I Spit on Your Grave

The most argued-about film in the whole category. A writer is gang-raped in the country and returns, methodically, to kill the men responsible, and the assault occupies a punishing stretch of the runtime. Roger Ebert called it a vile bag of garbage; later feminist critics, including Carol Clover, argued its refusal to make the assault watchable is what separates it from the films it gets grouped with.

Both readings come from the same footage, which is the whole difficulty. It is bleak, clinical and extremely hard to sit through, and it has no interest in being enjoyed.

Read the arguments before you decide. Then decide carefully.