Best movies like Killing Heat
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A city-woman moves to a foreign country with her future husband, giving up all the comforts of cosmopolitan life. Life in the countryside finally takes its toll on her, and she finds herself involved sexually with another man.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 186
Genere: Drama
Country: Zambia, Sweden
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, gloomy
Best tv shows and movies like Killing Heat (1981):
Similar in 83%
Mister Johnson (1990)
Plot Summary:
In 1923 British Colonial Nigeria, Mister Johnson is an oddity -- an educated black man who doesn't really fit in with the natives or the British. He works for the local British magistrate, and considers himself English, though he has never been to England. He is always scheming, trying to get ahead, which lands him in a lot of hot water.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: sad, independent film, psychological, atmospheric, uplifting, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 76%
Sleeping Sickness (2011)
Plot Summary:
Ebbo and Vera Velten have spent the better part of the past twenty years living in different African countries. Ebbo is the manager of a sleeping sickness programme. His work is fulfilling. Vera, however, feels increasingly lost in Yaounde’s ex-pat community. She can’t bear the separation from her 14-year-old daughter, Helen, who is attending boarding school in Germany. Ebbo must give up his life in Africa or he risks losing the woman he loves. But his fear of returning to a land now remote to him increases with each passing day. Years later. Alex Nzila, a young French doctor of Congolese origin, travels to Cameroon to evaluate a development project. It’s been a long time since he set foot on this continent, but, instead of finding new prospects, he encounters a destructive, lost man. Like a phantom, Ebbo slips away from his evaluator.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 695
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, France, Netherlands
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, emotional, psychological, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Pretty Things (2001)
Plot Summary:
Lucie, who works as a white-hot fashion model, exhibits a dominant, often controlling, "Type A" personality, whereas identical twin Marie consistently projects a backward, reserved, laconic and unassuming attitude. When Lucie receives a covetable French recording contract, a significant problem stands in her way: the inability to sing. Marie possesses the voice of an angel, however, and quickly jets off to Paris to stand in for her sister, unannounced - little realizing the dangerous and even violent string of consequences that she is igniting.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, psychological, suspenseful, stylized, deep, realistic
Similar in 83%
Phobidilia (2009)
Plot Summary:
After suffering an emotional breakdown in a public place, a young man vows to quit the chaotic city life and never leave his apartment. He quickly discovers that in todays world all his needs can be easily met: sexual satisfaction via the internet, food by telephone delivery and entertainment by television.Four years later, his idyllic existence comes under attack when Daniella, a free spirited girl comes into his life while Grumps, the buildings real estate agent , informs him that the apartment is about to be sold.Both Grumps, an elderly holocaust survivor with a troubled past and Daniella a cheerful young woman with a disastrous love history, are the first people in a long while to care about our hero. Both think the only way out is OUT.However, our hero refuses to leave his kingdom and decides to fight till the bitter end.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 259
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, emotional, realistic, offbeat, gloomy, surprise ending, psychotronic
Similar in 86%
The Letter (1999)
Plot Summary:
A well-bred, lovely, spiritual, sad young woman marries an attentive physician who loves her. She feels affection but no love. Soon after, without design, she falls in love with Pedro Abrunhosa, a poet and performance artist. He also loves her. She keeps her distance from him, confessing her love to a friend who is a nun and, later, to her husband. Hunger for her love and jealousy consume him; she attends him as he wastes away. With his death, she can marry and express her passion, but what she does and how she explains herself, particularly to her cloistered friend, is at the heart of the film. Glimpses of convent life and of Abrunhosa on stage give contrast and mute comment.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 730
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Portugal, Spain
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 76%
Abraham's Valley (1993)
Plot Summary:
Ema is a very attractive but innocent girl, so pretty that cars crash in her presence. Young marries Dr. Carlo Paiva, who she is not attracted to, but is her father's friend. They move to the Valley of Abraham. Carlo loves her, but decides to sleep in a separate room, to avoid waking Ema when he has to return late at night. With time she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage so she finds a lover.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Portugal, Switzerland
Duration: 187 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic
Similar in 88%
Summer Heat (1987)
Plot Summary:
The young wife of a tobacco farmer falls in love with their handsome hired hand.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 389
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: independent film, serious, realistic
Similar in 90%
The Bridge (1999)
Plot Summary:
Actor Gerard Depardieu co-directed this drama about a married woman who falls in love with another man. Mina is a movie buff with a husband, Georges, who's out of work, and a 15-year-old son, Tommy. While Mina works part-time as a domestic for Claire Daboval, the family is terribly short on money, so when Georges is offered construction work on a massive bridge project, he immediately accepts, even though the job site is far enough away that he'll only be able to come home on weekends. One day, while taking in a matinee screening of West Side Story, Mina meets a man named Matthias, an engineer associated with the bridge project. It's love at first sight for the both of them, and while Mina has no desire to hurt Georges, who is a good and decent man, she has found another good and decent man whom she loves even more. Tommy, on the other hand, has to deal with this crisis in his parents' marriage while he's sorting out his own infatuation with Ms. Daboval's daughter, Lisbeth.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 635
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, semi autobiographical
Similar in 82%
Trishna (2011)
Plot Summary:
When her father is killed in a road accident, Trishna's family expect her to provide for them. The rich son of an entrepreneur starts to restlessly pursue her affections, but are his intentions as pure as they seem?.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Sweden, India
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: sentimental, emotional, serious, realistic, ambiguous ending, erotic, hot
Similar in 83%
Sweet Rush (2009)
Plot Summary:
As an aging woman married to a workaholic doctor by chance meets a young man who makes her feel young again. All of this is films by a director making a film about her which cuts in and out of the on camera and off camera drama.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, sincere, serious, emotional, offbeat, gloomy
Similar in 76%
The Cowards who Looked to the Sky (2012)
Plot Summary:
Based on the award-winning novel of the same name, this boldly erotic yet movingly tender portrait of a group of vulnerable, variously wounded people — a depressed housewife, her high-school-aged lover, and his best friend, who is struggling to provide for himself and his senile grandmother — whose intersecting lives yield both sorrow and a fragile, yet enduring, hope for a brighter future. (TIFF).
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 229
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 141 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, sexual, sexy
Similar in 82%
The Touch (1971)
Plot Summary:
A seemingly happy Swedish housewife and mother begins an adulterous affair with a foreign archaeologist who is working near her home.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: art house, independent film, psychological, serious, realistic
Similar in 87%
7 Years (2006)
Plot Summary:
A devoted young woman becomes ensnared in a web of sexuality and betrayal in Jean-Pascal Hattu’s consistently unpredictable and finely wrought character study. A vividly realistic psychosexual drama, the film’s sharp emotional honesty heralds a distinct new voice from a promising young director. Hattu soon reveals that Maite’s husband Vincent is in prison for an unspecified crime, and that she has promised to wait for him and attend to his laundry (if not his conjugal needs) during his incarceration. On one of her weekly visits, Maite meets Jean, an oddly inquisitive and boldly flirtatious prison warden, and soon the two commence a joyless affair. Seemingly smitten with Maite, Jean, in a gesture of kindness to his lover, eases up on her husband behind bars; the two become pals and even engage in some homoerotic shower talk. —Robert O’Shaughnessy.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 297
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, realistic, serious, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Limbo (2010)
Plot Summary:
Sonia arrives in Trinidad with her two children to join her husband Jo who is working as an oil engineer. On the surface she lives a life of luxury in a large houses with servants. The days are uneventful and blend together into an everlasting holiday, where the women nurse their superficial relationships over cocktails poolside – the perfect climate for self-delusion.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 506
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 86%
We Won't Grow Old Together (1972)
Plot Summary:
Jean has been married to Francoise for years, but his relationship with his wife has been all but over for a long time. She's hardly ever around, always traveling to Russia for work, and she drifts in and out of the film as well, reflecting the ephemeral nature of their marriage.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, talky, adaptation directed by original author
Similar in 82%
Life Love Death (1969)
Plot Summary:
François Toledo, married businessman and father, falls head-over-heels in love with Janine, a work colleague. However, he is soon found out: after three dates, he strangles some prostitutes, when, the victim of blackmail, he becomes dishonored. He is taken to court, and sentenced to be killed by a guillotine.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 151
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: neo noir, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 76%
Deceit (2004)
Plot Summary:
Ellen's life is turned upside down after her wealthy hubby vanishes at sea. Everyone close to her is a liar - especially Ellen's missing spouse. Was this a case of an affair gone bad? A corporate cover-up? Or something far more sinister? The truth can only be found when all of the deceit is finally revealed.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 139
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, suspense, mind bending
Similar in 75%
Les corps impatients (2003)
Plot Summary:
Paul and Charlotte are in love. Charlotte discovers she has a grave malady and Paul supports her. But Paul is also attracted to Ninon, another girl. Charlotte accepts Paul to have an affair with her, and the three start a difficult and ambiguous relationship.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 613
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: serious, psychological, sincere, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, sexy
Similar in 78%
Jewel (2001)
Plot Summary:
In the 1940s a 40-year-old woman with five healthy children gives birth to a girl with Down's syndrome.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 387
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, UK, USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 76%
Sofie (1992)
Plot Summary:
From 1886 to 1907 in the life of Sofie, a Jew in Copenhagen who is nearly 29, with no marital prospects, living with her loving parents.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 240
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark, Norway, Sweden
Duration: 151 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, talky, masterpiece
Similar in 76%
Anita B. (2014)
Plot Summary:
After World War II, Anita, a young survivor of Auschwitz, becomes involved in an intense and passionate affair that almost shatters her until she gains the strength to start a new life.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 356
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Hungary, Czech Republic
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, sentimental, captivating, uplifting, touching, serious, gloomy
Similar in 79%
Daybreak (2003)
Plot Summary:
Sweden, shortly before Christmas. Surgeon Rickard is told the job he expected goes to a Dane, because of his substance abuse. It's too late to cancel dinner with his in-laws. The guest couple announces their in-vitro is a success. Then Richard's wife learns he cheated her with Sofie. Meanwhile ugly hag Anita trades drugs to afford a taser to use on her ex Olof and his former physiotherapist. Workaholic builder Anders is disgusted by his grieve-deranged client Knut's plan and decides to spend time on his family, not just money.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, bleak, realistic, serious, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 84%
The Fringe Dwellers (1986)
Plot Summary:
The story of an Aboriginal family's attempts to forge a new life for themselves within the segregated society. At the urging of headstrong teenager Trilby, the Comeaways relocate from their family camp, to a house in the main town.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 436
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: political, serious, realistic, independent film
Similar in 87%
Dancing in the Dark (1986)
Plot Summary:
Via the New York Times: "To all outward appearances, Edna Cormick (Martha Henry) is the perfect housewife.... She's married to a man who'll stand up in public and say, "This is my wife," so that there'll be no confusion as to who she is. Edna has no identity without Harry, an ambitious, successful salesman who seems to love and care for Edna long after other men might become worried about her housewifely obsessions... Edna is reviewing her life - in neatly chronological flashbacks - from the room in the psychiatric hospital where she's been confined ever since Harry's sudden death.".
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 100
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: independent film, psychological, serious, realistic, suspenseful, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 78%
Separate Ways (1981)
Plot Summary:
A wife unhappy in her marriage begins an affair with an art student, unaware that her husband, a race driver, is also having an affair.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 251
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: cult classic, independent film, touching, serious, realistic, cult film
Similar in 84%
You (2007)
Plot Summary:
Michèle shares her life with Paul, her husband and work colleague. She has a lover, Thomas, a musician with whom she has been having a passionate affair for some time. Attracted by Thomass non-conformity and lust for life, Michèle abandons her husband, her son and her profession to live this frenzy through to its conclusion. A quest for freedom and change that sends Michèle on a turbulent drift, but remains, nevertheless, intimate and personal.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 182
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, psychological, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Istanbul (2011)
Plot Summary:
Housewife Katalin Munk (Johanna ter Steege) has her world torn apart when her lecturer husband János (Andor Lukáts) arrives home to tell her that he’s leaving her for a younger student of his. Katalin falls into a state of shock and wanders about the streets of Budapest in just her dressing gown carrying a pair of scissors. After a series of misadventures, Katalin eventually ends up in Turkey, where suddenly Katalin is awakened and decides to start a new life after meeting local man Hilal (Yavuz Bingol). Meanwhile her son Zoli (Norbert Varga) tries to hunt Katalin down.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 225
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary, Netherlands, Ireland, Turkey
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
Emilienne (1975)
Plot Summary:
Emilienne is an elegant and seductive study of a ménage-a-trois based on the novel by Claude Des Olbes. Nouky, a young artist, shows up at Emilienne's art gallery with her portfolio of erotic sketches. Emilienne is greatly impressed, unaware that this fledging talent is the mistress of her husband Claude. When Emilienne is invited to pose nude for Nouky, she too falls for the young artist's seductive charms. Thus Nouky makes herself the center of a sexual triangle that will change the lives of Claude and Emilienne forever.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 191
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: erotic, sensual, serious, realistic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 78%
Harem (1985)
Plot Summary:
Diane is a sophisticated trainee on the New York Stock Exchange who is suddenly kidnapped and held captive in a North African desert hideaway by Selim, an Arab mogul.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 792
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: sexy, serious, realistic, psychological, tense, captivating, disturbing, political thriller, erotic, romantic
Similar in 81%
Betrayal (2012)
Plot Summary:
While examining one of her patients, a doctor reveals that her husband is cheating with the patient's wife.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 948
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, sexy, detective, contemplative, gloomy