Best movies like Barbarians
Last updated March 2024
Looking for movies related to Barbarians? Contribute your expertise to navigate others to tv series and movies you've watched previously that might interest them as well. Facilitate widening the network of individuals introducing videos to each other. We value your involvement!
Plot Summary:
"Barbarians" is a teenage drama about coming of age in a world where there is no opportunity. A portrait of a young generation growing up in a society of lost values.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 627
Genere: Drama
Country: Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: sincere, rough, serious, realistic, tense, bleak
Best tv shows and movies like Barbarians (2014):
Similar in 83%
Nairobi Half Life (2012)
Plot Summary:
Mwas, a young aspiring actor from upcountry Kenya dreams of becoming an accomplished actor one day, and in pursuit of this, he makes his way to Nairobi, the city of opportunity. He quickly understands why Nairobi is nicknamed Nairrobery as he is bereaved of all his money and belongings and left alone in a city where he doesn’t know a soul. Luck or the lack of it brings Mwas face to face with the city’s criminals and forms a friendship with a small time crook who takes him in. He is quickly drawn into a world of crime as he struggles to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. Keeping the two worlds separate proves to be a challenge for Mwas as he steps into this unknown world called Nairobi.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Kenya, Germany
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, tense, captivating, rough, bleak
Similar in 88%
Neds (2010)
Plot Summary:
NEDs (Non Educated Delinquents) is the story of a young man’s journey from prize-winning schoolboy to knife-carrying teenager. Struggling against the low expectations of those around him, John McGill changes from victim to avenger, scholar to NED, altar boy to glue sniffer. When he attempts to change back again, his new reality and recent past make conformity near impossible and violent self determination near inevitable.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, France, Italy
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, atmospheric, gloomy, biting, hood, sad
Similar in 78%
Bloody Kids (1980)
Plot Summary:
The slender premise springs from the actions of two listless 11-year-old boys, the cold, manipulative Leo, and his weaker, more impressionable friend, Mike. Contemptuous of the fallible police force (Mike has already filched a police hat from an accident scene), the boys arrange a staged knife fight outside a football stadium with the aid of a bag of stage blood and a real blade.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 305
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: offbeat, tense, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, wild
Similar in 89%
Cairo Exit (2010)
Plot Summary:
A powerful account of life in contemporary Cairo, this raw drama about a pair of star-crossed lovers shines a powerful spotlight upon the social and cultural taboos that riddle the city's diverse population. Heralding a bold new shift for contemporary Egyptian cinema, 'Cairo Exit' is a gritty and uncompromising work from a major new cinematic talent, Hesham Issawi.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 161
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt, United Arab Emirates
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, stylized, bleak
Similar in 87%
Affluenza (2014)
Plot Summary:
An aspiring young photographer finds himself caught up in a heady world of money, sex, and privilege when he moves to wealthy Long Island in the summer of 2008.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 764
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, independent film, suspense, tense, disturbing, biting
Similar in 89%
If Nothing Else Works Out (2008)
Plot Summary:
In 2006, a journalist in financial problems, a woman who dresses as a man and a troubled taxi driver become friends, and gradually, an awkward, strong emotional bond emerges among them, especially when they decide to play a confidence game.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 281
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sincere, rough, touching, serious, clever, offbeat, bleak, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Violet Perfume: No One Is Listening (2001)
Plot Summary:
A poignant and moving urban drama, focusing on the growing problem of sexual assault in Mexico City. Director Sistach fictionalizes the true story of a friendship between two adolescent girls which is torn apart when one of them is brutally raped.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico, Netherlands
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, disturbing, rough, bleak, weird
Similar in 79%
Just the Wind (2012)
Plot Summary:
Drawing inspiration from the death-squad murders of several Gypsy families in Hungary in 2008, director Bence Fliegauf's chilling and unforgettable real-life horror story follows a family whose dreams of emigration and escape are suddenly, horribly destroyed.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary, Germany, France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sincere, bleak, serious, realistic, thought provoking, slow cinema, aesthetic, tense
Similar in 90%
My Dog Killer (2013)
Plot Summary:
Môj pes Killer is a one-day drama portraying eighteen-year-old Marek living near the Slovak-Moravian border with his dad and his racist friends. However, Marek's best true friend is his dog. His life is shaken up when he discovers the secret of his lost mother Marika.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 343
Genere: Drama
Country: Slovakia, Czech Republic
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, serious, disturbing, bleak, realistic
Similar in 88%
Brain Drain (1998)
Plot Summary:
Fideo and Panta are two teenage rascals and thieves who dream of traveling to "the promised land", the United States. Rambling between good and evil, roc and tango, this is an action story turned romance when the two youngsters fall in love innocently, but face life with extraordinary maturity. Moving between haunting love scenes beneath starry skies and police chases, watch out…while these two might plan to steal your car radio, they will definitely steal your heart.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 176
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 87%
Sugar (2013)
Plot Summary:
A 20-year-old homeless girl is suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome on the streets of Hollywood and Venice beach.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 399
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
Similar in 82%
Boy Called Twist (2004)
Plot Summary:
The harrowing tale of a South African street-kid's search for love, based on Dickens' classic story. Growing up neglected in a rural orphanage, Twist escapes to the unpredictable freedom of Cape Town, where he falls in with Fagin's gang of street urchins. With a gritty honesty steeped in its vibrant characters, Boy called Twist superbly captures the contemporary equivalents of Dickens' seedy individuals as it shadows the timeless tale in its own inimitable style.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 165
Genere: Drama
Country: South Africa
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Children of Sarajevo (2012)
Plot Summary:
A microcosm of the fathomless suffering that remains more than 16 years since the siege of Sarajevo ended, writer-director Aida Begic’s follow-up to her 2008 Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize-winning debut Snow tells the story of two orphaned siblings struggling in a transitional society where only the fittest survive.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 685
Genere: Drama
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, France, Turkey
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, realistic, bleak, serious, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Clash (2009)
Plot Summary:
"Engwkentro" follows two teenage brothers attempting to escape an unnamed city controlled by an iron-fisted mayor. They must first break away from the cycle of crime, while trying to run from rival gang leaders and the state's murderous vigilantes.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 108
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, disturbing, bleak, realistic
Similar in 76%
Like a Puppet Out of Strings (2006)
Plot Summary:
Two Brothers; Tom and Felipe, have moved up the ranks of the street gangs because they have no greater devotion than the protection of each other. Luis, former gang member, is now a cop, his life having been turned around by Angelica, a female cop. When Tom is blamed for the shooting death of Angelica, a crime his brother Felipe committed, Felipe is forced to agree to Luis' terms in order to save Tom. Luis decides to convert Felipe just like he had been converted 10 years earlier. Eventually the brothers must face each other on the opposite sides of the law and chose between right and wrong, thier past and their future.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 14
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 83%
Five Star (2014)
Plot Summary:
After John’s absent father is struck by a stray bullet, Primo takes it upon himself to verse the young boy in the code of the streets—one founded on respect and upheld by fear. A member of the Bloods since the age of twelve—both in the film and in reality—the streets of Brooklyn are all Primo has ever known. While John questions whether or not to enter into this life, Primo must decide whether to leave it all behind as he vows to become a better husband and father. Set during those New York summer weeks where the stifling heat seems to encase everything, Five Star plunges into gang culture with searing intensity. Director Keith Miller observes the lives of these two men with a quiet yet pointed distance, carefully eschewing worn clichés through its unflinching focus. Distinctions between fiction and real life remain intentionally ambiguous, allowing the story of these two men to resonate beyond the streets, as they face the question of what it means to be a man.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 569
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sexy, hood, tense, sincere, rough, bleak
Similar in 77%
1 Out of 7 (2011)
Plot Summary:
Runaway teen Lexi find herself alone and pregnant on the streets. Seemingly beyond hope, she must turn to Devon, a woman with her own demons, to help her find a way back from her past mistakes.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 199
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, rough, serious, realistic, bleak, independent film
Similar in 81%
Streeters (2001)
Plot Summary:
Authentic and committed, moving and stormy drama of street kids from Mexico City. Wonderful adaptation of successful play about street kids who have more trouble with corrupt cops, than with dirty and heavy work.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 547
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, bleak, realistic, independent film
Similar in 84%
Macondo (2014)
Plot Summary:
A drama centered on an 11-year-old Chechnyan refugee living in Vienna whose life is thrown into disarray when a friend of his deceased father materializes.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 310
Genere: Drama
Country: Austria
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 90%
Sebbe (2010)
Plot Summary:
Duct tape, electrical cables, trigger, explosives. Sebbe never planned to build a bomb. It just happened. Sebbe is 15 years old and lives with his mother in an apartment that is too narrow. He does his best. He never strikes back. Sebbe loves his mother because he knows nothing else. In the junkyard the dream is alive, and in the hands of Sebbe, dead objects come to life. Here he has the power to create. Here he is free - but alone. His isolation grows as his world shrinks, until one day he is completely isolated with no other than his mother. And when she falls, everything falls.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, captivating, realistic, tense, mind bending, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Mina Walking (2015)
Plot Summary:
Saddled by a senile grandfather and a neglectful father, Mina, an impulsive twelve-year-old Afghan street seller sees her future slipping away when she is forced to neglect her education and walk the streets of Kabul to support her fragmented family. In the seven days that follow her life, Mina’s quest to emancipate her father from the claws of a local drug dealer and her attempt to secretly attend school underlines the current struggle of a young generation of Afghans trying to shake off the echoes of oppression from the Taliban era that continues to haunt those who bore witness to it.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 90
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, Afghanistan
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, realistic, rough, social, bleak, serious
Similar in 90%
War (2014)
Plot Summary:
Fifteen-year-old Matteo is attractive, albeit somewhat girlish and frail. The whole world is against him. He has no friends and his parents seem to live in a different universe. The pressure increases as his awkward attempts to win his father’s respect fail. One night two men carry him off: his parents send him to a remote alp, where he is forced to spend the summer working hard on a family farm. When Matteo arrives on the alp, a surprise awaits him.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 279
Genere: Drama
Country: Switzerland
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, disturbing, sincere, bleak
Similar in 86%
Low Tide (2012)
Plot Summary:
A 12 year old boy and his single mother live separate lives. The boy spends his days alone while his mother works and goes out with her friends. The boy’s solitude is both a source of freedom and a cause for grief. His explorations slowly bring to light the dark contrast between the rules of society and the laws of nature. And before long, the delicate balance of his inner world becomes shattered by unforeseen events.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 661
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Belgium, USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, serious, psychological, sincere, rough, bleak, independent film
Similar in 81%
Without Destination (2002)
Plot Summary:
Sin Destino follows the life of a 15 year old Mexican boy, Francisco, as he struggles to survive on the streets. His primary source of income is money raised by prostituting himself to men for sex, and the film implies that this learned behaviour has arisen as a result of a contact with a single man when Francisco was 9 years old. This man, Sebastien, is an "artist" who initially claimed to want to photograph the boy, but it is clear that their relationship at one time extended far beyond that of photographer/model.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 220
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: disturbing, psychological, atmospheric, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, surreal, gloomy, sexual
Similar in 77%
Life Hits (2006)
Plot Summary:
Christina is living in a suburb to Copenhagen. With her class mates Cecilie, Trine and Pernille she slacks her school work, living mostly for the weekends of gate crashing, getting drunk, experimenting with drugs and scoring guys. But her world is turned upside down when Cecilie's boyfriend Shaid starts hitting on her, and Cecilie mistakenly believes the two of them are making out.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, captivating, independent film, sincere, disturbing
Similar in 90%
The Wild Ones (2012)
Plot Summary:
Five juvenile delinquents break out of jail and attempt to make their way to a house in the Mendoza foothills of Argentina.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 239
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, Netherlands
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, captivating, bleak
Similar in 77%
Our America (2002)
Plot Summary:
The true story of two African-American teen radio reporters and their documentary investigation of a notorious child murder.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 304
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, emotional, realistic, controversial, sincere, bleak
Similar in 81%
Dog Pound (2010)
Plot Summary:
Three juvenile delinquents arrive at a correctional center and are put under the care of an experienced guard.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: France, Canada, UK
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: serious, sincere, tense, realistic, independent film, social, crime drama, sexy, disturbing, hood
Similar in 85%
Stryker (2004)
Plot Summary:
The film follows a 14-year-old arsonist in Winnipeg who becomes involved in a turf war between the Indian Posse and the Asian Bomb Squad (a now defunct Filipino gang). He is known only as Stryker, a slang term for a prospective gang member.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 207
Genere: Action, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, tense, bleak, independent film
Similar in 77%
Everybody Dies But Me (2008)
Plot Summary:
One Monday morning Katya, Vika and Zhanna learn that there will be a school disco, their first disco, on the coming Saturday night. The girls feverishly start preparing for the event, which rapidly becomes the most important moment ever in their universe, and looks like the ideal way to escape their daily lives.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: serious, touching, realistic, suspense, psychological, rough, sincere, gloomy