Best movies like The Knife
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A boy is resentful of his mother's budding romance with the best friend of her late husband, and is torn and confused about his emerging feelings for Toni, a young girl in his neighborhood. His fascination with an antique Oriental knife leads him to steal it and he uses it to try to impress Toni while at the same time trying to break up his mother's relationhip.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 190
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: crying, freeze frame
Best tv shows and movies like The Knife (1961):
Similar in 81%
Blue Jeans (1977)
Plot Summary:
First love and the fickleness of adolescence is the theme in this charming drama. The story follows a pretty blonde French youth who is sent with his classmates to an English seaside resort for the summer to study English. It is there that he first meets and "falls in love" with a girl, but when the girl spurns him for an older teenager, his attentions and affections are soon shifted to him. A touching and sensitive tale.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 118
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Portugal
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: sex comedy, queer cinema
Similar in 84%
Nordsee ist Mordsee (1976)
Plot Summary:
14-year old Uwe lives in s suburban Hamburg housing estate. Besides trouble, the boy has not much to expect from his parents. To get his hands on some money, he prizes open vending machines, and to let out his frustration he beats up "wogs". Among them is Dschingis, his nemesis. But one day, the rivals make peace. They become friends because they realize that they have the same problems and are driven by the same dreams and hopes.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 455
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
Marcelo Zona Sul (1970)
Plot Summary:
In Rio de Janeiro, more specifically in Copacabana, the sixteen year-old rebel and reckless teenager Marcelo is a terrible student that plays hooky from school and a liar. He dreams on leaving his home and move to São Paulo to work hard, make money and travel abroad to visit the world. When Marcelo schedules to spend the afternoon in Floresta da Tijuca with Zé Miguel, Renata and her friend Carmen, they steal the jeep of Miguel's cousin and Marcelo drives to a remote area. Meanwhile, their parents call the school and find that they had lied about the exams at school triggering consequences for their acts. Marcelo is spelled from school, Renata breaks with him and he decides to hitchhike to São Paulo with Miguel.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 110
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: crying
Similar in 81%
The Home of Dark Butterflies (2008)
Plot Summary:
Haunted by his traumatic past and cautious about the prospects of an uncertain future, a fourteen year old boy named Juhani winds up in an isolated boys' home known as The Island. Juhani (Niilo Syvaoja) has been shuttled between foster homes and temporary families for the past six years, leaving any prospect of stability in his life a faded dream. When Juhani winds up in a remote shelter for troubled youth known as The Island, he has little idea of how ruthless superintendent Olavi Harjula (Tommi Korpela) can truly be.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Finland
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, crying
Similar in 86%
Eva Nova (2015)
Plot Summary:
Eva would do anything to regain the love of the one she hurt the most - her son. She is a recovered alcoholic but decades ago she was a famous actress.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 343
Genere: Drama
Country: Slovakia, Czech Republic
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, crying
Similar in 83%
Garden of Children (1981)
Plot Summary:
Two people deal with their problems.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 13
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: crying, freeze frame
Similar in 78%
Nudity (1990)
Plot Summary:
Young prisoner Jan, nicknamed Roughboy (Petr Cepek), tries to commit suicide. He was imprisoned for a fight in which he injured a functionary of the National Committee and for stealing material but actually by the blame for this crime was pinned on him by the road-builders in whose group he worked. The prison doctor knows that Jan is an emotionally deprived person who never knew his parents and spent all his childhood - except one year with foster-parents - in orphanages, homes for youth and reform schools. He arranges a five-day holiday for Jan, who wants to find his mother's grave.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 42
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: crying
Similar in 85%
Lakki... The Boy Who Could Fly (1992)
Plot Summary:
Surreal tale of a 14 year-old boy who dreams of escaping the loneliness from an unhappy home & sexual abuse (from his mother's boyfriend who is also his school swimming coach). One day his back mysteriously sprouts feathers and he can metaphorically fly away from it all.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 279
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: surreal, crying
Similar in 78%
Where the Sun Beats (1989)
Plot Summary:
Pinto’s sophomore feature patiently investigates the everyday life and psychosexual vacillations of Laura (Laura Morante), a woman caught in a web of verboten romance and incestuous desire. Pinto elliptically and delicately portrays the small farming community that serves as the backdrop for the impossible relationships pursued by Laura and her brother, Nuno. The alluring cast also features Inês de Medeiros (of Jacques Rivette’s The Gang of Four and several films by Pedro Costa) as Graça, a key player in the film’s game of libidinal cat-and-mouse. A strongly atmospheric work in which torrid intrigues emerge through allusion and insinuation, Where the Sun Beats finds Pinto exploring the self-thwarting ways of desire and the expressive potential of the unspoken. - FilmLinc.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 77
Genere: Drama
Country: Portugal
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: gay cinema
Similar in 79%
Jasper's Ghost (1992)
Plot Summary:
11-year-old Jasper may just be starting puberty, but so far he has experienced a lifetime of emotions. On the day his beloved grandfather dies, he is charged with taking care of the elder's pet cat. The local town bully, Mourids however, has his own ideas on how to take care of the frisky feline and wastes no time with showing Jasper just what he thinks of cats. Enter Far, a significantly more mature girl who Jasper is attracted to. It's love at first sight for Jasper, but will Far return the puppy love or will Jasper find out the hard way that she is actually Mourid's girlfriend?.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 243
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Maramao (1987)
Plot Summary:
A coming-of-age story in which a young boy resists the adult world and the inevitable loss of the joys of childhood.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 95
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Agostino (1962)
Plot Summary:
Agostino is a 1962 Italian drama film directed by Mauro Bolognini. It was filmed in Rome and Venice. The film is based on a successful short novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia, who had collaborated with Bolognini on his previous film, From a Roman Balcony.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 228
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psycho sexual
Similar in 86%
Places (2014)
Plot Summary:
A coming of age story about love, loss and revenge centers around two teenage friends, Adam (Vladimír Polívka) and Marek (Jan Cina), whose aimless lives in a small town are suddenly disrupted by the appearance of Anna (Johana Matousková), the troubled daughter of a rich and influential local businessman. Initially her free spirit energizes Adam but soon he finds himself thrown into a spiraling chain of events. His innocence is about to be abruptly replaced with the adult emotions of guilt, fear and revenge.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 54
Genere: Drama
Country: Czech Republic, Slovakia
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: ambiguous ending, suspense, psychological, tense, sexy, crying
Similar in 85%
The Hussy (1979)
Plot Summary:
Twenty-year old misfit François earns his living by gathering boxes and bottles to resell to local shopkeepers. He lives with his grossly insensitive mother and stepfather. Mado is a gawky 11-year old, who is neglected by her family because of the oddness of the way she expresses her affection. For reasons which never become clear, François kidnaps Mado, and takes her to live with him in the attic of his parents' home. Instead of feeling fear, Mado enters into the spirit of the abduction, and they joust with one another, increasingly finding love and comfort in their relationship. When the police come upon them, however, they put an entirely different interpretation on their behavior. This drama is based on a true story.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 673
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: controversial, crying
Similar in 87%
Nachttocht (1982)
Plot Summary:
12 year old Thomas ( Abel Claassen) and his quest for friendship and love. He takes rowing lessons and grows rather fond of his teacher...who, according to his mother, is unlike the bully trainers in the other clubs...he really knows how to work with children. Thomas idolizes his trainer – and when the boy discovers that the person he felt such a love for lied to him in order to sleep with his mother – his heart is broken. It's hard for him to understand why his trainer would prefer to be intimate with his mother than to be with him.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 93
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 63 min
Plot tags: crying
Similar in 86%
Barefoot (2017)
Plot Summary:
Story of a small boy is forced to move out of Prague during World War 2 to a small village of Slavonice where he meets the rest of his family. He needs to make new friends and get used to a new life which is immensely different from what this city boy was used to.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 882
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Denmark
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, suspense, suspenseful, light, humorous, melancholic, tragicomedy, crying
Similar in 88%
Tree of Knowledge (1981)
Plot Summary:
As a group of Danish children pass into adolescence, gradually the most popular girl becomes an outcast, for trivial reasons that she never understands.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: cult classic, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sexual, crying, sexy
Similar in 87%
Harmony Lessons (2013)
Plot Summary:
During a medical examination, 13-year-old Aslan is humiliated in front of a load of his fellow pupils. The incident unleashes his latent personality disorder. Plagued by self-doubt, he strives for cleanliness and perfection and is obsessed with trying to control everything around him. His compulsion draws Aslan, who lives with his grandmother in a village in Kazakhstan, into increasingly difficult situations. He abhors the way most of his fellow pupils are held in the sway of a criminal scheme, in which Bolat, one of Aslan’s tormentors, is also involved. Bolat blackmails the younger children into paying him protection money; he has nothing but contempt for ostracised Aslan.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 994
Genere: Drama
Country: Kazakhstan, Germany, France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, serious, disturbing, gloomy
Similar in 88%
Times and Winds (2006)
Plot Summary:
In a small, poor village leaning over high rocky mountains, the villagers are simple and diligent people who struggle to cope with a harsh nature. They earn their living off the earth and a few animals they feed. Fathers always prefer one of their sons. Mothers command their daughters ruthlessly. Ömer, the son of the imam, wishes hopelessly for the death of his father. When he understands that wishful thinking does not have any concrete results, he begins to search for childish ways to kill his father. Yakup is in love with his teacher, and one day after seeing his father spying on the teacher he dreams too, like Ömer, of killing his father. Yıldız studies and tries to manage the household chores imposed by her mother. She learns with irritation about the secrets of the relationship between men and women.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, rough, serious, art house, bleak, realistic, neorealism, crying
Similar in 76%
Moritz, Dear Moritz (1978)
Plot Summary:
15-year-old Moritz lives in a posh area of Hamburg, but his parents did not care about it. The teenager suffers from ridicule of his classmates and finds refuge in his dreams and playing the saxophone. Only when he joins a band and began performing there Moritz pulled out of the vicious circle, and finds love with new friends.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 188
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
The Simple-Minded Murderer (1982)
Plot Summary:
The feeble-minded Sven's mother dies and he gets work as a farm-hand at the rich, affluent Höglund's farm. He has to work without pay and sleeps together with the cows. He meets the disabled Anna who is the first one to treat him as an adult. One day he has had enough of Höglund's maltreatment and moves in with Anna's family. Plot by Mattias Thuresson.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: non-linear, period piece, touching, offbeat, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Open Future (1983)
Plot Summary:
A 16 year old boy growing up in the 60's, experimenting with life, sex, drugs and alcohol.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 125
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: freeze frame
Similar in 86%
Nene (1977)
Plot Summary:
In the Catholic and traditionalist Italy, two teenagers covertly discover new prohibited games.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 359
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: erotic, romantic, crying
Similar in 82%
The Summer I Turned 15 (1976)
Plot Summary:
The story Peter is telling the about a special summer, when he is invited over to summer holiday from bickering parents, to his aunt and uncle in the country. He's been there before, but this summer was quite one to remember.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
1st Love (2013)
Plot Summary:
Antoine, 13, spends the summer vacation with his parents in a rented cottage on an island in the middle of the Saint-Lawrence River. His neighbour, 17-year-old Anna, is an enigmatic and lively young woman. Antoine begins to experience the first stirrings of love-which soon yield a troubling brew of anxiety, desire and obsession. He eventually comes across a terrible secret that will forever change his life.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 253
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, captivating
Similar in 79%
Cider with Rosie (2015)
Plot Summary:
A semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story set in the Cotswolds during and immediately after the First World War.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 825
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, captivating, psychological, sentimental, touching, semi autobiographical
Similar in 76%
Close (2022)
Plot Summary:
Two thirteen year-olds have always been incredibly close but they drift apart after the intimacy of their relationship is questioned by schoolmates. An emotionally transformative and unforgettable portrait of the intersection of friendship and love, identity and independence, and heartbreak and healing.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 31000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, Netherlands, France
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: sad, teen, crying, iconic
Similar in 77%
We (2018)
Plot Summary:
During a scorching summer in a Belgian-Dutch border village, eight teenagers play games of discovery to break the listless monotony. They challenge each other and themselves and pretty soon, their sexual curiosity starts to blur the lines between right and wrong. As innocence is crushed in depraved games and sexual exploitation, the teenagers soon turn into ruthless predators.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands, Belgium
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: erotic, psychological, light, sexy, thought provoking, captivating, disturbing, avant garde, cult classic, twisted
Similar in 80%
Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015)
Plot Summary:
This complex portrait of modern-day life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation explores the bond between a brother and his younger sister, who find themselves on separate paths to rediscovering the meaning of home.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, touching, emotional, thought provoking, social, contemplative, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 80%
An American Rhapsody (2001)
Plot Summary:
A Hungarian family forced to flee the Communist country for the United States, must leave a young daughter behind. Six years later the family arranges to bring the absent daughter to the United States where she has trouble adjusting. The daughter then decides to travel to Budapest to discover her identity.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Hungary
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, emotional, melancholic, heartbreaking, stylized, sincere, realistic, contemplative, serious