Arlington Road (Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins and Badlamenti score)which turns from a jolly good mystery into something more chilling. I don't think I could bear watching it, knowing what's to come.

For similar reasons, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

I was boo-hooing so much by the end of it, I physically couldn't get up from my seat. I can't even tell you whether the film was any good or not, I just remember crying and crying. And crying.

Never again.

if you've seen it you know why.

(a pedant types) - I've watched it many times, it's one of my favourites.
For me, Naked (dir, Mike Leigh) fits the bill. Loved it at the flicks, bought it on VHS, could never bring myself to watch it.

It defined film as an artform. It invented the visual language of modern cinema. It's a work of unparalleled and visionary genius. All true.

It's really boring. No matter how groundbreaking it was, it's been superseded so many times over, and is proof positive that doing it first doesn't mean you did it best.

*ducks*

Sophie's World
The Orphanage
La Strada
The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas
Cache (Hidden)
Jules et Jim
A Short Film About Killing

Great Darren Aronofsky film with wonderful performance by Ellen Burstyn as an ampetamine and TV-Quiz addicted mother.

The shocking descent into hell of the mother, drug addict son (Hared Leto), his junkie grilfriend (Jennifer Connolly) and friend Tyrone is truly harrowing.

Very difficult to watch a second time.

Brilliantly made by Gaspar Noe (who followed it up with the stunning "Enter The Void"), I'll be quite happy if I never see the rape scene or the nightclub scene ever again - the latter, with the way it is shot and soundtracked, is as close as I could imagine a descent into hell could be, and that's even before somebody gets their head mashed in with a fire extinguisher.

To be quite a night in front of the telly box.

Wolfcreek: I wouldn't describe it as great or a classic. But basically I never want to see it again.

Ditto a British flick of the few years ago called Eden Lake. Gratuitous torture and a rather pointless story with Michael Fassbender.

I could add some of Michael Hanecke's films but despite their perversity and cruel subject matter, they are so well crafted that I do watch them now and again. The original Funny Games is a real shocker.

I've only watched Midnight Express a couple of times, the last time was about 20 years go. Just found it harrowing.

Aka Nanjing Nanjing. A brilliant, albeit extremely graphic depiction of The Rape of Nanking in 1937 - which, to put into some perspective, even the Nazis thought went *a bit far*.

There's a review of the film by Andrew Harrison, in a Word passim, which is thoroughly worth revisiting. As for me, I saw it in a crowded preview theatre surrounded by critics all doing exactly the same thing: staring at the carpet and quietly going "oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck."

The whole thing's been uploaded here (and here's part 1), if you've time tonight, and you fancy an alternative sort of Saturday night. Like the Russian war film 'Come and See', about the Nazi occupation of the Byelorussian SSR, it's utterly unforgettable.

But you'll probably never want to watch it ever again.

"Dancer In The Dark" with an absolutely gob-smacking performance by Bjork.
Brilliant, but you'd have to tie me to a team of huskies dragging me into the cinema to see it again.

Brilliant film. Never again.

yeah and the other two.

An absolute masterpiece, but bordering on unbearable.

Even after all this time.

Nasty, nasty, nasty.

Pasolini's version of the Marquis de Sade set in fascist Italy; a very serious film about politics and abuse, but excruciatingly unpleasant to watch.

The Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi's historical dramas are beautifully made, but the plots can be so harrowing that I can't gear myself up to watch them again; especially Sansho the Bailiff and The Life of Oharu.

Straw Dogs - just thought the rape etc. was gratuitous
Soldier Blue - similarly - I know it is a story that was repeated thousands of times in Norh America, but hard to watch.

Old Boy - interesting premise, but grim revenge movie.

I've never been able to bring myself to watch 'Schindler's List' - too close to home, I'm afraid.

Classic film with some outstanding direction and acting, but not on my list of must see again.

Very few have seen this Russian tale of the German invasion, but anybody who has will never forget it. The protagonist goes through such hell that the young actor's face seems to age before your eyes, with no make-up or FX required. Absolutely numbing, and not the film for a romantic Saturday night...

I couldn't watch that torture scene again. Shudder.

Other movies on my list of great but once was enough:
1. Cool Hand Luke
2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Two great characters with such tremendous spirit, created by two incredible actors, and I just find it hard to rewatch both movies knowing how hopeless and heart breaking the outcome is in both movies

Once again, a compelling groundbreaking exercise in horror cinema verite that predates "found footage" twenty years before The Blair Witch Project and all its inferior by-products since. However, it's not the bleak nihilistic message or even the gruesome ultra violence that truly offends but the relentless, real cruelty and pointless slaughter of animals in this movie.

Once was enough. Great soundtrack though.

Amazing movie, bought it (on VHS!) the week it came out, it never even made it out of the shrinkwrap before it went to the charity shop in the great VHS purge of 2008...

A great book, a good film, but it is so bleak, so grim that I'm not sure I can go on that journey again.

Same for The Mist (Stephen King), particularly the ending.

...my mother bought our three year old the Bambi DVD last Christmas. I haven't even been able to bring myself to take the cellophane wrapper off.

Happiness by Todd Solondz, I realised it was still very much at the front of my mind and I had in fact enjoyed it despite its downbeat feel and "challenging" themes.

I've loaned it to various people since with the proviso not to watch it with their maiden aunts ... and to a man (or to a person if you will) they're of a similar opinion to me.

Bottom line is, I think I loved it but I guess it won't see my player again .... not for a long time anyway.

So I'm not watching until the kids are safely turned 18 as anything involving the death of children is just too upsetting:

Don't Look Now
Boy In the Striped Pyjamas (not going to see this at all...)
The Ice Storm

etc etc

George Sluizer's film from 1988. Brilliant, unsettling, there are scenes in that I can still see even though I haven't seen it since 1988. You will never trust a man with a chinstrap beard ever again.

And another reason to hate motorway services.

Hollywood remakes.

Three films have appeared already that I have no real hankering to see again in a hurry:

Funny Games - Very chilling, a very real nightmare situation.

Happiness - Loved it and I can't put my finger on why I don't want to watch it again. I just don't

Nil By Mouth - Again, loved it but after living near such an estate and meeting similar people and hearing and seeing their daily lives being played out I have no desire to watch such dramas to pass the time.

The other one is Human traffic. Not a great film but really does capture the essence of an drug fuelled clubbing night out that I used to do every weekend and now I feel a bit sad that those days are behind me so I won't watch it for that reason.

Wasn't sure what to expect when I watched this but grimness began pretty soon into the film as Angelina loses her only child. From there on my back was stuff with tension, especially so as I had read it was based on a true story. Imagine being told your missing child has been found and then the police presenting you with a different child who together with psychiatrists collude to make you look like the insane one, to save the police the embarassment of another lost child case.Well acted, well directed, well written, great looking but would I put myself through it again?

At the time this came out there was a sense of duty that you had to see it. So I went but would I want to see it again?

My lady wife told me she and a friend went to see it when it came out and they were 5 mins into Ace Ventura before she managed to convince her friend this must be the wrong film.

.....great direction, hugely memorable scenes and predicted the world we now soooo enjoy in almost microscopic detail.....but, and probably because of that last reason, I never have to see it again.

I have developed in recent years an absolute horror of anything relating to Heroin use and the baby's death in the beginning is just too much.
Brilliant film though.

Very fond of the old boy generally but his Trilogy depicting the almost completely joyless life of a gay boy/young man/old man (not that the main character seems to get much), while admirable, is SO unremittingly miserable across not one but three shortish films that the very thought of seeing it again fills me with utter dread.

I probably don't want to see it again, but, by God, it's good. Superb score, too. There's one scene in particular involving a man being tortured to death in a bath that really hits the spot. Highly recommended movie.

but for me the films which I have no need to see again are those which hinge entirely on a plot twist or some other irritating oh-so-clever device (even those films which I do regard as great and where the twist is almost the best part of the film). Once the cat is out of the bag, in a sense, you cannot watch the same film again as your experience will be distorted by foreknowledge. So, I say, why bovver?

Mainly because it was rubbish...

'Hunger' - a film about Belmarsh prison in the eighties. Probably the most visually and conceptually harrowing film I've seen.

It is devoid of speech for what seems like hours, the only human noises being the sound of beatings and shouting. About half way through there is the most brilliant scene of a meeting between Bobby Sands and a priest, filmed in one take, static camera. It's about 20 minutes long, they chain smoke a dozen cigarettes and the dialogue is just ... sod it, just go and see it (once).

Surely must rank as a movie you only need once in a lifetime

Brilliant but utterly harrowing.

Watched it about 20 years ago when it was on one Easter Monday afternoon and I was vaguely working on my dissertation. I thought it was fabulous. Girlfriend bought me a video of it which has never been watched. Just think I can never again be in the same set of circumstances to make me watch it.