For a director who got his start working with Barbie dolls (in "Superstar," his harrowing short film about the life of Karen Carpenter), Mr. Haynes is fiercely devoted to his actors.

His recent work included "Taking on the Taliban", a harrowing film that resulted from two months in Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province, with the Queen's Company, Grenadier Guards.

The harrowing film, in which she played an overwhelmed single mother, put Beckinsale "in kind of a tough place".

The controversial star, who had a Number One hit with Nothing Compares 2U, made the snap decision after watching harrowing film on ITV's This Morning of starving children in Somalia.

For any harrowing film, she added, "you have to convince people it's an experience worth having."

I first heard about Tyrannosaur, the most harrowing, pungently powerful British film of 2011, six years ago.

Scenes of the lead couple's sometimes fretful and volatile relationship in this harrowing film are laced with gentle interludes of love and tranquillity.

But 19-year-old model Saffron Domini needed little persuasion to appear in a harrowing film about racism and violence.

One of Britain's most electrifying actors has written and directed the year's most harrowing film.

Though you might immediately grasp the concept of a dirty bomb, this harrowing film provides the detail.