In The Cut 18

Jane Campion honed her Top of the Lake thriller sensibility with In the Cut. A tale of murder, misogyny and sexuality that was misunderstood on release and now ripe for rediscovery.

Frannie (Meg Ryan) is a writer and professor in New York who is disturbed and aroused in equal measure when she voyeuristically oversees a couple in a club basement. When the woman of the pair is found gruesomely murdered, she becomes entangled with the homicide detective (Mark Ruffalo). This liaison becomes all the more dangerous as she begins to uncover more details about the murderer, and the detective's implication as the murders continue. 

Meg Ryan shrugs off her rom-com association with ease, playing a conflicted but powerful figure with assurance. Paired with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kevin Bacon (as her obsessive and loathsome ex-boyfriend), this ensemble cast brings a seedy and fallen underbelly of New York to life. As erotically charged as it is disturbing, this feminist murder mystery holds a tight grip to the final frame.