Best movies like Drowning by Numbers
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
An ironic black comedy of love and death that takes place an a lyrically beautiful landscape. Three related women, all named Cissie Colpitts share a solidarity for one another which brings about three copy-cat drownings. The local coroner is in love with all three women and helps to disguise the murders.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, Netherlands
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: surreal, black comedy, dark comedy, art house, humorous, disturbing, witty, talky, erotic, postmodern
Best tv shows and movies like Drowning by Numbers (1988):
Similar in 88%
Dying of Laughter (1999)
Plot Summary:
Nino and Bruno are two comedians who reach the heights of success with their duo act, turning them into huge TV celebrities. However, the hate between them grows as fast, and as much, as their fame.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, clever, offbeat, humorous, captivating, realistic, witty, cynical, semi serious, biting
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Similar in 85%
The Belly of an Architect (1987)
Plot Summary:
The American architect Kracklite arrives in Italy, supervising an exhibiton for a French architect, Boullée, famous for his oval structures. Tirelessly dedicated to the project, Kracklite's marriage quickly dissolves along with his health.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Italy
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: art house, talky, sexual, aesthetic, psychological, mind bending, clever, offbeat, experimental, witty
Similar in 87%
The Road to Wellville (1994)
Plot Summary:
An unhappy young couple visit the infamous Kellogg spa in Battle Creek, Michigan while a young hustler tries get into the breakfast-cereal business and compete against John Kellogg's corn flakes.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: humorous, talky, witty, surreal, hilarious, clever, offbeat, feel good, captivating, satirical
Similar in 86%
Mini's First Time (2006)
Plot Summary:
Desperate to be free from her drunken, unloving mother Diane, the beautiful, scheming young Mini seduces her stepfather Martin and soon convinces him to join her in a sadistic scheme to have Diane declared insane. But their conspiracy soon escalates to murder and when John Garson, a young detective starts investigating, Martin and Mini begin to turn on each other.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, humorous, cynical, erotic, dark, slasher, independent film, clever, neo noir, realistic
Similar in 82%
The Northerners (1992)
Plot Summary:
A black comedy set in the 1960s in a small Netherlands community, populated by a cast of eccentrics, all of whom hold a range of sexual obsessions and frustrated desires.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, slasher, art house, black comedy, cult classic, atmospheric, offbeat, humorous, realistic, surreal
Similar in 76%
The Adjuster (1991)
Plot Summary:
An uptight insurance man and his film-censor wife become a kinky couple's landlords.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: realistic, witty, semi serious, erotic, entertaining, dark comedy, disturbing, sexy, social, anamorphic
Similar in 88%
The Pillow Book (1995)
Plot Summary:
As a young girl in Japan, Nagiko's father paints characters on her face, and her aunt reads to her from "The Pillow Book", the diary of a 10th-century lady-in-waiting. Nagiko grows up, obsessed with books, papers, and writing on bodies.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands, UK, France, Luxembourg
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: erotic, art house, sexy, surreal, enigmatic, artsy, non-linear, absurd, experimental, stylized
Similar in 90%
Bianca (1983)
Plot Summary:
Michele is a mathematics professor who just started a new job in a school with some peculiar teaching methods. After a woman in his neighborhood is murdered, Michele meets beautiful colleague Bianca, and a relationship begins between the two. Where is this relationship heading, and will Michele be able to help the police catch the murderer?.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: cult classic, psychological, sentimental, bleak, humorous, realistic, semi serious, surreal, black comedy, dark comedy
Similar in 86%
A Zed & Two Noughts (1985)
Plot Summary:
Oliver Deuce, a successful doctor, is shattered when his wife is killed in a freak car accident involving a car being driven by Alba Bewick colliding with a very large rare bird. His twin brother Oswald is researching how carcasses decay at the local zoo. Alba survives the accident although she loses one leg, and her sinister physician eventually removes the other 'because it looked so sad all alone'. Oswald and Oliver become involved in a menage a trois with Alba, and uncover very dubious trafficking in zoo property. But ultimately their only goal is to try and understand their mortal condition.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, Netherlands
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: surreal, disturbing, dark comedy, mind bending, erotic, black comedy, clever, witty, talky, controversial
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Similar in 81%
The Draughtsman's Contract (1982)
Plot Summary:
Peter Greenaway's first fiction feature (after the mock-documentary The Falls) made him immediately famous and was named one of the most original films of the 1980s by British critics. The action is set in the director's beloved 17th century. Ambitious young artist Mr. Neville (Anthony Higgins) is invited by Mrs. Herbert (Janet Suzman) to make 12 elaborate sketches of her estate. Besides money, the contract includes sexual favors that Mrs. Herbert will offer to the draughtsman in the absence of Mr. Herbert. Entirely confident in his ability to weave a web of intrigues, Mr. Neville eventually becomes a victim of someone else's elaborate scheme. The film is structured as a sophisticated intellectual puzzle like the ones popular in the 17th century.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, talky, stylized, surreal, witty, humorous, semi serious, art house, cynical, sexual
Similar in 77%
The Last Days of Emma Blank (2009)
Plot Summary:
A woman living in a large country home drives her servants to mutiny with her outrageous demands as she waits for death to come for her.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, cynical, semi serious, slasher, offbeat
Similar in 80%
8 ? Women (1999)
Plot Summary:
After the death of his wife, wealthy businessman Philip Emmenthal and his son Storey open their own private harem in their family residence in Geneva (they get the idea while watching Federico Fellini's 8½ and after Storey is "given" a woman, Simato (Inoh), to waive her pachinko debts). They sign one-year contracts with eight (and a half) women to this effect. The women each have a gimmick (one is a nun, another a kabuki performer, etc.). Philip soon becomes dominated by his favourite of the concubines, Palmira, who has no interest in Storey as a lover, despite what their contract might stipulate. Philip dies, the concubines' contracts expire, and Storey is left alone with Giulietta (the titular "½", played by Fujiwara) and of course the money and the houses.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: surreal, erotic, sexy, clever, talky, sex comedy, offbeat, humorous, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 90%
Montenegro (1981)
Plot Summary:
Marilyn Jordan, an American, lives in Stockholm with her Swedish husband and family. Her behavior is bizarre, perhaps mad: she poisons the dog's milk and advises the dog not to drink it; she sets the sheets afire as her husband sleeps; she crawls under the dining table to sing. While detained at airport customs for carrying pruning shears, she meets a young Yugoslav woman and goes with her to a Gypsy enclave where she's fought over, takes a lover, helps with the sordid entertainment at a bar, and returns home more dangerous than before. The film also tells parallel stories of Marilyn's daughter becoming a junior homemaker as the young immigrant practices her striptease.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Comedy
Country: Sweden, UK
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, sexy, cult classic, humorous, surreal, sex comedy, black comedy, offbeat, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 81%
City of Women (1980)
Plot Summary:
A businessman finds himself trapped at a hotel and threatened by women en masse.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags: surreal, satirical, art house, cerebral, atmospheric, mind bending, psychedelic, cult classic, clever, offbeat
Similar in 87%
The Pornographers (1966)
Plot Summary:
Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady, Haru, and her family. From time to time, Haru shares her bed with Subu, though she believes her dead husband, reincarnated as a carp, disapproves. Director Shohei Imamura has always delighted in the kinky exploits of lowlifes, and in this 1966 classic, he finds subversive humor in the bizarre dynamics of Haru, her Oedipal son, and her daughter, the true object of her pornographer-boyfriend’s obsession. Imamura’s comic treatment of such taboos as voyeurism and incest sparked controversy when the film was released, but The Pornographers has outlasted its critics, and now seems frankly ahead of its time.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: surreal, dark comedy, erotic, mind bending, psychedelic, cult classic, erotic drama, clever, offbeat, humorous
Similar in 89%
The House of Yes (1997)
Plot Summary:
Jackie-O is anxiously awaiting the visit of her brother home for Thanksgiving, but isn't expecting him to bring a friend. She's even more shocked to learn that this friend is his fiance. It soon becomes clear that Jackie Kennedy's obsession is nothing compared to her obsession with her brother, as it also becomes clear she isn't the only member of the family with problems.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, humorous, black comedy, independent film, surreal, absurd, offbeat, dark, cult classic, psychological
Similar in 88%
Intimate Relations (1996)
Plot Summary:
A young merchant marine turns up in an English coastal town looking for a brother he barely knows. When his brother's wife rebukes him he takes up with the Beasley family. However, soon the mother and daughter are chasing and ending up in the man's bed. However, soon both women start showing up at the same time which is a little much for him.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 777
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada, UK
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: erotic, offbeat, humorous, realistic, disturbing, semi serious, biting, sexual, independent film, black comedy
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Similar in 78%
Antonia's Line (1995)
Plot Summary:
After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands, Belgium, UK, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: touching, intellectual, melancholic, sentimental, independent film, funny, epic, experimental, dramatic, manga
Similar in 80%
The Chumscrubber (2005)
Plot Summary:
The Chumscrubber is a dark comedy about the lives of people who live in upper-class suburbia. It all begins when Dean Stiffle finds the body of his friend, Troy. He doesn't bother telling any of the adults because he knows they won't care. Everyone in town is too self consumed to worry about anything else than themselves. And everybody is on some form of drug just to get through their days.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA, Germany
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: surreal, dark comedy, bleak, independent film, black comedy, humorous, semi serious, witty, dark, clever
Similar in 83%
The New Age (1994)
Plot Summary:
Peter and Katherine Witner are Southern California super-yuppies with great jobs but no center to their lives. When they both lose their jobs and begin marital infidelities, their solution is to start their own business together. In order to find meaning to their empty lives, they follow various New Age gurus and other such groups. Eventually, they hit rock bottom and have to make some hard decisions.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: satirical, melancholic, meditative, disturbing, humorous, cynical, realistic, witty, semi serious, cult classic
Similar in 76%
Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
Plot Summary:
A film poem inspired by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. A story about our need for love, our confusion, greatness and smallness and, most of all, our vulnerability. It is a story with many characters, among them a father and his mistress, his youngest son and his girlfriend. It is a film about big lies, abandonment and the eternal longing for companionship and confirmation.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 20000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, black comedy, philosophical, art house, disturbing, talky, depressing, melancholic, meditative
Similar in 76%
Human Nature (2001)
Plot Summary:
A philosophical burlesque, Human Nature follows the ups and downs of an obsessive scientist, a female naturalist, and the man they discover, born and raised in the wild. As scientist Nathan trains the wild man, Puff, in the ways of the world - starting with table manners - Nathan's lover Lila fights to preserve the man's simian past, which represents a freedom enviable to most.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France, USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: surreal, humorous, philosophical, witty, semi serious, psychological, black comedy, dark comedy, clever, talky
Similar in 89%
The Big Feast (1973)
Plot Summary:
A group of men hire some prostitutes and go to a villa in the countryside. There, they engage in group sex and resolve to eat themselves to death.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: erotic, disturbing, art house, surreal, humorous, controversial, atmospheric, black comedy, dark comedy, sexual
Similar in 77%
Bliss (1985)
Plot Summary:
An advertising executive dies and goes to hell... except nothing changes. Well, his daughter is buying drugs with sexual favours from her brother, and the number of cancer-causing products is on the increase. But the notes he writes to himself to prove he hasn't gone insane are getting more disjointed, and he runs off with an ex-prostitute called Honey Barbera.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, surreal, retro, mind bending, psychedelic, art house, cult classic, offbeat, humorous, realistic
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Similar in 89%
The Acid House (1998)
Plot Summary:
THE ACID HOUSE is a surreal triptych adapted by "Trainspotting" author Irvine Welsh from his acclaimed collection of short stories. Combining a vicious sense of humor with hard-talking drama, the film reaches into the hearts and minds of the chemical generation, casting a dark and unholy light into the hidden corners of the human psyche. Directed by Paul McGuigan, the film dramatises three stories from the book: 1- The Granton Star Cause, 2- A Soft Touch & 3- The Acid House.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychedelic, mind bending, dark comedy, disturbing, humorous, absurd, independent film, clever, controversial
Similar in 80%
A Serious Man (2009)
Plot Summary:
A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous acquaintances Sy Ableman.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 148000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, France, USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, black comedy, philosophical, ironic, intellectual, cynical, meditative, talky, cult classic, bleak
Similar in 77%
Conspirators of Pleasure (1996)
Plot Summary:
Six outwardly average individuals have elaborate fetishes they indulge with surreptitious care. A mousy letter carrier makes dough balls she grotesquely ingests before bed. A shop clerk fixates on a TV news reader while he builds a machine to massage and masturbate him. One of his customers makes an elaborate chicken costume for a voodoo-like scene with a doll resembling his plump neighbor. She, in turn, has a doll that resembles him, which she whips and dominates in an abandoned church. The TV news reader has her own fantasy involving carp. Her husband, who is indifferent to her, steals materials to fashion elaborate artifacts that he rubs, scrapes and rolls across his body.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic, Switzerland, UK
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: surreal, experimental, sexy, dark comedy, psychedelic, psychotronic, sex comedy, erotic, mind bending, gothic
Similar in 86%
The Idiots (1998)
Plot Summary:
With his first Dogma-95 film director Lars von Trier opens up a completely new film platform. With a mix of home-video and documentary styles the film tells the story of a group of young people who have decided to get to know their “inner-idiots” and thus not only facing and breaking their outer appearance but also their inner.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 34000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Denmark, France, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Italy
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: art house, surreal, disturbing, controversial, experimental, sexy, erotic, satirical, dark comedy, psychological
Similar in 82%
The Decline of the American Empire (1986)
Plot Summary:
Four very different Montreal university teachers gather at a rambling country house to prepare a dinner. Remy (married), Claude (a homosexual), Pierre (involved with a girlfriend) and Alain (a bachelor) discuss sex, the female body and their affairs with them. Meanwhile, their four female guests, Louise (Remy's wife of 15 years), Dominique (a spinster), Diane (a divorcée) and Danielle (Pierre's girlfriend) are spending the time at a downtown health gym. They also discuss sex, the female body and, naturally, men. Later in the evening, they finally meet at the country house and have dinner. A ninth guest, named Mario, who used to know Diane, drops in on the group for some talk and has a surprise of his own.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: talky, intellectual, humorous, sincere, realistic, semi serious, art house, sex comedy, independent film, cult classic
Similar in 88%
That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)
Plot Summary:
After dumping a bucket of water on a beautiful young woman from the window of a train car, wealthy Frenchman Mathieu, regales his fellow passengers with the story of the dysfunctional relationship between himself and the young woman in question, a fiery 19-year-old flamenco dancer named Conchita. What follows is a tale of cruelty, depravity and lies -- the very building blocks of love.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 24000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France, Spain
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, art house, sexy, clever, witty, cynical, stylized, psychedelic, sexual