Best movies like The Wave

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Ben X (2007)

Plot Summary:

Harassed by bullies because of his mild autism, teen Ben (Greg Timmermans) finds refuge in an online computer game, which leads him to his virtual dream girl, Scarlite (Laura Verlinden). Together, the odd couple seeks revenge against Ben's tormentors. Director Nic Balthazar's beguiling mix of kitchen-sink drama and full-blown fantasy was Belgium's Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film.

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Europa (1991)

Plot Summary:

An American, Leopold Kessler, goes to post-war Germany in 1945 to work as a railroad conductor for the Zentropa Rail Line instead of going into the Army because he feels its a more valuable thing to do for the state of the world. He meets Katharina Hartmann, the daughter of the railroad owner and they fall in love.

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Bang Bang You're Dead (2002)

Plot Summary:

Trevor is a troubled high school student, thanks to the effects of bullying. This is the story of his fight to break free.

Similar in 84%

Playground (2016)

Plot Summary:

It's the end of the school year and today is the last chance for 12-year-old Gabrysia to tell her classmate that she has fallen in love with him. She sets up a secret meeting and blackmails the boy to show up. But what was supposed to be an intimate talk spins out of control and leads to an unexpected ending.

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A Dry White Season (1989)

Plot Summary:

Taking place during the 1976 Soweto uprising, the story follows a white school teacher whose life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.

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The Experiment (2010)

Plot Summary:

20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.

Similar in 79%

The Geographer Drank His Globe Away (2013)

Plot Summary:

Victor Sluzhkin signs on as a teacher of geography in a secondary school in his native Perm (in the Urals) and gets lost in a haze of hard vodka, desperate love for a nymphet-like student and the stress of educating teenagers. Geographer, as the students immediately dub Sluzhkin, attempts to escape from the grueling, dull, stultifying reality of Russia's provincial life in a rafting tour to the Urals. Accompanied by wild, adventure-seeking adolescents, faced with the numerous grim surprises of the nature, Geographer is poised to find himself and his own truth.

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The Believer (2001)

Plot Summary:

A hardcore American racist skinhead who, because of his intelligence, leads a gang dedicated to fighting the enemy: the supposed American-Jewish conspiracy for domination. However, he's hiding a secret: he's Jewish-born, a brilliant scholar whose questioning of the tenets of his faith has left him angry and confused, turning against those who he thinks have a tragic history of their own making.

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The Tenant (1976)

Plot Summary:

A quiet and inconspicuous man (Trelkovsky) rents an apartment in France where the previous tenant committed suicide, and begins to suspect his landlord and neighbors are trying to subtly change him into the last tenant so that he too will kill himself.

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2:37 (2006)

Plot Summary:

A contemporary, ensemble drama telling the complex tale of six high school students whose lives are interwoven with situations that so many of today's youth are faced with. The story takes place during a normal school day. At precisely 2:37 a tragedy will occur, affecting the lives of a group of students and their teachers. As the story unfolds, the individual stories of the six teenagers are revealed, each with its own explosive significance. An unwanted pregnancy unravels a terrible, dark secret; all is not as it appears for the seemingly confident school football hero; an outcast must deal with everyday taunts from his peers; a beautiful young girl battles an eating disorder; a stellar student constantly struggles to win his parents' approval; while another uses drugs to escape from his own demons.

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The Class (2007)

Plot Summary:

An average guy of an Estonian high-school decides to defend his bullied classmate. This starts war between him and the informal leader of the class. As teenagers' honour is a touchy thing, everything ends in bloodshed.

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The Class (2008)

Plot Summary:

Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.

Similar in 85%

Evil (2003)

Plot Summary:

Stockholm, the fifties. Though academically bright, violent pupil Erik Ponti is expelled from his state school with the headmaster’s words “there’s only one word for people like you – evil… what you need is a good thrashing, and more”. In fact already Erik frequently receives a ‘good’ thrashing at the hands of his sadistic stepfather – so he is packed off by his mother to boardingschool.

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Hidden (2005)

Plot Summary:

A married couple is terrorized by a series of videotapes planted on their front porch.

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Elephant (2003)

Plot Summary:

Several ordinary high school students go through their daily routine as two others prepare for something more malevolent. The film chronicles the events surrounding a school shooting.

Similar in 90%

Room (2015)

Plot Summary:

Jack is a young boy of 5 years old who has lived all his life in one room. He believes everything within it are the only real things in the world. But what will happen when his Ma suddenly tells him that there are other things outside of Room?.

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In the House (2012)

Plot Summary:

A sixteen-year-old boy insinuates himself into the house of a fellow student from his literature class and writes about it in essays for his French teacher. Faced with this gifted and unusual pupil, the teacher rediscovers his enthusiasm for his work, but the boy’s intrusion will unleash a series of uncontrollable events.

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Dogtooth (2009)

Plot Summary:

Three teenagers are confined to an isolated country estate that could very well be on another planet. The trio spend their days listening to endless homemade tapes that teach them a whole new vocabulary. Any word that comes from beyond their family abode is instantly assigned a new meaning. Hence 'the sea' refers to a large armchair and 'zombies' are little yellow flowers. Having invented a brother whom they claim to have ostracized for his disobedience, the uber-controlling parents terrorize their offspring into submission.

Similar in 90%

Come and See (1985)

Plot Summary:

The invasion of a village in Byelorussia by German forces sends young Florya into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha, who accompanies him back to his village. On returning home, Florya finds his family and fellow peasants massacred. His continued survival amidst the brutal debris of war becomes increasingly nightmarish, a battle between despair and hope.

Similar in 75%

The Experiment (2001)

Plot Summary:

Das Experiment is a shocking psycho thriller about the potential for brutality that humans hide. Even more shocking is the fact that it’s based on an actual occurrence—a 1971 psychological experiment at Stanford University that was aborted prematurely when the experimenters lost control.

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The Lives of Others (2006)

Plot Summary:

A tragic love story set in East Berlin with the backdrop of an undercover Stasi controlled culture. Stasi captain Wieler is ordered to follow author Dreyman and plunges deeper and deeper into his life until he reaches the threshold of doubting the system.

Similar in 85%

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)

Plot Summary:

True story of Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine brought to thrilling, dramatic life. Sophie Scholl stars Julia Jentsch in a luminous performance as the fearless activist of the underground student resistance group, The White Rose. Armed with long-buried historical records of her incarceration, director Marc Rothemund expertly re-creates the last six days of Sophie Scholl's life.

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The Machinist (2004)

Plot Summary:

The Machinist is the story of Trevor Reznik, a lathe-operator who is dying of insomnia. In a machine shop, occupational hazards are bad enough under normal circumstances; yet for Trevor the risks are compounded by fatigue. Trevor has lost the ability to sleep. This is no ordinary insomnia.

Similar in 80%

American History X (1998)

Plot Summary:

Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two thugs who tried to break into/steal his truck. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.

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Pay It Forward (2000)

Plot Summary:

Like some other kids, 12-year-old Trevor McKinney believed in the goodness of human nature. Like many other kids, he was determined to change the world for the better. Unlike most other kids, he succeeded.

Similar in 81%

Detachment (2011)

Plot Summary:

A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.

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Freedom Writers (2007)

Plot Summary:

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.

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We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

Plot Summary:

After her son Kevin commits a horrific act, troubled mother Eva reflects on her complicated relationship with her disturbed son as he grew from a toddler into a teenager.

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Cracks (2009)

Plot Summary:

Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.

Similar in 86%

Fight Club (1999)

Plot Summary:

A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.