Best movies like Baal
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Volker Schlöndorff transposes Bertolt Brecht’s late-expressionist work to latter-day 1969. Poet and anarchist Baal lives in an attic and reads his poems to cab drivers. At first feted and later rejected by bourgeois society, Baal roams through forests and along motorways, greedy for schnapps, cigarettes, women and men: ‘You have to let out the beast, let him out into the sunlight.’ After impregnating a young actress he soon comes to regard her as a millstone round his neck. He stabs a friend to death and dies alone. ‘You are useless, mangy and wild, you beast, you crawl through the lowest boughs of the tree.’.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 837
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like Baal (1970):
Similar in 75%
Das Andechser Gefühl (1975)
Plot Summary:
An anxious teacher (played, as is the lead role in all his films, by the director) sits in a beer garden on the hill of the Andechs monastery. While flies drown in his mug of beer, he confronts a life of failure: the wife he ignored, the child he neglected, the teaching duties he has shirked, and his doomed efforts at winning tenure from school officials. Only a dream from the past-the memory of a former liaison with a film star with whom he shared "the Andechs feeling, a feeling that we are not alone" - provides sustenance. Despite an unexpected series of events, longing in Achternbusch's world ultimately remains stronger than fulfilment and thirst better than beer.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 93
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 68 min
Plot tags: depressing
Similar in 77%
Children of Cast-Iron Gods (1993)
Plot Summary:
The films hero is a metal worker named Ignat who is as strong and tough as the steel that his sprawling factory produces in the Ural Mountains. Its a great cheerless environment; life is arduous and dangerous; conditions at the plant are nearly subhuman. The only excitement in the grimy industrial town is provided by robbing a train at gunpoint or stealing sheep from the Bashkiri tribe. The most renowned diversion, however, is the annual fist fight between the strongest metal worker and the strongest miner from the region. Against his better judgment, but with the support of his co-workers, Ignat decides to take part in this perilous venture.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 160
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary, Russia, Ukraine
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: grotesque
Similar in 90%
Jon (1983)
Plot Summary:
Film by Jaakko Pyhälä.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 88
Genere: Drama
Country: Finland
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Polare (1976)
Plot Summary:
Kent, Lasse, Olle and Sven are in their mid-twenties and have been friends since childhood. At a restaurant they meet two young women and one of them, Lena, becomes pregnant. Now, who is the father? Well, it's definitely not Kent, but the others convince him to accept the fatherhood.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 63
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
I Even Met Happy Gypsies (1967)
Plot Summary:
The protagonist, Bora, is a charming but mean-spirited gypsy, while his older wife, Lence, is submissive. Bora is in love with the younger Tisa, who is being offered in marriage by her father. The two get themselves in trouble and eventually have to flee. Tisa rejects her husband and she and Bora get married in the church, and their adventures continue.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Yugoslavia
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: black and white, surreal, mondo
Similar in 90%
Shadow of Angels (1976)
Plot Summary:
Beautiful, detached, laconic, consumptive Lily Brest is a streetwalker with few clients. She loves her idle boyfriend Raoul who gambles away what little she earns. The town's power broker, called the rich Jew, discovers she is a good listener, so she's soon busy. Raoul imagines grotesque sex scenes between Lily and the Jew; he leaves her for a man. Her parents, a bitter Fascist who is a cabaret singer in drag and her wheelchair-bound mother, offer no refuge. Even though all have a philosophical bent, the other whores reject Lily because she tolerates everyone, including men. She tires of her lonely life and looks for a way out. Even that act serves the local corrupt powers.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 229
Genere: Drama
Country: Switzerland, West Germany
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
The Distances (2018)
Plot Summary:
Olivia, Eloy, Guille and Anna travel to Berlin to pay a surprise visit to their friend Comas. His welcome is not as they expected and during the weekend their friendship is put to the test. Together they discover that time and distance can change everything.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: psychological, suspense, disturbing, talky, social
Similar in 87%
White Trash (1983)
Plot Summary:
The precise portrait of people in the Berlin neighborhood, their longings, despairs and paltry consolations.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 54
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 62 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
The Artist in the Circus Dome: Clueless (1968)
Plot Summary:
A young circus director ends up going into television after her father, a trapeze performer, dies in a circus accident.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 449
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, contemplative, stylized, gloomy, experimental, controversial
Similar in 88%
Sing a Song of Sex (1967)
Plot Summary:
Four sexually hungry high school students preparing for their university entrance exams meet up with an inebriated teacher singing bawdy drinking songs. This encounter sets them on a less than academic path.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 853
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: absurd, erotic, touching, serious, realistic, stylized, sexual, suspense, sexy, weird
Similar in 86%
A Sweet Sickness (1968)
Plot Summary:
A young woman gets sexually used and abused by every man she meets while on her way to rising to the top of Hollywood's entertainment industry.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 165
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 65 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, independent film, sexploitation film
Similar in 84%
Confessions Among Actresses (1971)
Plot Summary:
In this intricately layered Japanese film, the nature of actresses and what they gain from acting is explored. The lives of three actresses are laid bare, and scenes from their lives are woven in and out of interviews with each of them. Each of them has experienced a traumatic event which contributes to their particular enjoyment of becoming someone else in dramatic roles.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 260
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Can Go Through Skin (2009)
Plot Summary:
A brutal assault changes Marieke's life. She leaves her familiar city rhythms for the solitude of a isolated house in the countryside. Her irrational fears on the frozen farm are a constant struggle. As spring's orchestra begins, her curiosity for new things that cover the cold rot of winter pull her out of the suffocating interior of her mind. Slowly she accepts the help of John, her neighbour.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 648
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Summer in Berlin (2005)
Plot Summary:
When you read the title ‘Summer on the Balcony’ you probably think it will be a light Berlin summer comedy but it’s not. This film is an intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, erotic, psychological, offbeat, emotional, sexual, soap opera
Similar in 89%
I still hide to smoke (2016)
Plot Summary:
Α tragi-comedy about 9 women of different ages and various backgrounds that gather in an Algerian hammam to talk about their lives.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Greece, Algeria
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, disturbing, independent film
Similar in 87%
Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981)
Plot Summary:
Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: sexual, erotic, absurd, disturbing, controversial, neurotic, neorealism, powerful, psychological, serious
Similar in 83%
No Mercy No Future (1981)
Plot Summary:
Doctors say that Veronika, a woman in her 20s, is schizophrenic. She is compliant, which makes her an easy target for men. She's religious, believing she is God's favorite child; she searches for Jesus. She has sent a letter to a filmmaker suggesting her life as the subject for a movie. We see her raped than take up with a series of men she believes are Jesus, each willing or insistent on sex. A young man with his own crisis of faith invites her to join a cult. We see her involuntarily committed to an asylum from time to time where medication and constraints await. Her wealthy parents are helpless. Will a medical professional ever talk to her? If one did, would it help?.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 131
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: art house, disturbing, controversial
Similar in 84%
Nil by Mouth (1997)
Plot Summary:
The family of Raymond, his wife Val and her brother Billy live in working-class London district. Also in their family is Val and Billy's mother Janet and grandmother Kath. Billy is a drug addict and Raymond kicks him out of the house, making him live on his own. Raymond is generally a rough and even violent person, and that leads to problems in the life of the family.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, France
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: disturbing, depressing, bleak, realistic, rough, controversial, thought provoking, sad, cult classic, powerful
Similar in 89%
The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972)
Plot Summary:
Hans is a street fruit peddler and born-loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family, causing him to turn to drinking and violence. After recovering from a debilitating heart attack, his business finally begins to take off. However the more he becomes a credit to his family, the more depressed he becomes.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: art house, psychological, philosophical, depressing, neo noir, sad, sincere, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 79%
Katzelmacher (1969)
Plot Summary:
In this unflinching German drama by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a group of young slackers, including the couple Erich and Marie, spend most of their time hanging out in front of a Munich apartment building. When a Greek immigrant named Jorgos, moves in, however, their aimless lives are shaken up. Soon new tensions arise both within the group and with Jorgos, particularly when Marie threatens to leave Erich for the outsider.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: art house, contemplative, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, gloomy, biting
Similar in 76%
Young Torless (1966)
Plot Summary:
At a boarding school in the pre-war Austro-Hungarian Empire, a pair of students torture one of their fellow classmates, Basini, who has been caught stealing money from one of the two. The two decide that rather than turn Basini in to the school authorities, they will punish him themselves and proceed to torture, degrade, and humiliate the boy, with ever-increasing sadistic delight. As each day passes, the two boys are able to justify harsher treatment than previously given. Torless is a passive member of the group but observes rather than participates and frustrates the tormentors by dryly analyzing their behavior. Written by Dean Harris.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany, France
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: disturbing, controversial, black and white, sincere, thought provoking, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 78%
Desideria (1980)
Plot Summary:
An overweight teenage girl walks in on her mother having a three-way. She later confronts her mother and gets her birthday cake shoved in her face. She then tries to commit suicide, but survives and loses a lot of weight. Now attractive to boys and men for the first time, she turns into a world-class tease, manipulating a smitten boy her age, her mother's middle-age jerk of boyfriend, an older would-be revolutionary, and so on.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 247
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, West Germany
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)
Plot Summary:
A gritty Brooklyn story about union corruption, violence, taboos and social norms. The stories told are of the sailors, the prostitute, the union bosses, the hooligans and the gay community set in the early 50s.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, West Germany, USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: bleak, disturbing, rough, intense, social, tense, period piece, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 84%
The Fire Within (1963)
Plot Summary:
Alain Leroy is a recovering alcoholic who decides to end his life, but first decides to visit his friends in Paris one last time, in an attempt at finding a reason to continue living.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: philosophical, depressing, art house, independent film, existential, bleak, touching, sad, anthology, powerful
Similar in 90%
Whore (1991)
Plot Summary:
This melodrama investigates the life of a prostitute in a pseudo-documentary style.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: erotic, harsh, sincere, serious, bleak, sexy, controversial, stylized, sexual, independent film
Similar in 87%
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)
Plot Summary:
A dedicated schoolteacher spends her nights cruising bars, looking for abusive men with whom she can engage in progressively violent sexual encounters.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags: erotic, satirical, disturbing, melancholic, harsh, compassionate, realistic, serious, sexy, dark
Similar in 79%
Lady of the Night (1986)
Plot Summary:
Angelina is tired of long serious relationships. One day she is brutally raped and she changes dramatically. Suddenly she is getting involved in more and more dangerous relations with unknown men until her behavior leads to a fatal crime.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 589
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: erotic, romantic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 82%
Shattered Spirits (1986)
Plot Summary:
Martin Sheen plays an alcoholic father who loses his family.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 355
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: spiritual, sincere, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, sexy
Similar in 75%
I Only Want You to Love Me (1976)
Plot Summary:
The story of the young man Peter, who grew up during the economic miracle, bereft of parental care and love. Learning early on that interpersonal relationships are based on the principles of exchange or purchase, he abides by these rules and gives generous presents to his family and his wife Erika. But when he is unable to keep up this life-style, his story takes a horrendous turn.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: art house, psychological, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, gloomy
Similar in 79%
The Forest (2018)
Plot Summary:
Danila is sixteen. Katya is twice his age. He spends hours watching her from an old shed on the forest. He does not even think about trying to be with her until Danila's father shows up on Katya's doorstep in an attempt to run away from his avalanching problems. Father and son are drawn into turmoil of events where neighbor turns against neighbor, dividing the community, and pushing everyone`s life towards a disaster.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 231
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: psychological, melancholic, sentimental, captivating, realistic, erotic, ambiguous ending, crying, weird, hot