Best movies like Light and the Sufferer
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Realism and fantasy collide in Jonathan Lethem's genre-bending coming-of-age story, which follows two estranged brothers as they try to leave New York City for a new life in California only to find their plans--and lives--being forever changed by the appearance of a mysterious alien.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 134
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: tense, serious
Best tv shows and movies like Light and the Sufferer (2007):
Similar in 85%
Sand (2000)
Plot Summary:
A young man tries running from his past by hiding from his two violent brothers, only to have them track and harass him and his friends.
IMDB Rating: 4.2
IMDB Votes: 636
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, psychological, rough, suspense, independent film, realistic
Similar in 87%
Grace & Mercy (2006)
Plot Summary:
In poor health and dead broke, Grace has a plan to provide a future for her young daughter. With the help of her sister Mercy, she robs her former employer. But an alarm goes off during the robbery and they escape into a nearby church. They hold the police at bay by taking the Pastor and the elders hostage by gun point. Outside, the LAPD try to avoid another public relations disaster by keeping the hostage situation quiet and the local media away. Inside, the Pastor and the elders do their best to ease a potentially dangerous situation with their good-natured, spiritual guidance. Eventually, the church members become a new family to the desperate sisters, who have learned to trust in the Lord. But will the Lord provide HIS own Grace & Mercy for these two desperate siblings?.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 32
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: touching, uplifting, serious, emotional, realistic, suspenseful, contemplative
Similar in 79%
The Last Man on Earth (2011)
Plot Summary:
The story of the latest week on the earth before the announce of the landing of an extraterrestrial society on earth seen by the eyes of a misogynist man with only the desire solitude and routine.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 743
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Italy
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: psychological, bleak, serious, captivating, deep, sincere, offbeat, contemplative, gloomy, psychotronic
Similar in 82%
White Dwarf (1995)
Plot Summary:
In a distant future New York medical student Driscoll Rampart accomplishes his internship at Rusta, a rural planet that doesn't revolve around its axis and therefore is divided into contrasting halves of eternal day vs. eternal night. One is a Victorian-styled colony, the other a medieval kingdom. Both leave Rampart in a state of constant wonder, as he finds his way among humans and aliens, strange dreams and even stranger reality, a dark keep and a red sea, and more universal matters of war and peace, good and bad, love and hate and sickness and health.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 690
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: offbeat, serious, futuristic
Similar in 76%
Red Cockroaches (2003)
Plot Summary:
First of a Trilogy: In a New York ravaged with acid rains, a man in his twenties meets a mysterious, yet familiar young woman who disrupts the banality of his day-to-day existence. Together, they will embark on a surreal journey with a devastating climax.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 301
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: USA, Cuba
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, suspenseful, surreal, futuristic, offbeat, independent film, psychological, mind bending, thought provoking
Similar in 87%
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 75%
Sous X (2015)
Plot Summary:
Jean-Jacques spent 9 years in prison for robbery. When he comes out, he finds the neighborhood where he grew up but things have changed ... The country is in crisis, the young people are holding the business and his old friends are urging him to resume his activities ... It may be for Jean-Jacques the time to ask the right questions.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 45
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 78%
Eyes of an Angel (1991)
Plot Summary:
John Travolta is a downtrodden single father raising his daughter under difficult circumstances in Chicago. The young girl comes upon and then nurses a wounded Doberman used for fighting, back to health. Duped by underworld types he was working as a courier for, father and daughter leave the dog and flee cross-country to Los Angeles with both canine and mobsters in pursuit.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: realistic, suspenseful, serious, tense, tension, independent film, suspense
Similar in 87%
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 78%
Planet of Dinosaurs (1977)
Plot Summary:
A space-ship gets lost and is forced to make an emergency landing on an unknown planet. The planet looks much like Earth, only with no trace of civilization. Soon the crew discovers that there are dinosaurs on the planet, and blood-thirsty buggers at that. The crew hopes to be found and rescued, but they have to struggle to survive until then.
IMDB Rating: 3.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, suspenseful, tense, retro, cult classic, independent film, psychotronic, cult film
Similar in 76%
Alien Siege (2005)
Plot Summary:
Alien Siege is a 2005 Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie about an alien race that comes to Earth seeking a cure to a deadly virus, for which the antidote is human blood.
IMDB Rating: 3.5
IMDB Votes: 896
Genere: Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, serious, suspenseful, bleak, fast
Similar in 80%
Manito (2002)
Plot Summary:
Fifteen years ago, their Washington Heights neighborhood was dubbed the crack-cocaine capital of the world, but today it is transforming into one of the most vibrant, Spanish-speaking communities in the United States. While the drug dealers continue to disappear, their violent legacy still casts a shadow over the neighborhood and its residents. Junior, an ex-convict struggling to get his life back on track, is a product of this legacy. His younger brother Manny, the salutatorian of his high school class, embodies the hope of the future. On the night of his graduation party, Manny finds himself faced with an ill-fated decision that could change his life forever.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 594
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: USA
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: bleak, emotional, tense, rough, touching, serious, realistic, bilingual
Similar in 75%
For Ellen (2012)
Plot Summary:
After an overnight long-distance drive, Joby has a special meeting—with lawyers and his ex-wife. A struggling musician with the prerequisite tattoos, slimy hair, goatee, and his head firmly floating in the clouds, Joby hasn’t been around to be a dad. Now is his last chance to fight for shared custody of his daughter, Ellen.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, realistic, serious, independent film, road movie
Similar in 79%
In the Shadows (2001)
Plot Summary:
When a stunt man dies in Miami, his uncle, a New York mob boss, sends a hit man to tail the stunt coordinator, whom the boss wants dead. The hit man, Eric O'Bryne, gets close to his mark's daughter, and through her he asks her dad to teach him to do stunts. While waiting for the word to kill this mentor, Eric discovers the joy of stunt work and of being part of a family. Meanwhile, several people are looking for the dead man's briefcase of money and a cloth bag of illegal drugs that he stole from an undercover FBI agent now desperate to get the borrowed drugs back to the bureau. The stunt coordinator says that 'we dance in the shadows of death.' Can Eric step out into the sun?.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 991
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 87%
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 86%
Good Time Max (2007)
Plot Summary:
Two genius brothers grow up and grow apart as one becomes a successful surgeon and the other pursues a drug-fueled high life.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, captivating, realistic, gloomy, independent film, inspirational
Similar in 78%
The Promised Life (2002)
Plot Summary:
Sylvie is a hooker whose illegitimate daughter commits a crime. She and her daughter flee to find Sylvie's first love in the countryside. The daughter is trying to get to know her unwilling mother. Along the way, the two meet a male fugitive and bond with each other.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 756
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, rough, bleak, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 90%
Five Thirteen (2013)
Plot Summary:
In this tension-packed thriller, brothers Mike and Tre set out in search of better lives, trying to leave their demons behind for good. After being released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, Mike's only care in the world is to protect his young daughter from an unforgiving ex. But the justice that awaits him on the streets is far worse than anything Mike had experienced in prison. His older brother Tre begrudgingly agrees to one last "delivery", attempting to free Mike and his new girlfriend from the grips of the criminal underworld. What transpires is a wild misadventure where multiple lives unknowingly intersect, and where decisions are made that will haunt everyone forever.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 723
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, tense, independent film
Similar in 78%
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 84%
Missing at 17 (2013)
Plot Summary:
A woman tries to save her adopted daughter from a criminal, with help from the girl's biological mother.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 509
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: emotional, serious, realistic, suspenseful, tense, captivating
Similar in 77%
Becoming Redwood (2012)
Plot Summary:
A quirky coming of age story about an 11-year-old boy named Redwood who dreams that if he can beat Jack Nicklaus at the 1975 Master's of golf he'll reunite his parents.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 184
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, sincere, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Lullaby (2014)
Plot Summary:
Estranged from his family, Jonathan (Hedlund) discovers his father has decided to take himself off life support in forty-eight hours’ time. During this intensely condensed period, a lifetime of drama plays out. Robert (Jenkins) fights a zero sum game to reclaim all that his illness stole from his family. A debate rages on patients’ rights and what it truly means to be free. Jonathan reconciles with his father, reconnects with his mother (Archer), sister (Brown-Findlay), and his love (Adams) and reclaims his voice through two unlikely catalysts – a young, wise-beyond-her-years patient (Barden) and a no-nonsense nurse (Hudson). Through this intensely life affirming prism, an unexpected and powerful journey of love, laughter, and forgiveness unfolds.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, realistic, sad
Similar in 80%
The Devil in the Skin (2011)
Plot Summary:
Coming-of-Age drama telling the story of the strong bond between Xavier and his little brother Jacques and their struggle to remain together despite all odds.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 71
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
When Andrew Came Home (2000)
Plot Summary:
A mother searches for five years to find her kidnapped son in this fact-based drama. Unexpectedly the boy is found, but the reunion is not as she hoped. She now has to deal with five years of abuse that the boy suffered at the hands of his kidnappers.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 657
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sad
Similar in 75%
Alex of Venice (2014)
Plot Summary:
After her stay-at-home husband leaves her, a workaholic lawyer finds that she is not completely up to the tasks of caring for her young son, ailing father and household all by herself.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, romantic drama, independent film
Similar in 75%
Copperhead (2013)
Plot Summary:
A family is torn apart during the American Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: realistic, tense, touching, serious, captivating
Similar in 84%
Jumpin' at the Boneyard (1991)
Plot Summary:
Manny tries to get his crack addict brother, Danny, to clean up.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 553
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: cult classic, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 78%
Storm War (2011)
Plot Summary:
A series of freak weather occurrences around Washington D.C. reunites two estranged brothers who are the sons of a once prestigious climate scientist. One of them suspects their father is behind it and upon further investigation, they discover that all of their father's enemies are dead - victims of freak weather accidents. Soon their suspicions are confirmed as their father hijacks radio and TV transmissions to relay the message that unless a certain Senator whom canceled his Defense Department contracts is handed over, the city of Washington D.C will suffer the consequences. As the brothers race to form a plan that can defeat their father, he lets loose a variety of diabolical weather weapons on the Smithsonian, Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, and National Mall!.
IMDB Rating: 3.2
IMDB Votes: 974
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, tense, humorous, captivating, apocalyptic, disaster movie
Similar in 89%
Testament (1983)
Plot Summary:
Nuclear war in the United States is portrayed in a realistic and believable manner. The story is told through the eyes of a woman who is struggling to take care of her family. The entire movie takes place in a small suburban town outside San Francisco. After the nuclear attack, contact with the outside world is pretty much cut off.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: depressing, bleak, disturbing, emotional, tense, apocalyptic, thought provoking, serious, touching, realistic
Similar in 90%
Destiny (2006)
Plot Summary:
Bekir is in love with Ugur, who loves Zagor, who loves to commit crimes.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Greece
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, art house, captivating, suspense, independent film, slow cinema, aesthetic, realistic, gloomy