Thriller: A Cruel Picture

The Swedish film that gave Tarantino the eyepatch for Kill Bill, and it is far grimmer than that homage suggests. A mute woman, drugged and forced into prostitution, trains herself in weapons and driving and takes a cold, methodical revenge, shot partly in dreamlike slow motion. Christina Lindberg says almost nothing and communicates everything through her stare.

It contains genuine hardcore inserts and a real animal death, and it is one of the bleakest revenge films ever made, closer to art-horror than to a crowd-pleaser. The imagery is iconic; the film is punishing.

Influential, striking, and a genuine ordeal.