Best movies like The Damned
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In the early days of Nazi Germany, a powerful noble family must adjust to life under the new dictatorship regime. The transition from democracy to dictatorship is thus dramatized through the lives of the family which also owns a powerful German industrial firm. Through such characters as a German Baron, a child molester, a Nazi Storm Trooper, an innocent man framed for murder, and a Captain in the German SS, "Damned" thus shows how so called "German Upper Class Nobility" first resented Adolf Hitler, then accepted him, and at last embraced him.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy, West Germany
Duration: 157 min
Plot tags: disturbing, controversial, erotic, retro, political, sad, art house, neorealism, dread, insightful
Best tv shows and movies like The Damned (1969):
Similar in 87%
The Mark of Cain (2007)
Plot Summary:
After a bomb kills their company commander in Iraq, British soldiers Treacle and Shane are ordered to round up suspects and use torture on the detainees. Back home, the press gets the story and the pair achieves instant infamy.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, suspenseful, disturbing, realistic
Similar in 86%
Death in Venice (1971)
Plot Summary:
Composer Gustav von Aschenbach, travels to Venice for health reasons. There, he becomes obsessed with the stunning beauty of an adolescent Polish boy named Tadzio who is staying with his family at the same Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido as Aschenbach.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 23000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: sentimental, melancholic, scenic, art house, serious, colorful, neorealism, psychological, contemplative, realistic
Similar in 79%
Coup de grâce (1976)
Plot Summary:
A countess loves her brother's Prussian-officer friend in the 1919 Baltic area.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, West Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: serious, stylized, realistic, bleak, philosophical, depressing, political, sad, art house, black and white
Similar in 78%
Lacombe, Lucien (1974)
Plot Summary:
In 1944 Lucien Lacombe, a young peasant in the Lot region is refused permission to join the French Resistance. Instead, the opposing "French Gestapo" obtain from him information about an underground leader and recruit him into their organization.Lucien enjoys his power and inclusion as a member of the German Police (Milice française) but soon falls in love with a Jewish girl. Forcing himself upon her family, Lucien becomes personally involved with the very people some of his collaborators and superiors are, in part, employed to oppress.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Italy, West Germany
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: anthology, art house, postmodern, visual, psychological, sincere, serious, realistic, disturbing, controversial
Similar in 79%
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962)
Plot Summary:
Karl from Germany and Marcelo from France emigrated to Argentina and became brothers-in-law. Karl soon returned to Germany to serve in the army. Marcelo and his children Julio and Chichi became Argentinean citizens but later returned to Paris. Karl became a general with a son (Heinrich) in the SS and in WWII he got a high job within the occupation administration in France.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, Mexico
Duration: 153 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating, psychological, retro, gay cinema, cult film
Similar in 90%
The Man Who Will Come (2009)
Plot Summary:
A group of Italian villagers struggle to survive during a tumultuous time in 1943, debating how much assistance to give the partisans with the impending arrival of the Germans. Based on True Events.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, atmospheric, bleak, realistic, twist ending
Similar in 81%
Salon Kitty (1976)
Plot Summary:
Kitty runs a brothel in Nazi Germany where the soldiers come to "relax". Recording devices have been installed in each room by a power hungry army official who plans to use the information to blackmail Hitler and gain power himself. A girl named Margherita discovers the little ploy and with Kitty's help plans to take on the dangerous task of exposing the conspiracy.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy, France, West Germany
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: erotic, disturbing, sexy, controversial, intense, psychotronic, grindhouse, sensual, creepy, devastating
Similar in 82%
David (1979)
Plot Summary:
Although members of the Hitler Youth chant anti-Semitic paroles in front of his house during the Purim festival, Rabbi Singer is still profoundly convinced that Germany will stay a safe country for him, his family, and his fellow believers. But several years later, his son David is banned from going to school because he is a Jew. Shortly after, Rabbi Singer and his wife are deported. Now, young David also fears for his life. In constant fear of being detected, he tries to find a way to leave Germany.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 165
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 84%
Circle of Deceit (1981)
Plot Summary:
Georg Laschen leaves his family in West Germany to go work as a war correspondent in Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 948
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany, France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: political, sincere, rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 87%
13 Minutes (2015)
Plot Summary:
The breath-taking story of a man who nearly would have changed the world. 1939, when Hitler tricked millions of people at the height of his power, one said a radical No: Georg Elser, disparaged as an assassin, is one of the greatest resistance fighters.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Biography, Drama, War
Country: Germany, Italy
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, tense, suspenseful
Similar in 87%
Good (2008)
Plot Summary:
The rise of national socialism in Germany should not be regarded as a conspiracy of madmen. Millions of "good" people found themselves in a society spiralling into terrible chaos. A film about then, which illuminates the terrors of now.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: UK, Germany
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing, captivating, christian film, retro, political, sad, period piece, romantic drama
Similar in 90%
Hitler's S.S.: Portrait in Evil (1985)
Plot Summary:
The two-part TV movie Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil crystallizes that evil by concentrating on two Berlin brothers. In 1931, Helmut Hoffman (Bill Nighy) a brilliant student and self-styled opportunist, joins Hitler's SS. At the same time, his younger brother Karl (John Shea), a top athlete and idealist, becomes a chauffeur for the "S.A." (storm troopers).
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 857
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 77%
Breakthrough (1979)
Plot Summary:
Starting in late May 1944, during the German retreat on the Eastern Front, Captain Stransky (Helmut Griem) orders Sergeant Steiner (Richard Burton) to blow up a railway tunnel to prevent Russian forces from using it. Steiner's platoon fails in its mission by coming up against a Russian tank. Steiner then takes a furlough to Paris just as the Allies launch their invasion of Normandy.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
The Army of Shadows (1969)
Plot Summary:
Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura) finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Though Gerbier escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseilles, France, and exacts his revenge on the informant, he must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis in an atmosphere of tension, paranoia and distrust.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 25000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags: noir, visually appealing, art house, bleak, captivating, realistic, stylized, political, visual, sincere
Similar in 83%
Cross of Iron (1977)
Plot Summary:
It is 1943, and the German army, ravaged and demoralised, are hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of all this madness, conflict brews between the aristocratic yet ultimately pusillanimous Captain Stransky and the courageous Corporal Steiner. Stransky is the only man who believes that the Third Reich are still vastly superior to the Russian army; however within his pompous persona lies a quivering coward who longs for the Iron Cross so that he can return to Berlin a hero. Steiner, on the other hand is cynical, defiantly non-conformist and more concerned with the safety of his own men rather than the horde of military decorations offered to him by his superiors. Steiner's lack of respect results in a growing animosity between the two.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 29000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, West Germany
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: political, brutal, cult classic, tense, bleak, realistic, independent film, philosophical, mind bending, psychedelic
Similar in 89%
All My Loved Ones (1999)
Plot Summary:
Told from the perspective of man reflecting on his childhood in Prauge in the early years of World War 2 and the eventual destruction of his family as the Nazis rise to power. The storyline focuses heavily on Jewish-Czech Silberstein family members. Drama was filmed on the real events as a tribute to Mr. Nicholas Winton, the British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport from German-occupied Czechoslovakia and likely death in the Holocaust.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 570
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, contemplative, crying
Similar in 82%
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
Plot Summary:
In late 1930s Ferrara, Italy, the Finzi-Continis are a leading family: wealthy, aristocratic, and urbane; they are also Jewish. Their adult children, Micol and Alberto, gather a diverse circle of friends for tennis and parties at their villa with its lovely grounds, and try to keep the rest of the world at bay. But tensions between them all grow as anti-Semitism rises in Fascist Italy, and even the Finzi-Continis will have to confront the Holocaust.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Italy, West Germany
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: disturbing, compassionate, breathtaking, emotional, talky, sentimental, thought provoking, touching, serious, captivating
Similar in 75%
The War Is Over (1966)
Plot Summary:
A group of Spanish refugees try to organize protests from France. Their network is under constant threat by the police and some of them have recently been arrested. The main character (played by Yves Montand) dedicated his whole life to the battle but he feels forever estranged. He doesn't find his place nor in his adoptive country (France) nor in love. But this film is not about the story, it's all about style. Alain Resnais has an original approach in this film and this is the thing that makes this film worth watching.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Sweden
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: political, political thriller, anthology, tense, sincere, atmospheric, thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 83%
Red Cherry (1995)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story, this horrifying tale follows two orphaned friends as they struggle to survive during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 745
Genere: Drama, War
Country: China
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: touching, bleak, serious, mesmerizing, saga, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 77%
The Night Porter (1974)
Plot Summary:
In this unsettling drama from Italian filmmaker Liliana Cavani, a concentration camp survivor discovers her former torturer and lover working as a porter at a hotel in postwar Vienna. When the couple attempt to re-create their sadomasochistic relationship, his former SS comrades begin to stalk them. Operatic and disturbing, The Night Porter deftly examines the lasting social and psychological effects of the Nazi regime.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, controversial, disturbing, art house, sexy, bleak, sexual, erotic, cult classic
Similar in 90%
My Mother's Courage (1995)
Plot Summary:
The deportation of 4000 Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz in July 1944, as told by George Tabori, and how the narrator's mother escaped it, owing to coincidence, courage and some help from where you'd least expect it.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 203
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany, UK, Austria, Ireland
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, crying, black comedy, dark comedy
Similar in 85%
The Boat Is Full (1981)
Plot Summary:
During World War II, Switzerland severely limited refugees: "Our boat is full." A train from Germany halts briefly in an isolated corner of Switzerland. Six people jump off seeking asylum: four Jews, a French child, and a German soldier. They seek temporary refuge with a couple who run a village inn. They pose as a family: the deserter as husband, Judith as his wife, an old man from Vienna as her father, his granddaughter and the French lad, whom they beg to keep silent, as their children. Judith's teenage brother poses as a soldier. The fabrication unravels through chance and the local constable's exact investigation. Whom will the Swiss allow to stay? Who gets deported?.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 686
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Switzerland, West Germany, Austria
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 84%
The Aryan Couple (2004)
Plot Summary:
A WWII Drama about a German/Jewish industrialist who, in order to ensure his family's safe passage out of Germany, is forced to hand over his business to the Nazis.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, captivating, suspenseful, tense, realistic, gloomy, crying, freeze frame
Similar in 76%
The Last Train (2006)
Plot Summary:
A group of people are imprisoned in a rail car bound from Berlin to a concentration camp in 1945.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany, Czech Republic
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: disturbing, bleak, serious, realistic, captivating, entertaining
Similar in 83%
The Tin Drum (1979)
Plot Summary:
Oskar is born in Germany in 1924 with an advanced intellect. Repulsed by the hypocrisy of adults and the irresponsibility of society, he refuses to grow older after his third birthday.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 25000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany, France, Poland
Duration: 142 min
Plot tags: surreal, disturbing, controversial, art house, harsh, talky, realistic, clever, epic, serious
Similar in 81%
Europa Europa (1990)
Plot Summary:
A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth. Although improbabilities and happenstance are cornerstones of the film, it is based upon a true story.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Germany, France, Poland
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: political, realistic, retro, mind bending, psychedelic, surreal, epic, tense, thought provoking, serious
Similar in 79%
Amen. (2002)
Plot Summary:
The film "Amen." examines the links between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. The central character is Kurt Gerstein, a member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS who is horrified by what he sees in the death camps. Moreover, he is shocked to learn that the process he used to purify water for his troops, by using zyklon, served as a basis to kill people in gas chambers.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Biography, Crime, Drama, War
Country: France, Germany, Romania
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: political, sincere, thought provoking, disturbing, bleak, suspenseful, realistic, intense, christian film, sentimental
Similar in 78%
Downfall (2004)
Plot Summary:
In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 370000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, War
Country: Germany, Austria, Italy
Duration: 156 min
Plot tags: psychological, bleak, dramatic, disturbing, harsh, realistic, suspense, political, atmospheric, thought provoking
Similar in 75%
The Counterfeiters (2007)
Plot Summary:
The story Jewish counterfeiter, Salomon Sorowitsch, coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 47000
Genere: Crime, Drama, History, War
Country: Austria, Germany
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: tense, brutal, bleak, harsh, serious, disturbing, suspenseful, realistic, intense, sincere
Similar in 86%
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)
Plot Summary:
When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 239000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: emotional, touching, sad, heartbreaking, sentimental, tear jerker, serious, crying, thought provoking, gloomy