Beyond UtopiaMovies like Beyond Utopia
- Key Features:
- North Korea, Defection, Human rights, Underground, Escape, Refugees, Survival, Courage, Hope, Documentary, Social commentary
- Tone:
- serious, earnest, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Documentary viewers, Those interested in human rights issues, Viewers seeking stories of courage and resilience, Those interested in North Korea
- Emotional Arc:
- Anxiety → Fear → Hope
Beyond Utopia

A courageous pastor uses his underground network to rescue and aid North Korean families as they risk their lives to embrace freedom.
Beyond Utopia
A man is on his way home when the poorly constructed tunnel he is driving through collapses, leaving him trapped leaving himself for the unexpected whilst emergency services struggle to help.

After completing his required decade of military service and being honored as a hero, a North Korean sergeant makes a sudden shocking attempt to defect to the South, risking life and limb for the chance to finally determine his own destiny.

A poor North Korean fisherman finds himself an accidental defector, and is groomed to be a spy by an ambitious South Korean military officer.

After a massive earthquake, only one apartment building is left standing in Seoul, South Korea. Survivors flock to Hwang Gung Apartments, but residents cannot cope with the increasing numbers.

A real-life undercover thriller about two ordinary men who embark on an outrageously dangerous ten-year mission to penetrate the world's most secretive and brutal dictatorship: North Korea.

Over the course of one year, this film follows the life of an ordinary Pyongyang family whose daughter was chosen to take part in Day of the Shining Star (Kim Jong-il's birthday) celebration. While North Korean government wanted a propaganda film, the director kept on filming between the scripted scenes. The ritualized explosions of color and joy contrast sharply with pale everyday reality, which is not particularly terrible, but rather quite surreal.

After defecting from North Korea, Loh Kiwan struggles to obtain refugee status in Belgium, where he encounters a dejected woman who has lost all hope.

An old couple, their only son, the son's wife, a young man and his lover live peacefully in a village. Then, a terrifying earthquake strikes that causes a nearby nuclear station to explode. The residents must evacuate, but the family lives on a farm, with only half of the area designated as an evacuation area.

Diplomats from the North and South Korean embassies in Somalia attempt a daring joint escape from Mogadishu when the outbreak of civil war leaves them stranded.

A working class family move into a new condo purchased after 11 years of hard work. They throw a housewarming party to show his co-workers when overnight a heavy downpour creates an extremely deep sinkhole that engulfs the entire building.

Sarah Jordan, an American living in London in 1984, is married to the son of a wealthy British industrialist. She encounters Nick Callahan, a renegade doctor, whose impassioned plea for help to support his relief efforts in war-torn Africa moves her deeply. As a result, Sarah embarks upon a journey of discovery that leads to danger, heartbreak and romance in the far corners of the world.

The enthralling, against-all-odds story that transfixed the world in 2018: the daring rescue of twelve boys and their coach from deep inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand.

North Korea. The last communist country in the world. Unknown, hermetic and fascinating. Formerly known as “The Hermit Kingdom” for its attempts to remain isolated, North Korea is one of the largest sources of instability as regards world peace. It also has the most militarized border in the world, and the flow of impartial information, both going in and out, is practically non-existent. As the recent Sony-leaks has shown, it is the perfect setting for a propaganda war.

Three elite North Korean sleeper agents live under cover for so long that they believe their cover stories are their real identities. They are shocked when they are ordered to kill one another or face death at the hands of an elite hit team.

Inspired by true events, Olympic swimmer Harry Melchior defects from East Germany in the 1960s and hatches a daring plot to help his sister and others flee East Berlin through a 145-yard underground tunnel.

Two families attempt a daredevil plan to escape the GDR with a homemade hot air balloon, but it crashes just before the border. The Stasi finds traces of this attempt to escape and immediately starts investigations, while the two families are forced to build a new escape balloon. With each passing day the Stasi is closer on their heels – a nerve-wracking race against time begins.

A young man released from prison visits the widow of the man he killed drunk-driving and becomes infatuated with his cerebral palsy-stricken daughter.

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.

A young refugee, Aryan, is shot while illegally trying to cross the Hungarian border. While tending him back to health, a doctor at a refugee camp discovers that Aryan has gained an extraordinary talent—he can levitate. Aryan is smuggled out by the doctor, who is intent on exploiting his secret.

Rie is a PR-coordinator visiting a tunnel boring machine to portray the well-oiled European cooperation in the Metro construction when an accident suddenly occurs. Unable to escape, she takes refuge in an airlock with Croatian miner Ivo and Bharan, a worker from Eritrea.

A young man believes that his country's leaders are actually toxic reptilian aliens sent down to launch a takeover of his beloved Earth. So he decides to abduct them and force the truth out on camera in his basement that doubles as a film studio and torture chamber.

A soldier searching for his missing wife breaks into a high-tech facility, believing she's been caught in a human trafficking ring. But beyond its walls, he finds a surreal, futuristic fantasy park where reality and illusion blur. As he navigates this seductive and dangerous world, a shocking truth pulls him deeper into a deadly game where nothing is as it seems.

Young Jin-hee is taken by her father to an orphanage near Seoul. He leaves her there never to return, and she struggles to come to grips with her fate. Jin-hee desperately believes her father will come back for her and take her on a trip.

At the edge of Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula, two women’s lives will intersect – for a brief moment – while trapped in circumstances unforeseen. Between a struggling Icelandic mother and an asylum seeker from Guinea-Bissau, a delicate bond will form as both strategize to get their lives back on track.

Rebellious Ki-soo from North Korea is mesmerized by tap dance in prison camps. Ki-soo joins as a team member of a dance team named 'Swing Kids'. Yet suddenly, their dreams about dancing in prison camps are put in danger.

Talent can only get you so far. For golfer Luke Chisholm, that turns out to be Utopia, Texas -- where he's left stranded after blowing his pro debut.

Ji-woo, an outcast at a prestigious private school, meets Hak-sung, the school janitor who is actually a mathematical genius who defected from North Korea.

In 2029, Korea's lunar probe Woori embarks on a historic journey to the moon, capturing global attention.

In vivid images, the documentary-like story of a drover and his family in the northern badlands of Brazil during the drought. A family in the search of new hope and destiny.

Sang-hyun is always struggling from debt, and Dong-soo works at a baby box facility. On a rainy night, they steal the baby Woo-sung, who was left in the baby box, to sell him at a good price. Meanwhile, detectives were watching, and they quietly track them down to capture the crucial evidence.

A world wide electrical outage occurs. Everything that requires electricity comes to a stop. Tokyo is nearly ruined. Yoshiyuki Suzuki decides to escape from Tokyo with his family.

When an earthquake hits a Korean village housing a run-down nuclear power plant, a man risks his life to save the country from imminent disaster.

Bonded by their love of freediving, a record-setting champion and a heroic safety diver try to make history with a remarkable feat, ready to risk it all.

A documentary film depicting five intimate portraits of migrants who fled their country of origin to seek refuge in France and find a space of freedom where they can fully experience their sexuality and their sexual identity: Giovanna, woman transgender of Colombian origin, Roman, Russian transgender man, Cate, Ugandan lesbian mother, Yi Chen, young Chinese gay man…

In 1989, known as Mendax, Julian Assange and two friends formed a group called the International Subversives. Using early home computers and defining themselves as white hat hackers - those who look but don’t steal – they broke into some of the world’s most powerful and secretive organisations. In the eyes of the US Government, they were a major threat to national security.

Bonded in their youth and separated by tragedy, an astronaut and a free diver bend the laws of space and time in their efforts to be together again.

For 15 days, a politician and his wife navigate a scandal after their daughter goes missing on the eve of the national elections.

In their new overseas home, an American family soon finds themselves caught in the middle of a coup, and they frantically look for a safe escape in an environment where foreigners are being immediately executed.

A documentary filmmaker travels to a UFO convention in New Mexico where he meets a local artist with a dark secret. As they follow a trail of clues they discover disturbing sightings and question all they believe when they become immersed in the enigmatic culture of the Pueblo Indians.

When Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappears after entering Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, his fiancée and dissidents around the world are left to piece together the clues to a brutal murder and expose a global cover up perpetrated by the very country he loved.

Inspired by the gripping true story of a man who would do anything for his family—and for freedom. When Peter, an enslaved man, risks his life to escape and return to his family, he embarks on a perilous journey of love and endurance.

Carter, who awakens two months into a deadly pandemic originating from the DMZ that has already devastated US and North Korea. He who has no recollections of his past finds a mysterious device in his head, and a lethal bomb in his mouth. A voice in his ears gives him orders to avoid getting killed and he's thrown into a mysterious operation while the CIA and North Korean coup chase him close.

When the investigation of 'Koreagate' takes place, Park Yong-gak, a former KCIA director who knows everything about the government's operations, heads to the United States in exile.

A Japanese photojournalist revisits Vietnam after the liberation to document the nation, and begins following and documenting the young children from a poor Vietnamese family.

After depleting Earth's resources for centuries, humankind's survival requires an exodus to outer space. An international expedition is quickly formed to find a suitable new planet, but when plans go awry, the crew is suddenly stranded without power on a strange planet, where something unimaginable lies in wait.

A working single mother comes home one day to find that her daughter and the nanny have disappeared -- and this is just the beginning of her nightmare.

After a night out with friends, Hyun Jae accepts a late night ride home from a young fire fighter. What begins as a night of promise quickly turns into a nightmare when she is abducted and imprisoned outside Las Vegas as a sex slave.

An expelled boxing champion, who now is a high-school teacher, witnesses intolerable violence and throws her first punch to build justice against it, while putting on a mask.

Deep beneath the surface in the Syrian province of Ghouta, a group of female doctors have established an underground field hospital. Under the supervision of paediatrician Dr. Amani and her staff of doctors and nurses, hope is restored for some of the thousands of children and civilian victims of the ruthless Syrian civil war.

Deep within the mysterious Arboria Institute, a disturbed and beautiful girl is held captive by a doctor in search of inner peace. Her mind controlled by a sinister technology. Silently, she waits for her next session with deranged therapist Dr. Barry Nyle. If she hopes to escape, she must journey through the darkest reaches of The Institute, but Nyle wonʼt easily part with his most gifted and dangerous creation.

While waiting for a kidney transplant, a young pianist finds an unexpected connection with her doctor — and the courage to fulfill her musical dreams.

Christine’s life has not been easy lately. Her lonely routine is divided between free food banks distributions and wandering the streets. On a cold winter night she founds Suli, an 8-year-old Eritrean boy, sobbing in front of her shelter. Christine understands that he is lost and has been separated from his mother. Bounded by their marginal condition, they embark together on an emotional journey to find Suli’s mother in the underground world of Paris...

A Korean American family moves to an Arkansas farm in search of its own American dream. Amidst the challenges of this new life in the strange and rugged Ozarks, they discover the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home.

Dr. Laura Bowman is a young widow who's unwittingly drawn into political turmoil while vacationing in Burma in the late 1980s. Bowman initially left San Francisco with her sister in an attempt to escape painful memories of her husband and son's violent deaths. But her fight to escape to Thailand could prove just as harrowing.

A case of the flu quickly morphs into a pandemic. As the death toll mounts and the living panic, the government plans extreme measures to contain it.

After losing her parents, young flower selling Midori is put up by a fairground group. She is abused and forced to slavery, until the arrival of an enigmatic magician of short stature, who gives her hope for a better future.

Capturing the story of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with unprecedented access, director Laura Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle in a documentary portrait of power, betrayal, truth and sacrifice.

Yoon-young, a 19-year-old girl who dreams of becoming a civil servant, is framed as a murderer and imprisoned in a women's prison.

Cho-won is an autistic but happy young man who loves to draw zebras and run. His mother wants him to feel normal by accomplishing a feat that no one thought his son could achieve. With the help of a coach in exile, she trains him to become a marathon runner.

Tae-hun causes trouble for the his unit with his antics. He does not take much seriously until a dogfight leaves a pilot dead and another missing. Tae-hun and the other members of his unit launch a rescue mission to prevent a war from breaking out.

A couple flying on a small plane to attend a tropical island wedding must fight for their lives after their pilot suffers a heart attack.

Follows the man who survived an assassination attempt by poisoning with a lethal nerve agent in August 2020. During his months-long recovery, he makes shocking discoveries about the attempt on his life and decides to return home.

Hyun-su and Soo-jin are newlyweds. Seemingly out of nowhere, he starts talking in his sleep. "Someone's inside." From that night on, whenever he falls asleep, he transforms into someone else with no recollection of what happened the night before. Soo-jin is overwhelmed with anxiety that he'd hurt her family while she sleeps and can barely sleep a wink because of this irrational fear. Despite sleep treatment, Hyun-su’s sleepwalking only intensifies, and she begins to feel that her unborn child may be in danger…

At his mother's 70th birthday party, Yong-nam runs into Eui-joo, who rejected him in college. When the city is engulfed in toxic gas from a terrorist attack, the two must find a way to escape using all the techniques they learned in their college rock climbing club.

An ex-special forces operative takes a job to provide security for a journalist as she interviews a dictator, but a military coup breaks out in the middle of the interview, they are forced to escape into the jungle where they must survive.

A group of unlikely heroes from across the Korean peninsula try to save the day after a volcano erupts on the mythical and majestic Baekdu Mountain.

A son to a high-ranked official in North Korea commits a series of murders going across the countries around the world. The movie depicts the following events as South Korea, North Korea and Interpol start chasing down after him.

Master diver Frank McGuire has explored the South Pacific's Esa-ala Caves for months. But when his exit is cut off in a flash flood, Frank's team—including 17-year-old son Josh and financier Carl Hurley are forced to radically alter plans. With dwindling supplies, the crew must navigate an underwater labyrinth to make it out.

Anonymous and exploitative, a network of online chat rooms ran rampant with sex crimes. The hunt to take down its operators required guts and tenacity.

A woman suddenly disappears. Her fiance then sets out to find her and, in the process, uncovers layers of dark hidden secrets.

A mysterious woman on the run, and the resourceful fixer assigned to bring her in. Their two unique stories inextricably link, as the stakes of the pursuit rise to apocalyptic proportions.

Four fragile young people flee London to start an unconventional utopia, creating a world of fantasy that overwhelms them.

An ordinary guy suddenly finds he has superpowers he can use to help his spirited daughter and the people around them, but he also runs into trouble in the process.

In the future, two slaves in a distant galaxy escape prison and crash-land on a strange planet. They meet Zed, whose hospitality attempts to hide the fact they are to be hunted for sport. Armed only with knives and their wits, the girls must battle their way across the jungle to a hidden arms cache before Zed catches and kills them.

A helicopter pilot and an environmental scientist lead a exodus of survivors in a search for a safe haven after a catastrophic tectonic event causes the crust of the earth to break apart.

1988-1989. The end of the Soviet-Afghan war. The USSR begins its withdrawal from Afghanistan. Soviet General Vasiliev's son - a pilot named Alexander gets kidnapped by the mujahideen after his airplane crashes. As a result the 108th motorized infantry division's long awaited return home gets put on hold for one last mission: bring the General's son back. Based on true events the previously untold story of the courageous and tragic withdrawal campaign (through the Salang pass) reveals the danger the horror and the complexity of human nature during wartime.

After moving to Bogotá for a chance at a better life, a young Korean man rises through the Colombian black market — risking peril for a shot at success.

An ordinary woman makes an extraordinary decision which will change her life forever.

During the 1970s, in Kunchon, there were women divers who were able to dive without equipment, including two best friends Choon-ja and Jin-sook, Jin-sook's brother and Hammer. They always collected seafood under water for living. But, as fewer factories started to be built near the beach, the women divers started to have trouble with what they were doing for living. Without any choice, the ship crews decided to join the smuggling business in the water to seek a way for their living. But the smuggling business in their village got too big for Jin-sook's family to handle and the peaceful village was gradually broken.

A young American couple travel to the arctic mountains of Norway. After pulling over during a snowstorm, they wake up trapped in their SUV, buried underneath layers of snow and ice.

After 8-year-old So-won narrowly survives a brutal sexual assault, her family labors to help her heal while coping with their own rage and grief.

Detective Mark Corley storms his way onto an alien spaceship to rescue his estranged son. When the ship crashes in Southeast Asia, he forges an alliance with a band of survivors to take back the planet once and for all.

A woman's past as a convict follows her everywhere and because of this she doesn't open up to others. But then she strikes up a friendship with a broken child who has suffered from domestic violence and decides to save the girl from the cruel world. A man who holds feelings for the woman, tries to protect her in his own way.

A WWII pilot, bombardier, and radioman find themselves adrift on a lifeboat without food or water after being forced to ditch their plane during a scouting mission.

In the puppet state of Manchukuo in the 1930s, four Communist party special agents, after returning to China, embark on a secret mission. Sold out by a traitor, the team find themselves surrounded by threats on all sides.

The thirteen survivors of a catastrophe by a tunnel's collapse tries to balance their experience trapped along 15 days inside it with their day-by-day outside it.

Rattled by sudden unemployment, a Manhattan couple surveys alternative living options, ultimately deciding to experiment with living on a rural commune where free love rules.

Soviet Georgia, 1983. Preparations for Nika and Ana's wedding are in full swing and it's a big day for both of their elite families. For the newlyweds and their friends, however, the celebrations are in fact part of a cover-up, as they plot an audacious escape from the Soviet Union.

A soldier and his team battle hordes of post-apocalyptic zombies in the wastelands of the Korean Peninsula.

In Japanese-occupied Korea, three freedom fighters are assigned a mission to assassinate a genocidal military leader and his top collaborator. But the plan goes completely awry amidst double-crossings, counter-assassinations, and a shocking revelation about one of the assassins' past.

After running away from his negligent parents, committing a violent crime and being sentenced to five years in jail, a hardened, streetwise 12-year-old Lebanese boy sues his parents in protest of the life they have given him.

An adrenaline seeking snowboarder gets lost in a massive winter storm in the back country of the High Sierras where he is pushed to the limits of human endurance and forced to battle his own personal demons as he fights for survival....

What started as a simple escort mission will soon turn to chaos as the prisoners of Koh Kla take over the prison grounds. A special task force gets trapped in the prison will have to fight their way out for survival, to protect a key witness.

An ex-special agent is involved in a convoluted drug ring drama. He has to save a drug smuggler's innocent daughter from being the victim of her parents' fight.

Hélène, a 33-year-old woman from Bordeaux, France, lives happily as a couple with Mathieu, her husband of many years. Her life turns upside down the day she learns she has a rare lung disease. Thanks to a blog, she discovers Norway and decides to follow her instinct. Despite all the love she has for her life partner Mathieu, who is very supportive through her illness, she leaves him behind in France and will cross all Europe to Norway alone in search of a new path and to meet a blogger named Mister that she found on the internet.

Two North Korean soldiers are killed in the border area between North and South Korea, prompting an investigation by a neutral body. The sergeant is the shooter, but the lead investigator, a Swiss-Korean woman, receives differing accounts from the two sides.

In 2030 the world is in a permanent state of economic recession and facing serious environmental problems as a result of global warming.

In 1931, three Aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff, and set off on a trek across the Outback.

The infinite playground of forbidden worlds and dangerous lifeforms offered by the sci-fi horror genre will lead to the biggest, maddest, bloodiest V/H/S ever.
