Good scenes that are wince-inducing

Can a scene produce a negative reaction yet still be great?

Well, it depends.

If they want to get that kind of reaction out of you, or there at least is a point to it then it can certainly be effecctive.

I find this scene so uncomfortable and slightly cringy to sit through due to the voice Scarlett puts on, but it's unmistakably very important to the story and I couldn't imagine the movie without it.

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This is a wonderful thread. I feel this kind of thing quite often.

There are two sequences in Thunder Road that meet this criteria for me. The first is the dancing at the funeral, and the second is the scene where the character has a major meltdown in front of all of his co-workers. In both scenes, you're watching someone who has started something and just can't stop themselves.

Leguizamo's character in Son Of Sam was a repulsive and cowardly slimebag. It's so satisfying watching Mira Sorvino telling him off!

(Adult Content Warning)

Interesting thread. Can you tells us why this made you uncomfortable. I just watched it and I just thought it was amusing.

It makes me uncomfortable for several reasons.

1. The voice Scarlett Johanssen uses is very offputting and really makes her seem like a totally different person. She completely transforms into that distant drunk the dad was.
2. It seems so weird and meanspirited at first for Rosie to do a crude caricature of Jojo's father as if to show him that this piece of shit is nobody he should be missing. Once you understand she's just trying to give him some emotional resolution however her motivations finally become clear, and you realize this wasn't simply out of pure pettiness.
3. I honestly hate Scarlett's silly dance, haha. That is definitely a personal thing though.

OK I see, thanks for explaining.

I wish I could think of a movie scene that I find wince inducting. There have been some of course but mostly not movies that most MoFos are real familiar with.

Same here. I loved it.

I mean, I never said it was a bad scene. The whole point of this thread is showing scenes that still work well despite provoking a negative reaction, or maybe even because of it.

That makes perfect sense, wasn’t meant as a criticism — like I said, I think this is a really interesting thread. I get weirded out by so many ultimately good scenes these days that I can’t even pick an example for now.

Well, this is a horrible copy but the scene is among my favorites

Convincing injuries usually make me curl up and jerk. Comic book gore doesnt make me flinch.

The answering machine scene in Swingers.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Hard to know whether these are just shock value scenes or wince inducung. Very subjective:

If you mean wince inducing in terms of pure violence / pain:

The scalpel scene in I Saw the Devil
The torture scene in Audition
The death scene in Bone Tomahawk
Pretty much all of The War Zone
Pretty much all of the film 'Angst'
The end of 'Fat Girl' (2001)

If you mean toe curlingly uncomfortable:

-The finale of 'A Short film about Killing'
-The finale to 'Oldboy'
-The last 30 minutes of the Croation film 'Safe Place' (2022)
-The film 'Submarino' (2010)
-the finale to the Georgian film 'Beginning' (2020)
-The man on the table scene in Ruben Ostluund's 'The Square'
-The ending to 'Pixote' (1980)
- I find William H Macy's performance in Fargo wince inducing due to his desperation. When he's on the phone saying "OK, real good now, sure, bye bye". Yikes, that's a desperate man. Amazing performance.
-The last 20 minutes of the Belgian film 'Girl' (2018)
-The Golden Glove (2019). Pure grime.

Probably loads more like Lanthimos, Noe and Haneke films too.

Couldn't agree with you more regarding William H Macy in Fargo...Jerry Lundergaard is one of cinema's slimiest characters and Willaim H Macy completely invests in the character. It's such an awesome performance that would have won him an Oscar in another year.

This is more vomit-inducing. In 1986, someone in Hollywood learned how to make convincing compound fractures. It felt like, every time I went to the movies, some character had a compound fracture that was filmed in all its nauseating glory. There was one in The Fly, when Seth Brundle gets his super strength and breaks a guys arm while he is arm wrestling him. A terrible part of a highly entertaining movie. But not that surprising since it is sci-fi/horror. The other one I remember very explicitly was a broken leg in The Witches of Eastwick. What, pray tell, is a compound fracture doing in a rom com? There may have been others but those really stuck with me. Does anyone else remember this disgusting trend but me?

LOL, yes.

And then about 10 or 15 years later, someone figured out how to make it look like someone was realistically being hit by a car/bus. Do we all remember when all of a sudden every movie had someone being hit by a bus?

"Freeway"

This scene rocked me upon first viewing, knowing what 'Ole Bob was going through. NSFW



The scene gets better, but can't find a longer stint.

OMG yes! Mean Girls. That was a real jump scare when Regina George got run over.