01
The War Zone
Why this pick
Roth’s debut shares Argento’s unflinching, child-centred view of a damaged family, using a grimly intimate domestic atmosphere rather than melodrama.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE2004 1h 38m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Drama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, try these.
01
02
Nobody Knows
Why this pick
Another deeply empathetic portrait of children left to survive adult abandonment, told with patient observation and a quietly devastating emotional accumulation.
03
Mysterious Skin
Why this pick
Its fractured coming-of-age structure and compassionate attention to childhood trauma echo the raw, unstable perspective of Argento’s film.
04
Fish Tank
Why this pick
A volatile mother-daughter household, predatory adult presence, and tactile social realism make this a strong match for the original’s harsh, intimate intensity.
05
Ratcatcher
Why this pick
Ramsay pairs a child’s vulnerable inner life with poverty, neglect, and haunting visual lyricism—bleak material rendered with unusual sensory tenderness.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
Sarah (Asia Argento) becomes involved with a series of men who treat her, and her seven-year-old son, Jeremiah (Jimmy Bennett), poorly, and she uses them as an excuse to abandon her son. She disappears to Atlantic City, New Jersey with her boyfriend, Emerson (Jeremy Renner), and then abandons him; Emerson returns to their home and rapes Jeremiah. After a trip to the hospital, Jeremiah's grandmother (Ornella Muti) takes him to a West Virginian radical Christianity cult led by his grandfather (Peter Fonda). After he has been three years with the cult, Sarah returns to reclaim the 11-year-old Jeremiah (Dylan Sprouse and Cole Sprouse).
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Jimmy Bennett
Young Jeremiah
Dylan Sprouse
Older Jeremiah
Kip Pardue
Luther
Michael Pitt
Buddy
Marilyn Manson
Jackson
Ben Foster
Fleshy Boy
Asia Argento
Sarah
Winona Ryder
Psychologist