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Evil poster

Movies that feel likeEvil (2003)

Stockholm, in the 1950s. Erik is expelled from the local school for getting into one brawl too many. To protect Erik from his violent stepfather’s reaction to his expulsion, Erik's mother arranges for Erik to spend a year at Stjärnsberg Boarding School, the only school willing to accept him. This is Erik's last chance to graduate to Upper School and he promises his mother, for his and her sake, to do all he can to stay out of trouble.

If you loved Evil, the closest films we have are The Fool (2014), My Name Ain't Johnny (2008) and Silenced (2011). All three share Evil's contemplative and gritty feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Black Souls (2014).

🍅 68% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Mikael Håfströmcontemplativegritty
5 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Criterion Channel · Kino Film Collection

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If Evil hit the spot, these will too

The Fool poster
The Fool
2014 · dir. Yury Bykov
🍅 93%★ 7.9drama

Contemplative and gritty in the same breath

The difference: Critics rated this one higher still

The Fool is a movie about a simple plumber. An honest man, he is up against an entire system of corrupted bureaucrats. At stake are the lives of 800 inhabitants of an old dorm that is at risk of collapsing within the span of the night.

My Name Ain't Johnny poster
My Name Ain't Johnny
2008 · dir. Mauro Lima
★ 7.2crime · drama

Drama built on stillness, twice over

The difference: Sits closer to crime than Evil does

The true story of João Guilherme Estrella ("Johnny"), a young middle-class bon vivant who became a big-time cocaine dealer in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1990s.

Silenced poster
Silenced
2011 · dir. Hwang Dong-hyuk
🍅 100%★ 8dramaNetflix

Both lean on grit more than on drama

Based on actual events that took place at Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing-impaired, where young deaf students were the victims of repeated sexual assaults by faculty members over a period of five years in the early 2000s.

Frozen River poster
Frozen River
2008 · dir. Courtney Hunt
🍅 88%★ 7.1drama · crime

Contemplative drama in both cases

A financially strapped mother joins a Mohawk woman to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States.

Green Fish poster
Green Fish
1997 · dir. Lee Chang-dong
★ 7drama · crime

A streak of grit through both

Returning home and finding his town drastically changed, a former soldier falls in with gangsters.

R poster
R
2010 · dir. Tobias Lindholm
🍅 91%★ 7.1crime · drama

Both play drama straight

Imprisoned for violent assault, Rune is placed in the hardcore ward, where his survival depends on quickly learning the prison's parallel world of rules, honor, and obligations.

A Touch of Sin poster
A Touch of Sin
2013 · dir. Jia Zhangke
🍅 95%★ 7.1crime · drama

Both know what they want from drama

Four people in different provinces are driven to violent ends: An angry miner is enraged by corruption in his village. A migrant discovers the possibilities of owning a firearm. A receptionist is pushed beyond her limits by an abusive client. A young factory worker goes from one job to the next.

A Short Film About Killing poster
A Short Film About Killing
1988 · dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski
🍅 91%★ 7.9crime · drama

The drama is handled with the same confidence

Jacek climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar, tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him, seemingly without motive.

Black Souls poster
Black Souls
2014 · dir. Francesco Munzi
🍅 89%★ 6.8crime · drama

Drama of the same temperament

A former narcotics smuggler, now living peaceably in the Calabrian hills, is drawn back into his family’s drug-trade dynasty by his impetuous teenage son.

Close-Up poster
Close-Up
1990 · dir. Abbas Kiarostami
🍅 89%★ 8.2crime · drama

The same drama instincts

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.

7 Prisoners poster
7 Prisoners
2021 · dir. Alexandre Moratto
🍅 98%★ 7.1drama · crimeNetflix

Both working the same drama territory

An impoverished teen seeking to escape the clutches of a human trafficker must weigh living up to his moral code against his struggle to survive.

3096 Days poster
3096 Days
2013 · dir. Sherry Hormann
★ 6.5drama

Cut from the same drama cloth

A young Austrian girl is kidnapped and held in captivity for eight years. Based on the real-life case of Natascha Kampusch.

In the mood for more contemplative?

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