Movies like The Penal Colony

If you like "The Penal Colony" you are looking for movies about / with prison, dictator, journalist, torture, president, penal colony and absurdism themes of Drama genre shot in Chile.
Find your next favorite and similar movies in two steps: 1. Identify all themes of interest from this film (block below). 2. Look for them in the presented list.
The Penal Colony (1970)
 6.3
 70
The Penal Colony (1970)
Original name: La colonia penal
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 75 min.
Story: A foreign journalist arrives on a small Pacific island 200 miles off the coast of South America. Once a leper colony, the island was later transformed into a prison and then, under U.N. mandate, made into an independent republic. Yet despite democratic structures, the inhabitants--who speak a strange dialect composed of Spanish and English--still obey the old prison rules. After sending back detailed accounts of the torture and repression seen everywhere, the journalist realizes that she"s fallen into the trap created for her by the islanders: lacking natural resources, the island"s main export is news. The clearest anticipation of Ruiz"s later European work, The Penal Colony is a powerful document of the tensions and contradictions in Chile in the months before Allende"s electoral victory.
Plot: prison, dictator, journalist, torture, president, penal colony, absurdism, prison visit, military dictatorship
Place: chile
Keyword: american

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Most similar movies to The Penal Colony

The list contains related movies ordered by similarity. Recommendation engine sorted out psychological, captivating, serious and thrilling films with plots about prison, dictatorship, torture, family relations, dictator, bus and death mostly in Drama, Comedy and Fantasy genres. Some movies like The Penal Colony: Tres tristes tigres (1968), What Is to Be Done? (1972), Julio Begins in July (1979), Cirqo (2013), In the Shadow of the Sun (1974). The matching attributes are highlighted in bold.
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Tres tristes tigres (1968)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 100 min.
Story: A rambling portrait of Chilean society.
Style: sex comedy, independent film, experimental
Plot: urban setting, drunkenness, money, violence, national identity, low life, cynicism, nightlife, alienation, drunk, stripper, brother sister relationship ...
Place: chile, santiago chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
95%
What Is to Be Done? (1972)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile, USA
Duration: 90 min.
Story: Mordant, self-aware, freighted with sensitivity toward Chile’s problem, wary of caricature, disposed toward consciousness of human fallibility, it is a deft blend of fiction and documentary set in the tumultuous days leading up to the election of ...
Plot: streetfighting, communist, poverty, american abroad, cia, demonstration, marxist, president, assassination, street fight, election, politics ...
Place: south america, chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
87%
The Tango of the Widower and Its Distorting Mirror (2020)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 70 min.
Story: A man whose wife has committed suicide, appears to him as a ghost. The ghost follows him everywhere, under the bed, under tables… After seeing the ghost so frequently, the man begins to resemble her.
Style: psychological, bleak, suspense, scary, suspenseful ...
Plot: ghost, suicide, schizophrenic, ghost story, split personality, death, vengeance, paranormal phenomena, hunting, exorcism, murder, violence ...
Time: 21st century
Place: chile, santiago chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
85%
Julio Begins in July (1979)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 120 min.
Story: This is the story of a teenager at the turn of the century in the conservative higher classes of Chile and the initiation rites in his society.
Plot: teenager, landowner, machismo, history of chile, coming of age, patriarch, teenage prostitute
Place: chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
78%
Movie in collections
 7.0
 34
Cirqo (2013)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 100 min.
Story: Two prisoners escape execution by the police and become successful circus clowns in Pinochet's Chile.
Plot: military dictatorship, circus, clown, escaped prisoner
Time: 70s
Place: chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
71%
In the Shadow of the Sun (1974)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 70 min.
Story: Two thieves wander in the chilean desert and finally get to a small town near Bolivia. There, they try to include themselves with the townspeople but their instincts betray them and tragedy ensues. Based on a true story, this film opened one year ...
Plot: desert, escape, prison escape, indigenous people, thief, escaped prisoner, rape
Time: 1940s
Place: chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
67%
Golden Horseshoes (1989)
Genre: Drama
Country: Tunisia, France
Duration: 104 min.
Story: Youssef Soltane, a 45-year-old Tunisian intellectual, is the product of a generation that lived the era of euphoria and great ideologies in the sixties, and their subsequent failure. He was incarcerated and tortured for his political opinions. ...
Plot: torture, political prisoner, bare chested male, prison, male nudity, blood
Place: tunisia
⇓ similarity ⇓
64%
 6.9
 363
Metamorphosis (2002)
Genre: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 80 min.
Story: Based on Kafka's story of the same name, "The Metamorphosis" tells the story of a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect.
Plot: body horror, metamorphosis, train, cemetery, locked door, violin, sewing, nightmare, falling out of bed, hiding under a bed, milk, knocking on a door ...
⇓ similarity ⇓
56%
Movie in collections
Days in the Country (2004)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile, France
Duration: 89 min.
Story: In a bar in Santiago, two old men talk over their past. This is a strange discussion. In fact, they talk of themselves as if they were dead. We don't know what is true or false, what is dream or reality.
Plot: dream, rural setting, cafe, estate, poem, country estate, folklore, countryside, memory, old man, country house, domestic servant ...
Place: chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
56%
 7.3
 737
Karnak Cafe (1975)
Genre: Drama
Country: Egypt
Duration: 143 min.
Story: In one of their best roles ever, distinguished actors Nour Al Sherif and Souad Hosni star in this film depicting the unstable social and political life in Egypt during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film revolved around a group of university ...
Style: iconic
Plot: politics, torture, group, interrogation, prison, police, police brutality, accusation, communism, youth
Place: egypt
⇓ similarity ⇓
53%
 6.3
 140
Amnesia (1994)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 90 min.
Story: Dreaming of a better life, a young woman leaves her country home and moves to the city where she only finds trouble.
Plot: sergeant, captain, fish, pregnancy, concentration camp, conscience, wedding anniversary, desert, memory, execution, political prisoner, amnesia ...
Place: chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
52%
Imagen latente (1987)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 92 min.
Story: Directed by Pablo Perelman.
Plot: photograph, photographer, electric torture, missing brother, uncertainty, military dictatorship, dictatorship, brother, history of chile, haunted by the past, insecurity, confusion ...
Time: 80s
Place: santiago chile, chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
48%
 6.2
 65
K (2015)
Genre: Drama
Country: Hong Kong, China
Duration: 88 min.
Story: A mongolian interpretation of Kafka's "The Castle".
Style: thrilling, captivating
Plot: village, countryside, village life, castle, mongol
⇓ similarity ⇓
48%
The Year of the Tiger (2011)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 82 min.
Story: A prison inmate escapes from his wrecked penitentiary during Chile's February 2010 earthquake.
Style: tense, psychological, suspenseful, disturbing, suspense
Plot: prison, escape, violence, brutality, prison escape, free will, devastation, freedom, tsunami, escaped prisoner, convict, crash ...
Time: year 2010
Place: chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
46%
Valparaiso My Love (1969)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 90 min.
Story: A poor Valparaiso family faces a tough life after the father is sent to prison.
Style: freeze frame, slang
Plot: youth, childhood, mother, cinema, death of brother, father daughter relationship, father son relationship, brother brother relationship, bus, singing, mother daughter relationship, prison ...
Place: chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
46%
Night Over Chile (1977)
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min.
Story: A Soviet docudrama chronicling the events surrounding the military coup which toppled the leftists Chilean government of Salvador Allende. This film confines its efforts to the main events themselves and is based on interviews with eyewitnesses, ...
Plot: military coup, dictatorship, dictator, capitalism, coup d'etat, operation condor, history of chile, soviet
Time: 70s, year 1973
Place: soviet union, chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
44%
Professor Taranne (1987)
Genre: Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 52 min.
Story: Professor Taranne, a conceited university Professor, is subject to several absurd and disquieting incidents from the world surrounding him. He is being accused of things he couldn't have been doing. He starts doubting himself - a self that ...
Plot: experimental narrative, lecturer, university professor, plagiarism, accusation, professor, absurdism, university student, world
Place: belgium
⇓ similarity ⇓
44%
Women in Chains (1972)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 74 min.
Story: 1972 ABC Movie of the Week. Lady parole officer goes undercover to investigate prison brutality, but is trapped when the only person on the outside who knows why she's there is killed.
Style: psychotronic
Plot: prison, women's prison, undercover, parole officer, women in prison
⇓ similarity ⇓
42%
Movie in collections
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The Heist (1976)
Genre: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 83 min.
Story: In Mexico City's infamous Lecumberri prison, three drug-addicted convicts celebrate getting drugs from one of their the mothers. They are found out and locked up in the "apando," the dreaded punishment cell. Protests over the ...
Plot: prison, robbery, culture, protest, drug, female pubic hair, skinny dipping, female nudity, nudity, lesbianism, lesbian, brutality ...
Time: year 1976
⇓ similarity ⇓
42%
Fiesta Patria (2008)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 100 min.
Story: As two families celebrate the engagement of their children, one of the lovers unearths a family secret.
Style: serious, touching, sincere, realistic, captivating
Plot: family secret, family relations, family gatherings, dysfunctional family, fiancee, military, family reunited, engagement, dictator, dictatorship, country, sex ...
Place: chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
41%
 6.7
 2K
Chile '76 (2022)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile, Argentina, Qatar
Duration: 95 min.
Story: Chile, 1976. Carmen heads off to her beach house. When the family priest asks her to take care of a young man he is sheltering in secret, Carmen steps onto unexplored territories, away from the quiet life she is used to.
Style: thrilling, captivating, psychological
Plot: family relations, problem, lifestyle change, changing lives, family problems, child custody, priest, dictatorship, little girl, bus, domestic servant, home renovation ...
Time: year 1976, 70s
Place: chile, pacific ocean
⇓ similarity ⇓
40%
Manners of Dying (2004)
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 104 min.
Story: Kevin Barlow (Roy Dupuis) will die on schedule and according to regulations. Harry Parlington (Serge Houde), director of the Cantos execution facility, intends to make sure of it. However Barlow chooses to go, be it calmly or fighting to the end, ...
Plot: prison, death row, multiple storylines, battle of wits, death penalty, execution
⇓ similarity ⇓
38%
Class Relations (1984)
Genre: Drama
Country: West Germany, France
Duration: 126 min.
Story: A young man (Christian Heinisch), recently arrived in New York from Europe, becomes swept up in a series of events that are beyond his knowledge or control.
Style: political, contemplative, masterpiece
Plot: alienation, ship, communism, class struggle, labor, train, woman, family relations, young
Time: year 1984
Place: usa, new york
⇓ similarity ⇓
38%
Movie in collections
 6.7
 1K
Healing (2014)
Genre: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 112 min.
Story: Viktor Kahdem is a man who has almost given up on life, sentenced to a low-security prison farm, a completely non-threatening environment where it is still felt that some individuals can be reformed. At Won Wron, Case Worker Matt Perry has ...
Style: independent film, spiritual
Plot: prison, eagle, owl, prison guard, shame, prison visit, criminal, hopes, bird, rebirth, prisoner, philosophical conversation ...
Place: australia
⇓ similarity ⇓
36%
Women of San Quentin (1983)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min.
Story: A young female prison guard finds out that her first assignment is to San Quentin, one of the toughest prisons in the country.
Style: realistic, serious, rough, bleak
Plot: prison, power relations, battle of the sexes, confined, gender, chaos and mayhem, prison life, female warden, women's prison, prisoner
Time: 80s
⇓ similarity ⇓
35%
La Telenovela Errante (2017)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Chile
Duration: 80 min.
Story: The film revolves around the concept of soap opera. Its structure is based on the assumption that Chilean reality does not exist, but rather is an ensemble of soap operas. There are four audiovisual provinces, and the threat of war is felt among the ...
Style: soap opera, satirical, psychological, captivating, thrilling ...
Plot: social issues, lifestyle, political unrest, social problems, satire, oneiric
Time: year 1990
Place: chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
35%
 5.4
 24
Antonia (2001)
Genre: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 100 min.
Story: Antonia, a young, beautiful, intelligent and successful executive, is in deep depression, she's dealing with an unwanted pregnancy from his previous relationship with his partner Sebastian, a young and dreamer, renowned photographer, who will ...
Plot: unwanted pregnancy, depressed woman
Place: santiago chile, chile
⇓ similarity ⇓
35%
 6.4
 293
Happy Day (1976)
Genre: Drama
Country: Greece
Duration: 100 min.
Story: A concentration camp on a barren island is hell for the exiled prisoners. The everyday life of the people who live there consists of interrogations, psychological and physical violence, arbitrary punishments and other torments. One of the prisoners ...
Style: absurd, allegory
Plot: torture, prison, politics, island, greek civil war, satire, insanity, death, military, violence, surrealism, brainwashing ...
Place: greece
⇓ similarity ⇓
35%
Garage Olimpo (1999)
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy, Argentina, France
Duration: 98 min.
Story: A beautiful Argentine activist receives preferential treatment from a man supposed to torture her.
Style: political, mindfuck, thought provoking, psychological, serious ...
Plot: military dictatorship, torture, capitalism, dictatorship, kidnapping, dictator, politics, american imperialism, death penalty, coup, political intrigue, state terrorism ...
Time: 70s
Place: argentina, latin america, buenos aires argentina
⇓ similarity ⇓
34%
 6.5
 454
Noura's Dream (2019)
Genre: Drama
Country: Tunisia, Belgium, France, Qatar, Netherlands
Duration: 92 min.
Story: With her abusive husband in jail and a coveted divorce pending, hardworking Noura can almost grasp a happy, new life with lover Lassaad — but when the best-laid plans are upended, Noura must tap her unshakable will to fulfill her dream.
Plot: prison, prison visit, hospital, male rape, police, adultery, interrogation, assault, children, single mother, labor, divorce ...
Place: tunisia, north africa
⇓ similarity ⇓
33%
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