What was your age, year and the film that you remember leaving cinema totally exhausted by the experience?

34 comments

1. Last film I saw like that was Dunkirk, the soundtrack and sound design was almost sensory overload

   If I had served in the military I could easily see it triggering PTSD it was so full on

2. 18, 2003, Lord of the Rings.

   It went on and on and on. At one point the screen faded to black and, relieved that it had finally ended, I stood up to leave. Only for the picture to come back and I had another 20-30 minutes to endure. I was with a girlfriend’s family; I wouldn’t have gone had I the choice.

3. Interstellar. Saw it at the BFI in IMAX at a 9pm showing. It was so long and so visually and sonically overwhelming that I came out feeling completely exhausted. I almost felt hungover from it.

   The Hateful Eight is another that left me feeling exhausted from the length.

   In terms of films that left me exhausted in a good way, Whiplash really sticks with me. The tension in that film just builds up and up to a crescendo in that final scene. I felt emotionally spent after watching it.

4. Jurassic park. I remember being too scared to get up for the toilet and holding it in all the way through.

5. Sleepers early 1997. I was 15.
   Incredible film but fuuuuck it was grim.

6. The Matrix was a pretty mind blowing experience. I went into it knowing nothing about it. The marketing was very cryptic and gave away nothing, the tag-line was “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself”

   To a young teenager the concept was mind blowing, and the aesthetic and music were spot on for the time period. It was very much ‘of it’s time’. The world was still working out what the internet could become and this meshed perfectly with the concept, in a way that it probably wouldn’t today.

7. American Werewolf in Paris (1997), I was 17 and had to walk down dark country lanes to get home. Rather scared on the walk!

   I saw From Dusk till Dawn (1996) without knowing anything about the film before.. what a ride!

8. 8. 1993. Jurassic Park. I was fucking terrified. I literally hid at the raptors in the kitchen part.

9. Inception, 2010. I was 14. I came out the cinema and said “that was fucking amazing”, so then my mum and older sister gave me a telling off 🤷‍♀️ worth it.

10. Almost got bored to death by the film US, worst acting I’ve seen in ages, good on the cast for doing what they wanted and engaging with what they needed to but YAWWWWN

11. 14, Terminator 2. It was a 15 rated film so knew in advance it was risky.

    Went to the Cinema and bought a ticket. Came out absolutely mind blown.

12. About 16, 1993, [Gettysburg](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107007/). I went out for a piss around the 2h mark (less than halfway through the film!) and realised I didn’t give a monkey’s about the plot or characters and could go home right now and play Doom, which I did. Still haven’t seen the end of it because I still don’t give a monkey’s.

13. Honestly. I slept through one of the Harry Potter movies. I was younger, but I remember being thoroughly bored by it. I don’t remember which one. I think it was one or two films behind half blood prince.

14. When I was about 11, the only cinema in town decided to put on a special day programme for the local kids during the school holidays. I think the the city contributed because for a tiny price, each kid got a hot dog and a coke while watching a Planet of the Apes marathon. Three Planet of the Apes films back to back.

    You can imagine that every single kid in town was there as it was the only thing to do. I don’t know who thought this would be a good idea but it turned out to be utter chaos.

    Kids dutifully sipped their cokes and ate their hot dogs during the first film but during the second, everyone got bored and started interacting with the screen and the other kids. By the third film there were wrestling matches in the aisles, kids screaming, laughed and crying. The manager came out twice to threaten us with stopping the film if we didn’t behave. He finally followed up on his threat and shut off the projector and turned on the lights. The entire audience of 11 year olds turned feral and screamed and kicked everything as they shuffled out, the manager and staff red-faced shouting as we exited.

    That particular summer activity was never repeated.

15. Requiem For A Dream. I saw it at the cinema when it came out, and that was quite enough. It’s an amazing but harrowing film.

16. Not sure if I understood “exhausted” correctly, but the recent movie that made me like that was the Joker (2019).

    Fun fact: My ex found it boring, while being amused by 50 shades (that was also exhausting movie, but in an another way). I might use these movies to filter out incompatible dates. Haha

17. 1993, age 11, Jurassic Park. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to recreate that experience again. It was pretty much the first photo-realistic CGI in movies, and certainly the first I’d seen. Before that point I’d seen plenty of old stop motion films such as Jason and the Argonauts, so the leap from that to Jurassic Park was huge. Couple that with the cinema quality sound, and it made for a terrifying experience.

    Obviously modern films have superior CGI (although I’m always amazed that Jurassic Park holds up so well even today), but I’m used to it now.

18. Has to be return of the king. My Dad took me to one of those cinemas that did table service, with big sofa seats. It was a great day.

19. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the college I was in (well the course took us once a term to the local cinema) and it cost us £1,

    It was because of the person I was sat next to, I met her on the same course and we held hands

20. Mid-20s, 2009, Avatar.

    It was one of those midnight launches and it wasn’t even a good film.

21. 23, 28 weeks later. 28 Days Later is a great film don’t get me wrong but it’d more of a slow burn.

    28 Weeks Later within the first 5 minutes grabs you metaphorically by the throat and doesn’t let go for next 90 minutes.

    After the opening there’s about 20 minutes of downtime before everything goes to shit in the second half and then it’s a series of chases, explosions and death until the credits role. Love that film.

22. Age 24 in 1995. A special midnight showing of The Exorcist. I was 9 months pregnant. Some young guy in front of me walked out. I kind of wish I had, too.

23. The Killing Fields. A truly great film but *so* harrowing. I ended up outside after the end of the film sobbing my guts up in front of everyone, with people staring at me and my (very recently married) husband not quite knowing what to do.

    It must have been 1985 when I was 22.

24. It’s probably happened to me before but the only one sticking in my head was when I watched Beau Is Afraid only a couple of weeks ago. It’s 3 hours long and is basically one wall to wall trip of anxiety and paranoia – that’s literally the subject of the film, see the title. By 2 hours in I had a bad case of trauma fatigue.

    Great film, incredible acting, would recommend, but man did I end up feeling mentally spent by the end.

25. JFK whatever year that was (Kevin Costner).

    It was like sitting through a 3hr lecture.

26. 22 Shoah

27. I don’t think i’ve ever felt exhausted from a good film. I remember watching Snatch at my uni cinema as an 18 year old and having the opposite reaction – just coming out of it absolutely buzzing.

28. I remember I can put of the first Hunger Games feeling motion sickness. I think there’s a lot of shakey cam in that film.

    I remember there were a couple of points in the latest Bond and Avatar films where I thought ‘surely it has to end soon’ but they kept going

29. Blair witch project – came out feeling disoriented and sick from all the motion.

30. Everything Everywhere All At Once

31. Probably 1917 or whiplash because they were amazing but really tense/stressful

32. Good exhausted: lord of the rings.
    Bad exhausted: rugrats the movie.

33. Jaws.

    Aged 12. When it was first released in the cinemas.

34. I can’t remember if it was last year of the year before but Moonfall. The film was so ridiculous that my brain struggled to process each scene as it got more and more insane.