Best Movies About Obsession: 10 Films About Not Letting Go
Obsession is the best engine a film can have, because it removes the need for a plot to push anybody. The character walks into their own ruin and keeps walking while you watch. Vertigo is the origin point and still the most disturbing. Zodiac is the modern benchmark and the most accurate about what obsession does to a working life. The Red Shoes is the most beautiful. Between those three you have the whole idea, and the rest of this list is variations on the theme of not being able to put something down.
Vertigo (1958)
Hitchcock's coldest and greatest film. James Stewart, until then the most trustworthy man in American cinema, remakes a woman into a dead one.
It was disliked on release and is now routinely called the best film ever made. Both reactions make sense once you have seen it.
Zodiac (2007)
Three men lose their jobs, marriages and health chasing a killer they never catch. Fincher makes filing cabinets frightening.
The most honest film about the cost of a fixation, because it shows the boredom as well as the fever.
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Daniel Plainview wants oil, then he wants to win, and by the end he cannot tell the difference. Paul Thomas Anderson lets it curdle for two and a half hours.
The Red Shoes (1948)
Powell and Pressburger on what art demands. The ballet sequence in the middle is one of the most astonishing things ever filmed, and the film is unambiguous that the price is everything.
Phantom Thread (2017)
A dressmaker's obsession with control meets someone who works out how to break it. Funnier than its reputation and stranger than its costumes suggest.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Herzog puts Klaus Kinski on a raft in the Amazon and lets both of them go mad. The final shot with the monkeys is unimprovable.
Whiplash (2014)
A drummer and a teacher who might be a monster or might be right. The film refuses to settle it, which is why people are still arguing about the ending.
The Conversation (1974)
Hackman's surveillance man cannot stop replaying one tape. Obsession as a professional deformation, and the quietest film here.
Burden of Dreams (1982)
The documentary about Herzog making Fitzcarraldo, dragging a real steamship over a real mountain. The deep cut, and arguably the better film about obsession than the one it documents.
Taxi Driver (1976)
Scorsese and Schrader on loneliness curdling into mission. It has been misread for fifty years by people who wanted Travis to be right, which is part of what makes it durable.
- Obsession removes the need for plot. The character ruins themselves and you cannot look away.
- Start with Vertigo for the origin and Zodiac for the modern benchmark.
- For deep cuts, watch The Red Shoes and Burden of Dreams.
- Whiplash is the one most likely to start an argument, which makes it a good choice to watch with someone.
The whole idea
Watch one movie this week. Talk about it Friday.
We pick one film. You watch it alone, on your own time. Friday at 7:30pm PT you get ten minutes on Zoom with one other person who watched it too. No club, no homework, no small talk.
See this week's pick $5Common questions
- What is the best movie about obsession?
- Vertigo (1958) is the deepest and the most unsettling. Zodiac (2007) is the most accurate about what a long obsession actually does to a person's life.
- What should I watch after Zodiac?
- The Conversation (1974) for the quiet professional version, Burden of Dreams (1982) for the real life one, and There Will Be Blood (2007) for the same energy pointed at money.
- Is Whiplash about obsession or abuse?
- The film deliberately refuses to say, which is why it works as a conversation piece. Watching it with someone and disagreeing about the last ten minutes is the intended experience.