Dancer in the DarkMovies like Dancer in the Dark
- Key Features:
- Musical, Immigrant experience, Single mother, Sacrifice, Terminal illness, Poverty, Desperation, Fantasy, Tragedy, Social realism, Despair, Cult classic
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, poetic
- Target Audience:
- Art house cinema enthusiasts, Fans of musicals, Viewers interested in social issues, Those who appreciate tragic dramas
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Despair → Resignation
Dancer in the Dark

Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.
Dancer in the Dark
A blind musician hears a murder committed in the apartment upstairs from hers that sends her down a dark path into London's gritty criminal underworld.

Having recently lost her sight, Ingrid retreats to the safety of her home—a place where she can feel in control, alone with her husband and her thoughts. After a while, Ingrid starts to feel the presence of her husband in the flat when he is supposed to be at work. At the same time, her lonely neighbor who has grown tired of even the most extreme pornography shifts his attention to a woman across the street. Ingrid knows about this but her real problems lie within, not beyond the walls of her apartment, and her deepest fears and repressed fantasies soon take over.

Diana, a high-class prostitute trying to escape from a serial killer, suffers a car accident that leaves her blind and kills the family of Chin, a ten-year-old boy.

The story of a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life is completely consumed with dance. Nina lives with her retired ballerina mother who zealously supports her daughter's professional ambition. When the artistic director decides to replace the prima ballerina for the opening production of their new season, Nina is his first choice.

A murderous, flesh-eating undead young girl haunting the remote stretch of woods where she was murdered decades earlier, discovers a kidnapped and abused boy hiding in the trunk of one of her victim’s cars. Her decision to let the boy live throws her aggressively solitary existence into upheaval, and ultimately forces her to re-examine just how much of her humanity her murderer was able to destroy.

Jacqueline is a young mother living in 1960s Paris with her disabled son Laurent. Abandoned by her husband, Jacqueline sacrifices everything to care for her son and vows to give Laurent a “normal” life full of happiness. Antoine, is a successful DJ in present day Montreal who seems to have it all: a thriving career, two beautiful daughters, partner Rose, with whom he is passionately in love. However, nothing is perfect and Antoine’s ex-wife Carole remains devastated by their recent separation.

A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the artistic director, an ambitious young dancer, and a grieving psychotherapist. Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up.

When a son and mother move to Seattle in hopes for a better life, the mother meets a seemingly polite man. Things go south when the man turns out to be abusive, endangering their lives. As the mother struggles to maintain hope in an impossible situation, the son has plans to escape.

Two stories for the price of one: a video store clerk tries to get acquainted with a waitress; a man beats his pregnant wife, unaware that her brother is a violent racist.

After a flight back home, Sam Hendrix returns with a doll he innocently acquired along the way. As it turns out, the doll is actually stuffed with heroin, and a group of criminals led by the ruthless Roat has followed Hendrix back to his place to retrieve it. When Hendrix leaves for business, the crooks make their move -- and find his blind wife, Susy, alone in the apartment. Soon, a life-threatening game begins between Susy and the thugs.

Ruth Ellis lives with her ten-year old son Andy next to a night club. One night she meets David Blakely, and they start a love affair. However, for David with his upper-class background, it is impossible to uphold the relationship. He breaks up with her, something which makes Ellis, obsessed by him, very upset.

Successful surgeon Tomas leaves Prague for an operation, meets a young photographer named Tereza, and brings her back with him. Tereza is surprised to learn that Tomas is already having an affair with the bohemian Sabina, but when the Soviet invasion occurs, all three flee to Switzerland. Sabina begins an affair, Tom continues womanizing, and Tereza, disgusted, returns to Czechoslovakia. Realizing his mistake, Tomas decides to chase after her.

A musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel "Notre Dame de Paris" which follows the gypsy dancer Esmeralda and the three men who vie for her love: the kind hunchback Quadimodo, the twisted priest Frollo, and the unfaithful soldier Phoebus.

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

In a struggling post-Soviet community, Lilya a teenage girl is abandoned when her mother moves to the United States with her boyfriend. Facing neglect and poverty, she meets Andrei, who offers her a job in Sweden, giving her hope for a better life — and a journey that will change everything.

Tormented and bedridden by a debilitating disease, a mystery writer relives his detective stories through his imagination and hallucinations.

A family of Irish immigrants adjusts to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.

In a small, conservative Scottish village, an oilman is paralyzed in an accident. His wife, who prayed for his return, feels guilty; even more, when he urges her to have sex with another.

This examination of a famous scandal from the 1970s explores the relationship between Barbara Baekeland and her only son, Antony. Barbara, a lonely social climber unhappily married to the wealthy but remote plastics heir Brooks Baekeland, dotes on Antony, who is homosexual. As Barbara tries to "cure" Antony of his sexuality -- sometimes by seducing him herself -- the groundwork is laid for a murderous tragedy.

A tragic story about Anna who dreams of one thing only: making it as an actress. She moves from Sweden to Copenhagen to pursue her dream. But fate has something else in store for her. Though she struggles to give her 4-month-old daughter a good start in life, she ultimately fails to unite her dream of acting with a safe and loving environment for her child, culminating in a desperate act that has fatal consequences for Anna and her daughter.

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.

In 1933, a young woman and her father discover an Alabama plantation whose inhabitants live as if slavery had never been abolished. Feeling a sense of duty to those behind the heavy gates, she stays to liberate the people and see them through their first harvest. With four of her father's colleagues and a lawyer, she faces the daunting task of resurrecting the place known as Manderlay.

A college student starts to experience extreme seizures. She soon learns that the violent episodes are a symptom of inexplicable abilities.

Four small gangsters from Copenhagen trick a gangster boss: they take over 4,000,000 kroner which they were supposed to bring him. Trying to escape to Barcelona they are forced to stop in the countryside, in an old, wrecked house, hiding there for several weeks. Slowly, one after another, they realize, that they would like to stay there, start a new life.

After a car accident that caused the loss of her baby, Jane experiences an increasing amount of nightmares that shake her to her core. After seeking professional help, her haunting visions turn into an even more frightening reality, one full of black magic, blood orgies, and murder.

A woman who survived the brutal killing of her family as a child is forced to confront the events of that day.

Sasha is a young vampire with a serious problem: she's too sensitive to kill. When her exasperated parents cut off her blood supply, Sasha's life is in jeopardy. Luckily, she meets Paul, a lonely teenager with suicidal tendencies who is willing to give his life to save hers. But their friendly agreement soon becomes a nocturnal quest to fulfill Paul's last wishes before day breaks.

Jackson and Helen are in love and about to have their first child when they move in with Jackson's mother, Martha, in order to take care of the family estate. But all is not well in this household. Martha is jealous of her son's affection for Helen, and, despite her Southern smile, she's starting to act strangely. As Helen tries to create a happy home life, Martha attempts to divide the family so that Jackson will become hers alone.

The world of dance can be brutal. The rehearsals are grueling. The competition is fierce. At the Arts for Living Centre in New York City, the best of the best are dying for a part in a major production. But only a select few will be chosen. The selection process seems to be at the hands of mysterious killer who pierces women's bare breasts with a hatpin, puncturing their hearts. Ambition and jealousy appear to be the motive, which makes everybody a suspect!

The story of several friends in New York City facing financial poverty, homophobia, AIDS, and, of course, rent.

In an attempt to pull her family together, Adèlle travels with her young daughter Sarah to Wales to visit her father. The morning after they arrive, Sarah mysteriously vanishes in the ocean. Not long after, a little girl bearing a striking resemblance to their missing daughter reveals that she has retuned from the dead — and that Sarah has been taken to the Welsh underworld.

A series of terrifying accidents and brutal murders leave a bloody trail into the subterranean caverns of an Opera house. Below the theatre stalks a man raised by creatures of the underworld.

Billy, a single mother of two, is led into a macabre underworld while her teenage son, Bones, discovers a secret road leading to an underwater town. Both Billy and Bones must dive deep into the mystery if their family is to survive.

Pierre, a professional dancer, suffers from a serious heart disease. While he is waiting for a transplant which may (or may not) save his life, he has nothing better to do than look at the people around him, from the balcony of his Paris apartment.

A disturbed, aging Southern belle moves in with her sister for solace — but being face-to-face with her brutish brother-in-law accelerates her downward spiral.

Karin hopes to recover from her recent stay at a mental hospital by spending the summer at her family's cottage on a tiny island. Her husband, Martin, cares for her but is frustrated by her physical withdrawal. Her younger brother, Minus, is confused by Karin's vulnerability and his own budding sexuality. Their father, David, cannot overcome his haughty remoteness. Beset by visions, Karin descends further into madness.

From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, this reimagined fictional portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.

Samba migrated to France 10 years ago from Senegal, and has since been plugging away at various lowly jobs. Alice is a senior executive who has recently undergone a burnout. Both struggle to get out of their dead-end lives. Samba's willing to do whatever it takes to get working papers, while Alice tries to get her life back on track until fate draws them together.

After her husband dies, Alice and her son, Tommy, leave their small New Mexico town for California, where Alice hopes to make a new life for herself as a singer. Money problems force them to settle in Arizona instead, where Alice takes a job as waitress in a small diner.

Marie, an independent and militant woman, has never needed anyone's help, including when it comes to raising her son. When the latter is expelled from his certificate of professional competence training class, Marie cannot accept it. Dreaming of a brighter future for him, she decides to enrol him in one of the best cooking schools in France.

As celebrated conductor Lydia Tár starts rehearsals for a career-defining symphony, the consequences of her past choices begin to echo in the present.

In the late 21st century, a subculture of humans have emerged who have been modified genetically by a vampire-like disease, giving them enhanced speed, incredible stamina and acute intelligence. As they are set apart from "normal" and "healthy" humans, the world is pushed to the brink of worldwide civil war aimed at the destruction of the "diseased" population. In the middle of this crossed-fire is - an infected woman - Ultraviolet, who finds herself protecting a nine-year-old boy who has been marked for death by the human government as he is believed to be a threat to humans.

Diane Kramer is led by one obsession: to find the driver of the mocha color Mercedes which hit her son and devastated her life. With a few belongings, some money and a gun, she goes to Evian, where she's learned the driver lives.

An artificial intelligence escapes her spaceship to turn into a female ghost and challenges two blade runners to a galactic chase.

A quartet of murderous psychopaths break out of a mental hospital during a power blackout and lay siege to their doctor's house.

Approaching age 50, singer/songwriter Nico leads a solitary existence, far from her days as a Warhol superstar and celebrated vocalist for the Velvet Underground in the 1960s. Her life and career on the fringes, Nico's new manager convinces her to hit the road again and tour in Europe to promote her latest album. She longs to rebuild a relationship with her son, whose custody she lost long ago.

A mother concerned about her young son's disturbing behavior thinks something supernatural may be affecting him.

Full-throttle melodrama about an ill-starred romance set against the backdrop of the siege of Sarajevo. A mother brings her teenage son to Sarajevo, where his father died in the Bosnian conflict years ago.

In the dark landscape of the Mississippi Delta, a former bare-knuckle fighter must win one last fight to pay off his debts to the local mob boss and save his childhood home—the stakes nothing less than life or death.

Pleasantly plump teenager Tracy Turnblad auditions to be on Baltimore's most popular dance show - The Corny Collins Show - and lands a prime spot. Through her newfound fame, she becomes determined to help her friends and end the racial segregation that has been a staple of the show.

Katja's life collapses after the deaths of her husband and son in a bomb attack. After a time of mourning and injustice, Katja seeks revenge.

A serial killer kidnaps a young boy after murdering his mother, then raises him to be his accomplice. After years in captivity, the boy must choose between escaping or following in his captor's bloody footprints.

Didier Travolta is a 40-year-old disco music fan who has no job, lives with his mother, and has a son he hasn't seen for a while. The mother of his son refuses to send him their son for the holidays unless he can offer him a real vacation, not just going to bars of the French port city of Le Havre. Penniless, the only way he can see his son is by winning a dance contest organized by his friend Jackson, with the prize of a vacation to Australia for two.

Magdalena makes a journey to find her son, who has disappeared on his way to the Mexican border with the United States. Her odyssey takes her to meet Miguel, a man recently deported from the US. They start to travel together, Magdalena looking for her son, and Miguel hoping to see his mother again.

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...

Eli has four children, an unemployed husband and a job with an almost impossible commute. Vale is single and makes ends meet by working in clubs as a dancer. Tied by a profound emotional bond of true sisterhood, the two women's lives are two sides of the same coin, but their mutual solidarity isn’t always enough to lighten the load of their difficult circumstances.

Bruno, an up and coming film composer, has been hired to write the score to a new horror movie. After moving into a secluded villa, life begins to imitate art as a vicious killer starts bumping off anyone and everyone who happens to pay him a visit.

A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished.

An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.

Deep in a secluded forest, Marko lives in isolation under the watchful eye of his overprotective father, who is determined to keep his young son safe from the Evil Ones. Deeply lonely, and increasingly curious about the outside world, Marko yearns to uncover the secrets of life beyond the forest and begins venturing further from home. But after a cruel turn of events grants his wish sooner than he ever imagined, Marko is forced to flee and embark on a grim journey filled with unknown dangers and a glimpse into a world forever changed.

A drug pusher grows increasingly desperate after a botched deal leaves him with a large debt to a ruthless drug lord.

Anna is living with "face-blindness" after surviving a serial killer's attack. As she lives with her condition, one in which facial features change each time she loses sight of them, the killer closes in.

After years spent working as a prostitute in her Italian village, middle-aged Mamma Roma has saved enough money to buy herself a fruit stand so that she can have a respectable middle-class life and reestablish contact with the 16-year-old son she abandoned when he was an infant. But her former pimp threatens to expose her sordid past, and her troubled son seems destined to fall into a life of crime and violence.

Single mother Diana struggles to provide for her child and pay for her college education. When she meets two dancers from a nearby gentlemen's club, Diana's convinced there's fast money to be made stripping.

A young soprano becomes the obsession of a disfigured and murderous musical genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera House.

Loner Mark Lewis works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also he's making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen, the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making.

After an attack renders her blind, Ellen withdraws from the world to recover. But soon she plunges into paranoia, unable to convince anyone that her assailant has returned to terrorize her by hiding in plain sight.

After an accidental drug overdose, a talented teenage DJ goes to live with his estranged father in a small Army town, where he gets to the bottom of his own pain and learns empathy for others.

A beautiful film which is basically about a man, a piano player, who meets and falls in love with a beautiful and voluptuous woman, who, by some strange procedure, leaves the man unable to move but with a permanent priapism! After some time he becomes sick of it and she relieves his paralysis. Eventually she gets bored and decides to leave, but he can't take it because he loves her…

She’s the most beautiful, most short-sighted, most sentimental, most perplexing, most obstinate, most untrustworthy and most troubling of heroines. The lady in the car has never seen the sea. On the run from the police, she keeps telling herself that she’s not crazy… Only...

A rebellious teenager, future Beatle John Lennon lives with his Aunt Mimi in working-class mid-1950s Liverpool, England. Mimi's husband suddenly dies, and John spies his mother Julia at the funeral. Despite Mimi's misgivings, John intends to have a real relationship with his mother. Julia introduces him to popular music and the banjo and, though a family conflict looms, young John is inspired to form his own band.

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

Following a car accident, which kills her mother, 17-year-old Ida moves in with her estranged aunt and her aunt’s grown sons. The home is filled with physical tenderness and love, but outside of the home, the family leads a violent and criminal life.

Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.

In a near-future city where soaring opulence overshadows economic hardship, Gwen and her daughter, Jules, do all they can to hold on to their joy, despite the instability surfacing in their world.

After a fictitious marriage with a Russian emigrant, Cellisten Louka, a Czech man, must suddenly take responsibility for her son. However, it’s not long before the communication barrier is broken between the two new family members.

A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.

A farm boy reluctantly becomes a member of the undead when a girl he meets turns out to be part of a band of vampires who roam the highways in stolen cars.

In 1990s Belfast, a woman is forced to betray all she believes in for the sake of her son.

While touring in Italy, a recently-widowed American opera singer has an incestuous relationship with her 15-year-old son to help him overcome his heroin addiction.

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.

A young woman from the American Midwest, Loïe Fuller became the toast of the Folies Bergère at the turn of the 20th century and an icon of the Belle Epoque. Inventor of the breathtaking Serpentine Dance, she was a pioneer of modern dance and lighting techniques. It was her complicated relationship to her protégé - Isadora Duncan – that precipitated the downfall of this early 20th century icon.

Struggling to survive in post-WWI Copenhagen, a newly unemployed and pregnant young woman is taken in by a charismatic elder to help run an underground adoption agency. The two form an unexpected bond, until a sudden discovery changes everything.

February 1927. The funeral of Marcel Péricourt, the most powerful banker in Paris. His daughter Madeleine must take the helm of the financial empire of which she is the heiress. But she has a son, Paul, who with an unexpected and tragic gesture will place her on the path to ruin.

In a ghetto where religion and drug trafficking rub shoulders, Dounia has a lust for power and success. Supported by Maimouna, her best friend, she decides to follow in the footsteps of Rebecca, a respected dealer. But her encounter with Djigui, a young, disturbingly sensual dancer, throws her off course.

The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.

Oslo, Norway. After living a traumatic experience, Anna and her son Anders move into a huge apartment building. Feeling constantly terrified and insecure, Anna buys a babycall to monitor Anders while he sleeps.

A spirited young bride-to-be living with her single mother on a small Greek island secretly invites three of her mother's ex-boyfriends in hope of finding her biological father to walk her down the aisle.

An aspiring dancer moves to New York City and becomes caught up in a whirlwind of flighty fair-weather friends, diminishing fortunes and career setbacks.

A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his armless, cult leader mother, and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name.

When a dance troupe is lured to an empty school, a bowl of drug-laced sangria causes their jubilant rehearsal to descend into a dark and explosive nightmare as they try to survive the night—and find who's responsible—before it's too late.

Shuhei is leading a tough life. His alcoholic mother Akiko can only hook up with bad guys and order Shuhei to go get money from his disapproving grandparents instead of going to school. Except raising the little half-sister, his rock-bottom life seems to have no end.

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.

"Selma," as in Alabama, the place where segregation in the South was at its worst, leading to a march that ended in violence, forcing a famous statement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that ultimately led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

Odile is a business executive looking for a new, bigger apartment. Her younger sister Camille has just completed her doctoral thesis in history and is a Paris tour guide. Simon is a regular on Camille's tours because he's attracted to her. Camille has fallen for Marc, and they begin an affair. Nicolas is also looking for an apartment, since he hopes to eventually have his family join him in Paris.

When a struggling musician can't afford her rent, she signs up for a website where rich older men pay to date younger women. Her new money-making venture sends her down a dark rabbit hole that forces her to grow up fast, shaping her music, and how she sees the world.

A man with an unknown disease travels to an island with his girlfriend where his relatives once lived, hoping to find a cure to his illness. Although his relatives were all thought to be dead, he finds them living underground.

After India's father dies in an auto accident, her uncle Charlie, whom she never knew existed, comes to live with her and her emotionally unstable mother Evelyn. Soon after his arrival, she comes to suspect this mysterious, charming man has ulterior motives, but instead of feeling outrage or horror, this friendless girl becomes increasingly infatuated with him.

A peculiar neighbor offers hope to a recent widow who is struggling to raise a teenager who is unpredictable and, sometimes, violent.
