Why do we seek out pain, and how does the pursuit differ in men and women? Filmmakers around the globe have mined for the answers. Here are eight double features with male protagonists who just can’t get enough pain, punishment, and self-destruction.

Chukwudi Iwuji on creative process, childhood dreams, and his role in Guardians of the Galaxy 3…

Reading Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra…

Sigmund Freud and William Shakespeare go together like peanut…

In artmaking, according to Ernst Kris, the ego simultaneously…

Freud has always fascinated artists. The production of dramas about…

In a pivotal scene very near the end of Florian Zeller’s 2020 film The Father, the titular character Anthony (played by Sir Anthony Hopkins) says to a caregiver in a heartbreaking moment of memory struggle, “I feel as if I’m losing all my leaves ... the branches and the wind and the rain ... I don’t know what’s happening anymore.”