Best movies like Bibliothèque Pascal
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A mother's struggle to support her child leads her into a surreal netherworld of sex and danger in this drama from Hungarian filmmaker Szabolcs Hajdu. Mona Paparu is a single mother who has been left to raise her daughter Viorica on her own, only to have her fitness as a parent called into question by her aunt Rodica. Forced to answer Rodica's charges in a meeting with Child Protective Service authorities, Mona tells the long, convoluted tale of how she fell in with Viorel, a charming but sinister underworld figure, in order to provide for her daughter. As Mona falls into debt to Viorel, he puts her to work in a variety of illegal enterprises, finally ending up in the Bibliotheque Pascal, an elegant but bizarre house of prostitution in which men can re-enact sexual scenarios inspired by great works of literature for a hefty fee. Bibliotheque Pascal was an official selection at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Germany, Hungary, UK, Romania
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, disturbing, tense, realistic, sexual, sexy, psychological thriller, surreal, powerful
Best tv shows and movies like Bibliothèque Pascal (2010):
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Aftermath (2012)
Plot Summary:
Two brothers are trying to find out the truth from years ago. The whole town is against them.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Thriller
Country: Poland, Russia, Netherlands
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, disturbing, suspense, captivating, psychological thriller, social, thought provoking, bleak, realistic
Similar in 85%
Spiderwebhouse (2015)
Plot Summary:
When 12-year-old Jonas’ mother leaves to “fight her demons”, he steps up as head of the household, becoming the unofficial guardian to his younger siblings. With food and money running out, the children retreat into a world of their own where, cloaked eerily in black-and-white, their home turns into one of bugs and mysticism – they make saucepan gardens, they take on insects as pets and spiderwebs encroach. Only the friendship of an odd young homeless man gives Jonas hope to survive in an adult’s world.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 184
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, psychological, suspenseful, rough, realistic, gloomy, psychotronic
Similar in 85%
Made in Ash (2012)
Plot Summary:
A grittily realistic tale of prostitution at an Eastern European border town.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 85
Genere: Drama
Country: Slovakia, Czech Republic
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, sexy, gloomy, sexual
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Wolfy (2009)
Plot Summary:
There are two of them: a mother and a girl. They have no names. And they are in a constant run. The mother runs away from the daughter in an attempt to start new life, and the girl runs after her mother as she has no idea how to live without her. This endless run is full with repeated mistakes and resembles a barrel-organ sorrowful song or a spinning-top rotation. This small ridiculous toy "volchok" was the first toy in the girl's life, the only thing that tied her with the mother.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: rough, realistic, serious, tense, disturbing, neorealism, gloomy, bleak, art house, weird
Similar in 77%
Stella Does Tricks (1996)
Plot Summary:
A young Glaswegian prostitute in London tries to start a new life.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 664
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: erotic, depressing, tense, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, non-linear, gloomy
Similar in 86%
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 77%
Hussy (1980)
Plot Summary:
Beaty, a prostitute, and Emory, a lighting/sound technician, fall in love while working at the same London cabaret, but their relationship isn't easy.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 617
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: anime, independent film, rough, serious, neo noir, realistic, sexual, sexy
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Us (2013)
Plot Summary:
This is a story of Ida and Krister. It's about a relationship that goes to hell. They are both crazy in love but manage to strangle the supply of oxygen and adapt to each other in a way that will lead to catastrophic consequences.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspense, sexy, bleak
Similar in 82%
90 Minutes (2012)
Plot Summary:
Director Eva Sørhaug (Cold Lunch) reveals the rage and violence lurking beneath seemingly tranquil domesticity in her bold and uncompromising sophomore feature.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, disturbing, rough, serious, realistic, contemplative, hot
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Look Back in Anger (1989)
Plot Summary:
Look Back in Anger is a love triangle involving the brilliant-but-disaffected young Jimmy Porter (Branagh), his upper-middle-class, impassive wife Alison Porter (Thompson), and her aristocratic best friend Helena Charles (Redmond). Cliff (Horan), an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 370
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, sincere, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, gloomy
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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 82%
Almanac of Fall (1984)
Plot Summary:
In this dense setting, the inhabitants of a large, claustrophobic apartment reveal their darkest secrets, fears, obsessions and hostilities.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: slow cinema, intellectual, neo noir, avant garde, powerful, aesthetic, psychological thriller, psychological, tense, bleak
Similar in 83%
Seduction: The Cruel Woman (1985)
Plot Summary:
Wanda is a dominatrix who runs a gallery in a building on the Hamburg waterfront, where audiences pay for the privilege of watching her humiliate her slaves. She is a business woman who smashes sexual stereotypes and social taboos with icy self-possession and an enigmatic smile. As artist she specializes in the staging of elaborate BDSM fantasies and her affairs transgress the usual boundaries of personal and professional life. Along the way she leaves her German lesbian lover, a shoe fetishist, for an American "trainee," and does more than step on the toes of the male performer who has broken the rules of the master-slave relationship by falling in love with her.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 216
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: sexy, psychological, serious, realistic, disturbing, controversial, sexual, weird
Similar in 80%
The Bed You Sleep In (1993)
Plot Summary:
Times are hard for Northwestern lumber-mill operators like Ray and his wife Jean. Ray and Jean's lives are thrown into chaos when their daughter writes home from college.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 285
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: independent film, atmospheric, bleak, serious, realistic, experimental, disturbing, contemplative, stylized, gloomy
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Bo (2010)
Plot Summary:
Fifteen year old Deborah meets Jennifer who steers her into a career as an escort. Under the alias Bo she begins a new life that she cannot handle and starts a downward spiral that only she can end.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, rough, captivating, realistic, erotic, sad, bleak
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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 85%
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
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King of Thieves (2003)
Plot Summary:
Two amateur circus kids from a poor Ukrainian village, ten-year-old Barbu and his older sister Mimma, are sold to a circus artist called Caruso who promises them a career in the West.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 416
Genere: Drama
Country: Slovakia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Germany, France
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: disturbing, emotional, serious, realistic, bleak
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Norfolk (2015)
Plot Summary:
Set in Norfolk, amidst an idyllic, brooding landscape, an innocent teenage boy and his battle-weary father live a simple life. Days are spent hunting, fishing and daydreaming. Out-of-nowhere, disrupting this tranquility, a mysterious intense figure gives the green light for the father to complete one last mission; he is a mercenary, hired to assassinate a group of revolutionaries holed-up in a remote, disused civil service outpost. A mission that threatens to destroy not just the compound but the love between a father and his son.
IMDB Rating: 4.2
IMDB Votes: 250
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, disturbing, bleak, realistic, independent film
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On the Edge (2009)
Plot Summary:
Alfredo and Susanna are two well-off fifty-year-olds who lead a stimulating cultural life. He is an architect and she is a psychologist; they live in Rome but spend their weekends at their country home in Umbria, where they love to spend their days walking in the forests or relaxing poolside with a good book. One day, as she goes into town, Susanna sees a girl prostituting herself in the bushes on the side of the road and decides to save her from her unhappy existence, despite the enormous differences that separate their ways of life.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 580
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, emotional, realistic, erotic
Similar in 80%
The Serpent's Way (1986)
Plot Summary:
A salesman and his son sexually abuse the generations of women of a poor family as payment for debt. Janni must see his mother, sister, niece and wife all being exploited, and the family grow bigger with the abuser's kids.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 614
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, gloomy
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Older Than America (2008)
Plot Summary:
The truth of the past come to light in a series of haunting visions in this drama. The strange visions grow more vivid with each passing day, a young woman of Native American heritage begins piecing together a Catholic priests diabolical plot to prevent her mother from revealing the atrocities that unfolded at a Native Indian boarding school.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, independent film
Similar in 89%
Young Gods (2003)
Plot Summary:
Taavi,the enigmatic 18-year-old lead, has just inherited his long-deceased wealthy parents home and estate. It is high school graduation and Taavi's birthday, and after his fiends greet him au natural and are arrested, Taavi invites his friends to the mansion for a wild party. Taavi lives with a recording camera to his eye, a machine that allows his to keep interpersonal distance from everyone. Among his friends are Jere who considers himself a woman's man, Markus (who appears the well-adjusted one, and chubby, pierced Sami whose sexuality is ambiguous. The party gets wild, guests sleep around, and Taavi records it all!.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Finland
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, suspenseful, tense, sexual, sexy
Similar in 75%
She's Lost Control (2014)
Plot Summary:
Ronah's life unravels when she starts working with a new client, Johnny.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, tense, realistic, sexy, captivating, independent film, sexual
Similar in 86%
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 75%
Lolita's Club (2007)
Plot Summary:
The plot follows the story of twin brothers, one is a coldhearted violent police officer, the other is a helpless romantic with a mental disability. The two brothers are tragically involved with a prostitute who works in the bordello that gives the film its title. The film was adapted from an eponymous novel written by Juan Marsé.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 540
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, sexy, erotic, sexual
Similar in 77%
Accused (2005)
Plot Summary:
On the surface Henrik and Nina Christofferson are an ordinary family living happily. But they have a problem. Their daughter, Stine, a difficult 14 year old, has a habit of telling lies in class. When Stine accuses her father of sexual abuse, and is believed by seemingly eager social workers, their family is thrust into crisis. Could Henrik have done it? And when Stine prepares to return home, the ugly side of family life is exposed.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: disturbing, tense, bleak, serious, gloomy, depressing, sexual, realistic, sexy
Similar in 79%
Tokyo Decadence (1992)
Plot Summary:
A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: erotic, disturbing, tense, surreal, sexy, serious, realistic, controversial, psychological, captivating
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Bas-fonds (2010)
Plot Summary:
On the outskirts of civilisation, three young women, Magalie, Marie-Steph and Barbara live a desperate life together. Drowning in alcohol, they both lust for and hate one another, coupling like animals. Yet gradually they become enmeshed in a complex game of love and domination. Magalie, the ringleader, subjugates through her male power, and bestial charisma. Simple Marie-Steph, her younger sister, remains in the background, and Barbara, unaware of her own prettiness, has joined the pack because she loves Magalie. One day, at Magalie’s instigation, and almost out of boredom, they hold up a bakery and kill the baker with a buckshot gun. Life gradually resumes, but nothing is the same.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 80
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 68 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, disturbing, surreal, offbeat, captivating, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 86%
Suspicious River (2000)
Plot Summary:
A young married woman (Parker) sells her body, not just for money, to guests at the motel where she works as a receptionist.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 852
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: erotic, psychological, rough, disturbing, tense, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, sexual