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Movies that feel likeMother (2009)

A mother lives quietly with her son. One day, a girl is brutally killed, and the boy is charged with the murder. Now, it's his mother's mission to prove him innocent.

If you loved Mother, the closest films we have are Brick (2006), 12 (2007) and The White Ribbon (2009). All three share Mother's gritty and contemplative feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is After Dark, My Sweet (1990).

🍅 96% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Bong Joon Hogrittycontemplativetwisty
7 of 12 streaming nowAmazon Prime Video · Fandor · Film Movement Plus

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If Mother hit the spot, these will too

Brick poster
Brick
2006 · dir. Rian Johnson
🍅 79%★ 7.1drama · mystery · crime

The same preoccupation in both: murder

A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.

12 poster
12
2007 · dir. Nikita Mikhalkov
🍅 76%★ 7.5crime · drama · mystery

The same mix in both: grit, then stillness

A loose remake of “12 Angry Men”, “12” is set in contemporary Moscow where 12 very different men must unanimously decide the fate of a young Chechen accused of murdering his step-father, a Russian army officer. Consigned to a makeshift jury room in a school gymnasium, one by one each man takes center stage to confront, connect, and confess while the accused awaits a verdict and revisits his heartbreaking journey through war in flashbacks.

The White Ribbon poster
The White Ribbon
2009 · dir. Michael Haneke
🍅 85%★ 7.8drama · mystery

Drama with a pulse of twists, in both cases

An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.

The Third Murder poster
The Third Murder
2017 · dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
🍅 87%★ 6.7drama · mystery · crime

Both are built on the same subject: murder

A lawyer tasked with defending a robbery-and-murder suspect begins developing doubts about what truly happened.

The Imposter poster
The Imposter
2012 · dir. Bart Layton
🍅 95%★ 7.4documentary · mystery · crimePrime Video

Gritty crime, and it commits to that

The difference: Sits closer to documentary than Mother does

In 1994, a 13-year-old boy disappeared without a trace from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Three-and-a-half years later, he is found alive in a village in southern Spain with a horrifying story of kidnap and torture. His family is overjoyed to bring him home. But all is not quite as it seems.

Changeling poster
Changeling
2008 · dir. Clint Eastwood
🍅 61%★ 7.7crime · drama · mystery

Both lean on stillness more than on mystery

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

Los Angeles, 1928. When single mother Christine Collins leaves for work, her son vanishes without a trace. Five months later, the police reunite mother and son. But when Christine suspects that the boy returned to her isn't her child, her quest for truth exposes a world of corruption.

After Dark, My Sweet poster
After Dark, My Sweet
1990 · dir. James Foley
🍅 80%★ 6.5crime · drama · mysteryStarz

Twisty crime in both cases

Three desperados try to kidnap a wealthy child in hope of turning their lives around.

In the Heat of the Night poster
In the Heat of the Night
1967 · dir. Norman Jewison
🍅 96%★ 7.9crime · drama · mystery

Both keep coming back to the same thing: small town life

The difference: Made in the 1960s, in a different era of the craft

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

Drishyam poster
Drishyam
2015 · dir. Nishikant Kamat
🍅 64%★ 8.2mystery · thriller · drama

Drama built on grit, twice over

When his family stares down the barrel of criminal charges, a commoner channels his street smarts and knowledge of action films to tie the long arm of the law into an investigative Gordian knot.

Witness for the Prosecution poster
Witness for the Prosecution
1957 · dir. Billy Wilder
🍅 100%★ 8.4drama · mystery · crimePrime Video

Different title, same corner of the shelf

An ailing barrister is thrust back into the courtroom in what becomes one of the most unusual and eventful murder cases of the lawyer's career when he finds himself defending a man being tried for the murder of a socialite.

Anatomy of a Murder poster
Anatomy of a Murder
1959 · dir. Otto Preminger
🍅 100%★ 8crime · drama · mysteryPrime Video

Crime with a pulse of twists, in both cases

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo poster
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2009 · dir. Niels Arden Oplev
🍅 85%★ 7.8drama · thriller · crimePrime Video

The drama is handled with the same confidence

Swedish thriller based on Stieg Larsson's novel about a male journalist and a young female hacker. In the opening of the movie, Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged publisher for the magazine Millennium, loses a libel case brought by corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. Nevertheless, he is hired by Henrik Vanger in order to solve a cold case, the disappearance of Vanger's niece

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