Best movies like The Master and Margarita
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Master is a talented writer in Moscow working on a manuscript about the biblical Jesus and Pontius Pilate. Authorities in Moscow are harassing Master by surveillance and intimidation. Victimized by their harassment, Master throws his manuscript into the fire, before he is locked up in a mental clinic. His assistant and Muse Margarita tries to help Master using the supernatural powers she got from the devil - Woland who is visiting Moscow.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 669
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Russia
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: surreal, captivating, suspenseful, mind bending, suspense
Best tv shows and movies like The Master and Margarita (2006):
Similar in 85%
The Master and Margaret (1972)
Plot Summary:
The Master and Margaret (1972) is based on the eponymous book by Mikhail A. Bulgakov. The film is set in the Soviet Union under Stalin, it has several story-lines, that are intertwined. Maestro Nikolai Masoudov (Tognazzi), a talented writer, and his assistant Margaret (Farmer), are working on a biblical story of Pontius Pilate (Tadic). The Satan - Woland (Cuny), and his lieutenants, are harassing Master by surveillance, by killing his friend, and sending another friend to Gulag prison in Siberia. Victimized by their harassment, Master becomes paranoid, and is locked up in a mental institution. Margaret is trying to save him regardless of the danger.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 758
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Romance
Country: Yugoslavia, Italy
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: dark, black and white, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, cynical, biting, suspense
Similar in 75%
The Sun Also Rises (2007)
Plot Summary:
A polyptych of interconnected stories in different time-zones, shifting between a Yunnan village, a campus, and the Gobi Desert.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: China
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, unusual plot structure, suspense, contemplative, cerebral, exciting
Similar in 81%
Scarlet Sails (1961)
Plot Summary:
A little girl Assol met a wizard and it has been foretold: "... it will be a fine sunny day when a beautiful ship under scarlet sail comes and the noble prince will take you away from here. He'll take you to the world of your dreams, where you will be loved and happy." The neighbours told jokes about her, children teased her, but she waited for her prince. She trusted in the miracles and waited. Arthur Gray's rule was "if you can make a miracle, do it!". And he made a miracle for the wonderful romantic girl.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 661
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: romantic, sentimental, scenic, lyrical, fairy tale
Similar in 87%
The Stone (1992)
Plot Summary:
Via the New York Times: "...a severely obscure meditation on pre-revolutionary Russia in the form of an encounter between a ghost from the past and the ghost's present-day guardian. In fact, the two characters seem to be the shade of Anton Chekhov and the young man who tends a Chekhov museum in the Crimea, though that is never made explicit.".
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 341
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Russia
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: experimental
Similar in 75%
Field of Dogs (2014)
Plot Summary:
A visionary romance based on a contemporary reading of Dante.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 416
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Poland, Italy, Sweden
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: allegory, bleak, serious, suspense, suspenseful, disturbing, surreal, avant garde, weird
Similar in 81%
The Master and Margarita (2005)
Plot Summary:
The Master and Margarita is a Russian TV mini-series, based on the novel written by Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov between 1928 and 1940.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance
Country: Russia
Duration: 500 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, mind bending, suspenseful, stylized, talky, witty, cynical, surreal, captivating, realistic
Similar in 83%
The Discarnates (1988)
Plot Summary:
Harada is a successful scenario writer, and his best buddy has just announced an intention to propose to Harada's ex-wife. Recovering from the shock, Harada indulges in melancholy, mainly on his failure as a husband and father, and goes to a 'Rakugo' (sit-down comedy) show, where a friendly man in the audience invites him home. Harada is puzzled at the strong resemblance of this man and his wife to his own parents, who were killed nearly 30 years ago when he was twelve.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 410
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Japan
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: mind bending, psychedelic, surreal
Similar in 78%
Heavenly Judgement (2011)
Plot Summary:
Lawyers Andrew and Benjamin are friends who share a lot, but their work puts them on opposite sides. Their trials do not occur in this life but in the afterlife. They are members of the Sky Court deciding where a human soul should go after death- Heaven or Hell. Unexpectedly in one case personal interests of Andrew interfere: the man who made the proposal to his widow is on trial.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 705
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Russia
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: bleak, disturbing, thought provoking, sincere, melancholic
Similar in 78%
Split (2016)
Plot Summary:
The story of a young woman who takes an epic journey to claim her own darkness and sexuality so she can stop putting it into the hands of her abusive lover. When Inanna, a young actress, working as a stripper, becomes obsessed with a mask maker, she sacrifices parts of herself and her life, piece by piece, in order to win his love. At the same time she enters a mythic journey in the theater. One that forces her to face the many abuses endured by women around that world and that blurs her performance, her dreams and her real life and results in a provocative and powerful confrontation that frees her. -- from official website.
IMDB Rating: 3.5
IMDB Votes: 502
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, surreal
Similar in 85%
The Adventures of God (2000)
Plot Summary:
It tells the story of a man and a woman trapped inside what appears to be a dream set in the labyrinthine hallways, mysterious rooms of a large hotel in the 30's, facing the sea.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 158
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Argentina
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: art house, captivating, surreal, absurd, experimental
Similar in 76%
Pure Hearts (2006)
Plot Summary:
To the mentally ill Kriss, the world is divided the up into 'good and evil', just like in the old B&W melodrama, 'Pure Hearts', which Kriss and his fellow patient, Willy, spend their days repeatedly watching at the psychiatric ward. To Kriss this film is the bible. One day after a serious conflict with one of the hospital's other patients their viewing rights are retracted. Kriss is deeply frustrated by this, until he realises that Linda, the young girl in the film, actually exists in the shape of the film's star, the actress Ulla Vilstrup. Setting fire to the hospital, Kriss and Willy escape into the night, determined to find her, because life is what you make of it.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 914
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, suspenseful, suspense
Similar in 81%
It Doesn't Hurt Me (2006)
Plot Summary:
Three friends are in the entrance of a luxury home in the heart of the city. They are young, full of strength and energy, they have the talent, skill and thirst for life and ... - well, they have all but one. But money.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Russia
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, psychological, sweet, captivating, independent film
Similar in 83%
Trance (2006)
Plot Summary:
Sonia, a girl from St Petersburg, decides to seek a better life in western Europe. She first gets a job at a car dealer in Germany. But she is suddenly kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. She will be dragged from country to country and resistance will only bring her misery and humiliation.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 568
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Russia, France, Portugal
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: tense, touching, suspense, suspenseful, psychological thriller, queer cinema
Similar in 76%
Land of Legends (2022)
Plot Summary:
The history of the confrontation between two worlds: the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Ural Parma, the ancient Perm lands inhabited by pagans. Here heroes and ghosts, princes and shamans, Voguls and Muscovites will clash. At the center of the conflict of civilizations is the fate of the Russian prince Mikhail, who fell in love with the young Tiche, a witch-lamia capable of taking on the form of a lynx. Passion for the pagan and fidelity to forbidden love, a campaign against the Voguls, bloody battles and a short peace, the battle between Muscovy and Parma, the hero will face trials in which it is not so terrible to part with life as to commit treason.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 513
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Russia
Duration: 160 min
Plot tags: epic, tense, captivating, suspense, rough, dark
Similar in 80%
The Aerial (2007)
Plot Summary:
La Antena (English: The Aerial, 2007) is an Argentine drama film, written and directed by acclaimed film director Esteban Sapir. The film features Alejandro Urdapilleta, Rafael Ferro, Florencia Raggi, and others. The movie begins with a pair of hands typing on a typewriter. The denizens of a nameless city "in the year XX" have lost their voices. People communicate by mouthing out words that are spelled mid-air. The only person who has kept the use of her voice is La Voz ("the voice"), a singer working for the sole TV channel broadcast in the city, run by Mr. TV, who desires La Voz. La Voz wears a hood over her head that hides away her face. She has a son called Tomás, an eyeless little kid who nonetheless also has a voice (although this is kept a secret). Tomás lives next door to Ana, whom he one day befriends after a letter addressed to his house is erroneously delivered to hers.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Country: Argentina
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: surreal, silent, atmospheric, serious, suspenseful, expressionism, black and white, experimental, retro, mind bending
Similar in 82%
Fashionista (2016)
Plot Summary:
A woman's life takes on unexpected twists after trouble in her marriage leads to a mysterious stranger.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 569
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, suspense, disturbing
Similar in 78%
Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned (2016)
Plot Summary:
Days after her friends disappear during a trip to a mysterious cave, a girl is approached by a grown man claiming to be one of her missing pals.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: South Korea
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: romantic, captivating, suspenseful, surreal, dramatic, fairy tale
Similar in 89%
Butterfly Dreaming (2008)
Plot Summary:
Anxious dreams, hallucinations, and paranoid reality torment a young math professor in the aftermath of his wife's death in a car accident. As madness, addiction and affairs send the story spiraling towards its conclusion, the truth about what really happened to the professor's wife comes into focus.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 136
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, suspenseful, disturbing, suspense, tense, mind bending, serious, independent film
Similar in 81%
Pastoral Hide and Seek (1974)
Plot Summary:
A young boys' coming of age tale set in a strange, carnivalesque village becomes the recreation of a memory that the director has twenty years later.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Japan
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: surreal, experimental, psychedelic, mind bending, disturbing, avant garde, weird, cult film
Similar in 80%
Goodbye to Language (2014)
Plot Summary:
About a man who’s angry at his wife because she’s met another man on a park bench and they no longer even speak the same language.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Switzerland, France
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: surreal, experimental, atmospheric, thought provoking, serious, stylized, avant garde, psychedelic, art house, erotic
Similar in 76%
About Endlessness (2019)
Plot Summary:
A reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendor and banality, guided by a Scheherazade-esque narrator. Inconsequential moments have the same significance as historical events. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Sweden, Germany, Norway, France
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychological, sincere, thought provoking, contemplative, anthology, mind bending, psychedelic, stylized, existential
Similar in 76%
Cremaster 3 (2002)
Plot Summary:
CREMASTER 3 (2002) is set in New York City and narrates the construction of the Chrysler Building, which is in itself a character - host to inner, antagonistic forces at play for access to the process of (spiritual) transcendence. These factions find form in the struggle between Hiram Abiff or the Architect.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 182 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, atmospheric, stylized, serious, thought provoking, psychedelic, disturbing, independent film, avant garde
Similar in 89%
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Plot Summary:
Suffering from acute kidney failure, Uncle Boonmee has chosen to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside. Surprisingly, the ghost of his deceased wife appears to care for him, and his long lost son returns home in a non-human form. Contemplating the reasons for his illness, Boonmee treks through the jungle with his family to a mysterious hilltop cave - the birthplace of his first life.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Thailand, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, disturbing, art house, philosophical, meditative, visually appealing, cerebral, slow cinema, contemplative
Similar in 88%
Another Trip to the Moon (2015)
Plot Summary:
The magical surrealist journey of Asa, daughter of a shaman, who confronts her own mother, fighting for her own life and freedom.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 68
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Indonesia
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, surreal, disturbing, psychedelic
Similar in 84%
Ward No. 6 (2009)
Plot Summary:
Simultaneously nihilistic and heartening, Ward No. 6 is based on a story by Chekov, in which a psychiatric doctor becomes a patient in his own asylum. Updated to contemporary Russia, the film is a cocktail of anxieties and riddles, showcasing how easy it is to become what we fear most.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 791
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, serious, philosophical, intellectual, smart, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Nine Days (2020)
Plot Summary:
A reclusive man conducts a series of interviews with human souls for a chance to be born.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: psychological, thought provoking, philosophical, unusual plot structure, melancholic, inspirational, spiritual, surreal, existential, disgusting
Similar in 76%
Holy Motors (2012)
Plot Summary:
We follow 24 hours in the life of a being moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 48000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: France, Germany, Belgium
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: surreal, art house, psychedelic, cerebral, mindfuck, enigmatic, disturbing, atmospheric, experimental, artsy
Similar in 80%
Gothic (1986)
Plot Summary:
The year is 1816. A sprawling villa in Switzerland is the setting for a stormy night of madness. On this night of the "Haunted Summer," five famous friends gather around an ancient skull to conjure up their darkest fears. Poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, Shelley's fiancée Mary Godwin, Mary's stepsister Claire Clairemont and Byron's friend John Polidori spend a hallucinogenic evening confronting their fears in a frenzy of shocking lunacy. Horrifying visions invade the castle - realizations of Byron's fear of leeches, Shelley's fear of premature burial, Mary's fear of birthing a stillborn child - all brought forth in a bizarre dreamscape. They share the terrifying fantasies that chase them through the castle that night. The events of that night later inspired Mary Shelley to write the classic "Frankenstein" and Dr. Polidori to pen "The Vampyre," which became the basis for the creation of Dracula.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: gothic, surreal, scary, psychological, atmospheric, disturbing, mind bending, gothic horror, dark, art house
Similar in 83%
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Plot Summary:
Chris Neilson dies to find himself in a heaven more amazing than he could have ever dreamed of. There is one thing missing: his wife. After he dies, his wife, Annie killed herself and went to hell. Chris decides to risk eternity in hades for the small chance that he will be able to bring her back to heaven.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 113000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: USA, New Zealand
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: surreal, philosophical, touching, inspirational, spiritual, emotional, tear jerker, cerebral, reflective, thought provoking
Similar in 78%
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Plot Summary:
Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with bizarre consequences.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 684000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 166 min
Plot tags: touching, philosophical, sentimental, dramatic, melancholic, atmospheric, cerebral, captivating, emotional, sad