31 Movies Like Snowpiercer (2013) On Kanopy (Page 2)

As a comedy made in the 80’s all about a gay couple, viewers not familiar with this indie film might expect something tragic, raunchy, or insensitive, but Parting Glances is surprisingly understated. The main relationship is refreshingly treated with the same domesticity as a straight couple would, and the main conflict isn’t concerned with acceptance– after all, Michael and Robert were already accepted by their urban Manhattan community. In writing this, first-time director Bill Sherwood is able to focus on the upcoming long-distance relationship, Michael realizing Robert wants the distance, while Robert feels uncertain over Michael’s feelings for his ex dying from AIDS. The film doesn’t shy away from the touching, but even with the difficult pain of losing parts of the community, it’s still straightforward, unsentimental, and so funny with the witty repartee between the well-written characters. Parting Glances is a true gem.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Adam Nathan, Bob Koherr, Cam Brainard, John Bolger, Kathy Kinney, Michael Medeiros, Nicholas Hill, Patrick Tull, Richard Ganoung, Steve Buscemi, Victor Rivers, Yolande Bavan

Director: Bill Sherwood

Rating: NR

This movie is pretty much in every regard a Norwegian Kill Bill. It’s a dark gory comedy where, naturally, the substitute for Uma Thurman doing damage is an emotionless Stellan Skarsgård. After his son is killed by a drug gang, Skarsgård’s character, fresh off a win of a “citizen of the year” award, embarks on a ruthless journey to track and kill the murderers. This takes place in one of the most remote areas in Norway, where the main character works as a snowplow driver. You guessed it, some people will get snowplowed. Seems familiar? That’s because this year it was turned into a horribly sub-par American movie called Cold Pursuit, with, ugh, Liam Neeson.

Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime, Thriller

Actor: Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Arben Bala, Arthur Berning, Atle Antonsen, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Birgitte Hjort Sorensen, Bjørn Moan, Bruno Ganz, David Sakurai, Espen Reboli Bjerke, Gard B. Eidsvold, Goran Navojec, Hildegun Riise, Jack Moland, Jakob Oftebro, Jan Gunnar Røise, Jon Øigarden, Jon Øigarden, Julia Bache-Wiig, Kåre Conradi, Kristofer Hivju, Leo Ajkic, Martin Furulund, Miodrag 'Miki' Krstović, Miodrag Krstović, Ola G. Furuseth, Pål Sverre Hagen, Peter Andersson, Sergej Trifunović, Stellan Skarsgård, Stig Henrik Hoff, Thomas Hildebrand, Tobias Santelmann

Director: Hans Petter Moland

Rating: R

Tied together by a song that seems to drive people to end their own lives, Gloomy Sunday's tale of polyamorous love torn apart by the advent of the Second World War is one that doesn't operate according to your usual narrative structure. Its stranger elements might not always work with the very real horrors of the Nazis' invasion of Hungary, but the film still expresses this horror in a unique way. Even long before the war begins, this song that joins our three lovers together seems to touch on a sense of doom everybody is feeling—warning signs of Hitler's rise to power that ordinary people seem to have been powerless to stop in time. It's certainly unique for a non-action-driven war film, bathed in tragedy and bitter irony.

Genre: Drama, History, Romance, War

Actor: András Bálint, Anna Ráckevei, Áron Sipos, Ben Becker, Denis Moschitto, Dorka Gryllus, Erika Marozsán, Ernst Kahl, Ferenc Bács, Ferenc Némethy, Ilse Zielstorff, István Kanizsay, István Mikó, Joachim Krol, Jörg Gillner, Karl Fischer, László I. Kish, Markus Hering, Márta Bakó, Michael Gampe, Rolf Becker, Sebastian Koch, Stefan Weinert, Stefano Dionisi, Ulrike Grote, Veit Stübner, Wanja Mues, Zsuzsa Mányai

Director: Rolf Schübel

Lauren Greenfield’s film follows the Siegel family’s decline from opulent abundance to gaudy ruin. Mega wealth, delusions of grandeur, and grotesquely opulent taste—the Siegel family were the perfect subjects for the film, which sets out to document their most lavish expense: their Versailles home, a mansion sprawling more than 85,000 square feet and modeled after the Palace of Versailles.

The Siegels, no doubt, are entirely out of touch with reality. David Siegel, the owner of one of the world’s largest timeshare developers, married Jackie, a former Mrs. Florida who is 30 years younger. The Versailles home is to be Jackie’s castle, an enormous home for her eight kids and numerous pets.

But the 2008 recession does not spare the Siegels, and their company is devastated. After layoffs and desperate attempts to recover financially, the family struggles to pay back the banks. Construction halts. The Versailles home remains vacant and unfinished.

While the film does not sympathize with the Siegels, Greenfield creates a space where pity is possible as well as criticism. And from there comes the universal: desperation, longing, hope for better, if not also more, more, more.

Genre: Documentary, Drama

Actor: Jacqueline Siegel, Virginia Nebab

Director: Lauren Greenfield

By all outward appearances, The Villages—a massive and manicured retirement community in Florida—looks like it does offer paradise to its aging residents, as promised. The list of activities is endless, the seniors are all partnered up. “It’s like going back to college,” as one of them puts it, where people from all over the country come together to create a new life with each other. 

But of course, nothing comes that easy, not even death. Some Kind of Heaven follows certain residents (and one committed trespasser) as they grapple with the slipperiness of fulfillment in their later years. It gets very eerie when the film's bleak messages are contrasted with the home's vibrant Floridian colors and the residents' plastered smiles. But the eeriness adds to the overall intrigue and pull of the documentary. Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) co-produces this fascinating film.

Genre: Documentary, Drama

Director: Lance Oppenheim

For better or worse, The Reason I Jump isn't a documentary made for autistic viewers but for a neurotypical audience that may not be very knowledgeable about autism. This means the film doesn't really offer anything new to the conversation, and it misses the opportunity to truly let its main characters express themselves in their own unique ways, uninterrupted. That said, The Reason I Jump still structures itself smartly (with stunning filmmaking to boot) by having each of its five characters introduce us to different aspects of the autism experience, from sense and memory to communication and community.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: David Mitchell, Donna Budway, Emma Budway, Jeremy Dear, Jordan O'Donegan

Director: Jerry Rothwell

This is a revelation of a movie for its simplicity in handling a pretty serious and dark subject. It's the story of a generally immature and newly unemployed stand-up comic in New York and her unplanned pregnancy with a man that was supposed to be a fling, and it's surprisingly funny and yet rather touching. I can't think of many actresses who would've fit the bill quite like Jenny Slate. Not only is she hilarious, but her treatment of a generally sensitive issue from the honest, crass point of view of a down-on-life, New York-er leaves you drowning in empathy for her. I recommend this for anyone looking to cuddle up, have a few little clever laughs and feel all tingly in the chest-al area.

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Actor: Amy Novondo, Cindy Cheung, David Cross, Elise Widerker, Emily Tremaine, Ernest Mingione, Gabe Liedman, Gaby Hoffmann, Jake Lacy, Jennifer Kim, Jenny Slate, Justin Lerner, Karen Maine, Kitty Crystal, Mary DelMarco, Michael Bonfiglio, Nicholas Cirillo, Paul Briganti, Polly Draper, Richard Kind, Sarina Roma, Stacey Sargeant, Stephen Singer, Suzanne Lenz

Director: Gillian Robespierre

Rating: R

As much as we’d like to think everyone can be redeemed, there are terrible, awful people that do exist that make it hard to believe in change. Idiots and Angels takes one such person named Angel, and forces him through a highly unusual, creepy, and cynical redemption tale that involves a body transformation that’s less heavenly and more Kafkaesque. As he pulls feathers from his body, Angel’s miserable, terrible self has no choice but to act decently for once. It’s a unique transformation, one we wish our curmudgeonly acquaintances would have, and with no words spoken, Bill Plympton’s unique cross-hatched animation takes center stage. Idiots and Angels may not be the most perfect animated film out there, but it’s certainly one of its kind, something you’ve probably never seen before.

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

Actor: Arielle Doneson, Carrie Keranen, Greg Sextro, Marc Diraison, Mike Juarez

Director: Bill Plympton

At first glance, one may think that Welcome to Leith is a well thought-out fictional thriller of people’s most unwarranted night terrors. But if you squint real hard, you will come to realize that it portrays a scary reality in which violence, fear, and isolation is prevalent and that it could happen to possibly any town with little to no effort. Nichols and Walker aim to capture this frightening message in hopes of bringing awareness, using white supremacist Craig Cobb’s attempt at taking over the small North Dakotan town to display objectivity in an otherwise touchy subject.

Genre: Crime, Documentary, Thriller

Actor: Craig Cobb

Director: Christopher K. Walker, Michael Beach Nichols

Rating: Not Rated

On one side, this is a look at the real-life efforts of local North Dakota Pastor Jay Reinke to provide shelter for Oil-working migrants in his Church for the course of well over two years – he ends up calling this The Overnighters Program. On another, it is the story of more than a thousand people living the broken American Dream, the pastor’s concerned, sensible neighbors, his well-meaning attempts backfiring, and all that’s in between. The Overnighters is an engaging, if not highly-aware, award-winning documentary that feeds on altruism, hope of redemption, and their ideal truth about the nature of human existence.

Genre: Documentary, Drama

Actor: Jay Reinke, Keegan Edwards

Director: Jesse Moss

Rating: PG-13

This documentary is about a unique program in Chicago called CeaseFire whose sole aim is to stop violent deaths in poor urban areas. CeaseFire is staffed by ex-gang members and ex-convicts who try to intervene in conflicts in their community, particularly those that may escalate into extreme violence or death. In these neighborhoods though, violent conflict can result from something as minor as someone making a funky comment about someone else’s shoes. This makes total success for a project like CeaseFire nearly impossible. It is not a totally depressing film though as the program and its practitioners are all pretty amazing, and director Steve James (who made Hoop Dreams) has unparalleled access to these struggling communities.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Amanda Palmer, Ameena Matthews, Peter Ho-Sun Chan, Steve James

Director: Steve James

Rating: Unrated

Last Days in Vietnam is a documentary that recounts the final weeks of the conflict in 1975, as North Vietnamese forces surged toward Saigon and U.S personnel anxiously awaited word of an evacuation plan. At the time, U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin was reluctant to accept defeat, and delayed a U.S. withdrawal in his (rapidly diminishing) hopes that a solution could be reached. Once the fall of Saigon became imminent, U.S. diplomatic, military and intelligence personnel were left piecing together a bare bones plan to escape via military helicopter support. The moral dilemma they soon faced was the harsh reality of leaving behind so many South Vietnamese citizens who had supported the American effort—many of whom faced likely imprisonment and/or death. Featuring remarkable footage and first-hand accounts from many involved, the film recounts those final days of chaos and confusion in stunningly dramatic fashion. Director Rory Kennedy has put together a gripping and emotionally compelling film that balances broad historical exposition with concise detail related to the evacuation complexities—all of it punctuated by remarkable examples of bravery and heroism.

Genre: Documentary, War

Actor: Henry Kissinger, Juan Valdez, Richard Nixon, Stuart Herrington

Director: Rory Kennedy

Rating: Not Rated