Best movies like Spark
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
An urban black couple (Terrence Howard, Nicole Parker) traveling via back roads from Chicago to LA has a car breakdown in a backwater town where everyone is white trailer trash and racial epithets are common graffiti. The film tries to examine the thoughts of the lower class that they get involved in and the loud mouth impetuosity of the black man which ultimately leads the couple into greater problems.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 249
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: independent film, psychological, serious, realistic, suspenseful, tension, suspense
Best tv shows and movies like Spark (1998):
Similar in 89%
Nightmare in Badham County (1976)
Plot Summary:
Two UCLA coeds have engine trouble in small Southern town. When they spurn the local sheriff's advances he arranges for them to be taken to the women's prison on trivial charges (the judge is a cousin), where they must endure atrocities at the hands of the administrators of the prison and the prison guards.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 664
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: crying, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, psychotronic, independent film
Similar in 84%
Iron Maze (1991)
Plot Summary:
In Corinth, a dying town 15 miles from Pittsburg: One evening, a Japanese businessman, who wanted to tear down the closed iron mills to build an amusement park, is found half dead in his mill. Bellboy Barry admits to have done it - in self defense. Chief Ruhle interrogates him and Sugito's young wife and business partners, but it takes a while, until he gets through the maze of apparently contradictory statements.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 746
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan, USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: neo noir, independent film, erotic, psychological, tense, mind bending, serious, realistic, suspenseful, sexual
Similar in 86%
The Suspect (2013)
Plot Summary:
Two African American social scientists pose as bank robbers in an effort to understand the racial dynamics of small-town law enforcement. However, their experiment takes an unplanned turn.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: tense, atmospheric, serious, suspenseful, captivating, clever, realistic
Similar in 82%
Annie's Garden (1997)
Plot Summary:
In front of his 15-year-old son, a father loses his temper and strikes his younger daughter, thinking she's trying to run away from him. Jump ahead ten years: the dad is dead, the mom is gone, and the son, Luke, is raising his now grown sister, Annie. He's overprotective, and she seems blood simple, a coquette and an innocent. He runs the diner in town, and one day, Lisa, a callow writer-to-be, comes through from Manhattan, keeping a journal, looking for interesting people. She takes a shine to Annie and then to the muscular and well-read Luke. But what is their secret, how many of the townsfolk are in on it, and what will Lisa do when it all becomes clear?.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 321
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: independent film, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 82%
All Mistakes Buried (2015)
Plot Summary:
A lone, struggling addict takes on a dangerous underground criminal ring in his small Southern town to retrieve a stolen pendant he believes will save his marriage.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 408
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 83%
Water's Edge (2003)
Plot Summary:
Robert wanted an escape from the big city. He thought a small town by the water's edge would give him a new start. He couldn't have been more wrong. This little town has dirty secrets, and Robert just found the worst of them.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 726
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, suspenseful, realistic, surprise ending
Similar in 83%
30 Miles (2004)
Plot Summary:
An act of kindness leads to the destruction of two lives in just thirty miles, when a hitchiker and his ride let down their guards and reveal intimate, dark secrets about their pasts.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 188
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 76%
Resilience (2006)
Plot Summary:
An average man finds himself in a position to prevent the murder of a family member -- the unnerving descent of a man caught between resilience and ruthlessness.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 29
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, suspenseful, realistic, independent film
Similar in 88%
King of the Jungle (2000)
Plot Summary:
Seymore is a young man with the mind of a child. He loves three things in life: basketball, sneaking out for cigarettes, and his mother. But all life's simple pleasures are brutally torn from him when he witnesses his mother gunned down by a neighborhood punk. Now Seymore must overcome the child within as he rises up to fight for some kind of justice. It's a fight that will take him out into the streets where there are few friends and many enemies -- and one of them is a killer who wants him silenced.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 590
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, tense, disturbing, independent film, bleak, realistic, suspenseful, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (2000)
Plot Summary:
A Hollywood film executive gets blackmailed by a derelict who uses some damaging information to move into his house and take over his perfect life for himself.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 415
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, suspenseful, realistic, surprise ending
Similar in 83%
Secrets of Eden (2012)
Plot Summary:
Based on Chris Bohjalian’s New York Times best-selling novel, “Secrets of Eden” centers on Stephen Drew, an adored small-town minister, and the brutal and sadistic murder-suicide of Alice and George Hayward, the town’s most beloved parishioners. Dark secrets begin to surface.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 542
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, realistic, serious, captivating
Similar in 84%
Ambushed (1998)
Plot Summary:
Jim Natter, the leader of a violent Kuk Klux Klan lodge, is shot dead. His teenage son Eric Natter is found nearby, and taken into police custody for his protection pending the investigation. While four cops drive him to a safe-house, they are ambushed. Three of them shot dead, including Deputy Lawrence, and his black partner Jerry Robinson is accused of the murders.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 746
Genere: Action, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: suspense, independent film, exciting, tense, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, surprise ending
Similar in 77%
Blood Crime (2002)
Plot Summary:
For burned-out Seattle cop Daniel Pruitt, a camping trip turns hellish when his wife, Jessica, is savagely attacked in the forest. En route to the hospital, the Pruitts collide with a semi, and Jessica identifies the driver as her assailant. Enraged, Pruitt pummels the man. Once at the ER, however, she changes her mind and names a male nurse as her attacker. But before Pruitt can make amends, he learns that his victim, the son of Sheriff Morgan McKenna, is dead.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 670
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, suspense
Similar in 79%
Timepiece (1996)
Plot Summary:
Set in the 1940's, James Earl Jones as an an old clockmaker faces racism and is tried for murder when the racist is killed. However, Kevin Kilner comes forward and claims to have commmitted the crime in self defense. All the while, Kilner's family life is in disarray with various crises including his daughter catching meningitis.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 514
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic
Similar in 87%
Through the Valley (2008)
Plot Summary:
An innocent man framed for murder, and the system that just wants another minority conviction.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 74
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, crime drama, independent film
Similar in 75%
Light It Up (1999)
Plot Summary:
On a winter day in a southside Queens high school, events collide and six students are suddenly in an armed standoff with the NYPD. At the school, classrooms freeze, teachers come and go, resources are scant.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: hood, tense, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, inspirational, thought provoking, feel good
Similar in 89%
Blind Injustice (2005)
Plot Summary:
A blind woman finds herself the target of an attacker again after the person originally convicted of her rape is found to be innocent of the crime.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 236
Genere: Thriller, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, suspense
Similar in 88%
White Man's Burden (1995)
Plot Summary:
The story takes place in alternative America where the blacks are members of social elite, and whites are inhabitants of inner city ghettos. Louis Pinnock is a white worker in a chocolate factory, loving husband and father of two children. While delivering a package for black CEO Thaddeus Thomas, he is mistaken for a voyeur and, as a result, loses his job, gets beaten by black cops and his family gets evicted from their home. Desperate Pinnock takes a gun and kidnaps Thomas, demanding justice.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: France, USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: tense, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, rough, feel good, unusual plot structure, bad ending, political
Similar in 85%
Tucked Away (2007)
Plot Summary:
On the surface, Ray Ryan has it all. He's a successful advertising executive with a new promotion. He has a nice home and a beautiful fiancée. Underneath it all is a dark secret he's finding harder to hide. Ray's nightmares are giving way to visions of his abusive father, unlocking a suppressed violence he's unable to control. When ray brutally assaults a man in a parking lot, it leads to an investigation by an aging detective with a connected past. Neither is prepared as the secrets begin to unfold over a thirty-year-old murder they've both struggled to keep buried.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 29
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 81%
Bucksville (2011)
Plot Summary:
In a small, wooded town, a young man struggles to leave a secret militia started by his father.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 93
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, psychological, suspense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 87%
Lured Innocence (2000)
Plot Summary:
A reporter sent to cover a murder trial discovers a web of deceit stemming from a torrid affair.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, suspenseful, tense, realistic, mind bending, sexual, sexy
Similar in 77%
Assault at West Point: The Court-Martial of Johnson Whittaker (1994)
Plot Summary:
The story of Johnson Whittaker, one of the first African-American cadets admitted to West Point. Tied down and beaten by his fellow cadets.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 572
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
Similar in 82%
Shadow Hours (2000)
Plot Summary:
Michael is a recovering addict. Back on the wagon, he's now responsible for a young, beautiful, and pregnant wife. He's working the graveyard shift at a gas station to support his new family, but the job drives him crazy. Then a wealthy stranger, Stuart, enters Michael's life, taking Michael through a tour of the seediest and slimiest parts of L.A. underbelly. Is Stuart leading Michael to hell, or salvation?.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 924
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: serious, disturbing, psychological, realistic, suspenseful, suspense, independent film, neo noir, rough, psychological thriller
Similar in 89%
Public Access (1993)
Plot Summary:
Brewster seems to be an almost too perfect example of idyllic small-town America, with everyone living in peace and harmony. So when newcomer Whiley Pritcher starts up his own local cable TV show with the question "what's wrong with Brewster?", there surely can't be any deep dark secrets in the town that are just waiting to come to the surface - or can there? And when the question becomes "who's wrong with Brewster?" things start getting seriously nasty.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 973
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: cult classic, independent film, talky, serious, realistic, suspenseful, psychological, sexy, thought provoking, clever
Similar in 81%
Blackout (2007)
Plot Summary:
BLACKOUT takes you inside the personal journey of what went down and what it was really like in Brooklyn, NY on August 14. It examines the nature of man to take advantage of his own fellow man outside of normal conditions, in times of weakness and vulnerability.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 609
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, psychological, bleak
Similar in 83%
White Water (2015)
Plot Summary:
White Water is the story of a 7 year-old black kid in segregated 1963 Opelika, Alabama who becomes obsessed with the desire to taste the water from the "white's only" drinking fountain and sets out on a quest to do the unthinkable: drink from it.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 209
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, suspenseful, realistic
Similar in 86%
Color of Justice (1997)
Plot Summary:
Four young black men kill a white woman, the D.A. is very cautious in how to proceed.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 228
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, rough, thought provoking, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 79%
The Klansman (1974)
Plot Summary:
A small southern town has just been rocked by a tragedy: a young woman has been violently raped. The white town fathers immediately declare that the attacker had to be black, and place the blame on Garth, a young black man. Assuming that the men in white sheets aren't intent on holding a fair and impartial trial, Garth takes to the woods as the Klansmen lynching party hunts him down.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: political, tense, sincere, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, campy
Similar in 86%
Deadline (2012)
Plot Summary:
Deadline is the story of the murder of an African American youth in rural Alabama that has gone uninvestigated, unsolved, and unpunished for almost twenty years. That changes when Nashville Times reporter Matt Harper (Steve Talley) meets an idealistic young blueblood bent on discovering the truth. Harper undertakes the investigation despite the opposition of his publisher, violent threats from mysterious forces, a break-up with his fiancée, and his father's cancer diagnosis.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 454
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 87%
Boycott (2001)
Plot Summary:
This made-for-TV movie dramatizes the historic boycott of public buses in the 1950s, led by civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, political, talky