Best movies like I Am the Cheese
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Adapted from the Robert Cormier novel. This film follows the life of a young boy whose happy, if somewhat unusual life with his friends and family gradually starts to unravel, until the truth of the boy's situation is finally revealed.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 315
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: independent film, psychological, tense, mind bending, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, non-linear
Best tv shows and movies like I Am the Cheese (1983):
Similar in 81%
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 83%
Black and Blue (1999)
Plot Summary:
After a woman's husband beats and abuses her, she and her son join the witness protection program and move away secretly.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 568
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, emotional, realistic, suspenseful, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Diamond Flash (2011)
Plot Summary:
Violeta is willing to do anything to find her missing kid. Elena keeps a strange secret. Lola wants to settle her debts with the past. Juana needs someone who loves her unconditionally and Enriqueta just looks for someone who makes her laugh. These five women have something in common, all of them are linked to Diamond Flash, a mysterious character who will change their lives forever.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 823
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Thriller
Country: Spain
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, captivating, suspenseful, suspense, mind bending, offbeat, serious, realistic, independent film
Similar in 76%
The 19th Wife (2010)
Plot Summary:
Fundamentalist sect member BeckyLyn is accused of killing her husband. Queenie, another wife in the polygamist sect, doesn't believe BeckyLyn is capable of such violence and desperate to prove her innocence reaches out to her excommunicated son Jordan for help in freeing his mother.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 729
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing, psychological, tense, captivating, rough, bleak, suspenseful
Similar in 89%
The Young Messiah (2016)
Plot Summary:
Tells the story of Jesus Christ at age seven as he and his family depart Egypt to return home to Nazareth. Told from his childhood perspective, it follows young Jesus as he grows into his religious identity.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA, South Korea
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: biblical, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, christian film, spiritual, scenic
Similar in 77%
Elephant Song (2014)
Plot Summary:
A psychiatrist is drawn into a complex mind game when he questions a disturbed patient about the disappearance of a colleague.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, thought provoking, sexy, independent film, aesthetic, gay cinema
Similar in 82%
Stolen Child (2012)
Plot Summary:
Amanda and Jason are happy marriage now, after years of frustration have finally managed to take a beautiful girl from a country in Eastern Europe through an international adoption agency. But when the doctor will perform a DNA test to small, finds that there have been irregularities in the adoption process.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 311
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, tense
Similar in 82%
Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day (2012)
Plot Summary:
The Ames' seem to have built the perfect life until their six year old daughter is kidnapped; over the course of seven days they begin to uncover secrets about their past that could rip their marriage and lives apart.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 664
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: emotional, serious, realistic, tense, captivating, psychological, suspense, christian film, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 83%
My Gal Sunday (2014)
Plot Summary:
It was love at first sight for beautiful young lawyer Sandra "Sunday" O'Brien-Parker (Rachel Blanchard) and Henry Parker (Cameron Mathison), retiring White House Secretary of State, when Sunday's dad Danny (Jack Wagner), Henry's colleague and Secret Service Agent, introduced them at the picturesque Why Worry Ranch in California. Now, a year after their wedding, Sunday and Parker, living on the ranch near Lake Tahoe after Parker's recent term as beloved state governor, are an irresistible sleuthing team who enjoy the political spotlight while taking pleasure busting the bad guys. But when Parker's mom Miriam (Janet-Laine Green) and Danny are suddenly kidnapped on their way to a high-profile family event, Parker and Sunday are immediately on the case and this time it's personal.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 531
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: serious, tense, captivating, psychological, emotional, exciting, rough, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 76%
Dance with the One (2010)
Plot Summary:
Nate's little brother and hippie dad depend on him for literally everything, but the well-meaning, small time pot dealer Nate wants nothing more than to run away with Nikki, the love of his life, and get out of Texas.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 24
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: realistic, tense, captivating, suspense, exciting, rough, serious, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 85%
The World Made Straight (2015)
Plot Summary:
In a rural Appalachian community haunted by the legacy of a Civil War massacre, a rebellious young man struggles to escape the violence that would bind him to the past.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating, tense, neo noir, suspenseful, independent film, psychotronic
Similar in 76%
The Runaway (2000)
Plot Summary:
At the birth of two boys, one white and one black, a mysterious and powerful Conjure Woman (Maya Angelou) prophesies that they will start the change. Growing up as best friends in rural Georgia in the 1940s, the boys make a discovery that leads the town's new sheriff, Frank Richards (Dean Cain), to reopen the investigation of the unsolved murders of three black men. While the town would prefer that the truth remain hidden, the sheriff pursues the case, determined to see justice prevail. The Runaway is a stirring story of how friendship, determination and conviction can generate racial change in one heart or an entire town.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 322
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: tense, atmospheric, captivating, suspenseful, serious, realistic
Similar in 84%
The Feast of the Goat (2005)
Plot Summary:
Urania Cabral returns to Santo Domingo, after several years, and remembers her and her family's relationship to Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator, as well as the events surrounding his assassination.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 881
Genere: Drama
Country: Dominican Republic, Spain, UK
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, rough, epic, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, social
Similar in 83%
Five Star (2014)
Plot Summary:
After John’s absent father is struck by a stray bullet, Primo takes it upon himself to verse the young boy in the code of the streets—one founded on respect and upheld by fear. A member of the Bloods since the age of twelve—both in the film and in reality—the streets of Brooklyn are all Primo has ever known. While John questions whether or not to enter into this life, Primo must decide whether to leave it all behind as he vows to become a better husband and father. Set during those New York summer weeks where the stifling heat seems to encase everything, Five Star plunges into gang culture with searing intensity. Director Keith Miller observes the lives of these two men with a quiet yet pointed distance, carefully eschewing worn clichés through its unflinching focus. Distinctions between fiction and real life remain intentionally ambiguous, allowing the story of these two men to resonate beyond the streets, as they face the question of what it means to be a man.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 569
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sexy, hood, tense, sincere, rough, bleak
Similar in 86%
Whitewash: The Clarence Brandley Story (2002)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of Clarence Brandley, a black man wrongly accused in 1980 of the murder of a 16-year-old white high school girl named Cheryl Ferguson. Brandley worked at Conroe High School, where Ferguson was visiting as a member of the Belleville High School volleyball team. Three days after her body was discovered, Brandley was arrested as the murderer. Jew Don Boney, a popular activist and Houston city council member, leads the fight to uncover the truth about the Ferguson murder. Mike DeGeurin, a Texas attorney, is brought in to act as the head defense attorney for Brandley, and is joined by a former minister, Jim McCloskey. The lawyers discover that not only is there a complete lack of evidence against Brandley, but the District Attorney, James Keeshan, has been strategizing with the presiding judge. After nine years in prison, three trials and a stay of execution that saved Brandley's life, justice finally prevails as Brandley is granted his freedom.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 165
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: disturbing, emotional, realistic, suspenseful, tense, serious
Similar in 83%
In Dreams (1999)
Plot Summary:
A suburban housewife learns that she has psychic connections to a serial killer, and can predict this person's motives through her dreams.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: suspenseful, psychological, suspense, scary, disturbing, intense, serious, atmospheric, spiritual, mystical
Similar in 80%
Butterfly Dreaming (2008)
Plot Summary:
Anxious dreams, hallucinations, and paranoid reality torment a young math professor in the aftermath of his wife's death in a car accident. As madness, addiction and affairs send the story spiraling towards its conclusion, the truth about what really happened to the professor's wife comes into focus.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 136
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, suspenseful, disturbing, suspense, tense, mind bending, serious, independent film
Similar in 86%
Levitation (1997)
Plot Summary:
Sarah Paulson stars as a pregnant teenager who searches for her biological mother, with the help of a guardian angel.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 129
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: independent film, psychological, atmospheric, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 81%
The Face on the Milk Carton (1995)
Plot Summary:
Based on the book by Caroline B. Cooney, a girl happens to look down at a milk carton one day and she sees herself on the back! Could her parents really have kidnapped her?.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
Similar in 85%
Cremaster 3 (2002)
Plot Summary:
CREMASTER 3 (2002) is set in New York City and narrates the construction of the Chrysler Building, which is in itself a character - host to inner, antagonistic forces at play for access to the process of (spiritual) transcendence. These factions find form in the struggle between Hiram Abiff or the Architect.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 182 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, atmospheric, stylized, serious, thought provoking, psychedelic, disturbing, independent film, avant garde
Similar in 75%
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%
Return to Innocence (2001)
Plot Summary:
Director Rocky Costanzo's searing legal drama centers on a highly credentialed child psychologist named Glen Erskine (Richard Meese) whose life is shattered when he's accused of sexually assaulting a young boy he's been treating. Based on the novel of the same name by Gary M. Frazier, this poignant tale also stars Andrew Martin, Steve De Forest, Jeff Harman and Brett Chukerman.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 823
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, serious, art house, bleak, independent film
Similar in 76%
Da (1988)
Plot Summary:
A New York playwright is summoned to Ireland to bury his father (his "Da"). While at his boyhood home, he encounters his father's spirit and relives memories both pleasant and not.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 504
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: independent film, sentimental, uplifting, touching, feel good, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 88%
The End of Innocence (1990)
Plot Summary:
Seemingly autobiographical story of a woman overwhelmed with trying to please everyone except herself, and not finding any answers until she's admitted to a rehab center by her parents. Eventually here is where she finds her answers.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 233
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, psychological, serious, emotional, contemplative, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 87%
The Rose Garden (1989)
Plot Summary:
In Germany, an old man attacks another old man and is arrested. The attacker refuses to speak. A female lawyer is appointed to him. She discovers that the attacker has numbers tattooed on his arm and the attacked man was a German officer.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 447
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, West Germany, Austria
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, psychological, tense, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, contemplative
Similar in 78%
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 80%
The Invisible (2002)
Plot Summary:
A teenager is assaulted and killed, but returns as a ghost to find his killer.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Thriller
Country: Sweden
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, psychological, suspenseful, tense, esoteric, bleak, serious, psychotronic
Similar in 79%
Waking Madison (2010)
Plot Summary:
A woman suffering from multiple personality disorder tries to piece back together her life.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: psychological, suspenseful, mind bending, serious, realistic, touching, depressing, atmospheric, independent film, bleak
Similar in 82%
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977)
Plot Summary:
A disturbed,institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: disturbing, psychological, surreal, controversial, cult classic, independent film, tense, sincere, serious, emotional
Similar in 85%
Paperhouse (1988)
Plot Summary:
Anna is becoming lost in the loneliness of her own world when she discovers she can visit another, a house she has drawn herself and occupied by a young disabled boy. But as she discovers more of the links between her fantasy world and the mundane present, she is drawn only deeper into a dream turning into a nightmare.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: UK
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: scary, disturbing, psychological, atmospheric, suspenseful, surreal, tense, intense, serious, creepy