Movies are for the most part modern entertainment without any long-term, meaningful value. They brainwash and control us subtly by integrating commercials, ads and political messages with shallow plots that, thanks to their moral simplicity, anyone can understand and relate to. But not all movies are junk. Here's a list of 10 movies that all criticize modern society, uphold traditional values and carry some artistic merits.


A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Alex de Large is a violent outcast from society, raping and killing with his criminal friends for the sake of experiencing violence. One day the government starts up a project to counter the growing criminality, by trying to alter the individual's perception of violence and impose an association with self-suffering. But the plans to reform human nature don't work out quite as expected...

A brilliantly conceived satire, this early critique of attempts to regulate our natural behaviour by turning us into pacifist robots, exploits our fear of brutality and death to point out that while growing violence in our society is a scary trend, there is no way we can or should remove violence altogether. Humorously depicted is a corrupt, pretentious system, unable to cope with the effects of the problems it has created itself.

Apocalypse Now (Redux) (1979)

Francis Ford Coppola's masterwork is a movie loosely based upon Joseph Conrad's novel The Heart of Darkness. The story takes place during the Vietnam War where Captain Benjamin L. Willard is called in on a secret mission to eliminate renegade Colonel Walter E. Kurtz. Stories claim that Kurtz has set up his own army within the jungle and become a god for the natives. What has happened to Kurtz and why does the US military want him dead?

Apocalypse Now is a poetic, allegoric journey into the heart of the Western civilization, struggling to understand its downfall and desperately calling for armageddon to sweep its spreading corruption away. It gives a deeper understanding of the worldwide effects of materialism and how this relates to modern day colonialism. Nihilistic but also full of human idealism, this movie encapsulates a hell on earth and the choice of worshipping this as an experience.

Blade Runner (1982)

Set in Los Angeles 2019, policeman Rick Deckard stalks the technological jungle of the 21st century in the search for humanoids known as 'replicants.' His investigations lead him closer to the truth behind the company that produces the half-man/half-robots and their ultimate purpose, but also force him to reconsider what is "human" and "artificial."

A given sci-fi classic, this movie from '82 has still a load of points to make about both our current and future society in the West. The story reflects an America bought up by global corporations that have turned the country into a mechanical melting pot of consumers without cultural or existential identity. Blade Runner ultimately challenges our view of what it means to be a human being and contextualizes this insight in a political-historical context of thought.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Before copycats like The Blair Witch Project started to make big bucks on experimenting with documentary-style shootings, Ruggero Deodato shocked the world with his controversial Cannibal Holocaust. The story is about a missing documentary film crew who disappears in the wild jungles of South America to explore the culture of cannibal tribes. A New York anthropologist finds undeveloped material from their shootings in the area and travels back to the city, viewing the film in detail. What he finds is shocking and unbelievable...

Ruggero Deodato was long ahead of his time, both concerning cinematography and the criticism of the modern Western civilization and its ignorant understanding of traditional foreign culture. Not for the faint of heart, this movie portrays an inversion of what is commonly perceived as "civilized" and "primitive," asking us the question: who is really the barbarian in our time?

Conan The Barbarian (1982)

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Conan, a young boy seeing his family and entire tribe being mercilessly killed by a conquering religious cult. Conan survives as a slave but manages to break free and sets out to take revenge upon the people who killed his tribe. Together with friends he finds on his way, motivated by the belief in the power of the steel, Conan turns into a spiritual and physical war machine to fulfil his destiny.

Disregarding the undeniable cheese factor of this movie, Conan The Barbarian is a classic sword & sorcery experience that defends the traditional European Pagan values against the false spiritual cult of Christianity. The Nietzschean will to power is contrasted against a dogmatic belief in an external world that supposedly controls our reality, leading to war and destruction. Heroic, powerful.

High Plains Drifter (1973)

Clint Eastwood, "the man of all men," appears in this Wild Western movie as a stranger from the hills, riding into the quiet town of Lago to get something to drink. Hassled by some local citizens, his stay becomes delayed by rapes and shootings. In the mean time the town is preparing for the return of three bandits, desperately wondering how to defend itself. Who is the stranger and can he be of help?

Like many other movies in this genre, High Plains Drifter is a traditional defense of the local organic community and its foundational basis of cultural consensus. Clever and well executed, Mr. Eastwood has here directed a masterpiece in Western cinema that still today will remain the best of examples on why our modern society has become a violent, unsafe and ruthless place to live.

Repo Man (1984)

An underground cult from the early eighties, Repo Man is the chaotic story of young Otto Maddox. After finding out that his parents have donated his college fund to a TV priest and his girlfriend has dumped him, Otto decides to leave his old life behind and become a repo man. Caught in a world of UFO conspiracies and dangerous missions, a lifestyle of intense experiences become the motivation to stay alive in a society of governmental corruption, youth criminality and lack of hope for the future.

There are a number of reasons to why this movie is important. It correctly reflected the disintegration of America at the time and esoterically tried to inspire the punk generation who didn't know where to go or what to believe in. Director Alex Cox is still able to communicate the answer to today's teenagers through this futuristic fantasy: we must live for the experience itself -- life is only as meaningful as we make it.

Taxi Driver (1976)

Travis Bickle is a Vietnam War veteran, working as night time taxi driver in a city he's come to loath and hate. Filth, degeneracy, violence and corruption fill the streets. Travis becomes increasingly fatalistic about the situation as he comes in contact with a teenage prostitute, trying to help her live a better life, while the politicians in power rather sweep the problems under the carpet and continue their corrupt businesses. For Travis, who's already mentally unstable, it all becomes enough and he sets out to wage war on modern society and its handlers.

There's a reason to why many people appreciate this movie and it's possibly because we identify with Travis. Seeing society dissolve from within, we desperately cling on to whatever sign of life that can be saved. Although overtly bleak and despairing, Taxi Driver is an uncomfortable but beautiful journey without any happy ending. It leaves us with a void that in effect reflects our meaningless, hollow existence.

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Crusader Antonius Block and his squire Jöns return home to find their country struck by the Black Plague. Antonius meets Death and is told that his time is up but he challenges Death on a game of chess to postpone life and seek answers to the purpose behind God and existence. As people are dying in masses and praying for salvation, Antonius and his friends struggle to understand the suffering of mankind. Can religion save us from death?

Ingmar Bergman's answer is a cold but realistic No. When we try to escape death, we ironically begin to worship it. God becomes the pale realization that all life must end. Christianity is here exposed as a mass religion of hypocrisy and moral fear of suffering, leading to a belief in an afterlife that will "save" us from reality. The Seventh Seal is one of the brilliant masterpieces in modern cinema, hauntingly captivating to this day.

The Wicker Man (1973)

Sergeant Howie investigates the disappearance of a missing girl on a remote Scottish island. Although the locals claim she's never lived there, strange Pagan rituals echo a society that's disconnected from the modern world and adopted a mystical, self-sacrificial worldview. The more the police sergeant is looking into the mystery, the more he understands that a murder has been committed on the island.

The Wicker Man is another cult classic that's been fairly popular, despite the different versions that have been released throughout the years. Both a theological debate around the moral impotence of Christianity and a uniquely executed musical, this movie is a charming, erotic and mesmerizing experience that explores the worship of our natural world as a counter revolution to the modern civilization and its moral belief in the absolute value of the individual.