Best movies like Shades of Fern
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Based on the only extensive prose work by the surrealist painter Josef Capek, Shades of Fern most resembles the philosophical fairy tales and fables of Josef’s older brother, the legendary Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek. Two young poachers, more boys than men, kill a gamekeeper when they are caught illegally hunting. Panicked, they retreat into a forest that grows steadily more forbidding and deadly as their fear for the future—and guilt over their action—mounts. Loosely based on hundreds of oral folk tales and legends that haunt the woods of Czechoslovakia, Vlácil’s contemporary updating artistically underscores the relationship between man and nature, crime and punishment, isolation and society, and guilt and memory.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 151
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: homoerotic, period drama
Best tv shows and movies like Shades of Fern (1986):
Similar in 77%
Shadows of a Hot Summer (1978)
Plot Summary:
A story set in 1947 when Ukrainian right-wing anti-Communist guerillas, looking like and feeling like Nazi's, are trying to fight their way through Czechoslovakia to Austria. They come out of the forest to occupy a family's countryside farm house, kidnapping a doctor to help heal one of their wounded, but this could just as easily be about the post-war occupying forces in Eastern Europe, or the occupying Soviet forces in the 60's, as there is an initial belief that there is nothing anyone can do.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 310
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
The Killer Hides His Face (1966)
Plot Summary:
In the forest near the village of Drahovice, a nurse from the local health center is found murdered. Three months ago, another young woman died nearby and a sexual motive was proved in the case of her murder. In the case of the nurse, the motives are not so clear. Two criminologists from Prague - Major Kalas (Rudolf Hrusínský) and Lieutenant Varga (Radoslav Brzobohatý) - patiently collect all available leads and question the villagers.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 204
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: detective, poliziottesco
Similar in 76%
Dirty World (1978)
Plot Summary:
A thriller by Sergio Bergonzelli.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 91
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy, Spain
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: lgbt cinema, crying, poliziottesco, erotic, gay cinema, sexploitation film
Similar in 84%
Quiet is the Night (1978)
Plot Summary:
A psychological detective story about a police hunt for the murderer of young boys. The police comissioner ends up tracing the clues to his own home, where he has an adolescent son he has not been able to communicate with.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 268
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Poland
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: neo noir, detective, freeze frame, poliziottesco
Similar in 90%
Vendeta (2011)
Plot Summary:
Vendetta is an uncompromising thriller, an exciting story about revenge and the clash between two characters. Over the course of a few hours in a single day revenge intertwines the fates of a number of people. Which of them is the murderer, and who is the victim? The main events play out during only three hours. Revenge has pitted two men against each other and two policemen have also been dragged into their conflict.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 112
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: non-linear, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, contemplative, neo noir, crying, exciting
Similar in 87%
Caged Men (1971)
Plot Summary:
Elliott was a loser who robbed the bank only to land in jail. In prison, he encounters homosexuality as every inmate wants to turn Elliott into a mate!.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 86
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: crying, independent film, poliziottesco, lgbt cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 78%
May (2008)
Plot Summary:
After success of Kytice, which is based on the famous collection of poems of K.J.Erben, one of the most well-known character of classic Czech literature, Mr. Brabec went for even more famous poem Máj of K.H. Mácha, which is considered the peak of Czech romanticism.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 234
Genere: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: psychotronic, campy
Similar in 83%
Kim Novak Never Swam in Genesaret's Lake (2005)
Plot Summary:
14-year old Erik gets sent to live with his older brother, Henry, during the summer as his mother is dying in cancer. Henry starts dating Ewa, who is married to Berra. A few days after Ewa shows up battered and bruised from an altercation with Berra, he is found dead on a nearby parking lot.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Sweden, Norway, Germany
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, captivating, suspense, melancholic, teen
Similar in 84%
Chicuarotes (2019)
Plot Summary:
Cagalera and Moloteco are two teenagers from San Gregorio Atlapulco who are desperate to get out and move up and away from oppressive circumstances. When they hear of an opportunity to buy a spot in the electrician’s union, which could transform their lives, they quickly devolve into the criminal, adult underworld of Mexico City in a bid to buy their freedom.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: realistic, hispanic, tragicomedy, crying
Similar in 79%
Unsolved Suburbia (2010)
Plot Summary:
MARTY is a quirky straight guy weekdays, and gay on weekends, a high school senior, who along with his questionably straight friend JAKE, unravels the mystery of who put a hit on their friend THOMAS'S new gay lover. Jake uses his expertise as a peeping tom and gossip monger to discover neighborhood secrets, while Marty helps Thomas hide safely. At home Marty has problems of his own, when his boyfriend MICHAEL, and girlfriend ANYBODYS, find out about each other. When a surprise fourth person is sneaks into the room, the end results might be deadlier than the hit man.
IMDB Rating: 3.4
IMDB Votes: 201
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 65 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sexual, independent film, hispanic, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 77%
The Goldfinch (2019)
Plot Summary:
A boy in New York is taken in by a wealthy family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a rush of panic, he steals 'The Goldfinch', a painting that eventually draws him into a world of crime.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 26000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 149 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, non-linear, psychological, enigmatic, entertaining, sad, independent film, period piece, exciting, weird
Similar in 84%
Pizza Connection (1985)
Plot Summary:
Mario (Placido), an Italian American who manages a pizzeria in NYC, is charged with an assassination of a judge in Palermo. He leaves the States, comes back to Sicily and recruit Michele, his younger brother, for some help. Michele is a good guy not involved with the Mafia, that is trying to build his life on honesty and hard-working. Michele needs some money to give freedom to a prostitute he is in love, and Mario promise his help in change of an hands to set up his trap for the judge. Anyway Michele isn't made with the same "pasta" of Mario, he couldn't never be a real Mafioso and this causes many between the two brother and the Mafia. There is only a way for Mario to save his brother. A way that Mafia could like.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 397
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: poliziottesco, independent film
Similar in 90%
The Seventh Juror (1962)
Plot Summary:
In a moment of madness a middle-aged, married and respectable pharmacist kills a young woman who is sun-bathing by a lake. Unable to take in what he has done, he flees from the scene of the crime and behaves as if nothing has happened. Eventually her boyfriend is charged with the crime and, in a strange twist of fate, the killer finds himself serving on the jury.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 942
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: noir, neo noir, psychological thriller, crying, french noir
Similar in 79%
491 (1964)
Plot Summary:
A study in forgiveness as oppression and goodness as provocation. Six youth criminals are chosen to participate in a social experiment where they are assigned to live together in a rundown apartment in the heart of Stockholm, Sweden. The six boys are being supervised by two forgiving and uneasy social workers. Their need to continue to commit petty crimes escalates out of boredom with the situation. One night they run into a young girl in trouble.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 422
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, crying, banned
Similar in 89%
Made in Hong Kong (1997)
Plot Summary:
The first independent film to emerge from the former British colony since the changeover to China in 1997, Made in Hong Kong is an intoxicating drama about teenage alienation.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Hong Kong
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: art house, brutal, neo noir, crime drama, cult classic, psychological, offbeat, bleak, serious, captivating
Similar in 85%
The Grissom Gang (1971)
Plot Summary:
The Grissom Gang is a remake of the notorious 1949 British melodrama No Orchids For Miss Blandish. Kim Darby plays a 1920s-era debutante who is kidnapped and held for ransom. Her captors are the Grissoms, a family comprised of sadists and morons, and headed by Ma Barker clone Irene Dailey. One of the Grissoms, played by Scott Wilson, takes a liking to his prisoner, which results in a bloody breakdown of the family unit. Both The Grissom Gang and the original No Orchids For Miss Blandish were inspired by the best-seller by James Hadley Chase, though neither film retains Chase's original ending.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: neo noir, independent film, tense, clever, serious, realistic, suspenseful, cynical, biting, crying
Similar in 81%
The Other Side of Bonnie and Clyde (1968)
Plot Summary:
Quasi-documentay on Bonnie and Clyde... Larry Buchanan style!.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 80
Genere: Drama, Crime
Country: USA
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: psychotronic, independent film
Similar in 89%
Bastardi 2 (2011)
Plot Summary:
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IMDB Rating: 3.7
IMDB Votes: 119
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Czech Republic
Duration:
Plot tags: psychological, tense, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, detective
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The Passenger (2012)
Plot Summary:
In the provocative new drama from the director of THE VISITOR, sexual and moral boundaries are put to the test when a handsome stranger begins to infiltrate the lives of two artists. While searching for a condo in Berlin for his father, Nick meets Philipp, a young talented photographer and a gorgeous actress named Lilli. There is instant chemistry and both are easily seduced by Nick's charms. Lilli and Philipp begin to explore their relationship with the sexy visitor, succumbing to their passionate affections for him which intensifies their volatile emotional and physical bonds. But what Philipp and Lilli don't realize is that they are being lured into Nick's manipulative..and deadly, love game.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 315
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 61 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, sincere, romantic, sexy, touching, unusual plot structure, gay cinema
Similar in 78%
Agitator (2001)
Plot Summary:
When a young Yakuza torments the customers in a rival crime family's nightclub, it is not long before his dead body is found. Soon, inter-family retaliation follows, resulting in the death fo a prominent crime boss. Devastated by htis turn of events, the temperamental Kenzaki vows to avenge his boss's death and, as bloody violence ensues, the body count reaches excessive proportions.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: suspense, suspenseful, exciting, tense, captivating, crime drama, crying
Similar in 86%
Toxic Love (1983)
Plot Summary:
The alienating and repetitive life of a group of heroin junkies in the 1980s Rome.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy, black comedy, dark comedy
Similar in 78%
Blue Ridge Fall (1999)
Plot Summary:
After a boy kills his father he must turn to his frinds to cover his tracks with tests their loyality and friendship.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: crime drama, tense, serious, realistic, crying
Similar in 86%
A Killer in the Family (1983)
Plot Summary:
A father serving time for murder convinces his three teenage sons to break him out of jail.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 660
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Our Lady of the Assassins (2000)
Plot Summary:
World-weary arthur Fernando has returned to his native Colombia to live out his days in peace. But Fernando's once-quiet hometown has become a hotbed of violence, drugs and corruption. On the brink of despair, Fernando meets Alexis, a beautiful but hardened street kid who lives by the rule of the gun. Together, they forge an unlikely relationship.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Spain, France, Colombia
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: disturbing, meditative, rough, thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative, crying, sexy, enigmatic
Similar in 78%
From the Edge of the City (1998)
Plot Summary:
Minority-group Greeks from an outer suburb of Athens struggle with their life on society's fringe and exploitation of one another.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Greece
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy, neo noir, lgbt cinema, disgusting, queer cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 79%
Jacob the Liar (1974)
Plot Summary:
A Jewish ghetto in the east of Europe, 1944. By coincidence, Jakob Heym eavesdrops on a German radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow by steady progress towards central Europe. In order to keep his companion in misfortune, Mischa, from risking his life for a few potatoes, he tells him what he heard and announces that he is in possession of a radio - in the ghetto a crime punishable by death. It doesn't take long for word of Jakob's secret to spread - suddenly, there is new hope and something to live for - and so Jakob finds himself in the uncomforting position of having to come up with more and more stories.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama, War
Country: East Germany, Czechoslovakia
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, tense, uplifting, serious, tragicomedy, gloomy, semi serious, fairy tale, crying
Similar in 88%
El Angel (2018)
Plot Summary:
About a real-life criminal who shocked Argentine society: Carlos Robledo Puch, a merciless teen killer dubbed “The Angel of Death” because of his beatific good looks, who now ranks as the longest-serving prison inmate in Argentine history.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Biography, Crime, Drama
Country: Argentina, Spain
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: tense, psychological, exciting, captivating, controversial, stylized, aesthetic, homoerotic, queer cinema
Similar in 85%
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006)
Plot Summary:
Dito Montiel, a successful author, receives a call from his long-suffering mother, asking him to return home and visit his ailing father. Dito recalls his childhood growing up in a violent neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., with friends Antonio, Giuseppe, Nerf and Mike.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 26000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: emotional, harsh, rough, thought provoking, intense, realistic, sentimental, epic, crying, hood
Similar in 88%
The Outsiders (1983)
Plot Summary:
When two poor greasers, Johnny, and Ponyboy are assaulted by a vicious gang, the socs, and Johnny kills one of the attackers, tension begins to mount between the two rival gangs, setting off a turbulent chain of events.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 95000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA, France
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: cult classic, teen, melancholic, intense, hood, sentimental, stylized, epic, erotic, retro
Similar in 90%
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Plot Summary:
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 371000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA, Italy
Duration: 229 min
Plot tags: epic, ambiguous ending, atmospheric, melancholic, breathtaking, captivating, rough, visually appealing, realistic, talky