Best movies like Ciske the Rat
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Lovable Amsterdam street urchin, 11 year old Ciske is nevertheless much in need of love as the German 1955 title suggests. He is a scamp with a heart of gold. He causes havoc in the classroom pouring ink over his teacher yet when a polio-crippled boy joins the class Ciske is one of the only children to befriend him and is bullied as a result. His mother works in a bar and Ciske helps out often late into the night - his father is at sea and his mother supplements her income with prostitution. Ciske is also a very angry young man and he smoulders with rage at life's injustices.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: epic, cult classic, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, gloomy, eighties
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Best tv shows and movies like Ciske the Rat (1984):
Similar in 75%
Last Ride (2009)
Plot Summary:
A young boy travels across Australia with his father, who's wanted by the law.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: road movie, bleak, serious, tense, realistic, sexy, independent film, contemplative
Similar in 79%
B.A. Pass (2012)
Plot Summary:
After losing his parents in a car accident, Mukesh stays at his Aunt's house in Delhi. Enrolled in a good for nothing course in college he finds peace by playing chess at the local cemetery, the rest of the times he worries over ways to make a living and taking care of his sisters. 'B.A.Pass' is a story looking at the fatal promise of a new life. When Mukesh meets Sarika 'auntie' at a kitty party, little does he know of the city and it's ways and means to survive. Sarika seduces Mukesh, shy and inexperienced he falls for her. What follows is a twist of destiny, a kind of story that appears in the tabloids as 'heinous acts of crime'.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: India
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, tense, realistic, neo noir, erotic, independent film, dark, captivating
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Similar in 80%
As God Commands (2008)
Plot Summary:
A 14-year-old boy and his neo-Nazi dad are both outcasts in their suburban town.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Italy
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: psychological, sentimental, atmospheric, disturbing, touching, serious, sincere, emotional, realistic
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Similar in 82%
This Man Must Die (1969)
Plot Summary:
When his young son is killed in a hit and run accident, Charles Thenier resolves to hunt down and murder the killer. By chance, Thenier makes the acquaintance of an actress, Helène Lanson, who was in the car at the time of the accident. He then meets Helène’s brother-in-law, Paul Decourt, a truly horrible individual.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: neo noir, anthology, twisted, psychological, tense, atmospheric, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 81%
Character (1997)
Plot Summary:
J.W. Katadreuffe is the son of Joba Katadreuffe and A.B. Drevenhaven. Though fully neglected by Joba, Dreverhaven ensures the succesfull career of his son. Mostly unseen, though he sues his son a few times. The son Katadreuffe succeeds, but at great costs.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Netherlands, Belgium
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, realistic, psychological thriller, spiritual, slasher, twisted, thought provoking, serious, captivating
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Similar in 75%
King of the Jungle (2000)
Plot Summary:
Seymore is a young man with the mind of a child. He loves three things in life: basketball, sneaking out for cigarettes, and his mother. But all life's simple pleasures are brutally torn from him when he witnesses his mother gunned down by a neighborhood punk. Now Seymore must overcome the child within as he rises up to fight for some kind of justice. It's a fight that will take him out into the streets where there are few friends and many enemies -- and one of them is a killer who wants him silenced.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 590
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, tense, disturbing, independent film, bleak, realistic, suspenseful, gloomy
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Similar in 82%
The Stolen Children (1992)
Plot Summary:
Antonio, a policeman (carabiniere), has an order to take two children (Rosetta and her brother Luciano) from Milan to Sicily to an orphanage. Their mother has been arrested for forcing Rosetta (11 years old) to work as a prostitute. First the relation between Antonio and the children is tough, but it relaxes so they become temporary friends.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy, France, Switzerland
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, touching, captivating, road movie, philosophical, spiritual, sad, serious, emotional
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Similar in 86%
The Dinner (2013)
Plot Summary:
Adapting a Dutch bestseller inspired by a shocking real-life crime, Menno Meyjes (screenwriter of The Color Purple and Lionheart) directs this excoriating assessment of Europe’s contemporary social ills.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, disturbing, bleak
Similar in 79%
The Narrows (2008)
Plot Summary:
A 19 year old Brooklyn boy who is torn between two worlds when his photography portfolio wins him a partial scholarship to NYU. He must figure out how to balance his Italian neighborhood roots with the expansive, sophisticated world on the other side of the East River. Based on Tim McLoughlin's novel "Heart of the Old Country".
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: serious, tense, captivating, psychological, suspense, realistic
Similar in 78%
Barren Lives (1963)
Plot Summary:
'Vidas secas' tells in vivid images the almost documentary like story of a drover and his family in the northern interior states of Brazil during the drought. A family in the search of a new hope and destiny.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy
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Similar in 88%
Annika Bengtzon: Crime Reporter - Studio Sex (2012)
Plot Summary:
A stripper at the club Studio Six is murdered. A political scandal takes off when the Minister of Commerce appears to have been at the club. He resigns - but only to hide an even bigger secret.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Sweden
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, suspense, erotic, controversial, crime drama
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Similar in 85%
A Children's Story (2004)
Plot Summary:
The story focuses on the life of an 11-year old boy surrounded by criminality and poverty in the suburbs of Naples.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 457
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, bleak, serious, realistic
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Similar in 88%
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
Similar in 90%
Joe (2013)
Plot Summary:
The rough-hewn boss of a lumber crew courts trouble when he steps in to protect the youngest member of his team from an abusive father.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 51000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, dark, atmospheric, depressing, southern gothic, harsh, rough, suspense, cult classic
Similar in 86%
Steel City (2006)
Plot Summary:
After a tragic accident caused by the truck of the middle-aged Carl Lee where a woman dies with a crushed stern, he is arrested and sent to the county jail. His son PJ, who works washing dishes and cleaning tables in a restaurant, feels lost, without financial support to keep his father's house, and is fired from his job and evicted from his house.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 622
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: emotional, psychological, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, independent film, gloomy
Similar in 76%
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
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Similar in 89%
My Only Sunshine (2008)
Plot Summary:
Hayat, her father and bedridden grandfather live in a riverside shack near the dangerously dark but breathtakingly beautiful waters of the Bosphorus. Hayat's father owns a small boat that secures the family's survival through a miscellany of not always lawful ventures. Beyond the motion and romance of the water, Hayat's life is harsh and unrelenting. But Hayat has an instinct for survival. Her capacity for courage, endurance and hope in the face of these trials suggest that there is Life despite the manifold injustices of an unjust world.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, captivating, art house, atmospheric, serious, realistic, gloomy
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Similar in 85%
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 88%
Tough Enough (2006)
Plot Summary:
From the youth directed novel of the same name by Greogor Tressnow comes a film by Detlev Buck that is a realistic portrait of life in the section of Berlin called Neukölln. It’s about power and weakness, delinquents and victims, and the difficulties a 15-year-old faces in a poor and criminal environment.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: realistic, suspenseful, tense, rough, bleak, serious, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Joe the King (1999)
Plot Summary:
A destitute 14 year old struggles to keep his life together despite harsh abuse at his mother's hands, harsher abuse at his father's, and a growing separation from his slightly older brother. Petty thefts for food grow into more major takes until he steals a cash box from the diner where he works. Although Joe uses the money to pay off some of his father's debts and to replace his mother's records that his father smashed in a fit of temper, Joe gets no thanks.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: emotional, harsh, tense, rough, grim, realistic, art house, semi autobiographical, serious, gloomy
Similar in 83%
The Thief (1997)
Plot Summary:
In 1946, a soldier fathers a child then dies before its birth. Jump to 1952: on a train, the child and his mother meet a handsome soldier who makes a play for her. She accepts. Posing as a married family, the soldier finds them a rooming house where he becomes everyone's favorite through his good looks and generosity. Meanwhile he gives the boy, Sanya, lessons in life: to fight back, to win at all costs. The child's mother, Katya, is head-over-heels in love with Tolyan, the soldier, but the relationship becomes rocky when Tolyan's true plans for the rooming house become clear. It starts them on a treadmill of flight that risks Katya's life, Tolyan's liberty, and Sanya's trust.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Russia, France
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: bleak, realistic, sincere, gloomy, serious, crying, sentimental, atmospheric, thought provoking, touching
Similar in 84%
Simon & the Oaks (2011)
Plot Summary:
Epic story about two families and their friendship and common destiny in Sweden's Gothenburg in the 1940s and 1950s. Told from the perspective of young Simon Larsson, who learns that he's an adopted child who has a Jewish father from Germany. After WWII Simon travels to explore his roots - a journey that leads to the basic mysteries of the human life. After the bestselling novel by Marianne Fredriksson.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Norway
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: realistic, tense, touching, psychological, captivating, contemplative, bleak, serious, romantic drama
Similar in 82%
Oliver Twist (2005)
Plot Summary:
Oliver Twist the modern filmed version of Charles Dickens bestseller, a Roman Polanski adaptation. The classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 34000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: France, UK, Czech Republic
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: emotional, costume drama, atmospheric, sentimental, touching, serious, suspense, period piece, melancholic, stylized
Similar in 83%
Sweet Sixteen (2002)
Plot Summary:
Determined to have a normal family life once his mother gets out of prison, a Scottish teenager from a tough background sets out to raise the money for a home.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: UK, Germany, Spain
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: disturbing, sentimental, bleak, realistic, depressing, heartbreaking, compassionate, touching, sincere, emotional
Similar in 75%
Pixote (1980)
Plot Summary:
Pixote, a 10-year-old runaway boy, is arrested on the streets of Sao Paulo during a police round-up homeless people. Pixote endures torture, degradation and corruption at a local youth detention center where two of the runaways are murdered by policemen who frame Lilica, a 17-year-old transvesite hustler. Pixote helps Lilica and three other boys escape where they make their living by the life of crime which only escalates to more violence and death.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: disturbing, depressing, bleak, realistic, rough, atmospheric, serious, political, controversial, hood
Similar in 85%
The Hypnotist (2012)
Plot Summary:
After a young woman and her parents are murdered by a killer determined to wipe out the entire family, Detective Inspector Joona Linna works with a psychiatrist to hypnotize the son who narrowly escaped death in order to find the one surviving daughter before the murderer does.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Sweden
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: suspense, serious, suspenseful, bleak, realistic, captivating, disturbing, slasher, psychological, cult classic
Similar in 83%
Tsotsi (2005)
Plot Summary:
The South African multi-award winning film about a young South African boy from the ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster. Tsotsi, who left home as a child to get away from helpless parents, finds a baby in the back seat of a car that he has just stolen. He decides that it his responsibility to take care of the baby and in the process learns that maybe the gangster life isn’t the best way.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 29000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: UK, South Africa
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sincere, bleak, emotional, harsh, rough, captivating, dramatic, art house, realistic, inspirational
Similar in 81%
Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets (2000)
Plot Summary:
Ali, Kwita, Omar and Boubker are street kids. The daily dose of glue sniffing represents their only escape from reality. Since they left Dib and his gang, they have been living on the portside of Casablanca. They live in constant fear of Dib's revenge. Ali wants to become a sailor - when he was living with his mother, a prostitute, he used to listen to a fairy tale about the sailor who discovered the miracle island with two suns. Instead of finding his island in the dream, Ali and his friends are confronted with Dib's gang. Matters are getting serious.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Crime
Country: Morocco, Tunisia, France, Belgium, USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, captivating, bleak, social, disturbing, crying, islamic, realistic, masterpiece
Similar in 82%
Black Bread (2010)
Plot Summary:
In the harsh post-war years' Catalan countryside, Andreu, a child that belongs to the losing side, finds the corpses of a man and his son in the forest. The authorities want his father to be made responsible of the deaths, but Andreu tries to help his father by finding out who truly killed them. In this search, Andreu develops a moral consciousness against a world of adults fed by lies. In order to survive, he betrays his own roots and ends up finding out the monster that lives within him.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, serious, emotional, suspenseful, disturbing, controversial, bleak
Similar in 87%
Kauwboy (2012)
Plot Summary:
Ten-year-old Jojo lives with his father, a security guard with a volatile personality who drinks to manage the unspoken despair he feels about his wife's absence, which he refuses to discuss with his son. In the midst of so much uncertainty, Jojo finds comfort and happiness in caring for an abandoned baby bird, a jackdaw, who is even more vulnerable than himself.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, melancholic, realistic