First They Killed My FatherMovies like First They Killed My Father
- Key Features:
- Thailand, Historical drama, Survival, War, Child protagonist, Political violence, Family separation, Loss of innocence, Adaptation, Memoir, Tragedy, Resilience, Dictatorship, Historical context, Violence-high, Trauma
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- History buffs, Drama enthusiasts, International cinema viewers, Biographical story appreciators
- Emotional Arc:
- Fear → Desperation → Resilience
First They Killed My Father

A 5-year-old girl embarks on a harrowing quest for survival amid the sudden rise and terrifying reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
First They Killed My Father
Cambodia, once the ancient kingdom of Funan, April 17th, 1975. The entire country falls under the tyranny of Angkar, the communist party of the Khmer Rouge. The cities are abandoned, the population is thrown to the roads and forced to walk towards an uncertain future…

During the Bosnian War, Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, re-encounters Ajla, a Bosnian who's now a captive in his camp he oversees. Their once promising connection has become ambiguous as their motives have changed.

New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg makes exit arrangements for Pran and his family. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story — a decision he may regret as the Khmer Rouge rebels move in.

Six months after losing her only child in the Southeast Asia tsunami, Jeanne is convinced she sees him in a film about orphans living in the jungles.

A young boy finds himself pursued by two assassins in the Montana wilderness, with a survival expert determined to protect him, and a forest fire threatening to consume them all.

During the Nazi-occupied Ustasha regime "NDH" in former Yugoslavia during WWII, little girl Dara is sent to the concentration camp complex Jasenovac in Croatia also known as "Balkan's Auschwitz".

When his young son is killed in a hit and run accident, Charles Thenier resolves to hunt down and murder the killer. By chance, Thenier makes the acquaintance of an actress, Helène Lanson, who was in the car at the time of the accident. He then meets Helène’s brother-in-law, Paul Decourt, a truly horrible individual.

Johnny and Peter, former paramilitary operatives, search Bangkok - leaving carnage in their wake - to find the men who killed Johnny's daughter, Angel.

After escaping from an Estonian psychiatric facility, Leena Klammer travels to America by impersonating Esther, the missing daughter of a wealthy family. But when her mask starts to slip, she is put against a mother who will protect her family from the murderous “child” at any cost.

In 1915 a man survives the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, but loses his family, speech and faith. One night he learns that his twin daughters may be alive, and goes on a quest to find them.

When Cassie's father finds himself vulnerable and bedridden, she believes she has the perfect revenge for her mother's death.

A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown, while, 27 years later, his grown daughter struggles to forge connections of her own.

Based on one of the most shocking and gruesome murder cases in Brazil, the film presents Daniel Cravinhos's point of view of the events that led to the death of Marísia and Manfred von Richthofen, his girlfriend’s parents.

Somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, Komona a 14-year-old girl tells her unborn child growing inside her the story of her life since she has been at war. Everything started when she was abducted by the rebel army at the age of 12.

A young girl is kidnapped during a powerful storm. Her mother joins forces with her mysterious neighbour to set off in pursuit of the kidnapper. Their journey will test their limits and expose the dark secrets of their past.

For generations the Zhao family has wielded power, until their mortal enemy TU’AN GU slaughters the entire clan, determined to wipe out their influence forever. But one Zhao baby survives hidden by CHENG YING the doctor who delivered him. When Tu’an Gu learns of the baby’s escape he seizes every infant in the city, vowing to kill them all unless the Zhao baby is surrendered. As the tyrant’s soldiers arrive at Cheng Ying’s home the frantic doctor hides his wife with their own baby whilst surrendering the Zhao child as his own. But his family is discovered; his baby is presumed to be the Zhao heir and murdered along with his wife for harboring the infant. Now set on revenge Cheng Ying enrolls the Zhao orphan into the service of the Tu’an Gu household, plotting to use him as an instrument of vengeance when he comes of age.

A police chief tries to solve a kidnapping that involves a bank robber holding a young boy hostage.

A former agent of the CIA and his estranged daughter go on the run after his employers target them for assassination.

After being involved in a traumatic incident, 17-year-old Gong-ju is forced to change schools. Uncared for by her parents, her previous teacher arranges for her to hide away at his mother's place. It takes time for her past to catch up with her, but when it does the revelation is devastating.

A former serial killer with Alzheimer's fights to protect his daughter from her mysterious boyfriend who may be a serial killer too.

Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide.

Duk-soo lost his father and younger sister while taking refuge during the Korean War. He leaves for Germany to work as a miner and enters the Vietnam War. He wishes to find his sister.

A couple on holiday on a remote South Pacific island awaken one morning with a hang over and no recollection of what transpired. When playing back a video of the previous night, they see they participated in a local ritual that somehow ends with him murdering her.

Alone in the mountains of Switzerland, Anne discovers that her isolated chalet is on surveillance and has been bugged. Caught up by her former life as an intelligence secret agent and an affair with her handler, Anne can only count on herself to get out alive.

In this chilling and groundbreaking documentary, former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their real-life mass killings in the style of various film genres, from gangster epics to musicals. As they recreate their past atrocities, the line between reality and performance blurs, exposing the lingering impact of Indonesia’s 1965-66 anti-communist purge and the unsettling psychology of its perpetrators.

Drama about a father and son who set out to find their missing daughter/sister with the help of an American headhunter.

Deaf and mute since having his hearing knocked out at the age of 12, Asher has been training for almost two decades to avenge himself on Ivan, the man that killed his older brother, 21 years ago. And now that his nemesis is out of prison, he gets his chance. But Asher's target also happens to be his father.

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.

Based on one of the most shocking and gruesome murder cases in Brazil, the film presents de Suzane von Richthofen's point of view of the events that led to the death of her parents.

Tien, the son of Lord Sihadecho — a murdered nobleman — is taken under the wing of Chernang, a renowned warrior and leader of the Pha Beek Krut.

In a suburban community, moms and dads, one after the other, mysteriously feel the irresistible impulse to attack and kill their own offspring.

A young woman’s quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tortured her as a child leads her and her best friend, also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.

In 1976, Argentina fell into the hands of a de facto government. Thousands of citizens are persecuted and kidnapped. This is the case of the parents of two children, who, knowing they are wanted, decide to hide.

Aliide experienced The Great Terror under Stalin’s regime, and decades after her hometown people were deported to Siberia, she lives alone in an isolated house. One night, she finds a young woman in her yard – Zara has just escaped from the claws of the Russian mafia that held her as a sex slave. Survivors both, Aliide and Zara engage in unearthing each other’s motives and gradually their stories merge into one, revealing the tragedy of a family during the cruelest years in Estonian history.

Zachary is 20 years old. Dark and independent, he collects amorous conquests and school failure. Sarah is 18 years old. First class, fragile, she fills her emotional gaps with perfect control of his life. Nothing should close and yet, the year of the tank, for six months, they will live a love against which nothing can be, the true, the big one that marks a life forever.

An average family is thrust into the spotlight after the father commits a seemingly self-defense murder at his diner.

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.

Medea after having helped the man she loves, Jason, and given him to birth two children, is driven into fury and vengeful madness after he decides to abandon her to become successor to the throne by marring Glauce, the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth.

A cerebral revenge film about two adopted siblings who fall in love, and hatch a plan to kill their abusive father.

An account of the days of First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, in the immediate aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

A look at the life of the astronaut, Neil Armstrong, and the legendary space mission that led him to become the first man to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

A Jewish boy living in Amsterdam at the onset of World War II is taken to a concentration camp with his parents. Based on the memoir of Holocaust survivor Jona Oberski.

When a little girl is kidnapped by a trafficking ring, they soon find they messed with the wrong child. Her mother, a notorious former gang leader, is close on their trail and will go to any lengths to bring her child home.

During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager.

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.

The chilling story of a young American boy living in France in 1918 whose father is working for the US government on the creation of the Treaty of Versailles. What he witnesses helps to mold his beliefs – and we witness the birth of a terrifying ego.

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.

An American woman, trapped in Islamic Iran by her brutish husband, must find a way to escape with her daughter as well.

Miriam and Antoine have recently separated. While she’s willing to permit their 17-year-old daughter Josephine to decide living arrangements for herself, Miriam is desperate to keep her youngest, 11-year-old Julien, away from his father. But the magistrate rules in favour of joint custody, and suddenly the boy is thrown directly into the middle of an escalating parental conflict, where it seems inevitable that sides must be chosen.

A high school coach, whose teenage daughter was murdered, takes matters into his own hands by going after the men who kidnap his students for their sex trafficking operation.

When two siblings stumble on a strange hole in the wall of their grandparents' house, horrifying incidents reveal sinister secrets about their family.

Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.

Bi, a Vietnamese country girl, survives a brutal childhood and escapes to Saigon. There, she is recruited by the mysterious Mrs. Lin, who trains Bi and her new friends Thanh and Hong in killing and sensuality to take down Hai, a Saigon crime lord.

Camille, a young idealistic photojournalist, goes to the Central African Republic to cover the civil war that is brewing up. What she sees there will change her destiny forever.

A Special Forces commando uncovers a dangerous conspiracy when she returns to her hometown looking for answers into her beloved father's death.

Li and his wife A Yu run a small business in Thailand and enjoy a happy home life with their two daughters. When their eldest daughter is violently assaulted, blackmailed and left traumatised by another student, her parents intervene, leading to a dead body which needs to be hidden, and every trace of the boy buried to cover up the accident.

At the turning point of the Iran-Contra affair, Elena McMahon, a fearless investigative journalist covering the 1984 US presidential campaign, puts herself in danger when she abandons her assigned task in order to fulfill the last wish of her ailing father, a mysterious man whose past activities she barely knows.

Marie has had a tough childhood ever since her mother Elisa committed suicide. She has spent most of her life in an orphanage and now makes a living as a small time criminal in Paris. Now she wants to unravel her past and find her father whom she blames for her mother's death.

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.

When a remote village is plagued by a deadly curse, one brother must fight to save his family from a terrifying supernatural threat.

A mother attempts to keep her family safe as war rages and a sniper lies in wait outside her home.

After World War I, a young ex-soldier, Sébastien Monge, returns to his home village. Ignorant of his past, he learns that, 24 years before, his entire family was slain in their home one stormy night. Only Sébastien, then a four-month old baby, was spared. Whilst Sébastien is being seduced by Charmaine, Dupin is killed by someone else. Sébastien’s next victim, the miller Didon Pujol, is also murdered before he has a chance to take his revenge. Sébastien realises that someone is watching his every move and is going to extraordinary lengths to protect him. But who, and why..?

Desperate to be free from her drunken, unloving mother Diane, the beautiful, scheming young Mini seduces her stepfather Martin and soon convinces him to join her in a sadistic scheme to have Diane declared insane. But their conspiracy soon escalates to murder and when John Garson, a young detective starts investigating, Martin and Mini begin to turn on each other.

A woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident in her past. One day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.

Helena, a woman living a seemingly ordinary life, hides a dark secret—her father is the infamous 'Marsh King', the man who kept her and her mother captive in the wilderness for years. After a lifetime of trying to escape her past, Helena is forced to face her demons when her father unexpectedly escapes from prison.

A dangerous international spy is determined to give up his high stakes life to finally build a closer relationship with his estranged wife and daughter. But first, he must complete one last mission - even if it means juggling the two toughest assignments yet: hunting down the world's most ruthless terrorist and looking after his teenage daughter for the first time in ten years, while his wife is out of town.

A sawmill owner and his teenage daughter become tangled in a deadly feud when a drug dealer stashes stolen cocaine on their remote property.

Four horror tales revolve around an accident victim, a bullied youth, ghost stories and a deceased princess.

Bryan Mills, a former government operative, is trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter Kim. After reluctantly agreeing with his ex-wife to let Kim go to Paris on vacation with a friend, his worst nightmare comes true. While on the phone with his daughter shortly after she arrives in Paris, she and her friend are abducted by a gang of human traffickers. Working against the clock, Bryan relies on his extensive training and skills to track down the ruthless gang that abducted her and launch a one-man war to rescue his daughter.

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.

In December 2004, close-knit family Maria, Henry and their three sons begin their winter vacation in Thailand. But the day after Christmas, the idyllic holiday turns into an incomprehensible nightmare when a terrifying roar rises from the depths of the sea, followed by a wall of black water that devours everything in its path. Though Maria and her family face their darkest hour, unexpected displays of kindness and courage ameliorate their terror.

Upon hearing his wife was killed in the Iraq war, a father takes his two daughters on a road trip, all the while searching for the right time and place to tell them about their mother's fate.

During the invasion of Normandy the photograph of a slim Korean man in German uniform was found. It transpired that the man had served as a soldier in the Japanese, Russian and German armies. His incredible story inspired director Kang Je-Gyu to create this epic war drama.

Carol Jeffries is a naive American woman staying in the Philippines. She is given ten years in prison after being set up by her drug-dealer boyfriend, Rudy. She endures the harsh conditions, sadistic head matron and attempts on her life, then convinces her cell-mates to try to escape with her through the jungle, in spite of the knowledge that ruthless trackers will be sent out after them.

A strong-willed peasant girl is sent by her father to the estate of some local aristocrats to capitalize on a rumor that their families are from the same line, but is left traumatised from her experiences.

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.

Samantha Hughes, a teenaged Kentucky girl, never knew her father, who died in Vietnam before her birth. Samantha lives with her uncle Emmett, who also served in Vietnam. Emmett hangs around with Tom, Earl, and Pete, three other Vietnam vets who, like Emmett, all have problems of one kind or another that relate to their war experiences. Samantha becomes obsessed with finding out about her father.

Six friends are captured and tortured by a murderous family after giving a ride home to a desperate stranger.

A vicious gang war for drug dominance draws in a disturbed Special Forces veteran John Bradley. Trying to adjust to normal life and haunted by inner demons of a violent past, the underworld's retribution on his last connection to humanity, a daughter and grandchild leads to a descent of fury and violence that not even the brutality of gangland is prepared for.

Four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level Taliban operative must make an impossible moral decision in the mountains of Afghanistan that leads them into an enemy ambush. As they confront unthinkable odds, the SEALs must find reserves of strength and resilience to fight to the finish.

At work, she's a renowned assassin. At home, she's a single mom to a teenage daughter. Killing? That's easy. It's parenting that's the hard part.

A young woman returns to her small hometown intent on killing her abusive father only to discover someone murdered him the day before. As the girl searches for answers, she uncovers a family legacy more dangerous than she'd imagined.

An orphan girl taught magic by her sick grandma must find work in seedy Bangkok, where she encounters a number of unsavory characters. She uses the magical skills her grandmother taught her to her advantage and to increasingly horrific consequences.

A little girl brings back the big egg she finds by a nearby lake to her home. However, the egg belongs to a mysterious and dangerous creature, and it soon starts searching for it.

When former Green Beret John Rambo is harassed by local law enforcement and arrested for vagrancy, he is forced to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war against his pursuers.

A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.

After the police find Derek’s daughter brutally murdered on the beach, he vows to make the culprit suffer for his actions, even if that person is ‘part of the family.’ With careful research into the history of torture, Derek prepares himself and his basement for a week of brutal tactics that will make his daughter’s killer feel the pain that he has inflicted upon so many others. In a time when stranger danger is ever present, a single father learns that it’s the ones you trust most who have to be watched the closest.

After not seeing each other for a long time, 5 teenage friends living in the city of Bangkok go on a vacation together, staying at a quiet resort isolated from the city. Things take a dark turn, when it’s revealed each of them have hidden secrets and unbeknownst to the group, there is someone observing them.

The story of the rape of Nanking, one of the most tragic events in history. In 1937, the invading Japanese army murdered over 200,000 and raped tens of thousands of Chinese. In the midst of this horror, a small group of Western expatriates banded together to save 250,000. Nanking shows the tremendous impact individuals can make on the course of history.

Three war-torn strangers posing as a family flee Sri Lanka’s civil war to start over in a troubled Paris suburb, but their past traumas resurface as they struggle to survive in their new environment.

Lesia, a teenager, is taken by a man to a villa where her fugitive father and his men are hiding. A war erupts, leading to death and a chase where father and daughter bond.

Based on the true nail-biting mission that captivated the world. Twelve boys and the coach of a Thai soccer team explore the Tham Luang cave when an unexpected rainstorm traps them in a chamber inside the mountain. Entombed behind a maze of flooded cave tunnels, they face impossible odds. A team of world-class divers navigate through miles of dangerous cave networks to discover that finding the boys is only the beginning.

The Seasoning House - where young girls are prostituted to the military. An orphaned deaf mute is enslaved to care for them. She moves between the walls and crawlspaces, planning her escape. Planning her ingenious and brutal revenge.

Jen's romantic getaway with her wealthy married boyfriend is disrupted when his friends arrive for an impromptu hunting trip. Tension mounts at the house until the situation culminates in an unexpected way.

A US Fighter pilot's epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam War.

After being abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country. Led by the eldest, 14 year-old Lore, the children are forced to confront their parents’ actions and the reality of a new world.

The story of a child star attempting to mend his relationship with his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father over the course of a decade, loosely based on Shia LaBeouf’s life.

A dramatization of the Montreal Massacre of 1989 where several female engineering students were murdered by an unstable misogynist.

