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Carandiru poster

Movies that feel likeCarandiru (2003)

When a doctor decides to carry out an AIDS prevention program inside Latin America’s largest prison: the Casa de Detenção de São Paulo – Carandiru, he meets the future victims of one of the darkest days in Brazilian history.

If you loved Carandiru, the closest films we have are Brainstorm (2001), You Can Count on Me (2000) and The Son's Room (2001). All three share Carandiru's contemplative feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Treeless Mountain (2009).

🍅 68% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.6 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Héctor Babencocontemplative
9 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Paramount Plus Premium · Criterion Channel

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If Carandiru hit the spot, these will too

Brainstorm poster
Brainstorm
2001 · dir. Laís Bodanzky
★ 7.7drama

Drama built on stillness, twice over

Neto is a middle class teenager living a normal life. After his father finds a marijuana cigarette on his pocket, he is sent to a mental institution, where he gets to know a completely absurd and inhumane reality in which people are devoured by a corrupt and cruel system.

You Can Count on Me poster
You Can Count on Me
2000 · dir. Kenneth Lonergan
🍅 95%★ 7.5dramaParamount+

Both lean on stillness more than on drama

The difference: Reviewed even better

A single mother's life is thrown into turmoil after her struggling, rarely-seen younger brother returns to town.

The Son's Room poster
The Son's Room
2001 · dir. Nanni Moretti
🍅 85%★ 7.3drama

Contemplative drama, and it commits to that

A psychoanalyst and his family go through profound emotional trauma when their son dies in a scuba diving accident.

Main Hoon Na poster
Main Hoon Na
2004 · dir. Farah Khan
★ 7.1dramaNetflix

Drama in the same key

An army major goes undercover as a college student. His mission is both professional and personal: to protect his general's daughter from a radical militant, and to find his estranged half-brother.

Manderlay poster
Manderlay
2005 · dir. Lars von Trier
🍅 50%★ 7.2drama

The drama is handled with the same confidence

In 1933, a young woman and her father discover an Alabama plantation whose inhabitants live as if slavery had never been abolished. Feeling a sense of duty to those behind the heavy gates, she stays to liberate the people and see them through their first harvest. With four of her father's colleagues and a lawyer, she faces the daunting task of resurrecting the place known as Manderlay.

Chak De! India poster
Chak De! India
2007 · dir. Shimit Amin
🍅 90%★ 8.1dramaNetflix

Drama approached the same way

A team of rag-tag girls with their own agenda form Team India competing for international fame in field hockey. Their coach, the ex-men's Indian National team captain, returns from a life of shame after being unjustly accused of match fixing in his last match. Can he give the girls the motivation required to win, while dealing with the shadows of his own past?

Confessions of a Brazilian Call Girl poster
Confessions of a Brazilian Call Girl
2011 · dir. Marcus Baldini
★ 6.2dramaRent or buy

Both working the same drama territory

Rachel is a girl, adopted by an upper middle class family, who rebelled at 17 and left her family and studies at a traditional college in Sao Paulo to become a sexy call girl. Shortly after starting work, she decided to write a blog about her experiences. Since some clients thought she looked like a surfer she adopted the name "Surfistinha" which means little surfer girl.

About Elly poster
About Elly
2009 · dir. Asghar Farhadi
🍅 99%★ 7.9drama

Both know what they want from drama

The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.

Summer Hours poster
Summer Hours
2008 · dir. Olivier Assayas
🍅 94%★ 7.1drama

Drama of the same temperament

After the death of a septuagenarian woman, her three children deliberate over what to do with her estate.

Through the Olive Trees poster
Through the Olive Trees
1994 · dir. Abbas Kiarostami
🍅 89%★ 7.7drama

Both play drama straight

When the actor in a scene for his film Life And Nothing More… has to quit, a film director casts another man for the part. However, complications arise since the man and the woman who was cast for the scene know each other.

Ulee's Gold poster
Ulee's Gold
1997 · dir. Victor Nuñez
🍅 94%★ 7drama

The same drama instincts

Third-generation Florida beekeeper Ulee Jackson may have gotten out of Vietnam alive, but he left a part of himself behind. Now he methodically tends his bees, carefully provides for his two grandchildren and keeps his emotions at bay. But when a long-buried secret threatens Ulee's business and family, he is forced to break through his emotional walls and confront the terror of his wounded spirit.

Treeless Mountain poster
Treeless Mountain
2009 · dir. So Yong Kim
🍅 86%★ 7drama

Cut from the same drama cloth

A Korean woman leaves her two young daughters with her sister-in-law to search for their estranged father.

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The best-reviewed films that share Carandiru’s defining feeling.