Psychological manipulation movies and TV shows – page 4

List of psychological manipulation movies

Type:
Year:
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The Night Porter (1974)
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 118 min.
Story: In this unsettling drama from Italian filmmaker Liliana Cavani, a concentration camp survivor discovers her former torturer and lover working as a porter at a hotel in postwar Vienna. When the couple attempt to re-create their sadomasochistic ...
Style: psychological, serious, controversial, disturbing, art house ...
Audience: adult
Plot: world war two, hotel, sadomasochism, nazi, eroticism, guilt, dangerous attraction, bdsm, haunted by the past, sexual perversion, holocaust, sexual abuse ...
Time: 1950s, 50s, 1940s, post world war two, 20th century ...
Place: hungary, germany, vienna, italy, frankfurt germany ...
Is relevant ?
 7.0
 15K
Deathtrap (1982)
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 116 min.
Story: A Broadway playwright puts murder in his plan to take credit for a student's script.
Style: psychological, dark comedy, surprise ending, witty, semi serious ...
Plot: murder, writers, gay, twists and turns, whodunit, murder mystery, scared to death, sociopathy, manuscript, mind game, stage play, sociopath ...
Time: year 1982, 20th century, 80s
Place: long island, new york state, new york, usa
Is relevant ?
 6.1
 2K
The Caller (1987)
Genre: Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min.
Story: A mysterious man (Malcolm McDowell) comes to meet a woman living in a house in the woods. Who are they and why are their lives meant to cross? What kind of fate is in store for them?
Style: minimal cast, surprise ending, psychological thriller, cult classic, psychological horror ...
Plot: manipulation, woods, stranger, thoughtful, occult, terror, psychological manipulation, claustrophobia, phone terror, mind game, isolation, profanity ...
Time: year 1987, 80s, 20th century
Is relevant ?
The Local Stigmatic (1990)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 56 min.
Story: Two symbiotic sociopaths play obscurely deviant mind games with each other while engaging in perversely brutal acts of violence against victims apparently chosen at random
Plot: violence, pub, psychological manipulation, all male cast, manipulation, nihilism, manhood, perversity, game, prank telephone call, fame, mind game ...
Is relevant ?
 7.8
 234K
Misery (1990)
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min.
Story: Novelist Paul Sheldon crashes his car on a snowy Colorado road. He is found by Annie Wilkes, the "number one fan" of Paul's heroine Misery Chastaine. Annie is also somewhat unstable, and Paul finds himself crippled, drugged and at her ...
Style: psychological, disturbing, suspenseful, scary, psychological thriller ...
Audience: girls' night, adult
Plot: insanity, obsession, psychopath, hostage, stephen king, loneliness, snow, kidnapping, isolation, torture, writers, obsessed fan ...
Time: 90s, 20th century, year 1990, 80s
Place: colorado, persia, usa
Is relevant ?
Afraid of the Dark (1991)
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK, France
Duration: 91 min.
Story: A little boy, obsessed with blindness and violence, slowly gets trapped in his own delusions.
Style: independent film, cult classic, serious, psychological, realistic ...
Plot: coming of age, blind woman, evil child, youth, voyeur, blindness, voyeurism, wedding, macabre, bad kids, psychological manipulation, surrealism ...
Time: year 1991, 90s
Place: london, england, europe
Is relevant ?
Death and the Maiden (1994)
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK, France
Duration: 103 min.
Story: A political activist is convinced that her guest is a man who once tortured her for the government.
Style: psychological, suspense, minimal cast, sexy, disturbing ...
Plot: revenge, torture, politics, doctor, rape, lawyer, dictatorship, justice, brutality, storytelling, haunted by the past, attempted murder ...
Time: year 1994, 90s, 20th century
Place: latin america, chile, eastern europe, south america, barcelona
Is relevant ?
 5.1
 464
Playmaker (1994)
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 91 min.
Story: A would-be actress uncovers horrifying files on other starlets.
Style: psychological, serious, suspenseful, suspense, independent film ...
Plot: manipulation, power relations, mentally unstable, rivalry, murder, actress, twists and turns, mentor, love affair, danger, psychological manipulation, faked death ...
Time: 90s
Place: los angeles
Is relevant ?
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA, Germany
Duration: 106 min.
Story: Held in an L.A. interrogation room, Verbal Kint attempts to convince the feds that a mythic crime lord, Keyser Soze, not only exists, but was also responsible for drawing him and his four partners into a multi-million dollar heist that ended with an ...
Style: neo noir, surprise ending, twist ending, clever, confusing ...
Audience: boys' night, adult
Plot: twists and turns, plot twist, heist, master criminal, organized crime, criminal, manipulation, gangster, great ending, interrogation, murder mystery, whodunit ...
Time: 20th century, year 1995, 80s, 90s, year 1981
Place: new york, los angeles, hungary, turkey, north america ...
Is relevant ?
 6.9
 98K
Secretary (2002)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min.
Story: A young woman, recently released from a mental hospital, gets a job as a secretary to a demanding lawyer, where their employer-employee relationship turns into a sexual, sadomasochistic one.
Style: sexy, erotic, sexual, psychological, realistic ...
Audience: chick flick, adult
Plot: bdsm, sex scene, obsession, secretary, fetish, workplace romance, sexual perversion, sex in office, submissive woman, desire, sexual relations, coitus ...
Time: year 2002, 2000s, 21st century
Place: los angeles, usa
Is relevant ?
 7.2
 21K
Tape (2001)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min.
Story: A three-character ensemble piece set within the confines of a tawdry motor lodge in Lansing, Michigan. After 10 years apart, three disparate people come together to play out the unresolved drama of their final days in high school. Intrigued, we ...
Style: psychological, tense, minimal cast, independent film, cerebral ...
Audience: teens
Plot: obsession, high school, manipulation, friends, childhood sweetheart, guilt, drug, blackmail, criminal, love triangle, rape, confession ...
Time: year 2001, 21st century
Place: michigan, oakland california
Is relevant ?
 6.7
 11K
Faults (2014)
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min.
Story: Claire is under the grip of a mysterious new cult called Faults. Desperate to be reunited with their daughter, Claire's parents recruit one of the world's foremost experts on mind control, Ansel Roth.
Style: psychological, tense, disturbing, surreal, cerebral ...
Plot: kidnapping, mind control, brainwashing, redemption, religions or cults, cult leader, manipulation, life is a bitch, parents and children, sexual innuendo, death, depression ...
Time: 21st century
Place: usa
Is relevant ?
 5.4
 15K
Emelie (2015)
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 82 min.
Story: After their regular babysitter Maggie can’t make it, the Thompson family turns to her friend Anna to supervise their children while the parents go out to celebrate their anniversary. At first Anna seems like a dream come true to the kids, allowing ...
Style: suspense, tense, psychological, captivating, disturbing ...
Audience: date night
Plot: babysitter, babysitting, kidnapping, family in danger, female psychopath, fake identity, husband wife relationship, family home, trophy, incest, children, trapped ...
Time: 21st century
Place: usa
Is relevant ?
 6.4
 1K
Faultless (2016)
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: France
Duration: 103 min.
Story: Constance, a 40-years-old real estate agent, gets fired from her job. With no options left, she contacts her former boss, from the small agency where she started her career. To her surprise, he is hiring, but explains he may have already found ...
Style: serious, weird
Plot: mental disorder, psychological manipulation, manipulation, femme fatale, real estate agent, nudity, harassment, villain as protagonist, murderer, villainess, restaurant, stalker ...
Time: year 2016, 2010s
Place: france
Is relevant ?
 5.0
 6K
Rebirth (2016)
Genre: Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min.
Story: A man's life is turned inside out after a visit from his college friend leads him into the unexpected.
Style: melancholic, bleak, psychological, psychological thriller, intellectual ...
Plot: manipulation, brainwashing, mind control, group therapy, blackmail, violence, confusion, seduction, brutality, fear, survival, woman seduces a man ...
Is relevant ?
 6.6
 46K
Thoroughbreds (2017)
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min.
Story: Two teenage girls in suburban Connecticut rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of growing apart. In the process, they learn that neither is what she seems to be, and that a murder might solve both of their problems.
Style: suspense, psychological thriller, disturbing, suspenseful, post-horror ...
Audience: teens, kids, date night, adult, teen drama
Plot: mental illness, drug dealer, teenager, getting away with murder, nubile girl, female best friends, friendship, female protagonist, blackmail, framed for murder, suburbs, coming of age ...
Time: year 2017
Place: connecticut, boston
Is relevant ?
 5.2
 450
Maya Dardel (2017)
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland, USA
Duration: 104 min.
Story: An internationally respected poet announces she is going to kill herself and needs an heir and executor. Young writers drive up the mountain to compete for the position and are challenged intellectually, emotionally, and erotically.
Style: tense, psychological, captivating, suspense, disturbing
Plot: suicide, poet, seductress, loneliness, female writer, rivalry, writers, rivals, suicide threat, writer's life, relationships, couple relations ...
Is relevant ?
 6.5
 3K
School's Out (2018)
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: France
Duration: 104 min.
Story: Pierre Hoffman joins St Joseph’s College to stand in for a young French teacher who threw himself from the window of his classroom. But he soon starts noticing strange behaviour from his Year 10 class.
Style: suspense, ambiguous ending, avant garde, captivating, enigmatic ...
Plot: high school, substitute teacher, teenager, school trip, teen suicide, ambiguity, ecology, student, lgbt, danger, violence, surrealism ...
Time: 21st century
Is relevant ?
 6.6
 15K
Luce (2019)
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 109 min.
Story: A star athlete and top student, Luce's idealized image is challenged by one of his teachers when his unsettling views on political violence come to light, putting a strain on family bonds while igniting intense debates on race and identity.
Style: psychological, non-linear, suspense, thought provoking, cult classic ...
Audience: adult
Plot: social problems, track and field, cheerleader, african american, interracial, trust, mistrust, public speaking, drunkenness, drinking, independence day, doubt ...
Place: ohio, middle east
Is relevant ?
 6.4
 4K
Night Tide (1961)
Genre: Drama, Horror, Romance, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min.
Story: Writer/director Curtis Harrington does an admirable job working around the severe budget limitations of the 1961 psychological chiller Night Tide. Sailor Johnny (Dennis Hopper) falls in love with carnival-girl Mora (Linda Lawson), despite warnings ...
Style: surprise ending, suspense, atmospheric, classic horror, detective ...
Plot: mermaid, sailor, fortune teller, carnival, nightmare, sea, boyfriend girlfriend relationship, love, obsession, scuba diving, beach, tragedy ...
Time: year 1961
Place: los angeles
Is relevant ?
 6.6
 408
Consent (2023)
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 119 min.
Story: Vanessa Springora tells how she found herself under the influence of a famous writer. In 1986, she was 13; him, almost 50. She explains how she was the victim of a triple predation: sexual, literary and psychic. But beyond her individual story, she ...
Style: historical drama
Plot: older man younger woman sex, older man younger woman relationship, sexual predator, teenage love, reading someone else's diary, pedophilia, misogyny, single mother, mother daughter relationship, virginity, loss of virginity, teenage girl ...
Time: 80s, year 2013
Place: paris france
Is relevant ?
Strait-Jacket (1964)
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min.
Story: After a 20 year stay at an asylum for a double murder, a mother returns to her estranged daughter where suspicions arise about her behaviour.
Style: slasher, suspense, scary, psychological, grindhouse ...
Plot: serial killer, farm, psychiatrist, insanity, decapitation, mental breakdown, doctor, murder, mental illness, hagsploitation, mother daughter relationship, mother daughter estrangement ...
Time: 60s
Is relevant ?
Queen of Hearts (2019)
Genre: Drama
Country: Denmark, Sweden
Duration: 127 min.
Story: Anne, a brilliant and dedicated advocacy lawyer specialising in society’s most vulnerable, children and young adults, lives what appears to be the picture-perfect life with her doctor-husband, Peter, and their twin daughters. When her estranged ...
Style: thought provoking, sexy, emotional, melancholic, disturbing ...
Audience: chick flick, girls' night, adult
Plot: older woman younger man relationship, stepmother stepson relationship, incest, older woman younger man sex, older woman teenage boy relationship, sex with stepson, adultery, sex with stepmother, older woman teenage boy sex, cheating wife, sex with a minor, sexually dissatisfied wife ...
Time: 2010s, 21st century
Place: denmark
Is relevant ?
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 6.2
 911
Hotel Fear (1978)
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Thriller
Country: Italy, Spain
Duration: 92 min.
Story: A young girl and her mother run a hotel during the war. When the mother dies, the girl finds herself at the mercy of her sex-crazed guests. Soon enough, a cloaked figure starts killing off everyone that tries to harm her.
Style: gothic, controversial, disturbing, dark, grindhouse ...
Plot: sexual assault, rape and revenge, serial killer, world war two, murderer, female psychopath, folk horror, motel, maniac, abandoned house, cruelty, false confession ...
Time: 1940s, year 1945
Place: italy
Is relevant ?
Where's Poppa? (1970)
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 82 min.
Story: When New York attorney Gordon Hocheiser meets Louise Callan, the girl of his dreams, he schemes to eliminate his aging, senile mother, even though he promised his late father that he'd always take care of her. He fears that his batty mom's ...
Style: dark comedy, black comedy, funny, clever, humorous ...
Plot: oedipus complex, emotional blackmail, gang, court, humiliation, old woman, judge, nurse, dementia, love at first sight, brother brother relationship, lawyer ...
Time: 20th century, 60s
Place: new york, manhattan new york city, usa
Is relevant ?
Play Misty for Me (1971)
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min.
Story: A brief fling between a male disc jockey and an obsessed female fan takes a frightening, and perhaps even deadly turn when another woman enters the picture.
Style: psychological, suspenseful, creepy, suspense, neo noir ...
Plot: obsession, stalker, jazz, femme fatale, radio, insanity, murder, manipulation, stalking, unrequited love, psychotic woman, macabre ...
Time: 70s, 20th century
Place: california, san francisco, monterey california, usa, pacific ocean
Is relevant ?
Someone Behind the Door (1971)
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 97 min.
Story: A brain doctor (Anthony Perkins) with an unfaithful wife (Jill Ireland) brings home an amnesiac (Charles Bronson) and gets him to commit murder.
Style: slasher, serious, realistic, psychological, tense ...
Plot: amnesia, vengeance, infidelity, affair, manipulation, rivalry, murder, memory loss, doctor patient relationship, psychological manipulation, doctor, mental patient ...
Time: year 1971, 70s
Is relevant ?
Little Sister (1995)
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 91 min.
Story: After several years without contact, Martijn visits his sister Daantje, who just started to live on her own in Amsterdam. He tells her he is going to make a documentary from her life, and enters her home life with a video camera.
Style: erotic, sexual, realistic, semi serious, humorous ...
Plot: incest, found footage, sex with brother, brother sister sex, sex with sister, forbidden sex, children, love and romance, sex scene, making love, erotica, family affairs ...
Time: 90s
Place: amsterdam
Is relevant ?
 7.5
 547K
Source Code (2011)
Genre: Action, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA, Canada, France, Germany
Duration: 93 min.
Story: Decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens wakes up in the body of an unknown man, discovering he's involved in a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. He learns he's part of a top-secret experimental program that enables ...
Style: surprise ending, suspense, clever, mind bending, thought provoking ...
Audience: boys' night, teens, chick flick
Plot: time loop, time travel, train, alternate reality, parallel universe, memory, twists and turns, save the day, destiny, changing the past or future, bomb, terrorism ...
Time: future, year 2011, 2010s, 21st century
Place: chicago, usa, somalia, afghanistan, illinois
Is relevant ?
 6.9
 276K
Non-Stop (2014)
Genre: Action, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK, France, USA, Canada
Duration: 106 min.
Story: Bill Marks is a burned-out veteran of the Air Marshals service. He views the assignment not as a life-saving duty, but as a desk job in the sky. However, today's flight will be no routine trip. Shortly into the transatlantic journey from New ...
Style: suspense, clever, detective, exciting, suspenseful ...
Audience: teens, family friendly, chick flick, boys' night
Plot: airplane, twists and turns, terrorism, hostage, air disaster, danger, terrorist, save the day, hijacking, investigation, mind game, heroes ...
Time: year 2014, 2010s, 21st century
Place: usa, new york, iceland
Is relevant ?
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