Best movies like The Spectator
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Valeria is a passive onlooker to her own life in Turin, and she grows so obsessed with the activities of her neighbor Massimo that when he moves to Rome she decides to follow him. There she meets and unexpectedly befriends Massimo's companion Flavia, and becomes enmeshed in both of their lives.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 495
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, erotic, contemplative
Best tv shows and movies like The Spectator (2004):
Similar in 89%
Ploy (2007)
Plot Summary:
A husband and wife are locked inside a single hotel room with a stranger named Ploy. Subtle suspicions build up to jealousy as the young woman triggers devastating consequences for the couple.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Thailand
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, realistic, captivating, tense, mind bending, serious, contemplative, sexual, erotic
Similar in 81%
Eva (1962)
Plot Summary:
Best-selling author Tyvian Jones has a life of leisure in Venice, Italy, until he has a chance encounter with sultry Frenchwoman Eva Olivier. He falls for her instantly, despite already having wedding plans with Francesca Ferrara. Winning Eva's affection proves elusive; she's more interested in money than in love. But Tyvian remain steadfast in his obsession, going after Eva with a fervor that threatens to destroy his life.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: noir, neo noir, psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 79%
Pretend I'm Not Here (2000)
Plot Summary:
Student Eric kills time by spying on his neighbors. Compulsively taking notes on everything within binocular range from his bedroom window, he harasses his neighbors by sending unsigned notes and making their private affairs public. When they discover his identity and draw him in, will this release him from his solitude, or confirm in his mind that he will always be the outsider?.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 425
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, suspenseful, tense, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 83%
Morlang (2001)
Plot Summary:
Inspired by true events, a chilling psychological drama. A couple's secret pact takes an unexpected, sinister turn.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 474
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, scary, non-linear
Similar in 88%
The Family Friend (2006)
Plot Summary:
Geremia, an aging tailor/money lender, is a repulsive, mean, stingy man who lives alone in his shabby house with his scornful, bedridden mother. He has a morbid, obsessive relationship with money and he uses it to insinuate himself into other people's affairs, pretending to be the "family friend". One day he is asked by a man to lend him money for the wedding of Rosalba, his daughter. Geremia falls in love at first sight with the bewitching creature and and soon indulges in a "beauty and the beast" relationship.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, touching, rough, philosophical, neo noir, realistic, surreal, cynical, black comedy, dark comedy
Similar in 85%
The Miracle (1991)
Plot Summary:
The two teenagers Jimmy and Rose spend their vacation at the small Irish sea-resort Bray. Out of boredom they observe other people and imagine wild stories about them. One day they observe the blonde Renee, and Jimmy is immediately fascinated by her and even follows her home. She, too, seems to like him, but for a mysterious reason keeps him at a distance.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 775
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Ireland
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: serious, touching, realistic, psychological, erotic, independent film
Similar in 79%
Orphans and Angels (2003)
Plot Summary:
The needy and traumatized Theresa, who was raped when she was fourteen year-old, meets the handsome John on the street after an accident during a performance on the stage of her friend Kim asking for a low-budget hotel. She offers a ride to a nearby hostel, they date and she brings him home, where he offers Ecstasy with wine to her. Kim advises her that John is a dangerous drug-dealer that has been missing for five years after the death of his girlfriend also called Theresa, but Theresa stays with him, practicing mutual masturbation, sharing her fears and fantasies and being permanently drugged. When John's friend Billy visits Theresa, he reveals dark secrets about her boyfriend, leading to a tragic end.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 63
Genere: Drama
Country: New Zealand
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, suspense, sexual, sexy
Similar in 88%
The Garden of Earthly Delights (2004)
Plot Summary:
When a terminally-ill art historian meets an engineer, it is love and lust at first sight. But their love is threatened by her looming illness. With her remaining days on earth numbered, she chooses to fan the flames of her obsession by taking her lover on a trip to Venice, where the artist's work becomes the background for their physical passion and emotional discovery.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 340
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Italy, Poland
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sexy, erotic, clever, contemplative, talky, sexual, avant garde
Similar in 85%
He Loves Me (2011)
Plot Summary:
When Laura begins to suspect her husband is cheating on her, she is devastated by his infidelity, despite having a torrid affair of her own. While she desperately tries to save her marriage, Laura's mysterious past begins to emerge, making her more paranoid, delusional and violent in alarming ways. As her mental state continues to unravel, whoever gets in the way of Laura's myriad of fantasies becomes expendable, revealing the shocking dream world that insulates her from reality.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 436
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, atmospheric, captivating, psychological thriller, serious, realistic
Similar in 81%
Burning Secret (1988)
Plot Summary:
Burning Secret is a 1988 drama film, based on the short story Brennendes Geheimnis by Stefan Zweig, about an American diplomat's son who befriends a mysterious baron while staying at an Austrian spa during the 1920s. The film was written and directed by Andrew Birkin.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 506
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, West Germany
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, sincere, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative, independent film
Similar in 84%
Summer Clouds (2004)
Plot Summary:
Daniel (Roberto Enríquez), Ana (Natalia Millán), and their little boy, Manuel (Kevin Almodóvar), travel from Madrid to a resort on the Costa Brava for the summer. Ana runs into Marta (Irene Montalà of L'Auberge Espagnole), a local shopgirl whom she's met on previous visits. Marta introduces Ana to her cousin, Robert (David Selvas), who runs an antique shop. Robert is immediately attracted to Ana. Marta tells him that Ana is happily married, and confesses that she has a crush on Ana's husband, Daniel. Robert, intrigued, makes a pact with Marta. Robert will help Marta seduce Daniel if she will help Robert seduce Ana. One night, the cousins cunningly arrange to separate the couple, and some serious flirtation ensues. While Marta, casually dates a local surfer, Tomás (Roger Casamajor), begins to have second thoughts, Robert grows more obsessed with the couple. He befriends Daniel and peppers him with questions about the strength of his nine-year marriage.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 406
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sincere, sexy, realistic, semi serious, erotic, humorous, talky, sexual
Similar in 81%
The Nanny (1999)
Plot Summary:
Rome, early 20th century: a wealthy psychiatrist, who runs an asylum for women and lacks imagination in his practice, must find a wet nurse for his infant when his wife panics after childbirth. He brings a peasant, Annette, to Rome, forcing her to leave her own baby behind. To the consternation and increasing anger of the wife, the nanny immediately bonds with the couple's infant son - Annette's a natural. Against a backdrop of leftist demonstrations, Annette, who's lover is a teacher jailed for subversion, asks the doctor to teach her to read and write. Her nature and curiosity, the doctor's bland ideas, he and his wife's problems, and the two infants bring the story to a head.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 572
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 83%
A Perfect Day (2008)
Plot Summary:
Antonio and Emma have been separated for years, but he does not accept when Emma dates other men. Indeed Antonio proves obsessive, aggressive and intrusive, and again threatens Emma to hurt the children: little Kevin, shy and introverted, and the adolescent Valentina.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, psychological, suspense, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 83%
The Touch (1971)
Plot Summary:
A seemingly happy Swedish housewife and mother begins an adulterous affair with a foreign archaeologist who is working near her home.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: art house, independent film, psychological, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
July Rhapsody (2002)
Plot Summary:
Lam Yiu Kwok, a Hong Kong secondary school teacher is facing a mid-life crisis. While he has only his pride and Chinese poetry to fall back on, his peers are successful businessmen and professionals who flaunt their extravagant lifestyles at reunion dinners. After many years, Lam is still living in a modest apartment with his wife, Man Ching and two teenage sons. However financial stagnancy is not his only problem. An old flame of Man Ching (who was the couple's former schoolteacher) returns to Hong Kong and uncovers old wounds. Man Ching feels obliged to help her ex-lover. Meanwhile, Yiu Kwok faces another dilemma: Choy Lam, a precocious student, has a crush on him and the 'forbidden fruit' looks more and more tempting in the light of his wife's 'infidelity'. Will he succumb to young charms and let history repeat itself?.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Hong Kong
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, sentimental, realistic, gloomy, masterpiece
Similar in 87%
Prague (2006)
Plot Summary:
Christoffer and Maja's trip to Prague to bring back Chistoffer's deceased father, evolves into the story of a brake-up. With the dead father lurking in the background, secrets gradually emerge threatening to destroy their marriage.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, psychological, captivating, serious, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 85%
Adrift (2009)
Plot Summary:
Adrift begins with the wedding of Duyen and Hai. Duyen is a beautiful tourist guide and translator who marries Hai, a taxi driver who is two years her junior. Duyen thinks the marriage will make her happy but it turns out more difficult, especially since her childlike husband is uninterested in her efforts of intimacy and the marriage remains unconsummated. Cam, secretly in love with Duyen, is bitter about the marriage. Cam has Duyen deliver a letter to Tho, a handsome lothario and tourist guide who physically hurls himself on Duyen when she visits his home to deliver the letter. After Tho reports back to Cam that Duyen is sexually inexperienced, Cam diabolically persuades Duyen to take a temporary job as a translator on one of Tho’s beach tours, knowing what will happen. Duyen's time at the beach with Tho results in an affair leading to Duyen's sexual awakening but continued uncertainty about herself, marriage, and life.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 320
Genere: Drama
Country: Vietnam, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, psychological, sexy, captivating, sincere, serious, gloomy, sexual
Similar in 77%
Those Who Remain (2007)
Plot Summary:
Bertrand (Vincent Lindon) dutifully visits his terminally ill wife every day, braving the long train and bus ride to and from the hospital. Lorraine (Emmanuelle Devos) not so willingly visits her boyfriend who was diagnosed with colon cancer. They bump into each other during one of their visits and begin to meet for coffee. Coffee turns into Lorraine offering to drive Bertrand to the train station and the two turn to each other in their time of grief and confusion.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 623
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, atmospheric, psychological, captivating, sincere, serious, gloomy
Similar in 85%
All Good Children (2010)
Plot Summary:
After experiencing a tragedy, Irish brothers Dara and Eoin move to rural France, where they become friends with young Bella, whose beauty and charm bewitches the emotionally unstable Dara.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 285
Genere: Drama
Country: Ireland, UK, Belgium, France
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, psychological, captivating, tense, sincere, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Signs & Wonders (2000)
Plot Summary:
Under the influence of signs and premonitions, a man allows himself to veer in and out of a love affair with his colleague.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 692
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Greece
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: clever, serious, emotional, realistic, independent film, psychological, talky, gloomy, biting, suspense
Similar in 78%
You (2007)
Plot Summary:
Michèle shares her life with Paul, her husband and work colleague. She has a lover, Thomas, a musician with whom she has been having a passionate affair for some time. Attracted by Thomass non-conformity and lust for life, Michèle abandons her husband, her son and her profession to live this frenzy through to its conclusion. A quest for freedom and change that sends Michèle on a turbulent drift, but remains, nevertheless, intimate and personal.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 182
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, psychological, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Jealousy (1999)
Plot Summary:
A month before he's to marry Carmen, Antonio finds a photograph of a man with his arm on her shoulder. The photograph triggers jealousy: he questions Carmen, Carman's friend Cinta, and his friend Luis who introduced him to Carmen. Cinta tells Antonio the man's first name. Carmen tells him that the man meant nothing to her, and that the photograph was taken before she met Antonio. She loves Antonio and sets out to wipe the photograph from his mind through exuberant sex, but her ploy backfires and Antonio remains fixated. Slowly he finds out about the man, and about Carmen's past. Will jealousy consume this couple or can they find a way to kill the green-eyed monster?.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 599
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sexual, manga, eros, psychological, sexy, serious, realistic, erotic
Similar in 81%
A Streetcar Named Desire (1995)
Plot Summary:
Blanche Dubois goes to visit her pregnant sister and husband Stanley in New Orleans. Stanley doesn't like her, and starts pushing her for information on some property he know was left to the sisters. He discovers she has mortgaged the place and spent all the money, and wants to find out all he can about her. Even more friction develops between the two while they are in the apartment together.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 156 min
Plot tags: disturbing, psychological, touching, serious, emotional, atmospheric, realistic
Similar in 81%
Five Senses of Eros (2009)
Plot Summary:
In this anthology film centered around the theme of "Eros," five seperate stories are presented by five top Korean directors. The main characters from each segment are connected with each other in one way or another.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 469
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, atmospheric, realistic, stylized, anthology, sexy, erotic, sexual
Similar in 87%
Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud (1995)
Plot Summary:
Nelly leaves her lazy, unemployed husband to work for retired judge Mr Arnaud, forty years her senior, after he offers to clear her bills for her. While she types his memoirs the two develop a close friendship, but Arnaud becomes jealous when Nelly begins dating his good-looking young publisher.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy, Germany
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, light, atmospheric, sexy
Similar in 84%
Cherry. (2010)
Plot Summary:
When Brian Cherry, a sweet, sensitive young Los Angeleno, falls for the beautiful, electric, and damaged Jules, she turns his ideas about women and sex upside-down. Slowly, he is drawn into a twisted love-triangle that includes Jules and his best friend, Sam. When Jules eventually leaves him for Sam, Cherry decides on a shocking course of action that will destroy the lives of all three.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 89
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: realistic, captivating, psychological, sexy, independent film, humorous, serious, sexual, suspense
Similar in 82%
And They Call It Summer (2012)
Plot Summary:
Dino and Anna are a couple in their forties. Their relationship is hardly conventional: in fact, it is unconsummated. Dino gets out of it, gratifying himself with prostitutes and swingers. He reaches his nadir when he looks up Anna’s old boyfriends to ask about their sexual relations with her, and even begs them to take her back, as a way to end their relationship. Anna can’t find a way out herself; she can’t bring herself to end this one-of-a-kind, tormented love affair. In the end, Dino’s angst is what makes her feel loved, feel unique. No solution seems to be waiting in the wings.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 438
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, bleak, suspenseful, sexy, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, hot
Similar in 88%
Balancing Act (2012)
Plot Summary:
Having cheated on his wife, Giulio, a municipal employee, moves out, but has to find a solution on how to still support his family, and himself.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 823
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, serious, psychological, tense, captivating, sincere, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Amnesty (2011)
Plot Summary:
Amnesty is a 2011 Albanian movie directed by Buyar Alimani. It’s a story about two people who meet up in jail when they come for monthly visits of their spouses. They fall in love after becoming witnesses to a wedding in jail but relationship has to end because both their spouses get amnesty from the government. What happens next is shown in usual east european movie style.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 223
Genere: Drama
Country: Albania, Greece, France
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, touching, serious, realistic, erotic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Along the Ridge (2006)
Plot Summary:
A young father and his two children struggle to find harmony after his wife leaves them for another man.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: serious, touching, emotional, realistic