Best movies like Whatever
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
It is a story of a depressed, isolated man stuck in a tedious but well-paying programming job.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 857
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: erotic, disturbing, explicit, psychological, bleak, serious, realistic, contemplative, cynical, gloomy
Best tv shows and movies like Whatever (1999):
Similar in 90%
Our Day Will Come (2010)
Plot Summary:
Redheaded teen Remy is bullied by his soccer teammates and drawn into fights with his younger sister and mother in their cramped apartment. After a flare-up of domestic violence, he flees home and is tracked down by a bitter guidance counselor, Patrick, also a redhead. Patrick looks upon Remy’s sullen insolence with both sympathy and disdain and decides to toughen him up.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, bleak, serious, suspense, tense, suspenseful, erotic, offbeat, gloomy, weird
Similar in 78%
Once Upon a Time Veronica (2012)
Plot Summary:
A finely tuned, emotionally raw portrait of a woman’s conflicted entry into adulthood, Once Upon a Time Veronica is a thoroughly modern anti–fairy tale. Director Marcelo Gomes shows a rare ability to get under the skin — and cut close to the bone — of his emotionally vulnerable but resilient main character. Anchored by a tour de force performance from the fearless Hermila Guedes, this sensual, psychologically complex character study charts the personal and professional growth of one young woman in Recife.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 712
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil, France
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Cold Moon (1991)
Plot Summary:
Simon and Dede are best friends: two aimless drunks who spend their days getting sloshed and any other available time getting laid. Simon is living on unemployment benefits in a trailer parked near his sister's apartment. Dede works at a fish-packing plant on the night shift. Neither man is sensitive, young, or good looking. However, their sang-froid (literally, "cold blood," referring to a quality of imperturbability) stands them in good stead as they go about their seedy lives, picking up one woman and having sex with her on the beach, or when Simon calmly has sex with a prostitute in front of the woman's brother. In the past, a bizarre necrophiliac situation led to Simon experiencing his only sense of what it might be to truly love someone.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 453
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: dark, controversial, dark comedy, psychological, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 89%
She's One of Us (2003)
Plot Summary:
At the start, Christine Blanc is a temp, her boyfriend has gone. Near the story's end, she's been offered a steady job, she has a fiancé, other men seem interested in her, she's passed her driving test, and, after she wins 1000 Euros in a scratch-off, her colleagues sing that she's a jolly good fellow ("one of us"). But something's askew: her gaze is too direct, her eyes open too widely; conversational gambits hit odd notes; she parrots others' words; she cooks too much food when she invites a supervisor to dinner. When the supervisor takes Christine on a spontaneous outing that disorients her, her oddities become something else. Can things ever be normal?.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 234
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, captivating, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 86%
The Banned Woman (1997)
Plot Summary:
This movie is foremost distinguished by the use of a subjective camera, and nearly 100 % of the time consists of close-up of the young girl's face. She is capable of changing her facial mimic so much that she never looks artificial or inappropriate. 39-year-old François meets 22-year-old Muriel, who is a virgin. Several times he invites her to fine restaurants. She agrees that on a certain day they will meet at a hotel and he will see her naked. He promises not to sleep with her at that occasion. He does not keep his promise. She is happy that he didn't. Both continue to be eager for sex.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 741
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: anthology, humorous, serious, realistic, contemplative, sexual, sexy
Similar in 85%
Don't Forget You're Going to Die (1995)
Plot Summary:
Benoit has planned out his life. Unfortunately he has forgotten the military duty. After he is called to duty he tries everything to get around. He goes to a psychiatrist who gives him medicine against depression. As this doesn't work out he tries suicide. The story gets even worse as he is told by a military doctor that he is HIV positive. Benoit tumbles down into the drug scene. Then he goes to Italy and meets Claudia. Things seem to improve, but only for a short time.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 577
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Houston (2013)
Plot Summary:
A German corporate headhunter travels to Houston, Texas, in pursuit of a renowned oil company CEO, only to have his life fall apart.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 309
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, psychological, suspenseful, disturbing, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Henri (2013)
Plot Summary:
The meeting of two lonely, marginal souls. There is Henri, a man in his 50s, limp, resigned, somewhat alcoholic. And Rosette, a (slightly) retarded woman who dreams of love, sexuality, normality.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 274
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 84%
3 Steps to Heaven (1995)
Plot Summary:
A bereaved woman adopts multiple disguises to track down the last three people to see her boyfriend before he died.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 155
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: psychological, mind bending, serious, realistic, suspenseful, cynical
Similar in 90%
Blood from a Stone (2011)
Plot Summary:
The day his bank refuses to finance him, Georges will do everything he can to save his shipyard and his employees.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 258
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, realistic, serious, cynical, captivating, bleak, suspenseful
Similar in 83%
Don't Let Me Die on a Sunday (1998)
Plot Summary:
Ben works in a morgue. Ben's wife left him and he is into various kinds of alternative sexuality. Teresa dies of an ecstasy overdose on the dance floor. When she is brought to the morgue, she is resurrected -how shall I say?- in Ben's arms (that part based on a true story). From this starting point, the film revolves around the interactions between them and Boris (orgy fan), Abdel (no sentimental life), Ducon (wants to kill himself), Nico (dying of AIDS), etc... A social study of the 90s with heavy references to sex and deat.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 541
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: psychological, rough, serious, contemplative
Similar in 89%
Too Much Flesh (2000)
Plot Summary:
In an Illinois farming community, Lyle lives quietly with his wife Amy. But their life is set spinning when Lyle's friend Vernon visits with his girlfriend Juliette. Soon Lyle and Juliette have embarked on a passionate affair which has the town talking and the religious community frowning.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 770
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: erotic, psychological, suspense, disturbing, independent film
Similar in 81%
Hip Moves (2012)
Plot Summary:
Hervé is a lonely man who lives only for his self-defense courses. Fired from the zoo where he works because he depresses the animals, he becomes a night watchman in a factory. To pass the time, he watches the comings and goings of a strange pair of lovers: his colleague and his wife who sells her body with her husband's blessing.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 100
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, psychological, captivating, offbeat, sexual, sexy
Similar in 75%
Import Export (2007)
Plot Summary:
A nurse from the Ukraine searches for a better life in the West, while an unemployed security guard from Austria heads East for the same reason. Both are looking for work, a new beginning, an existence, struggling to believe in themselves, to find a meaning in life.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Austria, France, Germany
Duration: 141 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, sincere, realistic, contemplative, erotic, explicit, sexy, brutal
Similar in 78%
A Hole in My Heart (2004)
Plot Summary:
In a decript apartment, a young man watches as his father and a friend shoot an amateur porn film. Issues of morality, reality TV and friendship are explored.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, Denmark
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: disturbing, psychological, serious, bleak, avant garde, sad, controversial, erotic, depressing, intense
Similar in 87%
Cold Light (2004)
Plot Summary:
What could be better than knowing your future? And what could be worse? A love-filled childhood abruptly ends when catastrophe descends. A catastrophe that the child had foreseen yet failed to act upon.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 611
Genere: Drama
Country: Iceland, Norway, UK, Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, atmospheric, serious, offbeat, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Early One Morning (2011)
Plot Summary:
Monday morning. Paul Wertret, 50, heads off to his job as a manager at the International Credit and Trade Bank. He arrives at 8 o'clock on the dot, as usual. He enters a meeting room, takes out a gun and kills two of his bosses. Then he locks himself in his office. As he waits for the inevitable police assault, this ordinary man looks back over his life and the events that led him to commit such an act.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 580
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: disturbing, psychological, serious, sincere, tense, bleak, realistic, non-linear, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Betty (1992)
Plot Summary:
When Betty is caught en flagrante, her bourgeois in-laws and husband force a divorce settlement upon her and bar her from seeing her two daughters. She is rescued from an alcoholic stupor by Laure, a middle-aged woman who takes Betty to her hotel lodgings, extends friendship and care, and listens to her story. Laure's lover, Mario, the proprietor of the bar where Betty and Laure met, is first a friend, then Betty's next conquest.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, atmospheric, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, sexy
Similar in 79%
I Am from Titov Veles (2007)
Plot Summary:
Burdened by memories of their late father, three sisters struggle to escape the suffocating environment of the dying town of Veles. A contemporary story of urban decay, „Jas sum od Titov Veles“ employs a stark realism to depict the vivid landscape of post-Communist Macedonia.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 617
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France, Slovenia
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, bleak, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 77%
The Town Is Quiet (2000)
Plot Summary:
A dark tale of working-class life in Marseilles, a city in crisis. Interesting characters include a hard-bitten but compassionate fish market worker with a drug addicted daughter and a moody bartender with a shocking secret life.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: serious, contemplative, touching, bleak, captivating, realistic, disturbing, neo noir, anthology, psychological
Similar in 85%
Les corps impatients (2003)
Plot Summary:
Paul and Charlotte are in love. Charlotte discovers she has a grave malady and Paul supports her. But Paul is also attracted to Ninon, another girl. Charlotte accepts Paul to have an affair with her, and the three start a difficult and ambiguous relationship.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 613
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: serious, psychological, sincere, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, sexy
Similar in 82%
The Mouth Agape (1974)
Plot Summary:
The portrait of a woman going through a terminal illness and the tumorous lives of her husband and son.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 87%
The Cruel Embrace (1987)
Plot Summary:
Nicole (Marianne Basler) gives birth to a mentally challenged boy after she is gang-raped by American soldiers at the close of World War II in this grim dramatic tragedy. Young Ludo is hidden in the attic of the family home and continues to yearn for his mother's affection. Nicole enters into a loveless marriage with an older man who agrees to adopt Ludo, but her deteriorating mental health leads her to sloth and alcoholism. Ludo is sent off to an asylum, but escapes and takes up residence on a deserted beach in an old tanker that has run aground. This feature won the grand prize at the 1987 Barcelona Film Festival.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 181
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 88%
She Is Not Crying, She Is Singing (2011)
Plot Summary:
A tale of deliverance. Laura, 27 years old, lives alone in the outskirts of a large town. She learns that her father is in a coma, after a serious car accident. She decides to visit him at the hospital as a last opportunity to settle old scores, perhaps even to get revenge.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 130
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, Luxembourg, France
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sincere, touching, disturbing, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Confessions of a Lap Dancer (1997)
Plot Summary:
An erotic melodrama about the public and private lives of sex workers. Josie Hunter (aka Blake Pickett) co-starred in the role of Erica, a single mother who works a stripper, and sometimes as a prostitute to support her daughter. But when the threat of losing parental rights to her child looms, Erica tries to escape from the dark world of the sex industry, but it turns out to be not so easy to do.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 222
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: erotic, independent film, touching, serious, realistic, disturbing, gloomy, sexual, sexy, sexploitation film
Similar in 87%
A Single Girl (1995)
Plot Summary:
A young Parisian must make major decisions about pregnancy, a job and her boyfriend.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: erotic, sexual, psychological, sincere, atmospheric, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, rough
Similar in 76%
The Kreutzer Sonata (2008)
Plot Summary:
A film by Bernard Rose, based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy with music by Ludwig Van Beethoven. Edgar Hudson meets Abby, a concert pianist, at a dinner party. Abby is involved with someone else but that doesn't stop the two from acting upon their strong attraction to one another. They start to sneak around but it's not long before they realize they should be together. Soon after Abby breaks up with her boyfriend, she becomes pregnant with Edgar's child - something that was not planned.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 392
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: erotic, sexy, serious, captivating, suspenseful, rough, bleak, realistic, sexual, psychological thriller
Similar in 87%
Gift from Above (2003)
Plot Summary:
A story with a bit of despair: six or seven families who live in the same blocks that surround a parking lot. And they are all involved in each other’s lives.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 585
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel, France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: rough, semi serious, erotic, sexual, captivating, disturbing, offbeat, realistic, sexy
Similar in 87%
Anatomy of Hell (2004)
Plot Summary:
A man rescues a woman from a suicide attempt in a gay nightclub. Walking the streets together, she propositions him: She'll pay him to visit her at her isolated house for four consecutive nights. There he will silently watch her. He's reluctant, but agrees. As the four nights progress, they become more intimate with each other, and a mutual fascination/revulsion develops. By the end of the four-day "contract", these two total strangers will have had a profound impact on each other.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Portugal
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: erotic, disturbing, sexy, sexual, psychological, serious, contemplative, controversial, art house, cult classic
Similar in 77%
Suspicious River (2000)
Plot Summary:
A young married woman (Parker) sells her body, not just for money, to guests at the motel where she works as a receptionist.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 852
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: erotic, psychological, rough, disturbing, tense, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, sexual