Film

Heart of Darkness

Name: Heart of Darkness
Genre: Adventure, Animation, Thriller
Cast: Michael Sheen, Andrew Scott, Matthew Rhys, James Norton, Merv Lukeba

An animated adaptation of Conrad's colonial horror novel, following a riverboat captain's journey upriver to find a godlike trader who has disappeared into the jungle. This is fever-dream storytelling—fever-dream pacing, fever-dream logic—where the real horror isn't monsters but the corrupting machinery of empire itself. For anyone who wants literature that unsettles you, not reassures you.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want Conrad's creeping moral horror translated into animation, and you're happy to sit with a mood rather than a plot.

Skip it if you expect a brisk adventure, since this is a slow, heavy, deliberately oppressive crawl up a river that rewards patience over momentum.

What it asks of you: Eighty-five minutes, one unhurried voyage: it moves at the pace of a cramped steamboat and holds its gaze on dread for long stretches, so settle in fully.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Apocalypse Now1979

Coppola's Vietnam War masterpiece transplants Conrad's story wholesale, keeping its obsession with power and madness intact. A film that feels like a descent into actual chaos. Essential cinema.

But Three and a half hours, operatic in scale, occasionally self-impressed. The pacing can feel glacial if you're after clarity or conventional narrative momentum.

The Serpent2021

A miniseries about a real con man who preyed on Western tourists across Southeast Asia. It has the same architecture as Heart of Darkness—a charismatic figure in the tropics, moral corruption, unreliable perspectives—but it's grounded and feverish at once.

But Slower than you might expect from a true-crime story. Requires patience with a protagonist who is fundamentally unlikeable and manipulative.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God1972

Herzog's hallucinogenic film about a Spanish conquistador hunting El Dorado down the Amazon. Surreal, obsessive, genuinely unhinged. It understands the same derangement that colonial hunger produces.

But Shot on shoestring with non-professional actors. Visually striking but deliberately rough. Not a comfortable watch, and the narrative is deliberately murky.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Heart of Darkness

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Waltz with Bashir2008

Both use their medium to access psychological dissolution. Conrad's narrator descends into the Congo; Bashir's filmmaker descends into his own fractured memory. Each uses disorientation as the form that matches the content.

An animated documentary where an Israeli filmmaker investigates his own suppressed memories of the Lebanon War. Animation lets it move between reality and trauma-warped memory without ever clarifying which is which. It's about how institutional violence colonises the mind.

But Not a comfortable confrontation with complicity. The Israeli-Palestinian context means every frame carries unbearable weight. Animation paradoxically makes the atrocities harder, not easier, to watch.

The Hundred-Foot Journey2014

Wait—hear me out. An immigrant chef opens a restaurant across from a Michelin-starred establishment. It's also about infiltration, cultural difference, and two men locked in a battle of wills over territory and meaning.

But It's a feel-good comedy where Heart of Darkness is a fever dream. This recommendation is a test of whether you want the same *shape* or the same *substance*.

Belly of the Beast2003

An American soldier imprisoned in Thailand becomes increasingly disoriented as he tries to escape. Hallucinogenic, genuinely disturbing, it captures that claustrophobic unravelling of the self in hostile terrain.

But Genuinely distressing and bleak. Difficult to find. Has the quality of something you stumbled on in the dark rather than something made for comfort.

Blood Diamond2006

DiCaprio's mercenary navigating Sierra Leone's civil war, dragging a captured fisherman deeper into the chaos. It's about extraction—of diamonds, of resources, of humanity—and how the search corrupts everyone it touches.

But Earnest about its themes in a way that can feel didactic. More conventional than Heart of Darkness, and the action-thriller framing softens the existential dread.

White Hunter, Black Heart1990

Clint Eastwood directs and stars as a thinly-veiled Orson Welles obsessed with hunting an elephant while making a film in Africa. It's about ego, obsession, and how creative genius can curdle into monstrosity.

But Slow and digressive. It's about a difficult, unlikeable man, and it doesn't try to make him sympathetic. Some will find it precious rather than profound.

A History of Violence2005

A man's hidden past catches up with him, revealing that beneath the small-town diner owner is someone capable of shocking brutality. Cronenberg's film argues that civilisation is always one phone call away from collapse.

But Violence is sudden and graphic. The third act pivots away from psychological complexity into genre beats that feel like a step down.

Stalker1979

Tarkovsky's sci-fi meditation on desire and meaning. A guide leads two men into a forbidden zone toward a room that grants wishes. Glacial, hypnotic, about the impossibility of ever truly wanting anything.

But 163 minutes. Shot in long, static takes. Some will experience this as profound and others as an endurance test. Requires genuine surrender from the viewer.

Le Samouraï1967

Both Heart of Darkness and Le Samouraï examine men who have stepped outside the rules of civilisation and become something other than human. One descends physically; one ascends into pure abstraction. Both ask: what's left when you strip away everything that makes you human?

A hitman in Paris moves through the city like a ghost, operating according to his own code while a surveillance network closes in. Melville's film is pure style—cool, minimal, implacable—about a man who has become an instrument rather than a person.

But Almost entirely plot-free. Glacially paced. If you're looking for narrative or dialogue, this will feel like watching someone else's dream about a dream.