Best movies like The Northerners
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A black comedy set in the 1960s in a small Netherlands community, populated by a cast of eccentrics, all of whom hold a range of sexual obsessions and frustrated desires.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, slasher, art house, black comedy, cult classic, atmospheric, offbeat, humorous, realistic, surreal
Best tv shows and movies like The Northerners (1992):
Similar in 78%
Abel (1986)
Plot Summary:
An extremely weird comedy about the life of 31- year-old Abel, who has never left home. After failing with doctors and psychiatrists, Abel's father Victor brings home Christine, a friend, in an attempt to teach Abel basic social skills. After that trouble starts and Abel is thrown out into the street.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, slasher, art house, deep, cult classic, clever, offbeat, humorous, surreal, witty
Similar in 80%
Little Tony (1998)
Plot Summary:
Brand, an unemployed illiterate in his fourties, lives with his wife Keet in some desolate corner of the Dutch countryside. Keet, being tired of having to read the subtitles on television out loud so Brand can understand what's going on, one day decides he should learn to read for himself. She hires Lena, an attractive woman in her thirties, to do the teaching. Lena and Brand develop a passionate relationship, and Keet decides to let it happen because she wants her husband to be happy. She even goes so far as to claim she never actually was married to Brand: it all was just a game, she's just his sister. Lena then moves in, and soon takes over. But after a while she gets pregnant and bears a son, Kleine Teun ("Little Teun"). Then Keet, who can't have children herself, finally caves in and decides Lena has to be eliminated.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: slasher, artsy, serious, realistic, sexual, crying, black comedy, dark comedy, sexy
Similar in 89%
Waiter (2006)
Plot Summary:
Edgar works as a waiter in 'Het Westen', a restaurant. He is married and has a lover. His neighbors terrorize him with loud music and garbage. One day after he is mistreated by some customers he is sick of it all and goes to talk to his creator, the scenario writer.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands, Belgium
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, humorous, semi serious, slasher, deep, offbeat, black comedy, weird
Similar in 75%
Matterhorn (2013)
Plot Summary:
Fred lives on his own. His wife is dead, his son has left. He leans on the church, busses, meat-and-two-veg. Then Leo appears. Leo is a tramp. Fred lets Leo move in with him. An absurdist feature debut with a laugh and a tear in stuffy Netherlands.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, humorous, tragicomedy, semi serious, offbeat, emotional, realistic, gloomy, queer cinema, tragic
Similar in 85%
The Dress (1996)
Plot Summary:
The story of a summer dress and those who have to do with it, especially the train conductor (played by van Warmerdam, the director). The dress functions as catalyst for the whimsical events, which turns out to be either tragic or hilarious.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, slasher, offbeat, humorous, realistic, semi serious, sexual, sexy
Similar in 82%
Handle with Care (1977)
Plot Summary:
The interlaced stories of several characters in a small town united by their use of CB (citizen's band) radio.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 888
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: cult classic, humorous, offbeat, realistic, semi serious, independent film, sexy, thought provoking, enigmatic, bleak
Similar in 83%
Next Door (1994)
Plot Summary:
Matt and Karen have inconsiderate neighbours whose lawn sprinkler drowns their flowers. A feud errupts and a series of tit-for-tat actions develop and escalate.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 771
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: clever, offbeat, humorous, realistic, witty, cynical, semi serious, slapstick, biting, suspense
Similar in 78%
So Happy Together (2009)
Plot Summary:
Famille : Groupe de personnes réunies par des liens de parenté et un fort sentiment de solidarité morale et matérielle. Quand Alain a épousé Nathalie, il ne savait pas qu'il épouserait aussi sa famille. Ce samedi, comme toutes les semaines, ils sont invités à dîner chez son beau-frère, Jean-Pierre à Créteil. C'est vrai, Alain en a marre de ces dîners familiaux, mais il ne sait pas encore ce qui l'attend véritablement ce soir-là... Ni les jours qui suivent.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, realistic, cynical, witty
Similar in 84%
Free Fall (2014)
Plot Summary:
An old woman flies past six floors after jumping from the roof of her apartment block. Six stories on the poor state of humanity, told with humour and rare imagination to the accompaniment of a pulsating soundtrack from Amon Tobin. A woeful burlesque set in the present by one of Europe’s most original contemporary filmmakers.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Hungary, South Korea, France
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: anthology, humorous, surreal, semi serious, suspense, intellectual, art house, offbeat, biting, experimental
Similar in 90%
The Last Days of Emma Blank (2009)
Plot Summary:
A woman living in a large country home drives her servants to mutiny with her outrageous demands as she waits for death to come for her.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, cynical, semi serious, slasher, offbeat
Similar in 86%
Montenegro (1981)
Plot Summary:
Marilyn Jordan, an American, lives in Stockholm with her Swedish husband and family. Her behavior is bizarre, perhaps mad: she poisons the dog's milk and advises the dog not to drink it; she sets the sheets afire as her husband sleeps; she crawls under the dining table to sing. While detained at airport customs for carrying pruning shears, she meets a young Yugoslav woman and goes with her to a Gypsy enclave where she's fought over, takes a lover, helps with the sordid entertainment at a bar, and returns home more dangerous than before. The film also tells parallel stories of Marilyn's daughter becoming a junior homemaker as the young immigrant practices her striptease.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Comedy
Country: Sweden, UK
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, sexy, cult classic, humorous, surreal, sex comedy, black comedy, offbeat, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 80%
The Pornographers (1966)
Plot Summary:
Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady, Haru, and her family. From time to time, Haru shares her bed with Subu, though she believes her dead husband, reincarnated as a carp, disapproves. Director Shohei Imamura has always delighted in the kinky exploits of lowlifes, and in this 1966 classic, he finds subversive humor in the bizarre dynamics of Haru, her Oedipal son, and her daughter, the true object of her pornographer-boyfriend’s obsession. Imamura’s comic treatment of such taboos as voyeurism and incest sparked controversy when the film was released, but The Pornographers has outlasted its critics, and now seems frankly ahead of its time.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: surreal, dark comedy, erotic, mind bending, psychedelic, cult classic, erotic drama, clever, offbeat, humorous
Similar in 81%
The House of Yes (1997)
Plot Summary:
Jackie-O is anxiously awaiting the visit of her brother home for Thanksgiving, but isn't expecting him to bring a friend. She's even more shocked to learn that this friend is his fiance. It soon becomes clear that Jackie Kennedy's obsession is nothing compared to her obsession with her brother, as it also becomes clear she isn't the only member of the family with problems.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, humorous, black comedy, independent film, surreal, absurd, offbeat, dark, cult classic, psychological
Similar in 80%
The New Age (1994)
Plot Summary:
Peter and Katherine Witner are Southern California super-yuppies with great jobs but no center to their lives. When they both lose their jobs and begin marital infidelities, their solution is to start their own business together. In order to find meaning to their empty lives, they follow various New Age gurus and other such groups. Eventually, they hit rock bottom and have to make some hard decisions.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: satirical, melancholic, meditative, disturbing, humorous, cynical, realistic, witty, semi serious, cult classic
Similar in 79%
The End (1978)
Plot Summary:
Wendell Lawson has only six months to live. Not wanting to endure his last few months of life waiting for the end, he decides to take matters into his own hands and enlists the help of a delusional mental patient to help him commit suicide.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, funny, black comedy, humorous, slapstick, offbeat, realistic, semi serious, independent film, slapstick comedy
Similar in 84%
Ugly, Dirty and Bad (1976)
Plot Summary:
Giacinto lives with his wife, their ten children and various other family members in a shack on the hills of Rome. Some time ago he has lost his left eye while at work, and got a consistent sum of money from the insurance company, which he keeps hidden from the rest of the family. His whole life is now based on defending the money he sees as his own, while the rest of the family tries to kill him.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: black comedy, dark comedy, dark, disturbing, humorous, realistic, political, social, controversial, art house
Similar in 76%
The Guatemalan Handshake (2006)
Plot Summary:
A mysterious power failure in a small mountain town coincides with the disappearance of one of its most eccentric young residents. Mystery piles upon mystery as his family and friends search for him, fail, and ultimately try to forget about him, an undertaking that results in many unexpected, and in some cases bizarre, effects on the town's already peculiar community.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 379
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: stylized, humorous, realistic, surreal, semi serious, mumblecore, independent film, offbeat, black comedy, dark comedy
Similar in 75%
The Firemen's Ball (1967)
Plot Summary:
In Milos Forman's satire on Communism set in a small Czechoslovakian town in the 1960s, the local firemen decide to organize a ball, however the proceedings are dogged by difficulty at every step. They plan to organize a beauty pageant at the ball, yet struggle tremendously to find enough pretty contestants. A lottery is planned for later in the evening, but the guests begin stealing the prizes. Then, inevitably, there is a fire in the town... It seems that whatever can go wrong, does go wrong.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia, Italy
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: black comedy, dark comedy, surreal, cult classic, allegory, humorous, witty, biting, mind bending, thought provoking
Similar in 87%
The Green Butchers (2003)
Plot Summary:
The Green Butchers (Danish: De grønne slagtere) is a black comedy featuring two butchers, Svend "Sweat" and Bjarne, who start their own shop to get away from their arrogant boss. Cannibalism is soon introduced to the plot, and further complications arise due to the reappearance of Bjarne's mentally retarded twin brother Eigil.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 24000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, absurd, humorous, black comedy, semi serious, funny, surreal, disturbing, offbeat, realistic
Similar in 89%
Hush Hush Baby (2004)
Plot Summary:
No overview found.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, not serious
Similar in 85%
Raising Genius (2004)
Plot Summary:
The film is about a boy who locks himself in the bathroom to work out math equations on the shower wall. The boy has obsessive compulsive parents. The boy is obsessed with a cheerleader named Lacy, who lives across the street from.
IMDB Rating: 4.0
IMDB Votes: 467
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: psychological, humorous, realistic, semi serious, independent film, offbeat, dark comedy, teen comedy, cult film
Similar in 81%
Gooische Vrouwen (2011)
Plot Summary:
Gooische Vrouwen (Vipers Nest) is based on a very popular Dutch TV series and can be described as a Dutch variation of Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. The film tells the story of four girlfriends who live in the bourgeois area ‘t Gooi, where life always seems to run smoothly, but dark clouds are gathering on the horizon. A flight seems the only way out….
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, semi serious, sexy, humorous, realistic, witty, offbeat, biting, sexual, suspense
Similar in 90%
The 92 Minutes of Mr. Baum (1997)
Plot Summary:
Balding advertising executive Mr. Baum spends more time on a new ad campaign for purple sunglasses than he does with his own family. But suddenly he is forced to reexamine his life after a doctor tells him that he has an 'aggressive' brain tumor and will die in 90 minutes.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 183
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Israel, France
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, thought provoking, clever, humorous, tragicomedy, realistic, surreal, contemplative, cynical, semi serious
Similar in 89%
I Remember (1973)
Plot Summary:
In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual women, with certain moments shifting into fantastical scenarios.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 46000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: art house, surreal, sentimental, atmospheric, visual, stylized, meditative, colorful, realistic, philosophical
Similar in 77%
Family Resemblances (1996)
Plot Summary:
An upper middle-class French family celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: witty, talky, humorous, realistic, dark comedy, sincere, culinary, clever, offbeat, semi serious
Similar in 89%
Conspirators of Pleasure (1996)
Plot Summary:
Six outwardly average individuals have elaborate fetishes they indulge with surreptitious care. A mousy letter carrier makes dough balls she grotesquely ingests before bed. A shop clerk fixates on a TV news reader while he builds a machine to massage and masturbate him. One of his customers makes an elaborate chicken costume for a voodoo-like scene with a doll resembling his plump neighbor. She, in turn, has a doll that resembles him, which she whips and dominates in an abandoned church. The TV news reader has her own fantasy involving carp. Her husband, who is indifferent to her, steals materials to fashion elaborate artifacts that he rubs, scrapes and rolls across his body.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic, Switzerland, UK
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: surreal, experimental, sexy, dark comedy, psychedelic, psychotronic, sex comedy, erotic, mind bending, gothic
Similar in 86%
The Year of Getting to Know Us (2008)
Plot Summary:
A commitment-phobic man reunites with his estranged, ailing father and comes to terms with his own childhood.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, offbeat, independent film
Similar in 90%
Soft Fruit (1999)
Plot Summary:
For the first time in 15 years, all four siblings in a family show up to care for their dying mother, who is only given a couple of weeks to live. One comes from America with her two children. A divorced sister also comes with her child and sneaks off regularly to meet a mystery man who may be her ex-husband. The third & youngest daughter is an unmarried nurse aware of her ticking biological clock. The only son chases after his grumpy father who seems to not care a whit about his wife's circumstances. The four are also faced my their mother's dreams to accomplish a few things before she dies - to visit a beach she had visited in the past, to see her youngest married, and to visit Paris. She also wants to be embalmed and be honored with a 21 gun salute. Thus the whole group has to set off in the quest to fulfill their mother's wishes.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 566
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Australia, USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: humorous, independent film, black comedy, sentimental, touching, offbeat, realistic, semi serious, dark comedy, erotic
Similar in 86%
High Hopes (1988)
Plot Summary:
Slice-of-life look at a sweet working-class couple in London, Shirley and Cyril, his mother, who's aging quickly and becoming forgetful, mum's ghastly upper-middle-class neighbors, and Cyril's pretentious sister and philandering husband. Shirley wants a baby, but Cyril, who reads Marx and wants the world to be perfect, is reluctant. Cyril's mum locks herself out and must ask her snooty neighbors for help. Then Cyril's sister Valerie stages a surprise party for mum's 70th birthday, a disaster from start to finish. Shirley holds things together, and she and Cyril may put aside her Dutch cap after all.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: independent film, retro, black comedy, cult classic, clever, touching, humorous, realistic, witty, semi serious
Similar in 90%
The Debut (2000)
Plot Summary:
Filipino-American high school student Ben (Dante Mercado) works in a comic book shop to earn money to pay his way into Cal Arts. His father, a postman, is determined that his son--who has won a pre-med scholarship to UCLA--will become a doctor. The eighteenth birthday party of Ben's sister, Rose, sets off a comedic and touching series of events and family struggles that will in turn determine young Ben's future. This fresh independent production from Gene Cajayon presents a lighthearted and warm coming-of-age tale filtered through the eyes of an American subculture rarely seen on film.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 686
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, touching, realistic, witty, independent film