Some films will drain your tear-ducts; others will leave your body convulsed with laughter. But the rarest – perhaps even the highest – physical response to a work of cinema is vomit.

In 1979, Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini put forward the idea of Stendhal Syndrome, the theory that feelings of physical weakness, dizziness or nausea could be brought on by exposure to great art. For her research, Magherini made notes on more than a hundred tourists who had been left woozy by the sheer magnificence of Florence.

Also in 1979, another Italian – director Lucio Fulci – released his cult B-movie Zombie Flesh Eaters. Perhaps, if we feel queasy when Fulci’s zombies begin chomping on a corpse, we are experiencing a similar kind of aesthetic rapture.

Perhaps, but probably not. According to neurologist Peter Tai, one response to frightening stimuli is “vasovagal syncope”, in which the heart rate slows and blood pressure drops. It effects the parasympathetic nervous system, which “also has some controls on the stomach," Tai told Canada’s Globe and Mail. In other words, this would explain the nausea as a side-effect of your body’s desperate attempts to slow down your heartbeat.

Whatever the reason – awe, fear or disgust – these are 12 films that have left audiences running for the washrooms: