The American actor and producer, Jake Gyllenhaal, has been making movies since he was 11 years old. While his father is a director and his mother is a screenwriter, Jake and his sister, Maggie, are actors. For more than 30 years, Gyllenhaal has been making some movies that are very memorable thanks to many things including his great acting. Yet after watching his movies, the audience is left feeling uneasy rather than impressed by the acting.
Some of Gyllenhaal's movies, more often than not, leave you shuddering. If it's not because of the violence, it's because of the mental strain that the movies put the audience through. With mental illnesses, hallucinations, hardships, and obsession, the Academy Award nominee's movies are quite disturbing and mind-bending.
Spoilers Ahead
6 Jake Gyllenhaal Took Us On A Crazy Ride In Velvet Buzzsaw
In this movie, Gyllenhaal played the role of an art critic who is eccentric and arrogant. The movie is a bloody thriller. While it's not the typical scary movie with a ghost and jump scares, the movie is basically about the 'haunted' artwork of a deceased artist. That artist asked that all his artwork be destroyed after his passing, but an art curator decided to sell it instead.
The movie then became very dark and bodies started dropping in unusual ways. In the end, Gyllenhaal's character, Morf Vandewalt, got offed by a piece of art that he criticized: a robot. The story and narcissistic and unstable characters made the movie unsettling.
5 Jake Gyllenhaal Told A Disturbing Story In Nocturnal Animals
In this one, Gyllenhaal played two characters. The movie discusses cheating, divorce, loss, rejection, helplessness, and sexual assault. This kind of mix can be triggering and alarming to some people. Matter of fact, anyone who watches this will be left shaken. The film tells the story of a woman reading a novel written by her ex-husband.
Her ex-husband told her that he wrote the novel inspired by her. She read the novel to discover that it's about a man seeking revenge for his sexually assaulted and murdered wife and daughter. The ending of the movie is poignant and it leaves the audience feeling just as the main character did while reading the novel: restless.
4 Jake Gyllenhaal Was Mentally Unstable In Enemy
This is another movie where Gyllenhall played two characters. In the beginning, it seems like a mind-bending movie, but then it becomes quickly a psychological thriller, confusing, depressing, and full-on crazy. Filled with stalking, hallucinations, walking spiders, and doppelgängers, the film is about mental illnesses, infidelity, and fear of commitment.
Enemy is directed by Denis Villeneuve, the director of Arrival, yet Enemy feels like a walk in the park in comparison. Just like Velvet Buzzsaw and Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals, the film ends in death. The intriguing story just crawls under the skin and leaves the audience dissatisfied.
3 Jake Gyllenhaal Was An Emotionally Troubled Teenager In Donnie Darko
In this rollercoaster, Jake acted alongside his sister, Maggie. Set in 1988, a teenager called Donnie survived an accident and cheated death, thanks to sleepwalking. He got a message from someone dressed as a rabbit that the world would end in 28 days. The movie got creepier and creepier as the rabbit led Donnie down a dark path, and had him set places on fire and flood schools.
The movie is downright confusing for the audience. While the movie isn't really a horror film, it is baffling, as at some point the main character developed supernatural powers and time traveled. However, it is probably no surprise that this movie too ended in death. The whole film is a puzzle to put together, and the end was anticlimactic.
2 Jake Gyllenhaal Was A Sociopath In Nightcrawler
This movie sends chills down the spine. It's the worst kind of scary: when the audience fears a seemingly normal person. Just like Velvet Buzzsaw, this movie is directed by Dan Gilroy. In the movie, the freelance videographer, Lou, wanted to take footage that is newsworthy and succeed in media at any cost.
The sociopath took extreme measures to pursue his career. Seemingly incapable and weak, he blackmailed, terrorized people, and even set up his own gory crime just to videotape it and sell it, at the cost of the life of a friend. In Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal gave his best performance and left the audience unsure how to feel.
1 Jake Gyllenhaal Got Obsessed With A Serial Killer In Zodiac
This movie is one of the best serial killer movies of all time, and it is based on a true story; It's the documentation of the 1969 murder case of the Zodiac Killer. Gyllenhaal played Robert Graysmith, an author who got obsessed with the case and dedicated 13 years of his life to decoding the Zodiac Killer's letters. The movie is actually based on the book by Graysmith. 'Zodiac' and it is just as terrorizing as the actual Zodiac Killer.
With five victims, the killer sent four ciphered letters to the police. In the movie, the police worked hard to find the killer and investigate the murders, as Graysmith tried to decipher the letters. The movie is bloody, graphic, violent, horrific, and open-ended.
