Best movies like Elena
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Vladimir is reaching the end of his life and decides to leave his wealth to his only daughter, cutting out his wife and her son from his will.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Russia
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: bleak, realistic, serious, touching, neo noir, philosophical, inspirational, art house, cerebral, visual
Best tv shows and movies like Elena (2011):
Similar in 85%
Sisters (2001)
Plot Summary:
A movie about two sisters - thirteen year old Sveta, poor and abandoned by her father, who longs to go off and be a sniper in the army, and spoilt eight-year old Dina, doted on by her gangster father.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, touching, captivating
Similar in 85%
Red Bear (2002)
Plot Summary:
Bear has never gotten over the separation from his wife and daughter after having been convicted for armed robbery and homicide and sent to prison. Now he is out, to finally get his cut of the money and reunite with his family, or at least avenge the damage done.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Argentina, Spain, France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, touching, emotional, realistic, crime drama
Similar in 79%
The Colony (1995)
Plot Summary:
Thriller about a man who, along with his family, moves from a crime-ridden inner city suburb to a self-proclaimed violence-free haven overseen by a godlike businessman. However, they soon discover that life in The Colony is much more sinister than it first appeared.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 800
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: erotic, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 77%
The Girl (2012)
Plot Summary:
A young Texan mother who loses her child to foster care begins smuggling Mexicans across the border.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA, Mexico
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, tense, captivating, suspense, indie film, sincere, serious, gloomy
Similar in 83%
Fabienne (2011)
Plot Summary:
Fabienne is a police officer. She does her job well but is gradually growing tired of the dehumanized nature of her work : arresting undocumented aliens day after day does not fit in with her ideals. That's why when, one night, Olga, the Kazakh prostitute she apprehends, begs her to free her not to leave her four-year-old son alone, she hesitates... And why, after Olga has run away and is found dead, Fabienne decides to deal with this matter personally.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 181
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: France
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, sincere, realistic, neo noir, touching, bleak
Similar in 78%
Coastlines (2002)
Plot Summary:
An ex-con returns to his Florida hometown after three years and becomes involved with the wife of his best friend, the local sheriff.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 758
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, independent film
Similar in 90%
No Way Home (1996)
Plot Summary:
An ex-cons future is threatened by his brother's involvement with drugs.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: neo noir, cult classic, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy, independent film
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
Similar in 90%
White Knuckles (2010)
Plot Summary:
A sweet housewife has been married to the same crotchety man for 40 years and she just can't bear another day. She starts to poison his food just to see if he might change. When he falls ill, both are awakened to the raw reality of life and death.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 87
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: serious, touching, realistic, suspense, mumblecore, independent film
Similar in 89%
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 Fool (2014)
Plot Summary:
The Fool is a movie about a simple plumber. An honest man, he is up against an entire system of corrupted bureaucrats. At stake are the lives of 800 inhabitants of an old dorm that is at risk of collapsing within the span of the night.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Russia
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, tense, realistic, suspense, bleak, serious, harsh, political, brutal, thought provoking
Similar in 90%
The Bastards (2008)
Plot Summary:
A 24 hour period in the lives of Fausto and Jesus, two undocumented Mexican day-laborers in L.A. Each day another task, each day the same pressure to find money. They go about their daily routine, standing on the corner at the Home Improvement Store waiting for work to come. Today, the job they are given is well paid compared to their poor usual wages.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Mexico, France, USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, bleak, contemplative, hispanic, crime drama, slow cinema
Similar in 78%
No Turning Back (2001)
Plot Summary:
Mexican English teacher Pablo Fernandez seeks a better life for himself and his spoiled daughter Christina after losing his wife in a hurricane. Pablo becomes a tomato picker as illegal immigrant in California. While driving his illegal employer Charlie's truck, he accidentally runs over Dinah Knightly, who later dies. Dumb, arrogant detective Bryant and brighter but superstitious rookie Steven Lightning investigate and set chase.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 331
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA, Spain, Australia
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: tense, touching, serious, suspenseful, realistic
Similar in 84%
The Man Inside (2012)
Plot Summary:
A thriller centered on a young boxer trying to distance himself from his father's gangster past and the relationship with his trainer.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: realistic, suspenseful, bleak, serious, tense, suspense, captivating, rough, touching, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Bypass (2014)
Plot Summary:
Tim has no job, but Tim ‘works’, selling stolen goods...In the face of mounting internal and external pressure, how far will he go to keep his head above water and protect those he loves?.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 339
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK, Sweden
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, suspenseful, tense, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 88%
The Banishment (2007)
Plot Summary:
A trip to the pastoral countryside reveals a dark, sinister reality for a family from the city.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Russia
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: bleak, melancholic, surreal, serious, emotional, stylized, art house, cerebral, inspirational, philosophical
Similar in 88%
Blood of My Blood (2011)
Plot Summary:
A regular family living in the outskirts of Lisbon sees the serenity of their lives shaken beyond any remedy within a week.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Portugal
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, realistic, bleak, serious, emotional, suspense, talky, masterpiece
Similar in 85%
The Element of Crime (1984)
Plot Summary:
Fisher, an ex-detective, decides to take one final case when a mysterious serial killer claims the lives of several young girls. Fisher, unable to find the culprit, turns to Osbourne, a writer who was once respected for his contributions to the field of criminology. Fisher begins to use Osbourne's technique, which involves empathizing with serial killers; however, as the detective becomes increasingly engrossed in this method, things take a disturbing turn.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Denmark
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: surreal, bleak, neo noir, art house, psychological, detective, suspenseful, cerebral, atmospheric, stylized
Similar in 84%
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 87%
The Bench (2000)
Plot Summary:
Kaj is a stubborn man with a great deal of pride. The former chef lives in a council flat. He has wasted his life and is now on a council job training scheme for the long-term unemployed, where he refuses to let the foreman of the activation project boss him about. When Kaj's daughter, with whom he has not been in touch for nineteen years, moves into the same council estate on the run from her violent husband, a change comes over Kaj. His initial instinct is to avoid her, but by chance he ends up helping to look after Jonas, her six-year-old son. For the first time for years Kaj need not survive on his own devices. Now he has responsibilities and a family of his own.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark, Sweden
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, inspirational, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Offline (2012)
Plot Summary:
A man attempts to reclaim the life that prison took from him but his dark past threatens to ruin everything.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 876
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Blood and Wine (1996)
Plot Summary:
A man who has failed as a father and husband commits a heist to make money for his fledging business, but things become complicated when his wife interferes.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: neo noir, tense, melancholic, serious, clever, suspenseful, intense, cult classic, thrilling, atmospheric
Similar in 85%
Blame It on Mum (2009)
Plot Summary:
Mady Celliers, an attractive housewife of 60, he spends his life speaking ill of her two daughters and her husband, a man who shows a strange behavior since has retired. Antoine, the eldest son, company director, is unable to make a success of a business: out of a bankruptcy to get into another, her sister Alice madonnas obsessively paints sad. Annabelle, a nurse in an intensive care unit, tries desperately to save his family pronosticándole the future. When Alice meets by chance Jacques, a lonely police pessimistic explode all family neurosis.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 417
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, touching
Similar in 82%
Loveless (2017)
Plot Summary:
Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, they are impatient to start again, to turn the page – even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha. Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 35000
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia, France, Germany, Belgium
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: melancholic, bleak, psychological, heartbreaking, suspense, rough, art house, depressing, inspirational, erotic
Similar in 82%
Leviathan (2014)
Plot Summary:
In a Russian coastal town, Kolya is forced to fight the corrupt mayor when he is told that his house will be demolished. He recruits a lawyer friend to help, but the man's arrival brings further misfortune for Kolya and his family.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 56000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: bleak, depressing, atmospheric, thought provoking, meditative, emotional, melancholic, independent film, sincere, contemplative
Similar in 89%
The Return (2003)
Plot Summary:
A story of two Russian boys whose father suddenly returns home after a 12-year absence. He takes the boys on a holiday to a remote island on a lake that turns into a test of manhood of almost mythic proportions.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 47000
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: bleak, emotional, art house, road movie, atmospheric, cerebral, thought provoking, lyrical, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 85%
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)
Plot Summary:
In the rural area around the Anatolian town of Keskin, the local prosecutor, police commissar, and doctor lead a search for a victim of a murder to whom a suspect named Kenan and his mentally challenged brother confessed. However, the search is proving more difficult than expected as Kenan is fuzzy as to the body's exact location. As the group continues looking, its members can't help but chat among themselves about both trivia and their deepest concerns in an investigation that is proving more trying than any of them expected.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 49000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Duration: 157 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, meditative, art house, slow cinema, disturbing, suspense, surreal, lyrical, realistic, tense
Similar in 88%
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)
Plot Summary:
A motorcycle stunt rider considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with a cop-turned-politician.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 286000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: harsh, captivating, psychological, stylized, neo noir, suspense, gloomy, melancholic, atmospheric, crime thriller
Similar in 84%
Crash (2004)
Plot Summary:
Los Angeles citizens with vastly separate lives collide in interweaving stories of race, loss and redemption.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 446000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA, Germany, Australia
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: bleak, touching, thought provoking, sincere, emotional, gloomy, sad, political, intense, disturbing
Similar in 88%
21 Grams (2003)
Plot Summary:
This is the story of three gentle persons: Paul Rivers an ailing mathematician lovelessly married to an English émigré, Christina Peck, an upper-middle-class suburban housewife, happily married and mother of two little girls, and Jack Jordan, an ex-convict who has found in his Christian faith the strength to raise a family. They will be brought together by a terrible accident that will change their lives. By the final frame, none of them will be the same as they will learn harsh truths about love, faith, courage, desire and guilt, and how chance can change our worlds irretrievably, forever.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 244000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: mind bending, psychological, emotional, bleak, non-linear, gloomy, depressing, suspense, sincere, sad