5 Movies Like Mr. Car and the Knights Templar (2023)

Staff & contributors

Chasing the feel of watching Mr. Car and the Knights Templar ? Here are the movies we recommend you watch right after.

Jaane Jaan is one of those thrillers where you hope that the main characters would get away with murder. Based on the 2005 Japanese novel, the Hindi adaptation still has the cat-and-mouse dynamic between the relentless detective and math genius protecting the suspect, along with their elaborate chess-like mind games. However, the film changes a major plot point from the novel, and without spoiling too much, it turns the math teacher, now named Naren, into a less sympathetic character. Given today’s sensibilities, it’s easy to understand why the change was made. After all, just because someone’s a genius, it doesn’t mean that they’re someone to be admired. Jaane Jaan still keeps up the exciting thrills and suspense of the original novel, but in making its changes, it becomes unclear who the film is rooting for.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Actor: Jaideep Ahlawat, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Karma Takapa, Lin Laishram, Naisha Khanna, Saurabh Sachdeva, Suhita Thatte, Ujjwal Chopra, Vijay Varma

Director: Sujoy Ghosh

Rating: R

Remember Bing Bong from Inside Out? This time, there’s a whole world of imaginary friends that don't fade into the recesses of a child’s mind– instead, they transfer to another place, ready to take on the imaginations of children around the world. That’s the basic premise of The Imaginary. Of course, Studio Ponoc’s third film has been at least partially inspired by Studio Ghibli, with some of its staff having their start there, and with the film’s dreamlike portals and strange cats, but the film takes a more straightforward approach to its story and analogies. As Rudger fights against Mr. Bunting, the film examines, well, imagination, but in all its forms– fodder for corporations to feed on, propaganda to calm the masses, but also as the innately human response to grief, as a mature solution to life’s troubles. The Imaginary may not be a stand-out, but we can’t help but applaud Studio Ponoc’s sincerity in celebrating human creativity.

Genre: Adventure, Animation, Drama, Family, Fantasy

Actor: Akira Terao, Atsuko Takahata, Hana Sugisaki, Ikue Otani, Issey Ogata, Kokoro Hirasawa, Kokoro Terada, Mitsuaki Kanuka, Riisa Naka, Rio Suzuki, Sakura Andô, Takayuki Yamada

Director: Yoshiyuki Momose

Rating: PG

For the longest time, when a woman loses their husband, they lose everything, as the name, assets, and estate used to be held by and passed on by men exclusively. It was outstanding when Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin was able to keep the estate due to the brilliance of her innovative champagne making techniques, and more so when the champagne house she built lasts past two centuries, so it was a bit of a letdown to see the Widow Clicquot falter in telling this incredible story. The costumes, sets, and score worked well to craft the emotional turbulence Clicquot goes through, and Madame herself is excellently portrayed by Haley Bennett, but her invention and the actual history is mostly brushed aside by the awkward, stilted romances Clicquot supposedly shares with her husband when alive, and her wine merchant when he died. Widow Clicquot deserves better.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Anson Boon, Ben Miles, Chris Larkin, Haley Bennett, Ian Conningham, Leo Suter, Natasha O'Keeffe, Paul Rhys, Sam Riley, Tom Sturridge

Director: Thomas Napper

Rating: R

There have been plenty of excellent films that tackle plenty of themes all at once, but Saindhav feels like a bunch of unrelated ideas strung together as an excuse for cool action set pieces. We’re first presented with the idea that violent video games are being used to recruit children for terrorist groups, but in response to this is a pretty violent protagonist that does over-the-top killings complete with explosions. His justification is that he’s doing it for money for his sick daughter, whose treatment is exorbitantly expensive. Both of these ideas should be discussed, and the cast tries to make the best of it, but Saindhav just combines these ideas to justify the glorified violence they’re supposedly critiquing.

Genre: Action, Crime

Actor: Andrea Jeremiah, Arya, Baby Sara, Getup Srinu, Jayaprakash, Jisshu Sengupta, Mukesh Rishi, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Ramajogayya Sastry, Ravi Varma, Ruhani Sharma, Sailesh Kolanu, Shraddha Srinath, Venkatesh

Director: Sailesh Kolanu

, 2023

For some people, grief isn’t easy when a parent dies, especially if that parent is someone you wish you would never become. Grief can stir up a mix of uncomfortable emotions, like shame, anger, and guilt, and it can be very confusing to explain what’s happening to people who aren’t experiencing the same. There’s plenty of that here in South African drama Prime, with Marius losing his racist father, but the way the film depicts this grief is quite hard to follow because of the way it handles its other genres. The human horror of becoming someone you’ve hated is muddled with the randomly arranged sequences, sluggish pace, and mumbled dialogue, which is a shame, because the ideas and images could have made a better movie.

Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller

Actor: Gérard Rudolf, Jasmine Hazi, Michael Lawrence Potter, Nomsa Twala, Richard Gau, Sharon Spiegel Wagner, Sizo Mahlangu

Director: Thabiso Christopher