Easily my favorite film on the list, and one of my favorite films of the genre, In Their Sleep is a movie that deserves way more attention than it’s gotten. This is one of those movies that is SO GOOD that I would not be surprised it if got some Oldboy like cult status over the next decade. Hell, I could even see a (shitty) American remake that would miss the whole point of this film being put into production sometime soon. Now, a good deal of people don’t like this film for just how nihilist it is. But that, my friends, is exactly why I love it.
In Their Sleep follows a woman named Sarah who, from the get-go, we see life has not been kind to. A recent move to the country acts as a precursor to the tragic death of her teenage son, and ends up costing her a marriage. We see Sarah, later on, and follow her one night as she goes to work. She ends up seeing a young boy who seems to be in danger. We, as the audience, note how similar in age and stature the young boy was to her son, and we can see her making the same connections. She ends up stopping to help him as she sees him being pursued by an aggressive man who seems content on killing him.
What follows is one of the greatest cat-and-mouse games ever put on film. I will not tell you more than that so as to not ruin anything that makes this film spectacular, but trust me. It is on Netflix right now, so why you are not watching it at this exact second is beyond me.