Best movies like Play
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In central Gothenburg, Sweden, a group of boys, aged 12-14, robbed other children on about 40 occasions between 2006 and 2008. The thieves used an elaborate scheme called the 'little brother number' or 'brother trick', involving advanced role-play and gang rhetoric rather than physical violence.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, France
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, psychological, serious, captivating, inspirational, touching, transgressive, realistic, witty, contemplative
Best tv shows and movies like Play (2011):
Similar in 80%
Wild Bill (2011)
Plot Summary:
Out on parole after 8 years inside Bill Hayward returns home to find his now 11 and 15 year old sons abandoned by their mother and fending for themselves. Unwilling to play Dad, an uncaring Bill is determined to move on.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: captivating, rough, touching, suspenseful, sexy, family saga, hood, crime drama, cult classic, indie film
Similar in 75%
Prince (2015)
Plot Summary:
A troubled teenager attempts to conquer the girl he's in love with, who seems out of reach. He's lured into criminal activities and becomes alienated from family and friends.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, hood
Similar in 90%
Involuntary (2008)
Plot Summary:
It's almost summer in Sweden and minor indiscretions and misbehavior abound. Leffe likes to show off for his friends and play salacious pranks, especially when he's drinking. Meanwhile, a righteous grade-school teacher doesn't know where to draw the line: she insists her fellow educators need a bit of instruction. Then there are two young teenage girls who like to pose for sexy photos and to party, but one night in a park, one of them is found passed out drunk by a complete stranger.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, France
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, semi serious, realistic, intellectual, heartfelt, offbeat, sexual, sexy
Similar in 78%
Nothing in Return (2015)
Plot Summary:
One summer, Dario flees the hellish environment of his home. Luismi, unconditional friend, a poor devil with pretensions of winning, and Antonia, an old woman who collects abandoned his motorcar furniture, become his new family. Three generations living together in a city too big to be alone.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, serious, captivating, psychological, tense, social, queer cinema
Similar in 86%
West Coast (2016)
Plot Summary:
Four inseparable teenagers in a small town in Brittany (France). As lifelong fans of the West Coast, they think are real gangstas. Together as a "gang", they are invincible, respected, fearless and nothing can reach them, certainly not the teasing and contempt of their fellow classmates. So when Fle-O, the leader of this merry gang, learns that he has to leave his town and his friends at the end of the year, his whole world falls apart leaving him vulnerable when the most popular kid in school decides to make fun of them in front of everyone. Humiliated, our protagonists decide to take their revenge through one last expedition together that will lead them further than they would have imagined. Through incongruous situations and successive meetings, they will grow and learn.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 792
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 80%
Johnny (1999)
Plot Summary:
Johnny, the megalomaniac leader of a group of squeegee kids, finds a video camera and pushes his followers into "acting" out increasingly dangerous "scenes".
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 168
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: independent film, rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 80%
All the Invisible Children (2005)
Plot Summary:
Seven short films - each one focused on the plight of a different child protagonist.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: anthology, touching, atmospheric, rough, serious, captivating, neorealism, realistic, independent film
Similar in 81%
Young Torless (1966)
Plot Summary:
At a boarding school in the pre-war Austro-Hungarian Empire, a pair of students torture one of their fellow classmates, Basini, who has been caught stealing money from one of the two. The two decide that rather than turn Basini in to the school authorities, they will punish him themselves and proceed to torture, degrade, and humiliate the boy, with ever-increasing sadistic delight. As each day passes, the two boys are able to justify harsher treatment than previously given. Torless is a passive member of the group but observes rather than participates and frustrates the tormentors by dryly analyzing their behavior. Written by Dean Harris.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany, France
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: disturbing, controversial, black and white, sincere, thought provoking, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 79%
The Day Will Come (2016)
Plot Summary:
Set in the blooming 1960s, the film centres around two young brothers who are instantly robbed of their lives when they are placed in a boy's home forgotten by time. Armed only with a vivid imagination and a fickle hope, the boys engage in the frightening battle against Headmaster Heck and his lethal tyranny. The film is based on actual events.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark, Sweden
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, social
Similar in 75%
And Then I Go (2017)
Plot Summary:
Two teenage outsiders are demoralized daily at school, until an idea for vengeance offers them a terrifying release.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: suspense, unusual plot structure, psychological, thought provoking, suspenseful, disturbing, independent film, queer cinema
Similar in 78%
The Reunion (2013)
Plot Summary:
A film between fiction and reality, highlighting questions about group dynamics and established hierarchies. A group of people meet for their high school reunion 20 years later. One of them talks about her being bullied and outcast and soon the former classmates fall back to the roles they used to have back in school. But this is just half of the film.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, serious, realistic, thought provoking, disturbing, independent film
Similar in 87%
Harmony Lessons (2013)
Plot Summary:
During a medical examination, 13-year-old Aslan is humiliated in front of a load of his fellow pupils. The incident unleashes his latent personality disorder. Plagued by self-doubt, he strives for cleanliness and perfection and is obsessed with trying to control everything around him. His compulsion draws Aslan, who lives with his grandmother in a village in Kazakhstan, into increasingly difficult situations. He abhors the way most of his fellow pupils are held in the sway of a criminal scheme, in which Bolat, one of Aslan’s tormentors, is also involved. Bolat blackmails the younger children into paying him protection money; he has nothing but contempt for ostracised Aslan.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 994
Genere: Drama
Country: Kazakhstan, Germany, France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, serious, disturbing, gloomy
Similar in 78%
Cowards (2008)
Plot Summary:
A young victim of bullying at school realizes that even the adult world is dominated by fear similar to his own. He pays a high price when he decides to fight back.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 596
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, touching, captivating, hispanic
Similar in 81%
10 1/2 (2010)
Plot Summary:
Tommy, 10 years old, is well known by Social Services. He is considered a danger to society. Gilles, his guardian at this halfway house, sees potential for redemption in this kid driven by violence.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 719
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating
Similar in 90%
Sebbe (2010)
Plot Summary:
Duct tape, electrical cables, trigger, explosives. Sebbe never planned to build a bomb. It just happened. Sebbe is 15 years old and lives with his mother in an apartment that is too narrow. He does his best. He never strikes back. Sebbe loves his mother because he knows nothing else. In the junkyard the dream is alive, and in the hands of Sebbe, dead objects come to life. Here he has the power to create. Here he is free - but alone. His isolation grows as his world shrinks, until one day he is completely isolated with no other than his mother. And when she falls, everything falls.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, captivating, realistic, tense, mind bending, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Mother, I Love You (2013)
Plot Summary:
Raimonds, a 12 year old boy, falls into a world of petty crime while trying to stay out of trouble with his mother.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 896
Genere: Drama
Country: Latvia
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, captivating, entertaining
Similar in 80%
My Son (2006)
Plot Summary:
Julien and his mum care for each other very much. But Julien has committed a deadly sin: he is growing into a teenager! Worse, he has found himself a girlfriend of his age. "Mummy" is not going to tolerate such an ignominy. Julien is HER baby and will remain HERS for ever, encouraged in her "crusade" by her bovine husband and barely thwarted by the more courageous interventions of Suzanne, Julien's sympathetic big sister.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 829
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, tense, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Young Girls in Black (2010)
Plot Summary:
Noémie and Priscilla, two teenage girls from working class backgrounds, cultivate the same violence, the same contempt of the world. They are a source of serious concern for family and friends, who sense them capable of going to extremes. Noémie has already tried to kill herself once when with the work of German Romanic writer Kleist ringing true to her, convinces equally unhappy best friend Priscilla to make a suicide pact. The two of them can see no reason to go on living but the practicalities and opportunity to go through with that plan is harder than they envisage.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 210
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: tense, emotional, realistic, contemplative, psychological, sincere, serious
Similar in 78%
Kisses (2008)
Plot Summary:
Two kids, Dylan and Kylie, run away from home at Christmas and spend a night of magic and terror on the streets of inner-city Dublin.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Ireland, Sweden
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, realistic, atmospheric, serious, captivating, stylized, teen, contemplative
Similar in 85%
Neighborhood (1998)
Plot Summary:
A coming-of-age story in the vein of CITY OF GOD and KIDS - available for the first time in the U.S.!.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain, France
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: social, hispanic, serious, realistic
Similar in 90%
Insecure (2014)
Plot Summary:
Chérif, struggling to pass the entrance exam for nursing school, takes on a side job as a security guard. On duty there, he faces off with a group of hostile teenagers who constantly harass him, and gradually ends up an accomplice to a robbery gone wrong. Caught in between two worlds, Chérif will have to find his own way out….
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 482
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, captivating, sentimental, tense, touching, serious
Similar in 90%
Pelle the Conqueror (1987)
Plot Summary:
The end of the 19th century. A boat filled with Swedish emigrants comes to the Danish island of Bornholm. Among them are Lasse and his son Pelle who move to Denmark to find work. They find employment at a large farm, but are treated as the lowest form of life. Pelle starts to speak Danish but is still harassed as a foreigner. But none of them wants to give up their dream of finding a better life than the life they left in Sweden.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark, Sweden
Duration: 157 min
Plot tags: emotional, atmospheric, meditative, disturbing, compassionate, touching, serious, stylized, depressing, sad
Similar in 75%
The Selfish Giant (2013)
Plot Summary:
A hyperactive boy and his best friend, a slow-witted youth with an affinity for horses, start collecting scrap metal for a shady dealer.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: sad, atmospheric, depressing, realistic, bleak, powerful, aesthetic, tense, serious, captivating
Similar in 75%
The Kid with a Bike (2011)
Plot Summary:
Abandoned by his father, a young boy is left in the hands of an unqualified childcare provider.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 28000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France, Italy
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: sincere, realistic, meditative, atmospheric, emotional, surreal, disturbing, compassionate, touching, psychological
Similar in 80%
Simon & the Oaks (2011)
Plot Summary:
Epic story about two families and their friendship and common destiny in Sweden's Gothenburg in the 1940s and 1950s. Told from the perspective of young Simon Larsson, who learns that he's an adopted child who has a Jewish father from Germany. After WWII Simon travels to explore his roots - a journey that leads to the basic mysteries of the human life. After the bestselling novel by Marianne Fredriksson.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Norway
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: realistic, tense, touching, psychological, captivating, contemplative, bleak, serious, romantic drama
Similar in 82%
Blue Spring (2001)
Plot Summary:
Soon after being named the new leader of his high school's gang system, Kujo grows bored with the violence and hatred that surround him. He wants desperately to abandon his post… but his once-enviable position of power has a strange way of making him feel powerless.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: bleak, realistic, disturbing, serious, manga
Similar in 83%
The Class (2007)
Plot Summary:
An average guy of an Estonian high-school decides to defend his bullied classmate. This starts war between him and the informal leader of the class. As teenagers' honour is a touchy thing, everything ends in bloodshed.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Drama
Country: Estonia
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: serious, disturbing, tense, emotional, realistic, sad, crying, thought provoking, touching, brutal
Similar in 89%
Evil (2003)
Plot Summary:
Stockholm, the fifties. Though academically bright, violent pupil Erik Ponti is expelled from his state school with the headmaster’s words “there’s only one word for people like you – evil… what you need is a good thrashing, and more”. In fact already Erik frequently receives a ‘good’ thrashing at the hands of his sadistic stepfather – so he is packed off by his mother to boardingschool.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 41000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, Denmark
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: psychological, disturbing, touching, rough, emotional, bleak, harsh, teen, realistic, serious
Similar in 85%
The Promise (1996)
Plot Summary:
In this acclaimed and gripping social portrait of immoral lives in need of rescue, Igor (Jérémie Renier), aged 15, and his father Roger (Olivier Gourmet) deal in housing and peddling illicit labor in the outlying districts of Liege, Belgium. Scams, lies and swindling rule their lives. When one of his father’s illegal workers gets injured on the job and asks Igor to promise to take care of his wife and baby, Igor finds himself at a crossroad. He wants to keep the promise, but the price would be to betray his father.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Tunisia
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, slow cinema, inspirational, thought provoking, art house, aesthetic, mesmerizing, tense, touching, serious
Similar in 86%
The Last Hammer Blow (2014)
Plot Summary:
When he first enters the Montpellier Opera House, Victor knows nothing about music. Nor does he know his father, Samuel Rovinski, who is there to conduct Mahler’s 6th symphony. To change the course of his suddenly uncertain future, for Nadia his mother, for Luna whom he has fallen in love with, Victor has decided to step out of the shadows. He’ll go as far as he needs to.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 520
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: realistic, sentimental, touching, emotional, captivating, sincere, serious