Best movies like Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Thirty years on from the 1984 Union Carbide plant malfunction, the consequences of which are tragically ongoing, A Prayer for Rain is the powerful and moving story of the Bhopal tragedy, one of the great corporate and environmental scandals of the last half-century. It dramatises the dependence of the local community on the chemical plant that will eventually cause catastrophe, and the series of oversights that led to an event that stands as a benchmark for corporate irresponsibility in the developing world.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, India, USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, disturbing, thought provoking, realistic, poignant, multicultural, touching, captivating
Best tv shows and movies like Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain (2014):
Similar in 79%
They Don't Wear Black Tie (1981)
Plot Summary:
Otavio is an idealistic union leader trying to organize workers at a factory to resist the company's exploitative practices. His son, Tião, one of the employees, is more of a realist and doesn't want to risk losing his job by striking. This clash of perspectives puts the father and son at odds. Fortunately, Tião's mother, Romana, is on hand to act as a moderator between the two opinionated men.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: political, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 82%
Christmas Miracle in Caufield, U.S.A. (1977)
Plot Summary:
Television drama in which miners spend their Christmas Eve in a collapsed mine.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 173
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 87%
The Ploughman's Lunch (1983)
Plot Summary:
A political drama scripted by novelist Ian McEwan.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 484
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: independent film, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 75%
Justice (2014)
Plot Summary:
A foul-mouthed woman fights for her soul in the belly of the city. Working for a human trafficking agency controlled by a powerful syndicate, she sees no evil, hears no evil. In a society like ours, you have only two choices—to be a victim or a victimizer. She makes her choice.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 25
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Philippines
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, disturbing, bleak
Similar in 90%
Moonlighting (1982)
Plot Summary:
A Polish contractor, Nowak, leads a group of workmen to London so they can provide cheap labor for a government official based there. Nowak (Irons) has to manage the project and the men as they encounter the tempations of the West and loneliness and separation from their families. Nowak is the only one of the group who speaks English, and he uses this as a tool over his team. When the unrest in Poland leads to a military takeover, Nowak is faced with a much more difficult situation than he expected.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: political, tense, bleak, realistic, dark comedy, allegory, independent film, sincere, thought provoking, serious
Similar in 90%
It's a Free World... (2007)
Plot Summary:
The film focuses on Angie (Kierston Wareing), a working class woman who, after being fired by the agency that she works for, decides to set up a recruitment agency of her own, running it from her kitchen with her friend Rose (Juliet Ellis). Taking advantage of the desperation of immigrants, Angie is able to build a successful business extremely quickly.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing, thought provoking, epic, political, social, bleak
Similar in 79%
Little Girl Lost (1988)
Plot Summary:
This heart-wrenching story inspired by real events depicts the trials of the Brady family, who are trying desperately to adopt a helpless little girl they took in when she was in a foster care program. Clara and Tim Brady are in for the fight of their lives as they find that adopting Tella will not be so easy -- especially when social services puts her back into the care of her abusive father.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 251
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 87%
Lois Gibbs and the Love Canal (1982)
Plot Summary:
An poorly-educated house-wife fights companies polluting her hometown's water-table in up-state New York during the 1970's.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 64
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 78%
Pinochet's Last Stand (2006)
Plot Summary:
In 1998 former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet visits Britain for medical treatment. On being tipped off, Amnesty International seize the chance to bring to justice a man they insist is guilty of multiple human rights violations. The newly-elected Labour government is initially amenable, and soon Pinochet is under house arrest (albeit in a detached house in leafy suburbia) and awaiting extradition to Spain. However, Amnesty are up against the complexities of British law, the vacillations of Home Secretary Jack Straw, Pinochet's former ally Margaret Thatcher - and the Senator's own vast reserves of cunning.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 249
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: disturbing, atmospheric, thought provoking, captivating, realistic, sincere, bleak, serious, dark comedy
Similar in 82%
The New Man (2007)
Plot Summary:
Sweden 1951. A new society is developing, a society where there is no room for the socially and mentally weak.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 858
Genere: Drama
Country: Finland, Sweden
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, emotional, touching, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, biting, suspense
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Dance Town (2010)
Plot Summary:
A North Korean refugee, Jung-Nim, is trying to find a new life in South Korea, with people suspecting that she is a spy.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 83
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, touching, sincere, thought provoking, bleak, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 75%
The Wee Man (2013)
Plot Summary:
The true life story of the rise to power of Glasgow gangster Paul Ferris.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, rough, bleak, captivating, cult film
Similar in 76%
Lilet Never Happened (2012)
Plot Summary:
Lilet Never Happened is the rollercoaster story of how a young girl, struggling to survive in the streets of Manila, spirals down into child prostitution. She is a fighter. She is a dreamer. She is a rebel and she thinks she can handle the world with her wits. But she has to face up to reality when she runs out of innocent dreams.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 281
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands, UK, Philippines
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing, bleak, emotional
Similar in 78%
Heart of the Beholder (2005)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of a family who opened the first videocassette rental stores in St. Louis in 1980. The family was ruined by a corrupt prosecutor who had been blackmailed by a religious group because the family refused to remove Martin Scorsese's controversial film, "The Last Temptation of Christ", from their stores.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 408
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 75%
A Date with Darkness: The Trial and Capture of Andrew Luster (2003)
Plot Summary:
Andrew Luster, the heir to the Max factor fortune, is convicted of rape on 86 counts. This Lifetime original movie recounts the rapes committed by the infamous Andrew Luster and the women who brought him to justice.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 492
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, suspenseful, disturbing, bleak, captivating, realistic, sexual, detective, sexy
Similar in 86%
10,000 Black Men Named George (2002)
Plot Summary:
In the 1920s, the rights of American workers to join a labor union was still considered an open question, and African-Americans were routinely denied their civil and economic rights. 10,000 Black Men Named George, the title, refers to the fact Pullman porters were often called "George" by white passengers, which was considered a racial slur.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 349
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, captivating, disturbing, tense, sincere, serious, realistic, contemplative, entertaining
Similar in 81%
Sub terra (2003)
Plot Summary:
In 1897, in Lota, Chile, in the face of long days, low pay, debts to the company store, unsafe and deadly working conditions, and widespread child labor, men try to establish a miners' association at one of the largest coal mines in the world. They must face Davis, an iron-fisted and murderous supervisor; there's at least one turncoat, willing to inform on their fellow workers; and, there are passions on all sides, including one between Fernando, a leader of the miners, and Virginia, the godchild of the mine's owners. Can the miners win a victory, and at what cost? Baldomero Lillo, a grocery clerk, records it all.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 373
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, Spain
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, captivating, epic, contemplative
Similar in 84%
In the Custody of Strangers (1982)
Plot Summary:
A teenage delinquent who goes on a drunken joyride is left in jail overnight by his parents in the hope that he might learn a lesson from it. But events follow which result in the boy spending far longer behind bars than anyone had foreseen.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 458
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing
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Bitter Harvest (1981)
Plot Summary:
A farmer's herd sickens and dies, then his family and neighbors fall ill, so he bucks the state agricultural establishment as he pursues the politically-explosive investigation of how his farm, family, and friends came to be poisoned.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 307
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
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Blood Done Sign My Name (2010)
Plot Summary:
A drama based on the true story in which a black Vietnam-era veteran is allegedly murdered by a local white businessman who is later exonerated. The plot focuses on the role of a local high school teacher and the civil unrest that followed the acquittal.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 635
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: disturbing, serious, captivating, realistic, thought provoking, tense, bleak, contemplative, entertaining
Similar in 83%
The Flight of the Swan (2010)
Plot Summary:
Alexis is an explosive personality, passionate about life, humanity, nature, love and beauty. That is until the breakneck rhythm, intensity, stress and convolutions of career and economic success shatter him, alienating him from everyone and everything he loves: even his children and his soul mate Maria. Alexis is jolted back to reality when the unbridled greed of the multinational conglomerate his company is involved in causes an unprecedented ecological catastrophe costing many human lives. The multinational's Golden Boy suddenly realizes that he is nothing more than a cog in the machine he had fought so passionately against in his youth. He is determined to rediscover himself, to reclaim his soul, to rebuild the dream with Maria - but he is completely trapped. He is caught in a web of intrigue that tightens like a vice driving him to an inevitably lethal conflict with the conglomerate.
IMDB Rating: 4.1
IMDB Votes: 181
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece, USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing, captivating, bleak
Similar in 76%
Anatomy of a Hate Crime (2001)
Plot Summary:
This MTV film dramatizes the horrific hate-crime killing of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard (Cy Carter) in Wyoming. In 1998, Shepard, a gay college student, was savagely beaten by Russell Henderson (Ian Somerhalder) and Aaron McKinney (Brendan Fletcher), who left their victim to die. Flashbacks paint a picture of Shepard's life and provide insight into why the killers, who initially set out to rob the young man, would commit such a brutal murder.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 316
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: disturbing, thought provoking, emotional, bleak, serious, realistic, controversial, queer cinema
Similar in 90%
Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story (1986)
Plot Summary:
No overview found.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 128
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
The Bridges of Sarajevo (2014)
Plot Summary:
Thirteen European directors explore the theme of Sarajevo; what this city has represented in European history over the past hundred years, and what Sarajevo stands for today in Europe. These eminent filmmakers of different generations and origins offer exceptional singular styles and visions.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 387
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria, Germany
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing, anthology, bleak
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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 81%
Citizen Verdict (2003)
Plot Summary:
Marty Rockman, the notorious producer of the hit reality-TV show "So Sue Me", has a brand new concept: "Citizen Verdict". Each week a real criminal case will be tried before the American people, but this time they're also the jury. If the defendant is voted guilty in a death penalty case, Rockman will televise the execution. When an escalation in violent crime and terrorism hits the state of Florida, Governor Tyler, desperate to be seen as a tough-on-crime Republican leader in the upcoming Presidential race, decides to give Rockman his chance and "Citizen Verdict" goes into production in Tampa. Selected by phone-in vote, the show's first contestant is Ricky Carr -- a man accused of the rape and murder of popular celebrity-chef Dolly Hamilton. The case is a surefire ratings winner. But when an investigation begins, it becomes apparent that Ricky may be innocent of murder.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 491
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: serious, disturbing, thought provoking, bleak, realistic, clever, cynical, biting, suspense
Similar in 90%
The Man Inside (1990)
Plot Summary:
Gunter Wallraff is a journalist seeking to expose the unethical journalism practiced by The Standard, a very popular and powerful German newspaper. He goes undercover, using forged identity papers and at great personal risk, to join their staff. Once there, he sees how they don't just report the news, but manufacture it to suit the personal political agenda of the paper's leaders.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 178
Genere: Drama
Country: France, USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: action thriller, independent film, psychological, sincere, thought provoking, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing
Similar in 75%
At Five in the Afternoon (2003)
Plot Summary:
Nogreh is a young Afghani woman living with her father and her sister-in-law, Leylomah, whose husband, Akhtar, is missing. Beyond the issue of Akhtar, Leylomah is most concerned with how to feed her baby. She cannot provide milk for her baby as her own hunger is preventing her from lactating. Nogreh, however, aspires toward a life in a western styled democracy. Although the Taliban are no longer in power in Afghanistan, traditional forces are still active in the country. Nogreh often displays signs of rebellion, such as wearing a pair of white pumps instead of the traditional slipper beneath her burqa. But mostly, Nogreh wants to be educated. Without her father's knowledge, Nogreh is attending a secular girls school. Ultimately, she wants to become President of Afghanistan. With the help of a Pakistani refugee who likes her as a woman, Nogreh tries to understand exactly what forces led to current world leaders being elected, those forces which she wants to emulate.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, sincere, touching, realistic, art house, emotional, masterpiece
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Harlan County War (2000)
Plot Summary:
A Kentucky woman whose mine-worker husband is nearly killed in a cave-in, and whose father is slowly dying of black lung disease, joins the picket lines for a long, violent strike.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 604
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, disturbing, rough, realistic, independent film, captivating, political, sincere, bleak, serious
Similar in 78%
Corporate (2006)
Plot Summary:
Two corporate giants compete in order to recklessly maximize their respective profits.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: India
Duration: 142 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, thought provoking