Best movies like Night of the Pencils

Similar in 83%

1987: When the Day Comes (2017)

Plot Summary:

In 1987 Korea, under an oppressive military regime, a college student gets killed during a police interrogation involving torture. Government of officials are quick to cover up the death and order the body to be cremated. A prosecutor who is supposed to sign the cremation release, raises questions about a 21-year-old kid dying of a heart attack, and he begins looking into the case for truth. Despite a systematic attempt to silence everyone involved in the case, the truth gets out, causing an eruption of public outrage.

Similar in 90%

Garage Olimpo (1999)

Plot Summary:

A beautiful Argentine activist receives preferential treatment from a man supposed to torture her.

Similar in 80%

The East (2020)

Plot Summary:

A young Dutch soldier deployed to suppress post-WWII independence efforts in the Netherlands’ colony of Indonesia finds himself torn between duty and conscience when he joins an increasingly ruthless commander’s elite squad.

Similar in 75%

Canoa: A Shameful Memory (1976)

Plot Summary:

A group of students take a bus to go to a small town, in order to finish a professional practice. All of them are friends, and they decide to sing some modern songs, while the other passengers are trying to sleep. One of the passengers gets angry and shouts "stop rowing", so they shut up. But when they arrive in the town, and after knowing the incident, everybody treats them as if they were criminals.

Similar in 85%

Lamb of God (2008)

Plot Summary:

The kidnapping 77-year-old man in Argentina forces his daughter to return to Buenos Aires after years of exile abroad.

Similar in 77%

Chronicle of an Escape (2006)

Plot Summary:

The true story of four men who narrowly escaped death at the hands of Argentina's military death squads during the 1970s is brought to the screen in this thriller. In 1977, Claudio Tamburrini (Rodrigo de la Serna) was a goalie for a minor-league football team when he was abducted by members of the Argentine military police and taken to an unofficial detention center on the false suspicion that he was a terrorist. Over 30,000 people lost their lives at the hands of Argentinean authorities under the military junta that ruled the country between 1976 and 1983, and as he was tortured by intelligence agents looking for information he didn't have, Tamburrini fully expected to become another victim. After many sessions of brutal torture, Tamburrini and his fellow captives Guillermo (Nazareno Casero) and Tano (Martin Urruty) were being readied for execution when, in a final desperate act, Tamburrini dove out a window during a rainstorm.

Similar in 90%

The Man Standing Next (2020)

Plot Summary:

In the 1970s, Korea is under the absolute control of the President Park who controls the KCIA, the organization with an edge over any branch of government. The director of KCIA, KIM Gyu-pyeong, is the seemingly most prospective second-in-command. In the midst of reign of fear, a former KCIA director, PARK Yong-gak who knows all about the government’s obscure operations, exiles to the U.S. where the investigation of ‘Koreagate’ is underway. As the tension escalates, the stifling political maneuvering by the all second-in-command’s unfolds.

Similar in 79%

Apartment 407 (2016)

Plot Summary:

Selling Isobel, a thriller based on true events, featuring the real victim in true life playing the main charter. It's about a woman who got locked in, drugged, held against her will and sold to numerous men for 3 days in an apartment in central London. It's a film about her fight for survival all the way to the gruesome end.

Similar in 79%

The Clan (2015)

Plot Summary:

When it was first released in Argentina, Pablo Trapero’s film had the highest opening box-office of all time. The key to that success is simply that The Clan is based on one of the most shocking crimes in the country’s history, the Puccio Clan case. In 1985, the news broke that the Puccios, a well-established Catholic family with five children from San Isidro, an upper-class suburb of Buenos Aires, kidnapped and held people hostage for ransom in their own home. The film is a disturbing, impressive, and beautifully controlled interpretation of those events, with Guillermo Francella's magnificent depiction of the father, a performance for the ages.

Similar in 87%

Of Love and Shadows (1994)

Plot Summary:

Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground resistance movement, Francisco opens her eyes and her heart to the atrocities being committed by the state.

Similar in 79%

A Twelve-Year Night (2018)

Plot Summary:

Uruguay, 1973. Having been crushed by the military dictatorship, surviving members of the Tupamaro guerillas are imprisoned and tortured. They must find a way to endure the coming 12 years.

Similar in 90%

Blue-Eyed Butcher (2012)

Plot Summary:

Lifetime biopic based on the story of Susan Wright. Susan appeared to be the model wife and mother, living the fairytale life, literally married to Mr. Wright. In a shocking turn of events, the media dubs Susan Wright the "Blue-Eyed Butcher" when her loving husband is discovered buried in the backyard, with close to 200 stab wounds.

Similar in 79%

The Official Story (1985)

Plot Summary:

After the end of the Dirty War, a high school teacher sets out to find out who the mother of her adopted daughter is.

Similar in 82%

State of Siege (1972)

Plot Summary:

Like most of Costa-Gavras' political thrillers, the French State of Siege is based on a true story. The incident dramatized herein is the kidnapping of a U.S. official somewhere in Latin America. The director's sympathies clearly lie with the kidnappers, especially since the official (played by Yves Montand), ostensibly an expert in traffic control, has been assigned as special advisor to the government's secret police, training these worthies in the art of the torturing of political prisoners. Uruguay was the country where this story actually took place; though no names are given, there's little doubting the identity of Costa-Gavras' fictional locale. Despite its up-to-date radicalism, State of Siege adheres to time-honored Hollywood formula, with ugly, vulgar bad guys vs. handsome, articulate good guys.

Similar in 86%

April Captains (2000)

Plot Summary:

Story of the 1974 coup that overthrew the right-wing Portuguese dictatorship--which continued the fascist policies of long-time dictator Antonio Salazar--and of two young army captains who were involved in it.

Similar in 88%

The Mauritanian (2021)

Plot Summary:

A detainee at the U.S military's Guantanamo Bay detention center is held without charges for over a decade and seeks help from a defense attorney for his release.

Similar in 77%

Hunger (2008)

Plot Summary:

The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike in which Republican prisoners tried to win political status. It dramatises events in the Maze prison in the six weeks prior to Sands’ death.

Similar in 85%

Salvador (1986)

Plot Summary:

A second rated journalist from the US tries his luck in El Salvador during the military dictatorship in the 1980s.

Similar in 80%

The Report (2019)

Plot Summary:

The story of Daniel Jones, lead investigator for the US Senate’s sweeping study into the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, which was found to be brutal, immoral and ineffective. With the truth at stake, Jones battled tirelessly to make public what many in power sought to keep hidden.

Similar in 85%

Missing (1982)

Plot Summary:

Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to a South American country to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a right-wing military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the right-wing dictatorship.