Best movies like The Rainbow Thief
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A petty crook, in search of the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, hopes to cash in by befriending the heir to a huge fortune.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Fantasy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, emotional, allegory
Best tv shows and movies like The Rainbow Thief (1990):
Similar in 88%
The Magic Toyshop (1987)
Plot Summary:
After her parents are killed, a young girl is sent to London to live with her uncle and his family. Her uncle, who is a toymaker, secretly has the power to make his toys come to life, but he also maintains dictatorial control over his family and intends to exercise the same control over the new arrival.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 210
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Country: UK
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: surreal, independent film
Similar in 78%
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (1988)
Plot Summary:
An elderly man with wings is blown off course during a tropical storm in this symbolic fantasy. The Old Man lands near a Caribbean island where a poor family gives him shelter in a chicken coop. Father Gonzaga is the skeptical priest who rushes to damn the creature. Soon the Old Man is the subject of curiosity seekers as Elisinda and Pelayo start charging admission. A traveling carnival of human oddities camps near the Old Man as people flock to see the show. The Old Man is reduced to being an unwanted pet, and after six years, he mends his wings and flies away. Nudity, simulated sex with a spider woman, and the ugliness of human exploitation definitely put this fantasy in a category not for children.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 127
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Cuba, Italy, Spain
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Parade of the Planets (1984)
Plot Summary:
In a surreal puzzler, this story of a fantasy lived by a disparate group of four men captures the visual imagination with its images and leaves a large question mark in the meantime. The men first get together when called up for military maneuvers in the equivalent of a civilian reserve corps. Since their training is only periodical, two years go by before they are called up again. During this season's maneuvers, they end up being "killed," and so get some time off before they have to go home, and that is when the strange occurrences start. First the men visit a town of beautiful women and go swimming in the buff, then they land on a deserted island, and later, they find themselves with a group of elderly people, one of whom may - or may not - have a connection to one of the men.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 508
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: neorealism, allegory
Similar in 82%
Private Collections (1979)
Plot Summary:
Three stories. A solitary sailor falls from his boat and washes ashore on a tropical island. While seeking rescue, he's found by a nearly naked woman who is playful and compliant. He decides to erase his signs of distress and remain on the island. What awaits? In the second, an adolescent searches for the words of a nursery rime he remembers bits of. His journey takes him into dreams, sexual awakening, and Oedipal fantasy. Third, a man of wealth in late-nineteenth century Paris hires a prostitute for the night. She's also cabaret performer and takes him to her room. He fears he's about to be robbed. What's her secret?.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 395
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: France, Japan
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: anthology, erotic, sensual, allegory
Similar in 88%
The Tempest (1979)
Plot Summary:
Prospero, a potent magician, lives on a desolate isle with his virginal daughter, Miranda. He's in exile, banished from his duchy by his usurping brother and the King of Naples. Providence brings these enemies near; aided by his vassal the spirit Ariel, Prospero conjures a tempest to wreck the Italian ship. The king's son, thinking all others lost, becomes Prospero's prisoner, falling in love with Miranda and she with him. Prospero's brother and the king wander the island, as do a drunken cook and sailor, who conspire with Caliban, Prospero's beastly slave, to murder Prospero. Prospero wants reason to triumph, Ariel wants his freedom, Miranda a husband; the sailors want to dance.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: avant garde, independent film, atmospheric, offbeat, serious, experimental, surreal, stylized, sexual, sexy
Similar in 80%
Eggshells (1969)
Plot Summary:
Experimental allegorical story about a group of hippie students in Austin, Texas, who move into an old big house in the woods. However, something else is there and it's influencing them.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 480
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, mind bending, surreal, experimental, allegory, independent film, art film, weird
Similar in 88%
Metamorphoses (2014)
Plot Summary:
A girl is approached by a strange boy outside her high school. He asks her to follow him to hear stories where gods fall in love with human beings.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 877
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, psychological, thought provoking, stylized, modern day adaptation
Similar in 89%
Pink Narcissus (1971)
Plot Summary:
An erotic poem set in the fantasies of a young male prostitute.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 65 min
Plot tags: independent film, surreal, psychedelic, cult classic, aesthetic, touching, offbeat, serious, realistic, stylized
Similar in 77%
The Last of England (1987)
Plot Summary:
The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: UK, West Germany
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: mind bending, political, cult classic, experimental, independent film, atmospheric, thought provoking, offbeat, bleak, serious
Similar in 87%
Prospero's Books (1991)
Plot Summary:
An exiled magician finds an opportunity for revenge against his enemies muted when his daughter and the son of his chief enemy fall in love in this uniquely structured retelling of the 'The Tempest'.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: UK, Netherlands, France, Italy, Japan
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: experimental, surreal, psychedelic, epic, art house, non-linear, psychotronic, postmodern, cult classic, atmospheric
Similar in 83%
Pastoral Hide and Seek (1974)
Plot Summary:
A young boys' coming of age tale set in a strange, carnivalesque village becomes the recreation of a memory that the director has twenty years later.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Japan
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: surreal, experimental, psychedelic, mind bending, disturbing, avant garde, weird, cult film
Similar in 86%
Luna (2014)
Plot Summary:
Renowned artist and filmmaker Dave McKean (MirrorMask) brings his distinctive blend of live action and gorgeously wrought animation to this dreamlike reverie about four people whose weekend idyll in an isolated English seaside home becomes an opportunity for spiritual healing.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 302
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: emotional, atmospheric, psychological, sentimental, captivating, dark, dark fantasy, sincere, serious, realistic
Similar in 90%
Photographing Fairies (1997)
Plot Summary:
Photographer Charles Castle is numbed with grief following the death of his beautiful bride. He goes off to war, working in the trenches as a photographer. Following the war and still in grief Charles is given some photographs purporting to be of fairies. His search for the truth leads him to Burkinwell, a seemingly peaceful village seething with secrets.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, spiritual, mystic, grindhouse, esoteric, independent film, atmospheric, touching, serious, captivating
Similar in 76%
Goodbye to Language (2014)
Plot Summary:
About a man who’s angry at his wife because she’s met another man on a park bench and they no longer even speak the same language.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Switzerland, France
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: surreal, experimental, atmospheric, thought provoking, serious, stylized, avant garde, psychedelic, art house, erotic
Similar in 82%
About Endlessness (2019)
Plot Summary:
A reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendor and banality, guided by a Scheherazade-esque narrator. Inconsequential moments have the same significance as historical events. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Sweden, Germany, Norway, France
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychological, sincere, thought provoking, contemplative, anthology, mind bending, psychedelic, stylized, existential
Similar in 83%
Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990)
Plot Summary:
A collection of magical tales based upon the actual dreams of director Akira Kurosawa.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 28000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Japan, USA
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, anthology, philosophical, cerebral, mind bending, art film, spiritual, artsy, visually appealing
Similar in 79%
The Exterminating Angel (1962)
Plot Summary:
The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave. The Exterminating Angel is a 1962 surrealist film, written and directed by Luis Buñuel, starring Silvia Pinal. Sharply satirical and allegorical, the film contains a view of human nature suggesting "mankind harbors savage instincts and unspeakable secrets". It is considered one of the best 1,000 films by The New York Times.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 35000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Mexico
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: surreal, avant garde, dark comedy, allegory, black comedy, philosophical, political, black and white, mindfuck, atmospheric
Similar in 78%
Endless Poetry (2016)
Plot Summary:
A portrait of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s young adulthood, set in the 1940s and 50s, in the electric capital city of Santiago. There, he decides to become a poet and is introduced, by destiny, into the foremost bohemian and artistic circle of the time.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Chile, UK, France, Japan
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: surreal, sexy, mind bending, psychedelic, captivating, light, sincere, touching, funny, intellectual
Similar in 79%
The Dance of Reality (2013)
Plot Summary:
“Having broken away from my illusory self, I was desperately seeking a path and a meaning to life.” This phrase perfectly sums up Alejandro Jodorowsky’s biographical project: reconstituting the incredible adventure of his life. Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in 1929 in Tocopilla, a coastal town on edge of the Chilean desert, where this film was shot. It was there where he discovered the fundamentals of reality, as he underwent an unhappy and alienated childhood as part of an uprooted family.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Chile, France
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: art house, surreal, atmospheric, touching, realistic, serious, mind bending, psychedelic, mindfuck, funny
Similar in 80%
Cremaster 3 (2002)
Plot Summary:
CREMASTER 3 (2002) is set in New York City and narrates the construction of the Chrysler Building, which is in itself a character - host to inner, antagonistic forces at play for access to the process of (spiritual) transcendence. These factions find form in the struggle between Hiram Abiff or the Architect.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 182 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, atmospheric, stylized, serious, thought provoking, psychedelic, disturbing, independent film, avant garde
Similar in 88%
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Plot Summary:
Suffering from acute kidney failure, Uncle Boonmee has chosen to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside. Surprisingly, the ghost of his deceased wife appears to care for him, and his long lost son returns home in a non-human form. Contemplating the reasons for his illness, Boonmee treks through the jungle with his family to a mysterious hilltop cave - the birthplace of his first life.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Thailand, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, disturbing, art house, philosophical, meditative, visually appealing, cerebral, slow cinema, contemplative
Similar in 77%
Another Trip to the Moon (2015)
Plot Summary:
The magical surrealist journey of Asa, daughter of a shaman, who confronts her own mother, fighting for her own life and freedom.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 68
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Indonesia
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, surreal, disturbing, psychedelic
Similar in 80%
Fellini Satyricon (1969)
Plot Summary:
A series of disjointed mythical tales set in first century Rome.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychedelic, art house, sexual, cult classic, erotic, philosophical, absurd, disturbing, controversial
Similar in 88%
Holy Motors (2012)
Plot Summary:
We follow 24 hours in the life of a being moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 48000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: France, Germany, Belgium
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: surreal, art house, psychedelic, cerebral, mindfuck, enigmatic, disturbing, atmospheric, experimental, artsy
Similar in 87%
Paperhouse (1988)
Plot Summary:
Anna is becoming lost in the loneliness of her own world when she discovers she can visit another, a house she has drawn herself and occupied by a young disabled boy. But as she discovers more of the links between her fantasy world and the mundane present, she is drawn only deeper into a dream turning into a nightmare.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: UK
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: scary, disturbing, psychological, atmospheric, suspenseful, surreal, tense, intense, serious, creepy
Similar in 78%
Mirrormask (2005)
Plot Summary:
In a fantasy world of opposing kingdoms, a 15-year old girl must find the fabled MirrorMask in order to save the kingdom and get home.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 24000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: stylized, atmospheric, surreal, offbeat, visually stunning, mindfuck, visually appealing, cerebral, visual, cult classic
Similar in 88%
Tideland (2005)
Plot Summary:
Because of the actions of her irresponsible parents, a young girl is left alone on a decrepit country estate and survives inside her fantastic imagination.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 34000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Country: UK, Canada
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: disturbing, surreal, psychedelic, bleak, dark fantasy, atmospheric, psychological, controversial, cult classic, mindfuck
Similar in 78%
Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)
Plot Summary:
A troubled rock star descends into madness in the midst of his physical and social isolation from everyone.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 84000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, surreal, psychological, disturbing, experimental, adult animation, stylized, mindfuck, mind bending, scary
Similar in 76%
Enter the Void (2009)
Plot Summary:
This psychedelic tour of life after death is seen entirely from the point of view of Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a young American drug dealer and addict living in Tokyo with his prostitute sister, Linda (Paz de la Huerta). When Oscar is killed by police during a bust gone bad, his spirit journeys from the past -- where he sees his parents before their deaths -- to the present -- where he witnesses his own autopsy -- and then to the future, where he looks out for his sister from beyond the grave.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 86000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan
Duration: 161 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, art house, visually stunning, philosophical, atmospheric, meditative, disturbing, surreal, cerebral, mindfuck
Similar in 75%
The Holy Mountain (1973)
Plot Summary:
A Mexican master leads a Christ figure and other disciples to a mountain of immortal wise men. The scandal of the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, writer/director Alejandro Jodorowsky's flood of sacrilegious imagery and existential symbolism in The Holy Mountain is a spiritual quest for enlightenment pitting illusion against truth. The Alchemist (Jodorowsky) assembles together a group of people from all walks of life to represent the planets in the solar system. The occult adept's intention is to put his recruits through strange mystical rites and divest them of their worldly baggage before embarking on a trip to Lotus Island. There they ascend the Holy Mountain to displace the immortal gods who secretly rule the universe.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 47000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Mexico
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychedelic, avant garde, disturbing, art house, mindfuck, mind bending, experimental, atmospheric, stylized