Best movies like The Penal Colony
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A foreign journalist arrives on a small Pacific island 200 miles off the coast of South America. Once a leper colony, the island was later transformed into a prison and then, under U.N. mandate, made into an independent republic. Yet despite democratic structures, the inhabitants--who speak a strange dialect composed of Spanish and English--still obey the old prison rules. After sending back detailed accounts of the torture and repression seen everywhere, the journalist realizes that she"s fallen into the trap created for her by the islanders: lacking natural resources, the island"s main export is news. The clearest anticipation of Ruiz"s later European work, The Penal Colony is a powerful document of the tensions and contradictions in Chile in the months before Allende"s electoral victory.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 70
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like The Penal Colony (1970):
Similar in 80%
Professor Taranne (1987)
Plot Summary:
Professor Taranne, a conceited university Professor, is subject to several absurd and disquieting incidents from the world surrounding him. He is being accused of things he couldn't have been doing. He starts doubting himself - a self that might be fragmented or multiple.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 31
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 52 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
La Telenovela Errante (2017)
Plot Summary:
The film revolves around the concept of soap opera. Its structure is based on the assumption that Chilean reality does not exist, but rather is an ensemble of soap operas. There are four audiovisual provinces, and the threat of war is felt among the factions. The political and economic problems are immersed in a fictional jelly divided into evening episodes. The entire Chilean reality is viewed from the point of view of the soap opera, which acts as a revealing filter of this same reality.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 353
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Chile
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: cerebral, soap opera, telenovela
Similar in 76%
Tres tristes tigres (1968)
Plot Summary:
A rambling portrait of Chilean society.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 371
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sex comedy, experimental, independent film
Similar in 81%
Antonia (2001)
Plot Summary:
Antonia, a young, beautiful, intelligent and successful executive, is in deep depression, she's dealing with an unwanted pregnancy from his previous relationship with his partner Sebastian, a young and dreamer, renowned photographer, who will lead her to a regression of her psychic illness and to rethinking her personal life.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 23
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
What Is to Be Done? (1972)
Plot Summary:
Mordant, self-aware, freighted with sensitivity toward Chile’s problem, wary of caricature, disposed toward consciousness of human fallibility, it is a deft blend of fiction and documentary set in the tumultuous days leading up to the election of Dr. Allende in 1970.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 61
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Cirqo (2013)
Plot Summary:
Two prisoners escape execution by the police and become successful circus clowns in Pinochet's Chile.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 34
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Noura's Dream (2019)
Plot Summary:
With her abusive husband in jail and a coveted divorce pending, hardworking Noura can almost grasp a happy, new life with lover Lassaad — but when the best-laid plans are upended, Noura must tap her unshakable will to fulfill her dream.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 445
Genere: Drama
Country: Tunisia, Belgium, France, Qatar, Netherlands
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Days in the Country (2004)
Plot Summary:
In a bar in Santiago, two old men talk over their past. This is a strange discussion. In fact, they talk of themselves as if they were dead. We don't know what is true or false, what is dream or reality.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 154
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, France
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Metamorphosis (2002)
Plot Summary:
Based on Kafka's story of the same name, "The Metamorphosis" tells the story of a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 355
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Amnesia (1994)
Plot Summary:
Dreaming of a better life, a young woman leaves her country home and moves to the city where she only finds trouble.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 140
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Golden Horseshoes (1989)
Plot Summary:
Youssef Soltane, a 45-year-old Tunisian intellectual, is the product of a generation that lived the era of euphoria and great ideologies in the sixties, and their subsequent failure. He was incarcerated and tortured for his political opinions. Furthermore, his relationship with Zineb, a young, beautiful bourgeois, only brings him more trouble. During one long winter night, Youssef wanders in search of an emotional haven, prey to all the questions that flood his memory.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 46
Genere: Drama
Country: Tunisia, France
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
Healing (2014)
Plot Summary:
Viktor Kahdem is a man who has almost given up on life, sentenced to a low-security prison farm, a completely non-threatening environment where it is still felt that some individuals can be reformed. At Won Wron, Case Worker Matt Perry has established a unique program to rehabilitate broken men through giving them the responsibility for the rehabilitation of injured raptors - beautiful, fearsome proud eagles, falcons and owls. Against all odds, Matt takes on Viktor as his number one test case, introducing him to Yasmine, the majestic wedge tailed eagle with a 2 metre wingspan. If these two can tame each other, anything is possible.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: independent film, spiritual
Similar in 80%
Imagen latente (1987)
Plot Summary:
Directed by Pablo Perelman.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 63
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Class Relations (1984)
Plot Summary:
A young man (Christian Heinisch), recently arrived in New York from Europe, becomes swept up in a series of events that are beyond his knowledge or control.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 748
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany, France
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: political, contemplative, masterpiece
Similar in 84%
Karnak Cafe (1975)
Plot Summary:
In one of their best roles ever, distinguished actors Nour Al Sherif and Souad Hosni star in this film depicting the unstable social and political life in Egypt during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film revolved around a group of university students whose lives are turned upside down because of their talks about the political instability in Egypt at the time.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 721
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: political, iconic
Similar in 78%
Julio Begins in July (1979)
Plot Summary:
This is the story of a teenager at the turn of the century in the conservative higher classes of Chile and the initiation rites in his society.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 282
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
In the Shadow of the Sun (1974)
Plot Summary:
Two thieves wander in the chilean desert and finally get to a small town near Bolivia. There, they try to include themselves with the townspeople but their instincts betray them and tragedy ensues. Based on a true story, this film opened one year after the chilean Coup de etat. The day after the opening, script girl Carmen Bueno and director of photography Jorge Müller were taken by police and now they are part of the list of the Desaparecidos.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 55
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
K (2015)
Plot Summary:
A mongolian interpretation of Kafka's "The Castle".
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 65
Genere: Drama
Country: Hong Kong, China
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Manners of Dying (2004)
Plot Summary:
Kevin Barlow (Roy Dupuis) will die on schedule and according to regulations. Harry Parlington (Serge Houde), director of the Cantos execution facility, intends to make sure of it. However Barlow chooses to go, be it calmly or fighting to the end, Parlington feels confident that he and his team can deal with the situation. When Barlow makes an unusual final request, a strange duel ensues between the condemned man and the prison director. In this struggle there can be no winner or loser, only two men faced with doubts and difficult choices to make.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 220
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Happy Day (1976)
Plot Summary:
A concentration camp on a barren island is hell for the exiled prisoners. The everyday life of the people who live there consists of interrogations, psychological and physical violence, arbitrary punishments and other torments. One of the prisoners who refuses to yield is subjected to torture. Trying to escape, he falls into the sea. When the Queen visits the island, the prison guards find the runaway and murder him without a second thought, since he is already assumed dead.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 290
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: absurd, allegory
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Five Years (2013)
Plot Summary:
How Murat Kurnaz ended up in Guantanamo Bay is a mysterious story. 5 YEARS investigates the psychological aspect of this endless and unjustified "imprisonment" where Kurnaz had to endure never ending physical and psychological torture.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 720
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
Night Over Chile (1977)
Plot Summary:
A Soviet docudrama chronicling the events surrounding the military coup which toppled the leftists Chilean government of Salvador Allende. This film confines its efforts to the main events themselves and is based on interviews with eyewitnesses, including many who resisted the takeover.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 81
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Valparaiso My Love (1969)
Plot Summary:
A poor Valparaiso family faces a tough life after the father is sent to prison.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 190
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: slang, freeze frame
Similar in 83%
The Year of the Tiger (2011)
Plot Summary:
A prison inmate escapes from his wrecked penitentiary during Chile's February 2010 earthquake.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 157
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, suspense, suspenseful, disturbing
Similar in 83%
The Heist (1976)
Plot Summary:
In Mexico City's infamous Lecumberri prison, three drug-addicted convicts celebrate getting drugs from one of their the mothers. They are found out and locked up in the "apando," the dreaded punishment cell. Protests over the treatment of those held in the cell lead to a bloody confrontation.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 327
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Women in Chains (1972)
Plot Summary:
1972 ABC Movie of the Week. Lady parole officer goes undercover to investigate prison brutality, but is trapped when the only person on the outside who knows why she's there is killed.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 180
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 74 min
Plot tags: psychotronic
Similar in 78%
The Tango of the Widower and Its Distorting Mirror (2020)
Plot Summary:
A man whose wife has committed suicide, appears to him as a ghost. The ghost follows him everywhere, under the bed, under tables… After seeing the ghost so frequently, the man begins to resemble her.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 183
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: scary, psychological, bleak, suspense, suspenseful, spooky
Similar in 89%
Garage Olimpo (1999)
Plot Summary:
A beautiful Argentine activist receives preferential treatment from a man supposed to torture her.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Argentina, France
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: political, mindfuck, psychological, thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 83%
Fiesta Patria (2008)
Plot Summary:
As two families celebrate the engagement of their children, one of the lovers unearths a family secret.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 92
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 86%
Women of San Quentin (1983)
Plot Summary:
A young female prison guard finds out that her first assignment is to San Quentin, one of the toughest prisons in the country.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 110
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic