Holy SpiderMovies like Holy Spider
- Key Features:
- Serial killer, Religious fanaticism, Journalistic investigation, Social commentary, Crime, Sex work, Violence-high, Iranian society, Moral ambiguity
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- True crime enthusiasts, Fans of social thrillers, Viewers interested in international cinema
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Dread → Disgust
Holy Spider

A journalist descends into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad as she investigates the serial killings of sex workers by the so called "Spider Killer", who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.
Holy Spider
The lives of three strong-willed women and a young musician cross paths in Tehran’s schizophrenic society where sex, adultery, corruption, prostitution and drugs coexist with strict religious law. In this bustling modern metropolis, avoiding prohibition has become an everyday sport and breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation.

A young operative is sent on a mission to follow an older agent who's behavior has come into question.

When a priest is jailed for the murder of a nun on whom he was performing an exorcism, an investigative journalist strives to determine whether he in fact murdered a mentally ill person, or if he lost the battle with a demonic presence.

A recent college graduate flees to Paris after a break-up, where his involvement with a prostitute begins to reveal a potentially dark recent past.

A psychotic executive triggers a journalist's dark side, and they begin to form a strange bond through the internet.

Forced out of their apartment due to dangerous works on a neighboring building, Emad and Rana move into a new flat in the center of Tehran. An incident linked to the previous tenant will dramatically change the young couple’s life.

Set against the backdrop of Iran's strict and oppressive legal system, this anthology film tells the stories of four men who each face a moral crisis when having to deal with death penalties.

Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

A fisherman's son is offered the ultimate privilege to study at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the epicenter of power of Sunni Islam. Shortly after his arrival, the university’s highest ranking religious leader, the Grand Imam, dies and the young student becomes a pawn in a ruthless power struggle between Egypt's religious and political elite.

A Mumbai police officer's search for a missing teenage girl leads her to the depraved world of child trafficking. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game between the officer and a ruthless mafia kingpin.

Sam, a freelance journalist, decides to investigate the growing phenomenon of disaffected youth joining extremist groups. He infiltrates a group of four young people who have been tasked with the creation of a jihadist cell and whose mission is to destabilise the city centre of Paris.

Looking to investigate recruitment techniques of ISIS to lure women into Syria, a journalist creates a Facebook profile of a Muslim convert. When an ISIS recruiter contacts her online character, she experiences the process first hand.

Selman is a former boxer who once was interested in anthropology, an extraordinary imam who now works in a mosque. One day, while praying in the mosque, gunshots are echoed. One of the people inside collapses and dies. The police come to the scene and collect the first evidence and start the investigation process. He takes action after this event and decides to resolve the case through some people and circumstances he suspects. Every clue leads to an unexpected point and the events become increasingly mysterious.

Iranian female judokas Leila and her coach Maryam, travel to the Judo World Championship, intent on bringing home Iran’s first gold medal. Midway through the Judo World Championships, they receive an ultimatum from the Islamic Republic ordering Leila to fake an injury and lose, or she will be branded a traitor of the state. With her own and her family’s freedom at stake, Leila is faced with an impossible choice: comply with the Iranian regime as her coach Maryam implores her to do, or fight on, for the gold.

In 1986 Iran, Sahebjam, whose car breaks down in a remote village, enters into a conversation with Zahra, who relays to him the story about her niece, Soraya, whose arranged marriage to an abusive tyrant ended in tragedy.

An American is kidnapped while attending a conference in Cairo and ends up in prison in Iran on spying charges. His wife goes to Iran, determined to get him out.

A serial killer whose mother was a prostitute starts killing streetwalkers as a way of paying back his mother for her abuse.

A photographer's obsessive pursuit of dark subject matter leads him into the path of a serial killer who stalks late night commuters, ultimately butchering them in the most gruesome ways.

Reporter Na-yeong and her partner investigate a series of mysterious deaths and a perplexing case where her source was allegedly already dead at the time of their interview. Together they end up confronting a terrifying truth.

An Iranian couple living in the US become trapped inside a hotel when insidious events force them to face the secrets that have come between them, in a night that never ends.

A journalist tries to balance the duties of marriage and motherhood while researching a piece on college women who work as prostitutes to pay their tuition.

A reporter travels the world's hot spots, looking for lurid stories that usually involve her sexual participation in gaining those behind-the-scenes exclusives.

Based on the true story of a Russian serial killer who, over many years, claimed victim to over 50 people. His victims were mostly under the age of 17. In what was then a communists state, the police investigations were hampered by bureaucracy, incompetence and those in power. The story is told from the viewpoint of the detective in charge of the case.

Amalia is an adolescent girl who is caught in the throes of her emerging sexuality and her deeply held passion for her Catholic faith. These two drives mingle when the visiting Dr. Jano takes advantage of a crowd to get inappropriately close to the girl. Repulsed by him but inspired by an inner burning, Amalia decides it is her God-given mission to save the doctor from his behavior, and she begins to stalk Dr. Jano, becoming a most unusual voyeur.

Samad is nobody’s fool. The narcotics officer has seen his share of a drug dealer’s lies and games, and his patience has come to run thin. While searching for the infamous drug baron Nasser Khakzad, he and his colleague Hamid scour the streets of Tehran, turning an overcrowded prison on its head. With his rough and dubious approach, Samad finally manages to find the criminal’s whereabouts – but things do not quite go according to plan...

An old villager deeply in love with his cow goes to the capital for a while. While he's there, the cow dies and now the villagers are afraid of his possible reaction to it when he returns.

When a devil-worshipping criminal network plunges Seoul into chaos, the police turn to Holy Night—a trio of supernatural demon hunters—to restore order and defeat the rising evil.

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.

A corrupt cop and a serial killer obsessed with a psychopath from the '60s get caught up in a ruthless cat-and-mouse game.

An American priest working in Mexico is considered a saint by many local parishioners. However, due to a botched exorcism, he carries a secret that’s eating him alive until he gets an opportunity to face his demon one final time.

Otsuya, the daughter of a rich merchant, elopes with her lover Shinsuke, an employee of her father's. During their flight, Otsuya's beauty attracts the gaze of Seikichi, a mysterious master tattooist who sees her pristine white skin as the perfect canvas for his art. The image of the large demonic spider that he emblazons across Otsuya's back marks her as the property of another man, radically altering her relationships with all around her as her personality seems to transform under its influence.

A stripper at the club Studio Six is murdered. A political scandal takes off when the Minister of Commerce appears to have been at the club. He resigns - but only to hide an even bigger secret.

A young policewoman slowly goes insane while tracking down an elusive serial rapist/killer through Italy when she herself becomes a victim of the brutal man's obsession.

On a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Turkish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. The revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.

After moving from their home to an apartment building, a new terror awaits Rini’s family.

When a tough-as-nails reporter is lead to a mysterious cult and the evil Pinhead, any moment could be her last.

A female detective investigates the cause of a high school girl’s death and uncovers a disturbing truth.

Rouhi, a young bride-to-be, is hired as a maid for an affluent family in Tehran. Upon arriving, she is suddenly thrust into an explosive domestic conflict. The wife is convinced her husband is having an affair and enlists Rouhi as a spy, to follow her husband, and confirm her suspicions. What Rouhi discovers, however, threatens not only their marriage but her own future.

After the earthquake of Guilan, a film director and his son travel to the devastated area to search for the actors from the movie the director made there a few years previously. In their search, they see how people who have lost everything in the earthquake still have hope and try to live life to the fullest.

When a group of Indian and Pakistani nurses are held hostage in Iraq by a terrorist organization, a renowned Indian secret agent is drawn out of hiding to rescue them.

After Shideh's building is hit by a missile during the Iran-Iraq War, a superstitious neighbor suggests that the missile was cursed and might be carrying malevolent Middle-Eastern spirits. She becomes convinced a supernatural force within the building is attempting to possess her daughter Dorsa, and she has no choice but to confront these forces if she is to save her daughter and herself.

In a world where no one speaks, a devout female hunts down a young woman who has escaped her imprisonment. Recaptured by its ruthless leaders, Azrael is due to be sacrificed to pacify an ancient evil deep within the surrounding wilderness.

A visual social examination in the form of ten conversations between a driving woman and her various pick-ups and hitchhikers.

Someone is killing Parisians of Arab ethnicity. When an Algerian diplomat is murdered by the same assailant, two Algerian detectives are sent to help the French with the investigation and they have their own ways of doing things.

Pizza man Hussein is a daily witnesses to the unjust distribution of wealth in his native Iran. One day, he finds a purse filled with shockingly expensive receipts from an upscale jewelry store. He attempts to bring the purse back to the store, but because of his working-class attire, he's not allowed inside. Then, during a delivery, a rich man invites Hussein into his extravagant mansion – an event that spurs Hussein to make a desperate bid for wealth.

A group of young journalists investigate a cult said to practice human sacrifice, but their ambitious ways may lead them to becoming the cult's next victims.

To support her family, Maria works as a trafficker of surrogate mothers, transporting them from place to place along a river — but when one disappears, Maria is left with the task of finding her and must enter deeper into a world she wishes to escape.

A journalist finds himself on the trail of a murderer who's been targeting people around him, while the police are considering him a suspect in their investigation.

An opinion columnist and author, subjected to constant misogynistic abuse on social media, snaps and goes on a killing spree against her online abusers.

A killer is on the loose, and an FBI agent sifts through clues and learns that the bloodthirsty felon's victims of choice are other serial killers.

Juan Conte is a world-renowned spokesman of the new atheism. After suffering a heart attack, he receives a transplant and a change in his personal life begins, opening up to the possibility of being in a couple for the first time. Juan will go on a journey of horror and pain, in which his vision of reality will be put to the test.

Aleksandra is a student from Krško, a small town in Slovenia. She has a plan to conquer the world. Working as a prostitute, her life is heading to where she wants it, but an accidental death has her wrestling with new feelings of fear, loneliness, confusion and responsibility

A young woman in Paris goes to a party in the enormous labyrinth of limestone tunnels beneath Paris. When she becomes separated from her friends, she is convinced something is chasing her through the dark tunnels.

Officer Shivani Shivaji Roy is stationed at Kota where she goes against a ferocious serial killer who rapes and murders women.

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

In the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire.

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.

The war on terror exploded, literally, the day Sarajevo was destroyed by a homemade nuclear device. The leading democracies transformed into total surveillance states, and the developing world has drowned under a wave of genocides. The mysterious American John Paul seems to be behind the collapse of the world system, and it's up to intelligence agent Clavis Shepherd to track John Paul across the wreckage of civilizations and to find the true heart of darkness—a genocidal organ.

A young man tries to make things right again in his relationship after he and his girlfriend get in a fight.

Rome, Italy. After committing a heinous crime, a senior police officer exposes evidence incriminating him because his moral commitment prevents him from circumventing the law and the social order it protects.

A suspense thriller about a reporter from Miami who travels to Ecuador in pursuit of a serial killer known as the "Monster of Babahoyo."

Bok-Soon runs a street stall, cares for her younger sister, and is feared by many because of her quick temper. When Tae-Soo murders her sister, rage consumes her completely as she stalks the killer.

Cecilia and her son embark on a journey. On the third day, she is found wandering alone, not remembering what happened during this time. She is desperately looking for her son and finds herself wrapped in a brutal hunt, carried out by a religious fanatic, whom she faces off against. To her, he's a lunatic. To him, Cecilia is the enemy.

A semi-autobiographical account of Makhmalbaf's experience as a teenager when, as a 17-year-old, he stabbed a policeman at a protest rally. Two decades later, he tracks down the policeman he injured in an attempt to make amends.

Retired porn star Milos leads a normal family life trying to make ends meet. Presented with the opportunity of a lifetime to financially support his family for the rest of their lives, Milos must participate in one last mysterious film. From then on, Milos is drawn into a maelstrom of unbelievable cruelty and mayhem.

A PE teacher moves to a isolated mountain village where the people appear to live in unshakeable serenity, but soon stumbles across a disturbing ritual. Once a week, the locals are freed of their pain by a lonely boy born with the power to heal one's soul just by hugging them. Trying to rescue him from this madness, the man unleashes his dark side.

In a mysterious laboratory located in the desert, the experimental spiders used for genetic research mutate and turn into giant spider monsters, turning the laboratory into a giant spider's lair. A few days later, a special warfare team led by the captain Gao Qiang, escorting Dr. Chen, a scientist of the Kwon Plant Group, goes to the laboratory to rescue the trapped people and try to retrieve the relevant scientific research data

Police detective Paolo Germi and the mysterious Marisa meet each other at a dance hall. Germi is unsuspecting of the secret Marisa is carrying with her: adverse conditions forced her into prostitution. As Germi finds the young girl brutally murdered, he decides to go after her killers. During his investigation, he enters a world of intrigue and obfuscation that leave an endless trail of blood.

When the police finally catch an elusive serial killer, no one can prove his guilt, resulting in the lead detective making it personal.

The day after his funeral, the corpse of Varlam Aravidze, the mayor of a small Georgian town, turns up in his son's garden. Although it is secretly reburied, the corpse keeps returning until the police capture the local woman who is responsible. This woman says that Varlam should never be laid to rest since his Stalin-like reign of terror led to the disappearance of her family and friends.

A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim student, asking them to take on the job, but initially he has little luck. Eventually, Badii finds a man who is up for the task because he needs the money, but his new associate soon tries to talk him out of committing suicide.

After being imprisoned by the Assad regime in Syria, Hamid now works undercover as part of a secret group pursuing their leaders, including the guard he suspects was responsible for his torture.

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.

A ferocious, misogynistic, and morally deprived serial killer is active in Las Vegas. Obsessed with the collapse of the Twin Towers, and with Nazi tendencies, he even targets underage girls.

Alice is a young hearing-impaired girl who, after a supposed visitation from the Virgin Mary, is inexplicably able to hear, speak and heal the sick. As word spreads and people from near and far flock to witness her miracles, a disgraced journalist hoping to revive his career visits the small New England town to investigate. When terrifying events begin to happen all around, he starts to question if these phenomena are the works of the Virgin Mary or something much more sinister.

A routine investigation of a shocking murder takes a bizarre twist when the killer contacts the reporter and appoints him his personal spokesman. As the killer's calls and clues increase, the reporter is lured into a deadly trap.

A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.

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 woman employs a gay man to spend four nights at her house to watch her when she's "unwatchable".

TV Producer Kang Min enters Spider Forest for a documentary. He enters a cabin and discovers two brutally murdered bodies. One is his girlfriend Hwang Soo-Young and the other is his colleague Choi Jong-Pil. Kang Min also senses someone watching him and runs after that person into to the forest. He's soon knocked unconscious. When he awakens again he continues his chase into a tunnel. Kang Min is then struck by a speeding car.

A DNA experiment on a rare breed of spider is taking place on a NASA space shuttle, when a freak meteor shower engulfs the shuttle, causing everything to go horribly wrong. One survivor is found on the ship and watched over in a secret location deep in the California desert. The problem continues, as the survivor isn't alone, as another deadly spiders climbs out of him and goes on a rampage around the ship. Curious reporter Marci Eyre must now survive, escape and warn everyone before the spider reaches outside the desert.

To bring down a global human trafficking ring, an Interpol agent recruits the help of a brutal criminal with inside knowledge of the yakuza.

For years, Andrei Evilenko eluded the obsessive Detective Lesiev and the psychiatric profiler Aron Richter. Spurred on by his rabid fury at the gradual crumbling of his precious Soviet Union, Evilenko is a man who will live, die and kill as a communist.

A New York journalist lies when his fake story about a pimp describes a real pimp up for murder.

The film follows two brothers over the course of a decade. While they begin as kids in search of thrills in the sprawling slums of Morocco’s Sidi Moumen, we witness their gradual, and ultimately shocking, radicalisation.

In Lagos, Nigeria, young, naive Nigerian journalist Òlòtūré goes undercover to expose the shady underworld of human trafficking. Unused to this brutal environment, crawling with ruthless traders and pimps, Òlòtūré finds warmth and friendship with Blessing, Linda and Beauty, the prostitutes she lives with. However, she gets drawn into their lifestyle and finds it difficult to cope. In her quest to uncover the truth, she pays the ultimate price - one that takes her to the verge of no return.

Remo's self-destructive behavior overshadows his talent. Abril, an upcoming jockey, is pregnant with Remo's baby and has to decide between the child or continuing to race. They both race for Sirena, a businessman who saved Remo's life in the past but now is determined to find him, dead or alive.

Qinawi, a physically challenged peddler who makes his living selling newspapers in the central Cairo train station, is obsessed with Hanuma, an attractive young woman who sells drinks. While she jokes with him about a possible relationship, she is actually in love with Abu Siri, a strong and respected porter at the station who is struggling to unionize his fellow workers to combat their boss' exploitative and abusive treatment.

A respected priest volunteers for an experimental procedure that may lead to a cure for a deadly virus. He gets infected and dies, but a blood transfusion of unknown origin brings him back to life. Now, he’s torn between faith and bloodlust, and has a newfound desire for the wife of a childhood friend.

Bombs tear through Bombay in 1993, wreaking havoc and polarising the citizens. With perpetrators at large, the state launches a massive man-hunt to unmask the perpetrators behind these events.

During the filming of a movie, actress Sandra Navarro denounces actor Daniel Zavala for sexual abuse on the set during the recording of a scene for the movie. Daniel pleads his innocence and the production tries to prevent the situation from leaking off the set and causing a scandal.

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.

Alex, an immigrant from Ukraine comes to Canada and becomes involved with an online criminal organization called Darkweb. What starts off as a way to help his parents financially, soon becomes a personal vendetta against the entire banking system, when his mother is fired from her job at the bank

Pastor Park, the head of a religious investigation center that exposes cults and cult leaders, begins looking into a suspicious new religion called Deer Mount.

Kaveh Nariman is a Doctor in the medical examiner's office. One day at his work he meets a corpse which is very familiar to him.

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.



