Film

The Suicide Shop

Name: The Suicide Shop
Genre: Comedy, Animation, Music
Released: 2012
Cast: Bernard Alane, Isabelle Spade, Kacey Mottet Klein, Isabelle Giami, Laurent Gendron

Dark comedy
Strange

A bitterly surreal French animated comedy about a family running a suicide shop in a grey, hopeless city—until their youngest son's incurable optimism threatens the business. It's darkly funny, visually distinctive, and fundamentally about the battle between despair and joy. For viewers who prize inventive storytelling over comfort.

TMDb rating

3.2

If you liked this

Anomalisa2015

Stop-motion exploration of depression and disconnection told through a businessman's surreal hotel stay. Tender, absurdist, unafraid to sit with loneliness while finding moments of genuine warmth beneath the strangeness.

But Deliberately slow and contemplative; some find the sexual content uncomfortable, and the animation style unsettles viewers seeking traditional beauty.

Mary and Max2009

Claymation about unlikely friendship between a lonely Australian girl and an obese New York Jewish man. Funny and devastating in equal measure, mining comedy from real pain without ever turning suffering into a punchline.

But The animation is deliberately crude, not polished; emotionally heavy in ways that don't resolve neatly by the end.

Happiness1998

Todd Solondz's controversial dark comedy about suburban misery, infidelity, and desperation. Shockingly funny because it refuses to look away from what makes people awful and sad simultaneously, treating each character with complicated empathy.

But Contains graphic sexual content and disturbing subject matter; bleak in ways designed to provoke rather than comfort.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Suicide Shop

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Requiem for a Dream2000

Both use formally inventive storytelling to make internal despair visible and tangible—not hiding darkness behind whimsy but forcing you to stare at what destroys people, then asking what remains.

Darren Aronofsky's hallucinogenic descent into addiction's mechanics across four lives. Visually and sonically overwhelming, it doesn't judge its characters—it simply shows what wanting does to people, in ways both comic and nightmarish.

But Deliberately punishing; the repetitive visual structure and Clint Mansell's score are designed to make you feel trapped and degraded alongside the characters.

The Secret of Kells2009

Irish animated fantasy about a boy illuminating a magical book during dark times. Gorgeously designed with genuine darkness underneath the visual beauty, balancing wonder with real stakes and genuine peril.

But Folk-tale pacing moves slowly; the voice acting is uneven, and some find the art style too stylized to connect emotionally.

Fantastic Mr. Fox2009

Wes Anderson's stop-motion fable about a reformed thief fighting back against industrial oppression. Whimsical on the surface but genuinely about family, legacy, and the cost of survival—funny without sacrificing heart.

But Anderson's mannered style dominates everything; if his aesthetic doesn't click for you, nothing will. Doesn't feel like a real story to some viewers.

Spirited Away2001

Miyazaki's masterpiece about a girl navigating a bathhouse of spirits. Gorgeous, imaginative, and grounded in real emotion—it builds a complete world where wonder and danger coexist, where fear and growth are inseparable.

But Long film with a plot that requires attention; some find pacing slow by modern standards, and its fantastical logic can feel arbitrary without patience.

Waltz with Bashir2008

Israeli animated documentary following a director investigating his buried memories of military service. Formally inventive and devastating, using animation to access emotional truths that live action couldn't quite reach.

But Heavy subject matter about real atrocity; incomplete memories create narrative ambiguity that frustrates viewers seeking clarity or resolution.

Belladonna of Sadness1973

Avant-garde animated film about a peasant girl destroyed by cruelty. Visually striking and genuinely transgressive, using psychedelic animation to visualize trauma and madness—nothing quite looks or feels like it.

But Experimental animation from 1973 with sparse dialogue; sexually violent and designed to be unsettling rather than entertaining.

Persepolis2007

Marjane Satrapi's animated memoir about growing up during the Iranian Revolution. Funny and political without preaching, balancing teenage identity struggles against historical catastrophe with surprising lightness and warmth.

But Political content strong enough to feel didactic to some; hand-drawn simplicity appeals more to some viewers than others.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion1997

Both attack the audience's comfort directly, using visual style and formal disruption to make despair and hopelessness feel immediate and embodied rather than abstract.

Hideaki Anno's avant-garde coda to Neon Genesis Evangelion, abandoning plot for psychological collage. Animated catastrophe that feels more like a scream than a story—formally radical, emotionally raw, haunted by its own making.

But Hostile to conventional narrative; deliberately difficult and sometimes incomprehensible; features graphic sexual violence presented without irony or explanation.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion poster

Come and See1985

Both insist that comedy and horror live in the same space, that the capacity to laugh and the capacity to despair coexist in ways that make both more terrible—and more human.

Elem Klimov's live-action masterpiece about a boy's initiation into war's machinery. Shot in saturated, visceral realism, it documents not combat but dehumanization—the systematic breaking of innocence and faith in beauty.

But Relentlessly graphic and nihilistic; Soviet war trauma cinema designed to traumatize the viewer as moral statement, not to entertain.