Best movies like Absolution
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
At a Catholic public school, Benjamin Stanfield is tired of being the teacher's pet and decides to play a practical joke on his form master Father Goddard. In confession, Stanfield tells Goddard that he has accidentally murdered his friend Blakey and buried him in the forest. When Goddard investigates the matter, he finds a buried scarecrow. Goddard is outraged, but, due to the seal of confession, he knows he cannot expel Stanfield. Shortly after, Stanfield once again enters the confession booth, telling Goddard that what before was a practical joke, he has now made happen. In disbelief, Goddard once again goes to the forest to investigate the matter. This time, he discovers Blakey's dead body. The plot soon thickens as Stanfield's fellow student Arthur Dyson mysteriously disappears.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: surprise ending, slasher, controversial, twisted, psychological, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, crying
Best tv shows and movies like Absolution (1978):
Similar in 88%
Child's Play (1972)
Plot Summary:
At an exclusive boys' school, a new gym teacher is drawn into a feud between two older instructors, and he discovers that everything at the school is not quite as staid, tranquil and harmless as it seems.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, suspenseful, enigmatic, rough, suspense, mind bending, clever, realistic, talky
Similar in 88%
Playmaker (1994)
Plot Summary:
A would-be actress uncovers horrifying files on other starlets.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 457
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, suspenseful, suspense, independent film, mind bending, realistic
Similar in 83%
Everybody Wins (1990)
Plot Summary:
A seemingly good Samaritan hires a private detective to prove a teen sitting in prison on a murder charge is innocent. His investigation discovers deep corruption in a Connecticut town and finds the woman isn't everything she is pretending to be either.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: neo noir, independent film, atmospheric, mind bending, serious, realistic, suspenseful, contemplative, gloomy, crying
Similar in 77%
The Club (2015)
Plot Summary:
In a secluded house in a small seaside town live four unrelated men and the woman who tends to the house and their needs. All former priests, they have been sent to this quiet exile to purge the sins of their pasts, the separation from their communities the worst form of punishment by the Church. They keep to a strict daily schedule devoid of all temptation and spontaneity, each moment a deliberate effort to atone for their wrongdoings.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Chile
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: suspense, atmospheric, melancholic, bleak, thought provoking, spiritual, social, disturbing, cynical, independent film
Similar in 80%
Secrets of Eden (2012)
Plot Summary:
Based on Chris Bohjalian’s New York Times best-selling novel, “Secrets of Eden” centers on Stephen Drew, an adored small-town minister, and the brutal and sadistic murder-suicide of Alice and George Hayward, the town’s most beloved parishioners. Dark secrets begin to surface.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 542
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, realistic, serious, captivating
Similar in 75%
The Confessor (2004)
Plot Summary:
CHRISTIAN SLATER plays a worldly and urbane priest who is forced to challenge his comfortable existence as an ecclesiastical spin-doctor when he comes to believe in the innocence of a young priest accused of murder. His only ally, a journalist, is also his former sweetheart.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Canada
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, captivating
Similar in 88%
Murk (2005)
Plot Summary:
The psychological thriller "Murk" tells the story of Jacob, who is investigating into the circumstances surrounding his sister's death on her wedding night.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Denmark, UK
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: psychological, bleak, tense, serious, suspenseful, perverse, mind blowing, realistic, masterpiece
Similar in 84%
The Least of These (2008)
Plot Summary:
A priest returns to his old Catholic high school to replace a priest who has gone missing, only to begin to suspect that the missing priest may have been murdered by someone at the school to hide a darker secret.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 255
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, suspenseful, enigmatic, realistic
Similar in 77%
Confession (2005)
Plot Summary:
In a small Catholic boarding school an unspeakable act has been committed. When High School student, Luther Scott, confesses to Father Michael Kelly, Kelly is bound silent to the particulars of a grisly murder. Now, framed guilty by the desperate teen, Kelly must decide to keep his silence or throw away everything the priesthood holds sacred.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 679
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, suspense, independent film, detective
Similar in 84%
The River King (2005)
Plot Summary:
Abel Grey is sent to investigate the death of a boy from an exclusive local school, who is found floating in the river. Fearing scandal, the school insists it was suicide. But after discovering from the boy's girlfriend, Carlin, that he was being badly bullied, Abel suspects that a dangerous schoolboy initiation has gone horribly wrong and he secretly solicits the help of a sympathetic teacher, Betsy. He is warned off the investigation by his boss, as the school is a generous benefactor to the Police benevolent fund. Abel, however, cannot let the case go, not only because his own brother committed suicide years before, but also it seems that the spirit of the dead boy is leaving them clues as to what really happened that night.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Canada, UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, enigmatic, suspense, disturbing, psychological thriller, creepy
Similar in 77%
The Quarry (1998)
Plot Summary:
This thriller investigates the mysterious assassination of a gay pastor in rural South Africa. Without witnesses or explanations, the crime appears to the police and others as a jigsaw puzzle without enough pieces. The police then suspect and arrest people based on the usual prejudices, black and coloured people who plant marijuana in this case. Meanwhile, the true assassin not only goes his way unpunished from the very beginning, but becomes one of the rural town's most respected citizens. The sheriff at one point does begin having certain suspicions, and from there on the bulk of the plot is played out. The location is a very arid part of South Africa, so with so much desert rock, there are bound to be quarries. Some may reveal important secrets.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Belgium, France, Netherlands, Spain
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: independent film, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, gloomy, suspense, crying
Similar in 79%
Apartment Zero (1988)
Plot Summary:
The owner of a failing cinema and his mysterious boarder are caught up in the political intrigue of Argentina.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: psychological, suspenseful, serious, captivating, cult classic, tense, bleak, independent film, scary, neo noir
Similar in 88%
Jericho Mansions (2003)
Plot Summary:
A murder in an old apartment building leads the superintendent to suspect everyone, and eventually himself, of the murder.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Canada, UK
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, suspenseful
Similar in 84%
Tangled (2001)
Plot Summary:
A young man is found bruised, beaten and stumbling down a secluded road. As the police try to piece together what happened, the convoluted relationship between a young woman and her two suitors gradually emerges.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, psychological, teen horror, tense, slasher, detective, non-linear, surprise ending
Similar in 87%
The Name of the Rose (1986)
Plot Summary:
14th-century Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and his young novice arrive at a conference to find that several monks have been murdered under mysterious circumstances. To solve the crimes, William must rise up against the Church's authority and fight the shadowy conspiracy of monastery monks using only his intelligence – which is considerable.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 115000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: West Germany, Italy, France
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: intellectual, psychological, suspenseful, gloomy, clever, suspense, realistic, serious, atmospheric, detective
Similar in 86%
In My Father's Den (2004)
Plot Summary:
Paul (Macfadyen), a prize-winning war journalist, returns to his remote New Zealand hometown due to the death of his father, battle-scarred and world-weary. For the discontented sixteen-year-old Celia (Barclay) he opens up a world she has only dreamed of. She actively pursues a friendship with him, fascinated by his cynicism and experience of the world beyond her small-town existence. But many, including the members of both their families (Otto, Moy), frown upon the friendship and when Celia goes missing, Paul becomes the increasingly loathed and persecuted prime suspect in her disappearance. As the violent and urgent truth gradually emerges, Paul is forced to confront the family tragedy and betrayal that he ran from as a youth, and to face the grievous consequences of silence and secrecy that has surrounded his entire adult life.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: New Zealand, UK
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: suspenseful, psychological, emotional, atmospheric, talky, serious, tense, clever, touching, captivating
Similar in 75%
Sleuth (2007)
Plot Summary:
On his sprawling country estate, an aging writer matches wits with the struggling actor who has stolen his wife's heart.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 33000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: psychological, intellectual, talky, witty, minimal cast, suspenseful, stylized, surprise ending, suspense, twist ending
Similar in 87%
Deadline (2012)
Plot Summary:
Deadline is the story of the murder of an African American youth in rural Alabama that has gone uninvestigated, unsolved, and unpunished for almost twenty years. That changes when Nashville Times reporter Matt Harper (Steve Talley) meets an idealistic young blueblood bent on discovering the truth. Harper undertakes the investigation despite the opposition of his publisher, violent threats from mysterious forces, a break-up with his fiancée, and his father's cancer diagnosis.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 454
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 90%
Strange Fruit (2004)
Plot Summary:
New York attorney William Boyals has escaped the Louisiana bayou of his childhood, but he must return to investigate the death of a childhood friend who, like Boyals himself, was both black and gay.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 260
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, thought provoking, bleak, crying, independent film, queer cinema
Similar in 84%
The Perfect Husband: The Laci Peterson Story (2004)
Plot Summary:
Dean Cain portrays Scott Peterson, the California man accused of murdering his 8 month pregnant wife, Laci. Based on a true story.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: disturbing, tense, serious, suspenseful, bleak, emotional, realistic
Similar in 76%
Megachurch Murder (2015)
Plot Summary:
After popular and charismatic megachurch leader Hamilton Spears commits suicide, his teenage daughter Hannah's life goes off the rails. The only thing keeping her together is her new boyfriend, Oliver. When she finds evidence pointing to a church conspiracy and threats toward her father, she is determined to prove that Hamilton's death was murder not suicide. As she gets closer to the truth, she realizes her own mother may be involved in her father's murder...and that the boy she is falling in love with is the son of his killer.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 231
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: captivating, suspense, psychological, tense, serious, emotional, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 89%
The Rite (2011)
Plot Summary:
Seminary student Michael Kovak (Colin O'Donoghue) reluctantly attends exorcism school at the Vatican. While he’s in Rome, Michael meets an unorthodox priest, Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins), who introduces him to the darker side of his faith, uncovering the devil’s reach even to one of the holiest places on Earth.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 102000
Genere: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA, Hungary, Italy
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: scary, demonic, suspense, psychological, disturbing, atmospheric, suspenseful, tense, satanic, surreal
Similar in 83%
Cry Wolf (2005)
Plot Summary:
Eight unsuspecting high school seniors at a posh boarding school, who delight themselves on playing games of lies, come face-to-face with terror and learn that nobody believes a liar - even when they're telling the truth.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 28000
Genere: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: slasher, suspense, scary, twist ending, suspenseful, psychological, intense, serious, entertaining, teen
Similar in 82%
Deceiver (1997)
Plot Summary:
The gruesome death of a prostitute brings suspicion on one of her clients, James Wayland, a brilliant, self-destructive and epileptic heir to a textile fortune. So detectives Braxton and Kennesaw take Wayland in for questioning, thinking they can break the man. But despite his troubles, Wayland is a master of manipulation, and during the interrogation, he begins to turn the tables on the investigators, forcing them to reveal their own sinister sides.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: surprise ending, suspense, psychological, suspenseful, neo noir, clever, talky, twisted, detective, psychological thriller
Similar in 82%
The Dead Girl (2006)
Plot Summary:
The clues to a young woman's death come together as the lives of seemingly unrelated people begin to intersect.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: psychological, disturbing, bleak, depressing, atmospheric, suspenseful, contemplative, anthology, mysterious, grindhouse
Similar in 78%
The Rosary Murders (1987)
Plot Summary:
A killer of Detroit clergy confesses to a priest (Donald Sutherland), who turns sleuth because he cannot tell the police.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: disturbing, atmospheric, bleak, serious, neo noir, suspense, independent film, tense, rough, realistic
Similar in 80%
The Hole (2001)
Plot Summary:
Four teenagers at a British private school secretly uncover and explore the depths of a sealed underground hole created decades ago as a possible bomb shelter.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 48000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK, France, Canada
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: psychological, scary, twist ending, tense, psychological thriller, suspenseful, dark, serious, disturbing, teen
Similar in 89%
Before I Go to Sleep (2014)
Plot Summary:
A woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident in her past. One day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 83000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK, USA, France, Sweden
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: twist ending, suspense, suspenseful, psychological, tense, serious, psychological thriller, tricky, intense, clever
Similar in 82%
Gone Girl (2014)
Plot Summary:
With his wife's disappearance having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man sees the spotlight turned on him when it's suspected that he may not be innocent.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 10000000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 149 min
Plot tags: psychological, suspense, surprise ending, clever, twist ending, suspenseful, neo noir, tense, dramatic, psychological thriller
Similar in 85%
Insomnia (2002)
Plot Summary:
Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 313000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: neo noir, psychological, atmospheric, detective, psychological thriller, suspense, dark, suspenseful, tense, bad ending