Best movies like The Hellstrom Chronicle
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A scientist explains how the savagery and efficiency of the insect world could result in their taking over the world.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 933
Genere: Documentary, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: experimental, independent film, thought provoking, bleak, serious, contemplative
Best tv shows and movies like The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971):
Similar in 76%
Project Nim (2011)
Plot Summary:
From the team behind Man on Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim's extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature - and indeed our own - is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Documentary
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: touching, psychological, sad, heartbreaking, suspenseful, thought provoking, captivating, realistic, light, educational
Similar in 78%
Druid Peak (2014)
Plot Summary:
A troubled teen is sent to live with his estranged father, a park ranger. During his time there, he develops an unusual affinity with and passion for the wolves in a local pack.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 534
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, sad
Similar in 77%
Cremaster 2 (1999)
Plot Summary:
CREMASTER 2 (1999) is rendered as a gothic Western that introduces conflict into the system. On the biological level it corresponds to the phase of fetal development during which sexual division begins. In Matthew Barney's abstraction of this process, the system resists partition and tries to remain in the state of equilibrium imagined in Cremaster 1.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 986
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: experimental, independent film, avant garde, atmospheric, mind bending, offbeat, gothic, bleak, epic, serious
Similar in 89%
From What Is Before (2014)
Plot Summary:
The Philippines, 1972. Mysterious things are happening in a remote barrio. Wails are heard from the forest, cows are hacked to death, a man is found bleeding to death at the crossroad and houses are burned. Ferdinand E. Marcos announces Proclamation No. 1081 putting the entire country under Martial Law.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 820
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 338 min
Plot tags: bleak, atmospheric, serious, realistic, stylized, captivating, intense, independent film, black and white, visual
Similar in 84%
24 City (2008)
Plot Summary:
Chengdu nowadays. The state owned factory 420 shuts down to give way to a complex of luxury apartments called "24 CITY". Three generations, eight characters : old workers, factory executives and yuppies, their stories melt into the History of China.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Documentary, Drama
Country: China, Hong Kong, Japan
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, captivating, psychological, slow cinema, aesthetic, sincere, thought provoking, touching, serious
Similar in 82%
Andres Doesn't Want to Take a Nap (2009)
Plot Summary:
Drama starring Norma Aleandro, Conrado Valenzuela, Fabio Aste.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 87
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, disturbing, bleak, realistic
Similar in 82%
Germany in Autumn (1978)
Plot Summary:
Germany in Autumn does not have a plot per se; it mixes documentary footage, along with standard movie scenes, to give the audience the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The movie covers the two month time period during 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped, and later murdered, by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction). The businessman had been kidnapped in an effort to secure the release of the orginal leaders of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. When the kidnapping effort and a plane hijacking effort failed, the three most prominent leaders of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Enslin, and Jean-Carl Raspe, all committed suicide in prison. It has become an article of faith within the left-wing community that these three were actually murdered by the state.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Documentary, Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: political, anthology, art house, postmodern, semi documentary, rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
An Enemy of the People (1978)
Plot Summary:
A small forest town is trying to promote itself as a place for tourists to come enjoy the therapeutic hot springs and unspoiled nature. Dr. Stockmann, however, makes the inconvenient discovery that the nature around the village is not so unspoiled. In fact, the runoff from the local tanning mill has contaminated the water to a dangerous degree. The town fathers argue that cleaning up the mess would be far too expensive and the publicity would destroy the town's reputation, so therefore news of the pollution should be suppressed. Dr. Stockmann decides to fight to get the word out to the people, but receives as very mixed reaction.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: social, independent film, thought provoking, serious, realistic, masterpiece
Similar in 87%
Christmas Miracle in Caufield, U.S.A. (1977)
Plot Summary:
Television drama in which miners spend their Christmas Eve in a collapsed mine.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 173
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 75%
Little Girl Lost (1988)
Plot Summary:
This heart-wrenching story inspired by real events depicts the trials of the Brady family, who are trying desperately to adopt a helpless little girl they took in when she was in a foster care program. Clara and Tim Brady are in for the fight of their lives as they find that adopting Tella will not be so easy -- especially when social services puts her back into the care of her abusive father.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 251
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 82%
Ants (1977)
Plot Summary:
A lakeside resort comes under attack by a seemingly infinite hoard of flesh-eating ants.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: psychotronic, natural horror, suspense, slasher, scary, serious, suspenseful, ridiculous, cult film, disaster movie
Similar in 80%
Lois Gibbs and the Love Canal (1982)
Plot Summary:
An poorly-educated house-wife fights companies polluting her hometown's water-table in up-state New York during the 1970's.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 64
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 80%
The World Made Straight (2015)
Plot Summary:
In a rural Appalachian community haunted by the legacy of a Civil War massacre, a rebellious young man struggles to escape the violence that would bind him to the past.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating, tense, neo noir, suspenseful, independent film, psychotronic
Similar in 80%
90 Minutes (2012)
Plot Summary:
Director Eva Sørhaug (Cold Lunch) reveals the rage and violence lurking beneath seemingly tranquil domesticity in her bold and uncompromising sophomore feature.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, disturbing, rough, serious, realistic, contemplative, hot
Similar in 77%
The Bed You Sleep In (1993)
Plot Summary:
Times are hard for Northwestern lumber-mill operators like Ray and his wife Jean. Ray and Jean's lives are thrown into chaos when their daughter writes home from college.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 285
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: independent film, atmospheric, bleak, serious, realistic, experimental, disturbing, contemplative, stylized, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Goodbye (2011)
Plot Summary:
Without her husband and without her lawyer’s licence, which has been withdrawn, Noora is left pregnant and alone in her apartment. Her attempt to leave Iran turns into a fight with male chauvinism. A personal, nerve-wracking and infuriating film by Rasoulof, who was himself convicted for his films in Iran. Goodbye is a sober, frightening portrait of a society that is stooping under the continual control and threats of its religious regime. Noora, a young, pregnant lawyer in Tehran whose husband has been sent to work in the desert because of his critical journalistic activities, continually faces opposition from the regime and decides to leave the country. That turns out to be very difficult. Because Rasoulof was already banned from making films, Goodbye was shot partly in secret in the winter of 2010/2011. The result is a disquieting film that makes impotence and the desire for freedom painfully tangible in all its simplicity.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 814
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, thought provoking, contemplative, islamic, bleak, interesting
Similar in 77%
Bitter Harvest (1981)
Plot Summary:
A farmer's herd sickens and dies, then his family and neighbors fall ill, so he bucks the state agricultural establishment as he pursues the politically-explosive investigation of how his farm, family, and friends came to be poisoned.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 307
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
Similar in 85%
For the Love of a Child (2006)
Plot Summary:
1959, support from US troops based in Asia and later from the Sates enables two actresses to start a charity for mixed-race 'orphans' who are locally neglected as outcasts. Thus originates Childhelp, which later runs multi-disciplinary centers for abused and/or neglected children in the States. Among them is bright Jacob Fletcher, whose stepfather, a lawyer, terrorized him into utter trauma and reclaims him shortly after 10 months in jail. Jacob's peers have distressing stories of their own, but competent, devoted staff helps most of them decisively on the former farm, using animal therapy.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 431
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: touching, disturbing, rough, thought provoking, tense, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 78%
Cinema Verite (2011)
Plot Summary:
In 1973, the Loud family became a television sensation of a new kind. It was long before a metal rock star showed his eccentric family on the small screen and decades before housewives had screaming matches with each other on camera in public. CINEMA VERITE tells the behind-the-scenes story of the groundbreaking documentary "An American Family," which chronicled the lives of the Louds in the early 1970s and catapulted the Santa Barbara family to notoriety while creating a new television genre: the reality TV series.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: psychological, sentimental, thought provoking, realistic, mockumentary, sincere, serious, captivating, emotional, contemplative
Similar in 75%
Melancholia (2008)
Plot Summary:
A story about victims of summary executions. Three people start a strange therapy to escape their agonies.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 537
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 450 min
Plot tags: bleak, psychological, serious, stylized, atmospheric, slow cinema, psychedelic, aesthetic, experimental, contemplative
Similar in 84%
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 80%
Blood Done Sign My Name (2010)
Plot Summary:
A drama based on the true story in which a black Vietnam-era veteran is allegedly murdered by a local white businessman who is later exonerated. The plot focuses on the role of a local high school teacher and the civil unrest that followed the acquittal.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 635
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: disturbing, serious, captivating, realistic, thought provoking, tense, bleak, contemplative, entertaining
Similar in 79%
The Flight of the Swan (2010)
Plot Summary:
Alexis is an explosive personality, passionate about life, humanity, nature, love and beauty. That is until the breakneck rhythm, intensity, stress and convolutions of career and economic success shatter him, alienating him from everyone and everything he loves: even his children and his soul mate Maria. Alexis is jolted back to reality when the unbridled greed of the multinational conglomerate his company is involved in causes an unprecedented ecological catastrophe costing many human lives. The multinational's Golden Boy suddenly realizes that he is nothing more than a cog in the machine he had fought so passionately against in his youth. He is determined to rediscover himself, to reclaim his soul, to rebuild the dream with Maria - but he is completely trapped. He is caught in a web of intrigue that tightens like a vice driving him to an inevitably lethal conflict with the conglomerate.
IMDB Rating: 4.1
IMDB Votes: 181
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece, USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing, captivating, bleak
Similar in 89%
Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain (2014)
Plot Summary:
Thirty years on from the 1984 Union Carbide plant malfunction, the consequences of which are tragically ongoing, A Prayer for Rain is the powerful and moving story of the Bhopal tragedy, one of the great corporate and environmental scandals of the last half-century. It dramatises the dependence of the local community on the chemical plant that will eventually cause catastrophe, and the series of oversights that led to an event that stands as a benchmark for corporate irresponsibility in the developing world.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, India, USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, disturbing, thought provoking, realistic, poignant, multicultural, touching, captivating
Similar in 88%
Speed & Angels (2008)
Plot Summary:
Inspired by the passion of two young Navy officers, director Peyton Wilson captures Jay and Meagan as they pursue their childhood dream of becoming naval aviators flying the F-14 Tomcat. Shot in epic Hi Definition, the aerial footage and stunning cockpit photography provide a dramatic backdrop for the more universal story of what it’s like to fight for your dreams. From dogfights in the Nevada desert, to night landings on aircraft carriers in the Atlantic what begins as a story of realizing a childhood dream turns into a story of fighting for one's life.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 336
Genere: Documentary, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, exciting, captivating
Similar in 89%
China: The Panda Adventure (2001)
Plot Summary:
Experience the world of the magnificent and rare Giant Panda as you travel back in time on an exciting expedition through the breathtaking splendor of 1936 China. Inspired by the true-life story of widowed New York socialite Ruth Harkness, a fiercely independent woman who dared to take up her late husband's expedition, journeying deep into the forests of China to study the Giant Panda.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 225
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 48 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, serious, realistic, exciting
Similar in 78%
Journey from the Fall (2006)
Plot Summary:
Thirteen years after the end of the Vietnam War, a family who was tragically affected by the war are forced to emigrate to America.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 937
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, bleak, inspirational, political, informative, realistic
Similar in 84%
Two Is a Happy Number (1972)
Plot Summary:
A young woman has difficulty understanding why her husband walks out on her. Alone for the first time, she finds life difficult to cope with and for a time lives with the hope that her husband will come back to her. After uncovering disturbing new information about her husbands infidelity, she finally comes to realize her marriage is truly over. And it is only then that she discovers what is truly important in life.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 429
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Mandela and de Klerk (1997)
Plot Summary:
Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine both received Emmy nominations for their performances in this made-for-TV movie. The plot follows Nelson Mandela's 27-year struggle to end apartheid.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 667
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, disturbing, contemplative
Similar in 80%
Zero Kelvin (1995)
Plot Summary:
Larsen, an aspiring poet in '20s Oslo, leaves his girlfriend to spend a year as a trapper in East Greenland. There he is teamed with a seemingly rough old sailor/trapper, Randbæk, and a scientist, Holm. Trapped in a tiny hut together as the Arctic winter sets in, a complex and intense love/hate relationship develops between Randbæk and Larsen, who are more similar than either would like to admit. A powerful psychological and physical drama set against stunningly bleak Arctic scenery.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway, Sweden
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: psychological, philosophical, atmospheric, neurotic, tense, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, erotic