Best movies like The Third Generation
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A mogul merrily funds terrorists to boost his computer sales, by panicking West German government and industry c. 1980, as the third generation of Western European left-wing activists forms, after crippling of the violent Red Army Faction. Released in 1979, largely unavailable until 2004. International kapitalist PJ Lurz's secretary is a gang member, while her Polizeikommissar father-in-law/lover hired Lurz' corporate security force.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: political, art house, black comedy, postmodern, cult classic, clever, offbeat, serious, realistic, controversial
Best tv shows and movies like The Third Generation (1979):
Similar in 80%
Love Is Colder Than Death (1969)
Plot Summary:
Unusual gangster story, in which a small-time pimp Franz, who is torn between his mistress and Bruno the gangster sent after him by the syndicate that he has refused to join.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Crime
Country: West Germany
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: neo noir, art house, mind bending, psychedelic, political, surreal, rough, bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
The Niklashausen Journey (1970)
Plot Summary:
Can a small group of people start a proletarian revolution, asks the "Black Monk" in a leather jacket. The medieval shepherd, Hans Boehm, claims to have been called by the Virgin Mary to create a revolt against the church and the landowners. The "Black Monk" suggests that he would have more success if he dressed up Johanna and had her appear as the Virgin Mary.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 607
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: art house
Similar in 89%
The American Soldier (1970)
Plot Summary:
Ricky returns to Munich from Vietnam and is promptly hired as a contract killer in Fassbinder’s subversive and experimental gangster movie.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: art house, neo noir, noir, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 85%
Gods of the Plague (1970)
Plot Summary:
A man is released from prison and finds the society on the outside less than appealing. With several women as well as the police on his tail, he sets out to find an old friend.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: art house, offbeat, serious, realistic, stylized, neo noir
Similar in 80%
Whity (1971)
Plot Summary:
"Whity" is the mulatto butler of the dysfunctional Nicholson family in the American southwest in 1878. The father, Ben Nicholson, has an attractive young wife Katherine, and two sons by a previous marriage; the homosexual Frank, and the retarded Davy. Whity tries to carry out all their orders, however demeaning, until various of the family members ask him to kill some of the others.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: West Germany
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: art house, thought provoking, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, contemplative
Similar in 82%
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975)
Plot Summary:
After a chance encounter with a wanted man, a woman is harassed by the police and press until she takes violent action.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: bleak, realistic, social, sincere, thought provoking, serious, contemplative, semi documentary, tense, light
Similar in 86%
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 85%
Effi Briest (1974)
Plot Summary:
A German-made film based on one of the most famous German novels by Theodor Fontane. Effi Briest (Hanna Schygulla) is a socially ambitious, 17-year-old German girl who accepts a proposal of marriage from Baron Geert Von Instetten, a much older diplomat. Unfortunately, neither the Baron's family nor anyone in the secluded town she now calls home accept Effi as an equal. Starved for companionship, Effi begins an innocent friendship with a well-known womanizer that may jeopardize her position as the Baron's wife.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: West Germany
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: art house, black and white, postmodern, costume drama, serious, realistic, stylized, gloomy
Similar in 90%
Just Before Nightfall (1971)
Plot Summary:
A married man (Michel Bouquet) who killed the wife of his best friend during a tryst feels compelled to turn himself in.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: art house, psychological, tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, witty, cynical
Similar in 80%
United Red Army (2007)
Plot Summary:
The film is told in three acts, beginning with a historical background of Japan's student movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, mostly using archive footage and a narrator. The second act follows the formation of the group to their mountain training camps in the southern Japanese Alps. It emphasizes the dogmatic (and eventually hypocritical) bullying of the group by Mori and Nagata, with 12 members being killed for infractions as small as improperly cleaning a gun, wearing make-up, and kissing. The third act shows the splitting up of the group after two members run off. It follows one group of five members to Karuizawa and a hostage-taking and police standoff known as the Asama-Sansō incident.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 868
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 190 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, rough, serious, bleak, political, anime, realistic, avant garde
Similar in 80%
Beware of a Holy Whore (1971)
Plot Summary:
Tensions between members of a film crew build while they wait for the arrival of the director and star to arrive on location.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: West Germany, Italy
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: art house, clever, humorous, realistic, witty, talky, semi serious, neurotic, avant garde, campy
Similar in 75%
Marianne & Juliane (1981)
Plot Summary:
Germany, 1968: The priest's daughters Marianna and Juliane both fight for changes in society, like making abortion legal. However their means are totally different: while Juliane's committed as a reporter, her sister joins a terroristic organization. After she's caught by the police and put into isolation jail, Juliane remains as her last connection to the rest of the world. Although she doesn't accept her sister's arguments and her boyfriend Wolfgang doesn't want her to, Juliane keeps on helping her sister. She begins to question the way her sister is treated.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: political, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, controversial, masterpiece
Similar in 87%
Mogadischu (2008)
Plot Summary:
The incredible true story of Lufthansa Flight 181, which was hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in October of 1977, and the noble efforts of stewardess Gabriele Dillmann (Nadja Uhl) to ensure the safety of the terrified passengers throughout the harrowing ordeal. When terrorists sympathetic to the cause of the German Red Army Faction seize control of the flight, German chancellor Helmut Schmidt refuses to negotiate. Meanwhile, terrorist leader "Captain Martyr Mahmud" grows increasingly agitated, and the Yemeni government refuses to let the plane land on their soil. After Captain Schumann (Thomas Kretschmann) makes an emergency landing in the sand, he is brutally executed in front of the passengers by "Captain Martyr Mahmud" (Said Taghmaoui), who then forces the co-pilot to fly the plane to Somolia. Once there, counter terrorism measures quickly get underway as the passengers brace themselves for the worst.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Germany, France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 80%
Dillinger Is Dead (1969)
Plot Summary:
Back home, Glauco, an industrial designer, finds his wife in bed with a serious headache. She has left him dinner but it is cold and Glauco decides to prepare himself a gourmet meal.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: experimental, cult classic, mind bending, psychedelic, surreal, poliziottesco, clever, offbeat, humorous, realistic
Similar in 84%
Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy (2012)
Plot Summary:
A chronicle of the 1969 bombing at a major national bank in Milan and its aftermath.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, bleak, political, sincere, controversial
Similar in 82%
The Violent Four (1968)
Plot Summary:
A detective is assigned to head a manhunt for four violent bank robbers.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 851
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: poliziottesco, detective, neo noir, exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, non-linear
Similar in 79%
Fox and His Friends (1975)
Plot Summary:
Fox, a former circus performer, wins the lottery of DM 500,000 and can now have the life and things that he has always wanted. While he wants to climb up the social ladder, it isn't without turmoil, and being torn between his old working class roots, and the shiny new facade of middle class consciousness.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: West Germany
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: melancholic, disturbing, serious, realistic, art house, bleak, sexual, erotic, mind bending, psychedelic
Similar in 85%
Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven (1975)
Plot Summary:
Frau Kusters is preparing dinner late one seemingly ordinary afternoon in her seemingly ordinary kitchen in Frankfurt, Germany. Mrs. Kusters wants to add canned sausages to the stew, her annoying daughter-in-law thinks otherwise. The point, we soon find out, is moot: Mr. Kusters has murdered the personnel director at the soap factory where he works before committing suicide.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: art house, black comedy, thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing, controversial, cynical, biting, suspense
Similar in 83%
The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972)
Plot Summary:
Hans is a street fruit peddler and born-loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family, causing him to turn to drinking and violence. After recovering from a debilitating heart attack, his business finally begins to take off. However the more he becomes a credit to his family, the more depressed he becomes.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: art house, psychological, philosophical, depressing, neo noir, sad, sincere, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Katzelmacher (1969)
Plot Summary:
In this unflinching German drama by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a group of young slackers, including the couple Erich and Marie, spend most of their time hanging out in front of a Munich apartment building. When a Greek immigrant named Jorgos, moves in, however, their aimless lives are shaken up. Soon new tensions arise both within the group and with Jorgos, particularly when Marie threatens to leave Erich for the outsider.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: art house, contemplative, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, gloomy, biting
Similar in 90%
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)
Plot Summary:
Near the end of World War II, Maria marries Hermann, who is immediately sent off to battle. When the war concludes, Maria believes that Hermann is dead. She starts working at an Allied bar, where she meets American soldier Bill. They start a relationship that is interrupted when Hermann returns alive. During a scuffle between the men, Maria accidentally kills Bill. Hermann takes the blame and goes to jail, while Maria begins a hard new life.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, touching, serious, realistic, surreal, art house, thought provoking, retro, neo noir
Similar in 87%
Blue Collar (1978)
Plot Summary:
Fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and union brass, and coupled with financial hardships on each man's end, three auto assembly line workers hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: neo noir, clever, realistic, disturbing, funny, light, retro, entertaining, cynical, colorful
Similar in 84%
In a Year with 13 Moons (1978)
Plot Summary:
This drama follows the last few days in the life of Elvira (formerly Erwin) Weisshaupt. Years before, Erwin told a co-worker, Anton, that he loved him. "Too bad, you aren't a woman," he replied. Erwin took Anton at his word. Trying to salvage something from the wreckage love has made of his life, he now hopes that Anton will not reject him again.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: disturbing, philosophical, depressing, controversial, art house, psychological, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 83%
Vengeance is Mine (1979)
Plot Summary:
A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata) is on the run from the police. Director Shohei Imamura turns this fact-based story—about the seventy-eight-day killing spree of a remorseless man from a devoutly Catholic family—into a cold, perverse, and at times diabolically funny examination of the primitive coexisting with the modern. More than just a true-crime tale, Vengeance Is Mine bares humanity’s snarling id.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: disturbing, tense, realistic, serious, suspenseful, neo noir, psychological thriller, philosophical, slasher, controversial
Similar in 88%
Performance (1970)
Plot Summary:
Young gangster Chas Devlin seeks refuge from the mob in a basement belonging to a reclusive, fading rock star Turner.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, surreal, atmospheric, stylized, sexy, cult classic, bleak, neo noir, psychological, serious
Similar in 80%
Stammheim - The Baader-Meinhof Gang on Trial (1986)
Plot Summary:
Based on the research for his non-fiction book "Der Baader-Meinhoff-Komplex", "Spiegel" journalist Stefan Aust wrote the screen play to Reinhard Hauff’s controversial feature film that re-narrates the startling trial against the RAF terrorists Baader, Meinhoff, Ensslin, and Raspe. The trial that started in May 1975 in the Stammheim maximum-security prison extended over 192 days and ended with a lifetime sentence for all defendants.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 483
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: controversial, sincere, thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Good Morning, Night (2003)
Plot Summary:
The 1978 kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, president of the most important political party in Italy at the time, Democrazia Cristiana, as seen from the perspective of one of his assailants -- a conflicted young woman in the ranks of the Red Brigade.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, disturbing, bleak, realistic, suspenseful, political, sincere, controversial, crying
Similar in 90%
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970)
Plot Summary:
A chief of detectives, homicide section, commits a murder and deliberately leaves clues to prove his own responsibility for the crime.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, surreal, psychological, atmospheric, political, satirical, surprise ending, suspenseful, serious
Similar in 87%
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)
Plot Summary:
Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer -- arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer). Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: West Germany
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: art house, sexual, erotic, philosophical, sexy, depressing, surreal, avant garde, stylized, postmodern
Similar in 87%
The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008)
Plot Summary:
Der Baader Meinhof Komplex depicts the political turmoil in the period from 1967 to the bloody "Deutschen Herbst" in 1977. The movie approaches the events based on Stefan Aust's standard work on Die Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF). The story centers on the leadership of the self named anti-fascist resistance to state violence: Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 40000
Genere: Action, Biography, Crime, Drama, History, Thriller
Country: Germany, France, Czech Republic
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: political, bleak, realistic, harsh, intense, rough, suspenseful, disturbing, sincere, serious