Best movies like Steppenwolf
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In the bourgeois circles of Europe after the Great War, can anything save the modern man? Harry Haller, a solitary intellectual, has all his life feared his dual nature of being human and being a beast. He's decided to die on his 50th birthday, which is soon. He's rescued from his solipsism by the mysterious Hermine, who takes him dancing, introduces him to jazz and to the beautiful and whimsical Maria, and guides him into the hallucinations of the Magic Theater, which seem to take him into Hell. Can humour, sin, and derision lead to salvation?.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Switzerland, UK, France, Italy, USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: surreal, existential, philosophical, depressing, manga, esoteric, cult classic, independent film, mystic, psychological
Best tv shows and movies like Steppenwolf (1974):
Similar in 88%
The Inheritance (1976)
Plot Summary:
Rome, 1880. Gregorio Ferramonti (Anthony Quinn) has decided to close his bakery, the family business. Then he tells his sons Pippo (Gigi Proietti), Mario (Fabio Testi) and Teta that they will have to fend for themselves. But Irene (Dominique Sanda), the wife of Pippo, a beautiful, calculating and ambitious young woman, wants to take over the inheritance. Acting on intelligence, weighing every step and its consequences, she manages to convince the brothers that they must prevent at all costs that his father falls in love again to avoid the risk of losing their inheritance.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 993
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, stylized, sexual, sexy, period drama
Similar in 81%
Abraham's Valley (1993)
Plot Summary:
Ema is a very attractive but innocent girl, so pretty that cars crash in her presence. Young marries Dr. Carlo Paiva, who she is not attracted to, but is her father's friend. They move to the Valley of Abraham. Carlo loves her, but decides to sleep in a separate room, to avoid waking Ema when he has to return late at night. With time she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage so she finds a lover.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Portugal, Switzerland
Duration: 187 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic
Similar in 86%
Porcile (1969)
Plot Summary:
Two dramatic stories. In an undetermined past, a young cannibal (who killed his own father) is condemned to be torn to pieces by some wild beasts. In the second story, Julian, the young son of a post-war German industrialist, is on the way to lie down with his farm's pigs, because he doesn't like human relationships.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: disturbing, controversial, experimental, erotic, art house, art film, cult classic, avant garde, atmospheric, clever
Similar in 84%
Siddhartha (1972)
Plot Summary:
Siddhartha is the story of a young Brahmin and his search for a meaningful way of life. His journey takes him through periods of harsh asceticism, sensual pleasures, material wealth, self-revulsion and eventually to the oneness and harmony that he had been seeking. The story is based on the best-selling novel by German Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: India, USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: spiritual, philosophical, road movie, dramatic, surreal, existential, independent film, psychological, atmospheric, serious
Similar in 88%
The Exchange (2011)
Plot Summary:
A family man becomes obsessed with looking at his own life out of context.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 327
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel, Germany
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, atmospheric, serious, contemplative, realistic, weird
Similar in 82%
The Music of Chance (1993)
Plot Summary:
Two men face the consequences of gambling after playing with men beyond their league.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: independent film, depressing, surreal, twisted, psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, suspenseful, road movie
Similar in 86%
The Annunciation (1984)
Plot Summary:
The Annunciation (in Hungarian: Angyali üdvözlet) is a Hungarian film directed by András Jeles in 1984, based on The Tragedy of Man (1861) by Imre Madách. When Adam (Péter Bocsor) and Eve (Júlia Mérő), having succumbed to Lucifer's temptation, are cast out of the Garden of Eden, Adam holds Lucifer (Eszter Gyalog) to his promise, reminding him that "You said I would know everything!". So Lucifer grants Adam a dream of the world to come. And what a bizarre dream: Adam becomes Miltiades in Athens; a knight called Tancred in Byzantium; Kepler in Prague; Danton in revolutionary Paris; and a nameless suitor in Victorian London. Guided by a deceptively sweet but ultimately contemptuous Lucifer, Adam confronts an endless procession of the horror of the human story ... rapists and concubines, betrayal and savagery, mindless cruelty and fanaticism.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 577
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, surreal, serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, experimental, existential, art film, cult classic
Similar in 86%
The Passion of Anna (1969)
Plot Summary:
Andreas, a man struggling with the recent demise of his marriage and his own emotional isolation, befriends a married couple also in the midst of psychological turmoil. In turn he meets Anna, who is grieving the recent deaths of her husband and son. She appears zealous in her faith and steadfast in her search for truth, but gradually her delusions surface. Andreas and Anna pursue a love affair, but he is unable to overcome his feelings of deep humiliation and remains disconnected. Meanwhile, the island community is victimized by an unknown person committing acts of animal cruelty.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: art house, surreal, cerebral, psychological, bleak, spiritual, philosophical, mind bending, psychedelic, postmodern
Similar in 90%
The Swimmer (1968)
Plot Summary:
Neddy Merrill has been away for most of the summer. He reappears at a friend's pool. As they talk, someone notices that there are pools spanning the entire valley. He decided to jog from pool to pool to swim the whole valley. As he stops in each pool his interactions tell his life story.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, serious, surreal, depressing, philosophical, realistic, stylized, cult classic, bleak
Similar in 77%
All God's Children Can Dance (2008)
Plot Summary:
In Korea Town Los Angeles, a young man, Kengo, believes he's the son of God - that's what his mother told him since he was a young boy. He spends his days working his dead-end job and figuring out his complex feelings for his girlfriend until, one day, he sees a one-eared man who could be his father and decides to follow him around Los Angeles.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 309
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: serious, psychological, atmospheric, realistic, stylized, contemplative, independent film, art house
Similar in 80%
Cold Light (2004)
Plot Summary:
What could be better than knowing your future? And what could be worse? A love-filled childhood abruptly ends when catastrophe descends. A catastrophe that the child had foreseen yet failed to act upon.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 611
Genere: Drama
Country: Iceland, Norway, UK, Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, atmospheric, serious, offbeat, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 84%
The Hawk Is Dying (2006)
Plot Summary:
A Gainesville Florida auto upholsterer (Giamatti) attempts to subvert his mundane life by training a wild, red-tailed hawk.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, bleak, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 90%
The Touch (1971)
Plot Summary:
A seemingly happy Swedish housewife and mother begins an adulterous affair with a foreign archaeologist who is working near her home.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: art house, independent film, psychological, serious, realistic
Similar in 79%
Exit: A personal history (2010)
Plot Summary:
A young man travels to Holland for an assisted suicide. The young man was convinced that this was his only way of ending an existence that he considered to lack any dignity.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 22
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: experimental, atmospheric, contemplative, psychological, sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, surreal, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Shame (1968)
Plot Summary:
Ingmar Bergman's psychological study of how humans react in a situation of war. The film takes place on Gotland, where invasion forces arrives.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: psychological, art house, political, cerebral, bleak, biting, existential, allegory, spiritual, contemplative
Similar in 77%
The Man Who Sleeps (1974)
Plot Summary:
In this French tour-de-force a young student decides to have no more interaction with the world than is needed to minimally sustain life. His increasingly automaton-like behavior is coupled with a strange clarity of insight about the world around him. His inner musings as he wanders the luminous streets of Paris are narrated in the form of an unwritten diary by Ludmila Mikael.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Tunisia
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: art house, experimental, existential, surreal, contemplative, depressing, poetic, philosophical, artsy, anthology
Similar in 85%
Inside (2012)
Plot Summary:
A man's life, thoughts, feelings and his very own darkness... Adapted from Dostoevsky's novel "Notes from Undergroud", Demirkubuz follows Muharrem as he gets himself invited to a party where he is not welcome, just to find himself disgusted.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, serious, contemplative, art house, captivating, existential
Similar in 80%
The Silence (1963)
Plot Summary:
Traveling through an unnamed European country on the brink of war, sickly, intellectual Ester, her sister Anna and Anna's young son, Johan, check into a near-empty hotel. A basic inability to communicate among the three seems only to worsen during their stay. Anna provokes her sister by enjoying a dalliance with a local man, while the boy, left to himself, has a series of enigmatic encounters that heighten the growing air of isolation.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 21000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: art house, black and white, sexual, erotic, philosophical, atmospheric, surreal, cerebral, disturbing, psychological
Similar in 80%
Red Desert (1964)
Plot Summary:
Amid the modern wastelands and toxic factories of Italy, wife and mother Giuliana (Monica Vitti) desperately tries to conceal her tenuous grip on reality from those around her, especially her successful yet neglectful husband, Ugo (Carlo Chionetti). Ugo's old pal, Corrado (Richard Harris), shows up in town on a business trip and is more sensitive to Giuliana's anxieties. They begin an affair, but it does little to quell Giuliana's existential fears, and her mental state rapidly deteriorates.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: psychological, thought provoking, atmospheric, realistic, serious, poetic, philosophical, neorealism, existential, contemplative
Similar in 84%
Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream That One Calls Human Life (1995)
Plot Summary:
Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Japan, Germany
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: black and white, art house, surreal, cult classic, psychological, atmospheric, mindfuck, mind bending, psychedelic, spiritual
Similar in 75%
The Fire Within (1963)
Plot Summary:
Alain Leroy is a recovering alcoholic who decides to end his life, but first decides to visit his friends in Paris one last time, in an attempt at finding a reason to continue living.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: philosophical, depressing, art house, independent film, existential, bleak, touching, sad, anthology, powerful
Similar in 77%
Island (2011)
Plot Summary:
Based on 'Jane Rogers' acclaimed novel, "Island" is a tale of yearning and retribution. Abandoned at birth, Nikki Black has spent most of her life in care sustained only by fairy-stories. Incapable of love, fearful and desperate for revenge, she decides to find her birth mother, confront her, and bitter enough to consider murder. She travels incognito to a remote Hebridean island where Phyllis now lives as a recluse with Calum, her son.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 553
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, psychological, tense, atmospheric, realistic, gloomy, art house
Similar in 77%
Winter Light (1963)
Plot Summary:
A Swedish pastor fails a loving woman, a suicidal fisherman and God.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 27000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: philosophical, psychological, depressing, art house, emotional, black and white, cerebral, christian film, spiritual, existential
Similar in 78%
The Trip (1967)
Plot Summary:
Paul Groves, a television commercial director, is in the midst of a personality crisis. His wife Sally has left him and he seeks the help of his friend John, a self-styled guru who's an advocate of LSD. Paul asks John to be the guide on his first "trip". John takes Paul to a "freak-out" at his friend Max's pad. Splitting the scene, they score some acid from Max and return to John's split-level pad with an indoor pool. Paul experiences visions of sex, death, strobe lights, flowers, dancing girls, witches, hooded riders, a torture chamber, and a dwarf. He panics but John tells him to "go with it, man." Would you trust John?.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, psychedelic, psychological, surreal, grindhouse, cult classic, psychotronic, captivating, mind bending, mysterious
Similar in 89%
Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
Plot Summary:
48 hours in the life of a burnt-out paramedic. Once called Father Frank for his efforts to rescue lives, Frank sees the ghosts of those he failed to save around every turn. He has tried everything he can to get fired, calling in sick, delaying taking calls where he might have to face one more victim he couldn't help, yet cannot quit the job on his own.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 75000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: psychological, bleak, atmospheric, serious, dark comedy, surreal, meditative, disturbing, stylized, suspenseful
Similar in 78%
Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
Plot Summary:
Karin hopes to recover from her recent stay at a mental hospital by spending the summer at her family's cottage on a tiny island. Her husband, Martin, cares for her but is frustrated by her physical withdrawal. Her younger bother, Minus, is confused by Karin's vulnerability and his own budding sexuality. Their father, David, cannot overcome his haughty remoteness. Beset by visions, Karin descends further into madness.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 27000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, philosophical, art house, black and white, serious, surreal, cerebral, spiritual, existential, atmospheric
Similar in 87%
Glass Lips (2007)
Plot Summary:
This dialog-free film, originally presented as 33 short films, is an experimental, bizarre set of meditations and flashbacks of the grotesque.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 241
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland, USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, surreal, disturbing, mind bending, serious, realistic, stylized, experimental, contemplative, sexual
Similar in 80%
Naked Lunch (1991)
Plot Summary:
After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally murders his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in an Islamic port town in Africa.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 56000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, UK, Japan
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, surreal, disturbing, neo noir, philosophical, mindfuck, atmospheric, confusing, controversial, cult classic
Similar in 76%
Eight and a Half (1963)
Plot Summary:
With 8 ½ Frederico Fellini leaves a self-portrait where dreams and reality are a mix. With help from a most excellent cast and unique scenery this self reflecting film is one of his master works.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 124000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: art house, psychological, surreal, philosophical, cerebral, stylized, black and white, atmospheric, postmodern, visual
Similar in 90%
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Plot Summary:
A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 97000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: philosophical, psychological, depressing, surreal, mindfuck, confusing, art house, absurd, mind bending, cult classic