American Psycho — IQ Score 158/200

Mary Harron's 2000 adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's novel that committed to the satire-of-1980s-Wall-Street-masculinity premise harder than the property's reputation suggested possible. Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman is one of the most carefully-rendered American-cinema villains because the performance treats narcissism as cognitive material — the Huey Lewis monologue and the business-card sequence are sustained inquiry into how status anxiety becomes the substance of identity.

Harron's direction reframes the novel's most controversial elements as critique rather than as celebration.