For those thriller and horror movies where a ferocious revenge is a consequence of a rape, there's a dedicate section: Rape & Revenge. The films in this section are mostly characterised by dramatic themes: Sexual harassment is coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. It can include psychological persecution (see also Stalking). The Virgin Spring by Bergman and Rashomon by Kurosawa are two movies, albeit very different, which best describe the horror and trauma caused by sexual violation. The Color Purple, Au Hasard Balthazar and the amazing performance of Jodie Foster in The Accused deserve a special mention.

Overview

Bearing in mind the tragedy and the delicacy of the issue, it is not easy to “frame” univocally the way in which cinema has considered it: once the distinction, pointed out at the beginning of the text, is made between Rape and Revenge films, which tends to deal with sexual violence in a specious way (but even in this distinction emerge “grey zones”, as we will try to clarify) there are, however, many approaches: sometimes rape is perpetrated in a wider situation of violence, which can be domestic (Take My Eyes) or linked to particular contexts such as war (The Whistleblower, Redacted) or imprisonment (Incendies). In other cases they are isolated extemporaneous incidents that have a limited space in films (or do not even exist, according to the staging) but this irreparably marks the rest of the narration. In these films, the story often stems from the sorrow and the anger of the victim; and the quest for justice and revenge is one of the most frequent consequences. Thus there are several films that maintain the classic vengeful structure of revenge movies in a dramatic setting, as is the case of The Virgin Spring, the already mentioned Bergman’s masterpiece, of the excellent Argentinian thriller The Secret in Their Eyes (also a US remake) or of the recent Elle.

Most effective films that contain rape in them

The most significant films are banally the ones that penetrate the very heart of the phenomenon, and the number of works is surprisingly small. The possible implications of this issue are diverse and they regard the short-term and long-term physical and psychological conditions of the victim, the perception of the woman in society, the legal sides and the procedural aspects, the media representation of the events and more. The only film that has prudently tried to summarize all these elements is The Accused, a powerful drama that granted a well-deserved Oscar to the extraordinary Jodie Foster. A couple of more interesting titles, that focus very well on this topic, are the French Rape of Love and Italian The Wedding Dress, with Maya Sansa.

The last years until 2019: “When They See Us Now”, “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “On Her Shoulders”

There is, among the recent films about sexual violence, a handful of thrillers about stalking and some other titles that must also be considered. One of them is Welcome to New York, a curious and difficult attempt to bring on the screen the rumoured wrongdoings (the charges have then been dismissed) of the French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn. In 2016, Elle came to the theaters, with Isabelle Huppert, in the guise of a woman who reacts to abuse in a less than passive way. The Oscar-winning best foreign film, The Salesman, also focused on the story of an Iranian couple whose relationship went through a difficult period after the wife was attacked by a stranger at home. Unsane, directed by Steven Soderbergh, is a creepy thriller about stalking.