When it comes to lazy film clichés, Nazis are one step above slow-motion gunfights and barely underneath “the hero must get the girl and save the day.” It’s fitting that Nazis manage to encompass everything  from being the symbol for the Big, Bad Guy to perversion, occult beliefs and Holocaust Porn. Pop a swastika on someone and it becomes abundantly clear he’s the bad guy, whether it’s Samuel L. Jackson ripping through shoddy green screen in The Spirit or the lit-deviant prison guard Kate Winslet tackles in The Reader.

But sometimes, there are types of films that need to go “Full Nazi.” These select few films embrace the red, black and white because they’d have no other claim to fame otherwise. The eight films below have merit on their own, but it is through their use of the Nazi symbols that they remain on the cultural brain.

Apt Pupil

The effective start of Bryan Singer’s ode to the Reich involves Arthur Denker (Ian McKellen), a Nazi war criminal masquerading next door to Todd Bowen (Brad Renfro), who discovers his neighbor’s previous life. Being an obsessive sociopath in progress, young Todd demands Arthur (neé Kurt Dussander) regale him with tales of World War II and Nazism in general. He goes so far as taking a uniform from the attic and demands Arthur march for him. Pupil embodies the sadomasochistic nature that the fetish community places on the Nazis along with the concept that only scary, evil people ever want to learn about history. The duo develop a creepy grandparent/child vibe, as Arthur threatens to rat out Todd if his grades don’t improve, and both become encouraged to torture small animals and get some small pleasure out of it.

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