a luxurious hotel in Venice. There, he ends up getting obsessed with a young boy, that spends his vacation on the same hotel.

An outbreak of cholera starts in Venice, but the guests of the establishment don’t know about it. The problem is that the protagonist is one of the people affected by the disease. His obsession for the boy seems to be the only string attaching him to life.

His movie is a study of the ideal beauty. The spectator gets in touch with a loose narrative, with few dramatization, about the thoughts of a man obsessed by the beauty – in a non-sexual way- of a boy.

On Death in Venice, there are extremely long takes, with many camera movements that are used to replace cuts and other editing tricks, almost being used to describe places. Viewers accustomed to the usage of many takes to describe the scenes can easily get distracted and even exhausted by such descriptive shots.

8. Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955)

Carl Theodor Dreyer is one of the most influential and original cineasts of the world cinema. Author of pieces like The passion of Joan of Arc and Vampyr,

Ordet was his first movie to become famous among critics and also the first that resulted in financial gain. inspired by a piece written by a danish priest called Kaj Munk, the movie has a strong religious perspective, that manifests itself in its thematic and also in its dialogues. Ordet won awards in multiple festivals around the world, being the winner of the most important one of the Venice Festival.

The movie is about two ultra religious families that want to marry two of their children. In one of them, there’s a young men that believes he is Jesus reincarnation. The men was considered to be crazy, but, with his disappearance, questions about faith and religion are made. This religious conflicts create disharmony between both families and the village residents.

Maybe what requires most of the viewer are the dialogues and the thematic. Its religious bias can be seen all over the piece, interfering even in the theatral and the way they speak and interact. In this movie, the democratic and long takes also reign: they show a hole scene in just one static take.

Its rhythm is calm and there are none highs and lows in dramatic matters – the narrative keeps itself monotonous until the middle of the movie, without much dramatization. Its photography is also a strong point, that reminds the expressionists of the 20’s. It’s certainly a difficult movie to absorb, that, with no focus or will, can tire the spectator in a shot amount of time.

7. Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961)

Known as an extreme symbol of the french new wave, Alain Resnais is definitely a cineast that challenges the viewer. In his former movie, Hiroshima, mon amour, the director presents similar characteristics to the ones in Last year in Marienbad. Resnais makes the viewer feel uneasy, using a cinematographic language that leaves them to question time and space into the narrative, leading to a detachment regarding the plot.

Last year at Marienbad starts with a voice over in a luxurious hotel. There, an unidentified man approaches a woman, swearing to her that they know each other. The movie unrolls with sequences of flashbacks and flashforwards that suggests either a previous encounter among the couple or a hallucination of the male character. Conversations, social events and rendezvous between them are repeated multiple times – always with clear differences in matters of costume and cenic objects.

Its narrative is clearly an ode to modernism: characters with little development and multiple timelines, and the plot offering little engagement, since it’s all about repetition of the same events. However, the thematic – the analysis of the individual and collective memory – is powerful.

The most disturbing and unorthodox part of the movie is the editing: using abrupt cuts, that do not respect any illusion of reality that classic movies – the ones that most people are used to – have as their trademark, resulted in Resnais leading audiences to exhaustion. In Last year at Marienbad, there’s little to none immersion of the viewer into the piece, considering that such deconstruction usually stray the viewer from a state of complete concentration.

6. Limite (Mário Peixoto, 1931)

This masterpiece of Brazilian cinema is the only silent movie on this list. It was also the only movie on the director’s filmography: after Limite, Mário Peixoto, having only 23 years old, left Brazilian’s movie business once and for all, and started dedicating his professional life to his writer career. However, Mário left some cinematographic pieces unfinished.

Limite is about three people that meet each other in a boat in the middle of a river. Each of them have a recent past that torments their daily lives: the man lost his lover; one of the women escaped jail; and the other is in a state of pure despair. Mário used flashbacks as a way to make the protagonists remember their moments of anguish, using aesthetically astonishing, dreamlike sequences.

Its narrative contains countless temporal lines that disorients the viewer; besides, the flashbacks are not highlighted, making it difficult to the viewer to know whether it is indeed a flashback or not. Its slow pace may sound boring, but its experimental poetic, that treats about human anguishes is a strong part of the movie.

Also, the director shows similar traits to the ones observed on Ingmar Bergman’s movies – the use of close shots as a form of cinematographic language and the value given to human gesture.

The use of metaphors are constant in Limite: the boat may mean the stagnation of both existence and destiny of the main characters. Its strong thematic might cause sartrean nausea or even tiredness to the viewer.