10 Films To Stress You Out

April is National Stress Awareness Month! Let’s… celebrate?

Stress. We all know the word. We all know the feeling. But it’s actually kind of hard to define. It’s just this feeling of… well… UGH. Things are just too much! And it’s highly individual—what causes it, the levels people can tolerate, and their physiological and emotional responses to it. Some of us do our best work under stress (I don’t know why I said “us” just now, because I am definitely not a member of that group), while some shut down and hide in the freezer with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s until it all goes away (AHH, that’s more my speed!).

The funny thing about stress though is that even though we mostly hate the feeling, and it can do terrible things to our health (check out this article from the American Institute of Stress which lays out—in a totally non stressful way, of course—all of the things that constant stress can do to our bodies), we do still seek it out sometimes. It’s why we go on roller coasters, race cars, or go skydiving. That rush of adrenaline can make you feel alive.

And humans are innately empathetic creatures. We don’t even need to be in the situation ourselves to be affected by it. We can merely be watching it. Enter: Movies.

Movies that put characters in stressful circumstances can allow us to experience that rush of fear, danger, or unease from a place of complete safety (and also the catharsis that comes from the resolution of the stress… usually…). If that’s your jam, here are 10 movies that I find highly stressful…  *Note- These are almost 100% spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie you might want to scroll on to the next one.

#10: Meet the Parents (2000)

Bet you didn’t expect to see a Ben Stiller comedy on a list about stress, huh? The humor certainly distills it, but this movie still makes me highly uncomfortable. Gaylord “Greg” Focker is just a nice guy with an unfortunate name who loves his girlfriend deeply and is trying to make a good impression on her parents. But everything goes awry. Some of it due to other character’s actions (did Robert De Niro have to be such a dick?), some his own bad decisions (replacing the missing cat with an imposter was a big no-no), and some just dumb luck (if only the airline hadn’t lost his luggage!).  As the unfortunate events pile up, the stakes go from “her parents won’t like me” to “the woman I want to marry no longer trusts me.” Watching this, screaming “NO!” at the TV with every bad decision that Focker makes, and being unable to stop it is nigh unbearable. And secondhand embarrassment is a real thing. Add it all up, and you’ve got the reason I’ve only watched this film twice, despite its hilarity. 

Sources of stress: social anxiety, constant frustration, fear of disrupting the future, situations spiraling out of control 

Stress score- 5/10

#9: Don’t Look Up (2021)

The stakes of this one are pretty darn high. There’s a planet-killing comet barreling toward Earth, and not only will no one do anything to stop it, few are taking it seriously, and many are even doubting its existence. The astronomers who know the score do everything they can—going through official channels (to a President more concerned about her public image and re-election than the fate of the world), using the media (“we like to keep things light on this show!”), and spearheading a grassroots campaign (Just Look UP! to counter the DON’T LOOK UP crowd). In the end, stupidity and corporate greed win, and the Earth is smashed to smithereens while the ultrarich board an escape ship to the nearest habitable planet… and are promptly eaten by beaked reptile-like creatures known as Bronteroc. But don’t worry—there’s this super cool song where Ariana Grande sings the lyrics “get your head out of your a** and listen to the g** d*** qualified scientists,” which almost makes up for it all.

Sources of stress: racing against time, being disbelieved, feeling out of control 

Stress score- 6/10

#8: 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

Picture it: after an emotional day in which you broke off your engagement, your car is sideswiped and you wake up in a barren concrete room, chained to the wall. I don’t know about you, but I’d call that a bad day. On top of that, a super sketchy John Goodman tells you that while you were sleeping, the world ended. What’s the truth? Were you kidnapped, or rescued? And honestly, which is more terrifying? Even once Mary Elizabeth Winstead sees enough to believe that there was some sort of attack rendering the air outside unsafe, all is not well. She’s still locked in a cramped bunker with two strange men, one of whom is controlling and quick to anger, and… well… apparently kidnapped someone else even before the world ended. 

Sources of stress: constriction of space and freedom, uncertainty, threat of physical harm via a giant barrel of human-dissolving acid 

Stress score- 6/10

#7: Panic Room (2002)

It’s right there in the title—Panic. It sounds silly to Jodie Foster at first. A fortified, hidden bunker equipped with food and supplies, inside a swanky Manhattan brownstone? Seriously, when would you ever need THAT? On night one, as it turns out. Jared Leto, disgruntled grandson of the previous owner, breaks in with two accomplices to liberate millions in bearer bonds from the floor safe that only he knows about. When Jodi realizes there’s men in the house, she’s suddenly very pro-panic room. But what they want is—DUN DUN DUN—in that room. Jodie is claustrophobic, her daughter is diabetic with dropping blood sugar, the men won’t leave until they get what they came for, and she can’t call for help. The stalemate on its own is enough to raise your blood pressure. Every attempt at rescue is thwarted, the robbers’ attempted incursions into the panic room grow more desperate and dangerous, and one of the men turns out to be a bona fide psycho who is not afraid to beat someone to death, or shoot them in the head (whichever the situation calls for).

Sources of stress: severe constriction of space, threat of physical harm to self and loved ones, feeling out of control and unable to summon help 

Stress score- 7/10

#6: Uncut Gems (2019)

This is another that might seem surprising. It’s not a typical thriller—there’s no kidnapping, confinement, or threat of extreme violence. (At least, not until the last few minutes.) But what we get up front is stressful enough. The first view of Adam Sandler’s character is him undergoing a colonoscopy, and ironically, this is the most comfortable scene of the movie. After the camera up the rectum, we then see Adam’s thug debt-collectors, his mooching mistress, and the depths of his gambling addiction—all during the opening credits. He makes bad decision after bad decision, dragging us viewers along, powerless to stop it. Adam juggles championship sports rings, cash, fake Rolexes, and the titular uncut gem (none of which really belong to him) through bookies, pawn brokers, dismissive auction appraisers, and superstitious pro athletes, always promising to return one thing or another, which he’s only ever able to do by screwing over one of the other parties. As soon as he has the means to get himself out of the hole, he picks up a shovel and digs a little deeper. Nevertheless he manages to be likable, which makes his struggles that much harder to watch. Eventually, things settle down for Adam. He’s returned the championship ring he had unjustly pawned, he's sold the gem and now has the money to pay off his brother-in-law, and he’s reconciled with his girlfriend, who is actually quite sweet. But Adam hungers for the rush of adrenaline, so moments before he hands over the cash to his brother-in-law and the increasingly-violent hired goons, he takes the whole nut and sneaks it to Atlantic City for a longshot bet. That climax, with the hired goons trapped between the security doors, forced (as we are as an audience) to watch the ups and downs of the basketball game that will determine Adam’s fate… Cue racing heart, sweating palms, and excited optimism that it just might work out. And it does! – NOT. He wins the bet, his girlfriend evades the guys looking for her in Atlantic City and sneaks off with the million-plus in winnings, but Adam is shot in the head by the pissed off debt-collecting goon before receiving his fortune. JAYSUS!

Sources of stress: pressure of being pursued (having to stay one step ahead in his deceptions), constant frustrations, emotional strain, threat of violence.

Stress score- 7/10

#5: Nocturnal Animals (2016)

I knew I wanted this one on my list, but I wasn’t sure exactly where it should fall, so I plopped it in the middle. On the one hand, the stress is mostly confined to a single scene, which isn’t even “real” (it’s a story within a story). On the other hand, that one scene is without a doubt the most stressful thing I have ever experienced in cinema. Jake Gyllenhaal is driving his wife and teenage daughter in the dead of night through the barren wastelands of West Texas (where even cell phone signals don’t go), when they are targeted by a group of no-goodniks. The men slow down, speed up, swerve, and threaten them until they run Jake and his family off the road, disabling their car via flat tire. Then, like a cat playing with a mouse, they turn nice(ish) and offer to fix the tire. Jake, the good-natured passive gentleman, isn’t sure how to navigate the situation, attempting to de-escalate and placate the men. As an audience we’re right there with him—feeling unsure of their intentions, trapped by the circumstances, and powerless as we watch things escalate through jeering to verbal abuse and threats, then to physical assault. And ultimately, in a striking, muted, slow motion POV scene, we’re unable to stop the men from dashing into Jake’s car and driving off with the two people who matter to him most in the world, one of whom is screaming and pounding on the back windshield as they screech away to an uncertain (but certainly grim) fate. O. M. G. 

Sources of stress: uncertainty, constriction, situations spiraling out of control, inability to seek help, threat of physical and sexual violence. 

Stress score- 8/10

#4: Training Day (2001)

Lots of the movies on this list have threats of violence and potential loss of life as a stress point. This one is no exception, but add onto that the first day on a new job, and the boss from Hell. Idealist rookie cop Ethan Hawke has a wife and new young baby to support, and hopes that this assignment to a Narcotics squad will put him on the fast track to Detective status. But his new boss, Denzel Washington, is dismissive and verbally abusive from minute one. Caught between wanting to obey his superior officer and not wanting to break the rules (or laws), Ethan tries to walk a very narrow line. But as his first day goes on, each WTF moment is followed by another, even more outrageous. Drink a beer in the car. Smoke some PCP. Let two violent suspects go. Serve a fake warrant and steal $40k. Collude with shady administrators for a $4 million seizure, $1 million of which will “mysteriously disappear.” Kill someone. By the time Ethan realizes he’s embroiled in corruption, he’s in too deep to get out safely. The stakes go from “will he screw up this opportunity?” to “will he make it out alive?” shockingly fast, in the space of his first day. The audience is never given a chance to breathe. As soon as you think it can’t get any worse, it does, and Ethan Hawke has no good options. Someone hand me a paper bag to breathe into; I’m hyperventilating…

Sources of stress: tension between warring desires (to please his boss, to follow the rules), situations spiraling out of control, inability to seek help, threat of prosecution, threat of physical violence and death.

Stress score- 8/10

#3: Get Out (2017)

This is Meet the Parents, the non-comedy, racist, twisted, extremely violent edition. Daniel Kaluuya really should’ve listened to Lil Rel Howery and steered clear of his white girlfriend’s family home in the country. Daniel was definitely worrying a bit about racism, but not, umm… psychological violation and subjugation of self to be overtaken by the psyche of the highest bidder. From minute one though, things feel off. The black maid and black groundskeeper seem peculiar and unable to relate to him the way he expects. His girlfriend’s brother is strangely confrontational and violent, but hides it behind a sort of “I’m just joking” razor-thin façade. He’s hypnotized without his consent, under the guise of helping him to quit smoking. And, he becomes a centerpiece at a strange party of the family’s elderly friends, who all have something intrusively complimentary to say about him as a black man. But wait, there is one person of color there—the young, strangely-dressed arm candy of a 60-something-year-old woman, who also acts extremely odd, and in a sudden outburst runs at Daniel and tells him to… of course… GET OUT. By the time he tries, he finds the conspiracy goes deeper than he imagined, and his girlfriend is also in on it. 

Sources of stress: interpersonal tension, isolation, confusion, threats to psychological wellbeing, threat of violence and psychological slavery.

Stress score- 8/10

#2: Buried (2010)

This one may be higher or lower on your personal list, depending on your particular phobias. I’m not intensely claustrophobic, but enough that I’m very uneasy in spaces where I don’t have room to stand. So, waking in the dark, bound and gagged, in a pinewood coffin, buried alive in Iraq—as Ryan Reynolds is in this film—is pretty high on my list of nightmares. He has a few things to help him though, including a lighter, a cell phone, and a flask of alcohol and bottle of anxiety meds. (I would’ve relied on those last two far more than Ryan did.) Physically, he’s completely helpless. But he tries to use the tools at his disposal to seek rescue. His calls for help are bounced around, finally ending up with the head of the Hostage Working Group in Iraq, who tells Ryan that it’s against national security policy to pay the ransom, but that they will do everything they can. Ryan’s communications with the kidnappers are no help either—they refuse to accept that he can’t get the money, execute his friend and coworker, threaten his family stateside, and demand that he record a propaganda video that includes cutting off one of his fingers. Oh, there’s also a snake, fire, dying cellphone battery, and friendly-fire bombing that causes sand to start leaking in. And just when you think things can’t get any worse, HR calls and tells him he was actually fired the morning before he was kidnapped, so no, they wouldn’t be paying out his life insurance if he died. And—spoiler alert—he dies. We think he’s being saved when he’s told that a suspect was leading them to the body of an American buried alive, but, as sand fills the coffin, we find that the body they dug up was only the skeletal remains of another kidnapped American that they couldn’t save. WHAT A RIDE.

Sources of stress: extreme confinement, race against time to get out, feeling out-of-control, threat of violence against loved ones, coerced violence against himself, threat of death

Stress score- 9/10

#1: Cape Fear (1991)

This one is an absolute masterpiece of tension, starting slow and building steadily to the harrowing climax. (Again, did Robert De Niro have to be such a dick?!) Nick Nolte is a defense attorney who fourteen years prior defended accused rapist Robert De Niro less-than-zealously. De Niro then makes it his life mission to teach his backstabbing former attorney about loss. First it’s just annoying him, menacing, a little light stalking. Then the family dog gets it. Then Nick’s not-quite-but-almost mistress is savagely attacked in one of the most horrifying, brutal, and violent scenes ever put to film. His 15-year-old daughter is also targeted, with an intensely creepy private conversation culminating in a disturbing pseudo-consensual kiss. But everything De Niro does is calculated to keep from getting caught. Nick knows he’s the one behind it, but the ex-convict has walked the line of legality so deftly, the beleaguered attorney is never able to prove wrongdoing. On the advice of a shady Private Investigator, Nick agrees to a plan to end De Niro via justifiable homicide, in a scene that manages to make a teddy bear terrifying. When that ends with the family housekeeper and the P.I. dead, Nick and his family retreat to their house boat on the Cape Fear river. But again, De Niro is so much more clever than they anticipated, strapping himself to the bottom of their car to follow them along for the ride. The final scenes include a violent storm, raging river, attempted rape, immolation, and a strange yet haunting exchange where De Niro puts Nick on trial, speaking to the camera as if to an invisible judge. Finally the houseboat is destroyed, and De Niro, handcuffed to a piece of the wreckage, is dragged beneath the surface of the water, never once breaking eye contact with his nemesis, evincing a single-mindedness unparalleled in all of cinema. OY VEY. I’m having heart palpitations just thinking about it.

Sources of stress: being pursued, uncertainty as to where and how he will come at him next, situations spiraling out of control, being doubted/disbelieved, threat of violence and death against pets, friends, loved ones, and self

Stress score- 10/10

The selections above are just some of my favorites—a few tense droplets in a giant ocean of stressful movies. There are so many others to choose from for the next time you want to get your heart racing. What films would be on your list?

Now I need a nice cup of tea and a hot bubble bath... 

Stay safe and healthy, and Happy National Stress Awareness Month!