Best movies like The Zookeeper
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Jonah Ludovic (Sam Neill) is a custodian at a small municipal zoo. After a night of heavy shelling Ludovic arrives at his job to find the staff abandoning the zoo. He joins a skeleton crew that includes an elderly guard and a veterinarian (Om Puri). Their purpose: to keep the animals alive until help arrives from an international zoological mission.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Denmark, UK, Czech Republic, Netherlands
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, atmospheric, rough, suspenseful, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, biting
Best tv shows and movies like The Zookeeper (2001):
Similar in 80%
Nothing to Report (1973)
Plot Summary:
In 1956, the professional army of France lacks the manpower to keep the peace in Algeria, the colony which the country is determined to hold on to at any price. For this reason, reservists are called up and subject to an intense period of training before being sent to the front. Rémy March, Alain Charpentier and Raymond Dax are three such young men who have no interest in the military escapade and are reluctant conscripts. What they witness in Algeria will appall and transform them. Rape, torture, executions... there is no end to the atrocities in which they become unwilling participants. No wonder the French military are so willing to proclaim that there is nothing to report.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 204
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Italy, Tunisia
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing
Similar in 79%
Warriors (2002)
Plot Summary:
A tense drama that revolves around a platoon of Spanish soldiers, following the innocent young men as they step from the training field into a hell for which nothing could have prepared them.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, War
Country: Spain
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, tense, captivating, hispanic, bleak
Similar in 90%
Witnesses (2003)
Plot Summary:
Set amid the atrocities of war in the Balkans, Witnesses is retold, Rashomon-style, from various characters' viewpoints, adding new information about the complexity of war and humanity. Beginning inside a rustic house with a woman in black (Mirjana Karanovic) standing beside her husband's coffin, Witnesses interweaves the stories of a small town confronting ethnic hatred and deep moral ambiguities.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 828
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Croatia
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, bleak, serious, disturbing, realistic, non-linear
Similar in 87%
The Winston Affair (1964)
Plot Summary:
In a remote jungle outpost in the Far Eastern theater of World War II, a hotheaded American soldier murders an allied British sergeant in cold blood. Stalwart American Lt. Colonel Barney Adams (Mitchum) is dispatched to defend him in the ensuing court martial. But when Lt. Adams starts encountering roadblocks in his search for evidence, and his key witnesses start disappearing one after another, he soon realizes he's merely a pawn in a mysterious conspiracy that could extend to the highest levels of military power.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 805
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, captivating, suspenseful, independent film, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 83%
The Rainbow Warrior (1993)
Plot Summary:
Peter Wilcox (Voight), as skipper of the 'Rainbow Warrior', a Greenpeace ship, docks in Auckland, July 1985, preparing for a protest against French nuclear testing in the south pacific. When a bomb rips open the vessel, killing a crew member, he must convince the police superintendent (Neill) that this is an act of terrorism. Determined not to allow outside forces to threaten their harbor, the police embark on a pursuit of the persons responsible. The events that follow nearly bring down an allied nation's government.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 303
Genere: Drama
Country: New Zealand, USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: independent film, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 88%
Boxed (2002)
Plot Summary:
The thriller Boxed addresses the little-known fact that the Irish Republican Army would bring in sympathetic priests to administer last rites to those they were about to execute. The film analyzes the fallout that occurs when one of these priests ha a change of heart, deciding to fight for the life of the captive. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 52
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Ireland
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, thought provoking, suspenseful, serious, realistic
Similar in 89%
Brothers (2004)
Plot Summary:
A Danish officer, Michael (Thomsen), is sent away to the International Security Assistance Force operation in Afghanistan for three months. His first mission there is to find a young radar technician who had been separated from his squad some days earlier. While on the search, his helicopter is shot down and he is taken as a prisoner of war, but is reported dead to the family.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Denmark, UK, Sweden, Norway
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: emotional, tense, disturbing, serious, melancholic, psychological, realistic, captivating, sincere, touching
Similar in 78%
Nothing Personal (1995)
Plot Summary:
A raw depiction of the Belfast 'troubles' as savage tribal warfare. Set shortly after the 1975 cease fire, the film focuses on the tribulations of Kenny, Protestant leader of a group of Shankill Road Loyalists, and his one-time friend Liam, a Catholic.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 524
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Ireland
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, independent film
Similar in 86%
Shot Through the Heart (1998)
Plot Summary:
The horrors of war are examined from the view points of lifelong friends (Linus Roache, Vincent Perez), who end up on opposing sides in the civil war in Sarajevo. One is an expert marksman, who trains the snipers used to terrify the city and the other becomes a freedom fighter, who rejects his friend's offer to gain an escape from the city. As might be expected, the two eventually have to face-off against one another.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, biting, suspense
Similar in 77%
The Situation (2006)
Plot Summary:
The first U.S.-made film drama set during the Iraq war, THE SITUATION chronicles the tragic death of an Iraqi teenager at the hands of U.S. soldiers. The incident sets off an "investigation," a cover-up, and complications involving Iraqi mayor Sheikh Tahsin (Saïd Amadis), who has a complex relationship with the Americans.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 885
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, rough, realistic, extraordinary
Similar in 78%
Eleni (1985)
Plot Summary:
Nick is a writer in New York when he gets posted to a bureau in Greece. He has waited 30 years for this. He wants to know why his mother was killed in the civil war years earlier. In a parallel plot line we see Nick as a young boy and his family as they struggle to survive in the occupied Greek hillside. The plot lines converge as Nick's investigations bring him closer to the answers.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: political, independent film, psychological, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, suspenseful, contemplative
Similar in 90%
The Informant (1997)
Plot Summary:
A former Irish Republican Army fighter, Gingy McAnally (Anthony Brophy), is reluctant about being called back into service after serving time in prison. He executes the grisly task but ends up captured by a sympathetic British police lieutenant named Ferris (Cary Elwes). The intimidating Chief Inspector of the Belfast Police (Timothy Dalton) convinces Gingy that his best hope is to become an informant and turn in other IRA operatives. As Gingy's marriage unravels under the stress, he is forced to come to terms with the fact that in this war both sides lose. Three men, three political circles, each fighting for their lives, each with their own agenda in the battle for Northern Ireland.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 673
Genere: Drama
Country: Ireland, USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 84%
The Battle of Canudos (1997)
Plot Summary:
The film adaptation of Nobel Prize winning author, Mario Vargas Llosa's epic, The War At The End Of the World (La guerra del fin del mundo).
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 786
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Brazil
Duration: 170 min
Plot tags: political, sincere, epic, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
Similar in 81%
Rose (2011)
Plot Summary:
This harrowing tale of survival centers on Rose, a Masurian woman, whose German soldier husband was killed in the war, leaving her alone on their farm. A single woman had no defense against Russian soldiers who raped as a form of revenge, nor against plundering Poles who found themselves in desperate straits. Help arrives for Rose in the form of Tadeusz, a former officer in the Polish Home Army who deserted after he saw his wife raped and murdered by Russian troops and is attempting to hide his identity.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: rough, realistic, tense, captivating, psychological, bleak, serious, emotional
Similar in 77%
Pastorale 1943 (1978)
Plot Summary:
In a Dutch village during the German occupation, a small group of badly organized resistance fighters attempt to assassinate a collaborator.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 477
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: suspenseful, psychological, factual, rough, disturbing, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 90%
Private (2004)
Plot Summary:
A Palestinian family is trapped inside a house commandeered by Israeli soldiers.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 922
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, suspenseful, disturbing, tense, sincere, thought provoking, bleak, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 88%
Purple Butterfly (2003)
Plot Summary:
Ding Hui is a member of Purple Butterfly, a powerful resistance group in Japanese occupied Shanghai. An unexpected encounter reunites her with Itami, an ex-lover... and officer with a secret police unit tasked with dismantling Purple Butterfly.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: China, France
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, bleak, captivating, suspenseful, tense, atmospheric, non-linear
Similar in 82%
The Hamburg Cell (2004)
Plot Summary:
Ziad Jarrah, a young Lebonese man from a good family goes to Germany to attend college and starts dating a Turkish girl named Aysel. Although not very religious and accustomed to Western ways, Ziad becomes "brothers" with some fundamentalist Muslims and is slowly drawn into becoming "a Good Muslim". Mohamed Atta and others instill Ziad with a hatred of Jews and "Infidels", which leads to a desire for Jihad and martyrdom. He moves to Hamburg to study aeronautical engineering, attends an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, and deceives his girlfriend and family about his involvement. He eventually attends flight school in Florida with Atta and others, waiting for and preparing for "the big wedding" (the 9/11 attack). Meanwhile, US government and law enforcement officials fail to act despite believing that a major terrorist attack is imminent, and despite noticing a number of suspicious persons involved in flight training. Written by TimeNTide.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 829
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, bleak, serious, disturbing, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 79%
Afterburn (1992)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story, one woman takes on the U.S. military and General Dynamics; maker of the F-16, thought to be the very best tactical fighter in the world. Air Force Captain Theodore T. Harduvel was one of the best F-16 pilots the U.S. had to offer. After much digging, Janet Harduvel discovers a joint military and General Dynamic cover-up. She proves to be unwavering in her search for the truth to clear his name.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 670
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: captivating, disturbing, thought provoking, serious, suspenseful, realistic
Similar in 82%
Kedma (2002)
Plot Summary:
In May 1948, shortly before the creation of the State of Israel, hundreds of immigrants from across Europe arrive in Palestine--only to risk arrest by British troops.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 781
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: France, Israel, Italy
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing, sad, tense, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Behind Enemy Lines (1985)
Plot Summary:
Professor-turned-spy Col. Calvin Turner and his associate, workaholic Lt. Shelley Flynn, plan a daring rescue behind enemy lines in World War II German-occupied Norway of a brilliant scientist who may or may not be aiding the Germans.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 80
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, cult film
Similar in 79%
A Little Pond (2009)
Plot Summary:
The Korean war does not start well for the US. They are being routed by the North Koreans and In July 1950, the early stage of the Korean War, at the Jugok Village in the middle of the Korean Peninsula, Chang-yee and his friends grow excited over the amateur singing contest knowing nothing about what is going on around them. At the time, the US Army keeps losing and are pushed back to the village, evacuating all villagers to head south. The villagers took refuge like going on a picnic believing that the US Army is protecting them, they just follow their orders moving south bound.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 286
Genere: Drama, War
Country: South Korea
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, bleak, captivating
Similar in 78%
The Hanoi Hilton (1987)
Plot Summary:
Lionel Chetwynd's film documents the horrific struggles that faced American POWs held in the North Vietnamese prison Hoa Lo -- more infamously known as the Hanoi Hilton -- between 1964 and 1975. Williamson (Michael Moriarty) leads a group of American servicemen who are prisoners at the detention camp. He assumes command after Cathcart (Lawrence Pressman) is dragged off to be tortured.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: political, grindhouse, independent film, rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 76%
The Only Way (1970)
Plot Summary:
In April 1940, the armies of Nazi Germany invaded Denmark. The Danish government promised peaceful cooperation on the condition that Denmark s Jews remain free. The Nazi s agreed. In October, 1943, the agreement was broken...This is the true and magnificent saga of Denmark s valorous actions to save Danish Jews from Nazi extermination at peril of death!.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 306
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, Denmark, Panama, UK
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: uplifting, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 80%
The Iron Triangle (1989)
Plot Summary:
Based on the diary of an unknown Viet Cong soldier, this film provides a sympathetic look at a Viet Cong soldier who protected a captured American soldier whom he believed did not kill him when the American had the opportunity. Written by John Sacksteder.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 532
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: rough, realistic, suspenseful, exciting, serious, independent film, bleak, captivating, cult film
Similar in 75%
Fires on the Plain (2014)
Plot Summary:
In the final days of World War II, occupying Japanese forces in the Philippines face resistance from the local population and the American offensive. The dwindling Japanese soldiers attempt to survive through the horrors of war.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 831
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, atmospheric, realistic, captivating, rough, bleak, serious, gloomy, cult film
Similar in 90%
The Sleeping Voice (2011)
Plot Summary:
Pepita travels to Madrid to be near her sister Hortensia who is pregnant and in prison. Hortensia is sentenced to death. The execution will not be carried out until after the baby is delivered. Pepita tries everything to stay the execution, but when unsuccessful she goes to the prison everyday to make sure Hortensia's son goes with her and not into an orphanage.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Spain
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: captivating, serious, emotional, suspenseful, political, intense, bleak, realistic
Similar in 78%
The Aryan Couple (2004)
Plot Summary:
A WWII Drama about a German/Jewish industrialist who, in order to ensure his family's safe passage out of Germany, is forced to hand over his business to the Nazis.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, captivating, suspenseful, tense, realistic, gloomy, crying, freeze frame
Similar in 83%
Uprising (2001)
Plot Summary:
Jews rise up in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazis in 1943.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 177 min
Plot tags: uplifting, captivating, rough, serious, political, tense, bleak, emotional, realistic, independent film
Similar in 76%
The Edelweiss Pirates (2004)
Plot Summary:
Im Kölner Stadtteil Ehrenfeld lebt eine Gruppe von Arbeiterkindern kurz vor Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs ihren ganz eigenen Alltag. Die selbsternannten „Edelweißpiraten“ träumen von einer gerechten Welt und sehnen sich nach der unbeschwerten Vergangenheit. Sie rebellieren gegen das Naziregime. (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edelwei%C3%9Fpiraten_(Film)).
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 565
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Germany, Netherlands
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, bleak, serious, independent film