AbsentMovies like Absent
- Key Features:
- Sexual obsession, Psychological thriller, Hitchcockian, Infatuation, Teacher-student relationship, Intrusion, Secrets, Manipulation, Small town setting
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Thriller enthusiasts, Psychological drama fans, Independent film viewers, Suspense seekers
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Anxiety → Dread
Absent

Sebastiano teaches high school gym classes and coaches swimming. He’s got a job, a girlfriend, and a pretty normal life. But as young Martin starts to infiltrate Sebastiano’s life, his world will get turned upside down. Eerie from the first frame, this Hitchcockian thriller portrays sexual obsession with terrifying realism.
Absent
A newly appointed teacher finds herself being followed, and soon discovers that one of her own students is obsessed with her.

Pierre Hoffman joins a prestigious school as a substitute teacher and soon notices, among some of his students, an unjustified hostility and a spark of violence in their eyes. Is it because the unspeakable tragedy they have just experienced? Is it because they seem to be extraordinarily gifted children? Is it because they have lost all hope for the future? From curiosity to obsession, Pierre will try to unlock their secret.

A gym teacher and his female student look for her missing friend. But as they investigate, they find that her disappearance is a part of a larger conspiracy.

A Spanish orchestra conductor deals with the mysterious disappearance of his girlfriend.

Three middle school parents are summoned by the principal after their children are implicated in a serious incident. In the gym, transformed into an impromptu courtroom, they wage a fierce battle of denials and obfuscations to suppress the truth.

Diana Watts, a high school teacher in Austin, Texas, is in the midst of an affair with one of her students, Eric Tull. As the reality of their situation forces itself upon them, Diana puts the relationship on hold. It’s only a matter of time before she gives in again to her desire; this time even more recklessly than before.

When a high school senior discovers her teacher is seducing her boyfriend, events turn deadly after the teacher tries to cover it up.

A woman’s body disappears mysteriously from the morgue without a trace. Police inspector Jaime Peña investigates the strange occurrence with the help of Álex Ulloa, the widower of the missing woman.

Riley is struggling to make friends after transferring to a new high school where her father, Chris, is an English teacher. When she meets Kyla, they quickly becomes close friends. However, the friendship takes a strange turn when Riley learns that Kyla is obsessed with her dad. Will Kyla successfully seduce Chris and start a twisted new life with him by removing everyone in her path, or will Riley be able to save her father from Kyla’s treacherous plot before it’s too late?

A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.

Ben Cronin has it all: the admiration of his many friends, a terrific girlfriend, and he's on the fast-track to an athletic scholarship. Ben's rock-solid, promising future and romance are turned upside-down with the arrival of Madison Bell. Madison, the new girl in town, quickly sets her sights on the impressionable Ben. While their first few meetings are innocent enough, the obsessive and seductive Madison wants more ... much more.

A university professor, who wants to slow down a little, moves with his wife and daughter, from the big city to a small town and starts a new job as a teacher in a girls' gymnasium. Something weird is happening with the class, they seem to hide a secret. As it turns out, these girls don't play with dolls...

A spoiled, selfish teenager becomes infatuated with her teacher. She befriends his daughter as a way of worming her way into the family, and sets about manipulating every aspect of his life.

Denmark, 2014. A former police officer asks Carl Mørck, head of Department Q, to find out who brutally killed his young twins in 1994. Although a local inhabitant confessed and was convicted of murder, Carl and his partner Assad soon realize that there is something in the case resolution that is terribly wrong.

Ten years have gone by since Elena's six-year old son has disappeared. The last thing she heard of him was a phone call he gave her, saying that he was lost on a beach in France and couldn't find his father. Nowadays, Elena lives on this same beach and manages a restaurant. She is finally beginning to emerge from this tragic episode when she meets a French teenager who strongly reminds her of her lost son. The two of them will embark on a relationship which will sow chaos and distrust around them.

Lucio and Martina used to share an indescribable chemistry during their highschool years, however, they took separate ways. 25 years later they meet again, but this time they decide to invent an ideal life in order to hide themselves from an inevitable truth: they were really waiting for each other in all of these years.

An Italian high school student becomes infatuated with a woman he sees outside his class window. Her fiancée is in jail for being involved in a radical movement, and she spends much time in court providing moral support. At first she resists the student's advances, but eventually begins an affair with him. Their situation is condemned by her family and his father, who is the woman's psychologist.

A sixteen-year-old boy insinuates himself into the house of a fellow student from his literature class and writes about it in essays for his French teacher. Faced with this gifted and unusual pupil, the teacher rediscovers his enthusiasm for his work, but the boy’s intrusion will unleash a series of uncontrollable events.

A policewoman whose childhood friend disappeared in Patagonia years ago starts a new search to find answers, and soon finds her own life in danger.

Pietro is a revered teacher, Teresa his brilliant and precocious student. Their affair is both illicit and tempestuous. After one fight, Teresa suggests that each tell the other a secret, one so shameful or shocking that were it to be made public, it would destroy that person’s life. Time passes, Pietro’s stature as a writer grows and his family settles into the comfort of a bourgeois life. But he is haunted by the possibility that Teresa may one day reappear and tear apart his world with the secret she knows.

Laura is a successful plastic surgeon who feels her life is somewhat empty. She meets a young nurse and falls in love and experiences sexuality to a extent not known to her. However, this spiral of desire and seduction is a dangerous game where no one is who they appear to be.

Abraham and his female friend Álex have a close relationship; they share both secrets and fears. When Abraham starts going out with Anchi, he begins to distance himself from Álex, who gradually dives into a living hell where she encounters strange apparitions, nightmarish visions and extreme situations.

Traveling on a ferry heading to the island of Hierro where they will spend their holidays, Mary loses her son Diego, and no one can explain what happened. Six months later, Maria struggles to overcome the pain of loss and continue his life. Then, you receive an unexpected phone call: they found the body of a child, so it must return to the island. There, in the suggestive and disturbing landscape, surrounded by disturbing and sinister characters, Mary is forced to confront their worst nightmares. And as he travels this road, he discovers that some mysteries should not be disclosed ...

The arrival of an attractive young teacher in a small town in the Po valley disturbs the drowsy life of the place, leading eventually to a murder.

An unemployed executive is forced to sell his apartment. When he discovers that he still has the keys, he becomes obsessed with the family that now lives there and decides to recover the life he has lost, at any price.

After getting into a minor traffic accident, Pablo attempts to make light of the situation by asking the driver of the other car, Sonsoles, out on a date. When she refuses and instead files an injury report, Pablo snaps and begins stalking her. He soon discovers that Sonsoles has a beautiful teenage sister, Maria, with whom Pablo is immediately infatuated -- a lust that soon turns dark. Can Pablo control his obsession, or will it consume him?

Paulina is a young lawyer with a promising career in Buenos Aires, who chooses to go back to her home town. Her father, Fernando, is a well known judge. Against his will, Paulina decides to teach in a suburban high school as part of an inclusion program. One night, after the second week working there, she's brutally assaulted by a gang. With the disapproval of the people around her, she decides to go back to work, in the neighborhood where she was attacked, without realizing that her attackers may be even closer than she thought.

Carpenter Sergio runs away and hides in a closet after his boss fired him. When the closet arrives at its buyer's house, he decides to stay there, hiding in his new home living with an unknown family.

Deep within Buenos Aires's labyrinthine subway system, a train mysteriously disappears along with its 30 passengers. The subway officials are greatly troubled and call in topographer Daniel Pratt to help them find it. Unfortunately, the tunnels are so vast and complex, that Pratt needs his mentor Hugo Mistein to help him. Unfortunately, he has vanished too.

6th Grade gets a new substitute teacher. She wants to train the class for an international competition in Paris. But something isn't right. How is she able read kids' minds? Why is she so mean? And how does she manage to convince everyone's parents she is so great when the whole class knows she is really an alien?

Igor is a plumber; Pina serves coffee. It is winter and they both deeply desire each other, but they are not free. In trying to figure out how to realize their love, she decides to make a lion costume for her little son and he decides to buy a photocopying machine for his wife. Spring will come at last and with it the consummation of love, filling their lives with hope and sex.

Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sebastián, a successful lawyer, leaves his ex-wife's condo, located on the seventh floor of an apartment building, to take his two children to school. While they run down the stairs, he uses the elevator. Once on the ground floor, Sebastián awaits the arrival of the children.

A nerdy film student and lifelong voyeur begins to believe that two lovely young strangers may have conspired to commit a brutal murder.

Medical student Paula wins a place at an exclusive Heidelberg medical school. When the body of a young man she met on the train turns up on her dissection table, she begins to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death.

Eccentric and full of manias, Michele is a young high school professor who defines himself as “not used to happiness”. He realizes his life is meaningless if he doesn’t have a woman by his side but, after a series of rather disastrous experiences, he feels more alone than ever. Then, out of the blue, a new French teacher called Bianca arrives at school. Amongst uncertainties and contradictions, the two start dating. In the meantime, a series of homicides take place and a police officer begins to suspect that Michele is involved. Bianca will save him providing an alibi at the right moment, but then, everything goes wrong again.

When her mother is killed in a mysterious house fire, rebellious teen Debbie Strand is sent to live with her grandmother, where she becomes even more unhinged. She develops an intense crush on her hunky creative writing teacher, Peter Rinaldi, but her numerous attempts at seduction end in failure. Soon Peter's friends start turning up dead, and he fears that his fiancée, Marilyn, may be Debbie's next victim.

Santi, a young high-school student with a serious physical reaction to sunlight, is forced by his health to move with his single mother to a shadowy, isolated village in the mountains of Spain where the inhabitants begin to reveal themselves as strangely xenophobic. When terrible, violent events begin to occur, Santi becomes first a pariah at school and then strongly suspected by the police of hideous murders. Santi himself, however, wonders if he is not the next victim.

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.

Amanda, 24, lives mostly isolated and has never had any friends, even if it's the thing she wants the most. Amanda chooses her new mission as to convince her childhood friend to believe that they are still best friends.

A woman has a crush with a coworker and makes a ritual to make him fall in love with her, but things got a little out of hand when she messes with forces no one can control.

Hoping to put to rest years of unease concerning a past case, retired criminal investigator Benjamín begins writing a novel based on the unsolved mystery of a newlywed’s rape and murder. With the help of a former colleague, judge Irene, he attempts to make sense of the past.

Two men commit a robbery. One is caught but the other escapes. He ends his escape on a lonely and deserted beach where he meets a beautiful woman named Erótica. They start a passionate love affair that is interrupted when the other con man escapes from prison and joins them. A sexual/sentimental love triangle begins leading to a violent confrontation between the two men.

Alejandro, a freshman, and Sofia, who’s doing her thesis, meet in college. They build an asymmetrical relationship: he’s in love while she just wants to see her sexual desires fulfilled.

When her son's alleged kidnapper is released for lack of solid evidence, a reputable and well-known attorney takes matters into her own hands with unintended and spectacularly disastrous consequences.

A mother's worst nightmare comes true when her teenage daughter goes missing.

Fernando is on holiday with his closest male friends in a beautiful country house in a suburb of Buenos Aires. On their own without their girlfriends in a “men only” environment, the hunky young studs bask in the hot sun, play in the pool, smoke pot, and drink, most often semi-clad or naked. In this freewheeling and testosterone-infused environment, they talk of their desires and strengthen their individual bonds.

Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters from the abductor.

Police officer Pipa works on her first big case while simultaneously investigating her boss, who is suspected of murder. The prequel to "Perdida".

The principal of an elementary school calls a special parents meeting after it’s alleged that the seemingly empathetic and kindly-looking teacher Mrs. Drazděchová uses her students to manipulate their parents.

A seasoned actor and a pop star are cast as leads in a gay romantic play. As the actor teaches the pop star method acting, the line between fiction and reality is blurred and they become drawn to each other.

There's a new girl in school, Angela, the Headmaster's neice. Every male will try to seduce her, even her uncle. Meanwhile she will drive the philosophy's teacher mad and her best friend Irma will have a good time with the classmates. Will they get the grades?

Rubens is a carefree, charismatic swimming instructor who finds himself accused of displaying inappropriate affection toward one of his students by the boy's mother. Other parents and colleagues are only too eager to condemn him.

After being released from a mental asylum, a disfigured man becomes obsessed with a student at his sister’s boarding school while grappling with his dark past.

Rich entrepreneur Rebecca Zuin has died from an alleged heart attack, raising suspicions on the part of a police inspector after her body disappears from the morgue. When her handsome young husband becomes a suspect, he starts thinking she may have faked her death to sadistically torment him.

A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo -- his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle's corpse mysteriously disappears.

A female Psychologist who has stopped practicing medicine, decides to take the case of Veronica de la Serna, a young woman whose previous therapist has mysteriously disappeared.

Years after moving to a remote town, ex-cop Pipa is pulled back into the dark world she thought she'd left behind when a corpse appears on her property.

A police inspector suspects a serial killer is afoot in the university city of Bologna, luring in his victims through online video chats before murdering them and assuming their identity.

Holly & Nathan Teller live in a small town in Pennsylvania. Holly is on the cheerleading team and has a close relationship with her younger brother Nathan, who is subjected to bullying at school. Nathan is taken for a car ride one day by the bullies, whose intent about what they are going to do with Nathan is not clear. He gives them the slip, but disappears and is still missing after three years.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1950. In the conservative home of the Gusmão family, Eurídice and Guida are two inseparable sisters who support each other. While Guida can share with her younger sister the details of her romantic adventures, Eurídice finds in her older sister the encouragement she needs to pursue her dream of becoming a professional pianist.

A girl who lost her father to a serial killer, a detective and a killer are intertwined in a chaotic relationship and are met with an unprecedented series of events.

Lucía and Ofelia, two sisters, finally meet after 7 years of cold relationships upon Lucia 's wedding. But when Juan, Lucia's husband, and Ofelia meet, they feel like a disruptive fantasy have enchanted their minds and bodies...

A teacher, driven to exasperation from insults and insubordination, takes her class hostage.

A writer secludes himself in the mountains and falls in lust with local Berta. After realizing the oddities of the rural community the author starts to question the lines between reality and fiction.

Martin Durnley is a young man with an infantilizing mother, resentful stepfather and an institutionalized brother with Down's syndrome. To cope, he retreats into an alternate child personality he calls Georgie. After being caught during a theft attempt at a department store, he befriends a female customer who is sympathetic to him, but his friendship soon turns into obsession.

Marc, in his 40s, is a professor of literature at the University of Lausanne. Still a bachelor — and still living with his sister Marianne in a huge, isolated chalet that they inherited when they were very young — he carries on one love affair after another with his students. Winter has almost ended when one of his most brilliant students, Barbara, suddenly disappears. Two days later, Marc meets Barbara’s mother, Anna, who wants to find out more about her vanished daughter.

Anthropology professor Michal develops two overwhelming obsessions. The first one is a mummified, 3,000 year-old, perfectly preserved body of a shaman he and his colleagues have recently dragged out of a swamp. The second is an enigmatic student he meets by chance at a railway station.

A disenfranchised 16-year-old girl connects to an older man on the internet and after a brief one-sided affair descends into obsession and anorexia.

An examination on the effect of Franco-era religious schooling and sexual abuse on the lives of two longtime friends.

Ezequiel, a sixteen-year-old gay teenager in his sexual awakening, meets a boy of twenty-one. They quickly start a relationship and the situation unravels unexpectedly.

A teenager who went missing and was presumed dead returns home after eight years to find a family deeply affected by his disappearance. Gradually, doubts arise about whether he really is the missing boy or an impostor.

The dark secrets of a seemingly peaceful island threaten to swallow up an orphaned student when he grows close to a mysterious new teacher.

A small town in an Argentinian province, 1975. The life of Claudio, a successful lawyer, gets complicated when he has a stupid quarrel with a stranger in a crowded restaurant.

Elementary school teacher Michele Cortese is about to start a whole new life. After 40 years of teaching in the metropolitan Roman jungle, he had to move to a village in Central Italy, to teach in a tiny school with just a few children aged 7-10. Struggling to overcome his urban inadequacy, he finds a friendly face in vice-principal Agnese and gradually manages to fit in, thanks to her and their spirited pupils. As everything seems to be falling into place, unwelcome news comes through: the school has failed to meet its student quota for the next year and will soon be shut for good.

A bullied overweight teenager sees a glimpse of hope when her tormentors are brutally abducted by a mesmerizing stranger.

In the 1960s, two classmates go looking for their missing friends and teachers, all of whom took part in an illegal book club, only to come face to face with ghosts and deformed monsters that have taken over their school.

Irene Wagner, the wife of the prominent German scientist Professor Albert Wagner, had been having an affair with Erich Baumann. She does not disclose this to her husband, hoping to preserve his innocence and their "perfect marriage". This fills her with anxiety and guilt. However, Johanna Schultze, Erich's jealous ex-girlfriend, learns about the affair and begins to blackmail Irene, turning Irene's psychological torture into a harsh reality.

A precocious and obsessive teenager develops a crush on a naive writer with harrowing consequences.

A conflicted youth confesses to crimes he didn't commit while a man and woman aroused by death become obsessed with each other.

Art professor Nino Rolfe attempts to break down his wife Teresa's conventional modesty. Noticing her affection for their daughter's fiancé, Nino instigates her sexual interest in him - setting off a chain of unexpected events and emotional complications...

After Chilean writer María Carolina Geel murders her lover, the case captivates shy legal secretary Mercedes, sparking a connection between the two women.

After an attack leaves him in limbo -- invisible to the living and also near death -- a teenager discovers the only person who might be able help him is his attacker.

Jérémie returns to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. He decides to stay for a few days with Martine, the man's widow. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbor and a priest with strange intentions make Jérémie's short stay in the village take an unexpected turn.

A man bumps into an old crush and becomes obsessed. After several failed attempts at winning her over, he kidnaps her and holds her captive underneath the animal shelter where he works.

Joan is a naïve, 16-year-old who falls in love easily. One day he decides to escape to the provinces with Luciana, a beautiful 35-year-old woman and a teacher at his school, in order to give free rein to his love. Soon, Joan discovers with horror that he has fallen into a trap that is a mix between sex, money, politics and violence.

When two girls go missing, Paul Chartier, an impulsive young police recruit, is assigned to “Maldoror”. This secret unit has been set up to monitor a dangerous sex offender. When the operation fails, fed up with the limits of the legal system, Chartier embarks on a solitary hunt to bring down the culprits.

An outwardly normal schoolteacher preys on suicidal women to slake his overwhelming thirst for human blood.

Barcelona, Spain. Adrián Doria, a young and successful businessman accused of murder, meets one night with Virginia Goodman, an expert interrogation lawyer, in order to devise a defense strategy.

A college professor wakes up to find his wife has not returned home, then struggles to understand her disappearance.

When a teenager suddenly disappears without a trace, the case is assigned to an alcoholic police officer who maintains a complicated relationship with his own troubled teenage son, suspected of drug trafficking.

13-year-old Sinikka vanishes on a hot summer night. Her bicycle is found in the exact place where a girl was killed 23 years ago. The dramatic present forces those involved in the original case to face their past.

Nicole Walker always dreamed of being swept away by someone special — someone strong, sexy and sensitive who would care for her more than anything else in the world. David is all that and more: a modern-day knight who charms and seduces her, body and soul. But her perfect boyfriend is not all he seems to be. His sweet facade masks a savage, dark side that will soon transform Nicole's dream into a nightmare.

While doing a thesis about violence, Ángela finds a snuff video where a girl is tortured to death. Soon she discovers that the girl was a former student at her college...

A group of college students, led by Claudia, decide to investigate a local tower that has figured prominently in disturbing reoccurring dreams Claudia has been having. They are suspended from school for their antics, but Claudia learns from one of the female staff members that the person in the dream is a student who killed herself years before and that the headmistress has seen her ghost.

Billy, once the coolest kid in high school, comes back to his hometown 15 years later to find he’s no longer cool and the girl he still has feelings for now dates the former class outcast. Billy becomes obsessed with proving the outcast is a murderer.

When Alena arrives at her new elite boarding school, Filippa and the other girls start to harass her. But Alena’s best friend Josefin won’t let her take anymore beating. If she won’t strike back, Josefin will do it for her. Hard.

Peppino, a diminutive taxidermist with a reputation for sleaziness, meets Valerio, a handsome if artless much younger man fascinated by the trade. Peppino offers him a large salary to come work as his assistant, with the job burgeoning into a budding friendship he mistakes for something more. When Valerio finds a girlfriend, their fledgling romance will be threatened by an insanely jealous third wheel.

