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Movies like Involuntary

Key Features:
Moral dilemma, Social pressure, Consequences, Group dynamics, Responsibility, Peer pressure, Existentialism, Human behavior, Psychological, Anthology, Loss of control
Tone:
serious, restrained
Target Audience:
Art house enthusiasts, Psychological drama fans, Introspective viewers, Foreign film aficionados
Emotional Arc:
Discomfort → Anxiety → Resignation

Involuntary

2008-11-28
Involuntary Poster - Find Similar Movies

In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.

Genres
Comedy, Drama
Cast
Villmar Björkman, Linnea Cart-Lamy, Leif Edlund, Sara Eriksson, Lola Ewerlund, Olle Liljas, Maria Lundqvist, Cecilia Milocco, Simeon Nordius, Henrik Vikman
Crew
Ruben Östlund, Erik Hemmendorff, Ruben Östlund
Rating
6.5(109 votes)
InvoluntaryInvoluntary
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Force Majeure
6.858

While holidaying in the French Alps, a Swedish family deals with acts of cowardliness as an avalanche breaks out.



The Rite
The Rite(1969)
6.833

Called to court on obscenity charges, a theatre troupe are forced to expose their neuroses and inner psychological torments.



Songs from the Second Floor

A monumental traffic jam serves as the backdrop for the lives of the inhabitants of a Swedish city.



Persona
Persona(1966)
8.1

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.



Frozen Land
6.7

When a schoolteacher is sacked, he projects his bad mood at his troubled teenage son. The son, in turn, buys a CD player from a pawnshop with counterfeit money. This starts a chain reaction of misery as every victim projects his problems on to another person.



Regret!
Regret!(2013)
7.3

A David's classmate, Jochem, is harassed by three bullies, but nobody does anything at school, not even David, who feels guilty for not pointing out the culprits.



Another Round
7.6

Four stagnant high school teachers decide to test out a theory that maintaining a constant level of intoxication will improve their overall lives.



Screwed in Tallinn: A Small Film About Loneliness

Percy Nilegaard collects Swedish single men and embarks on a bus trip to Tallinn with a so-called "highly-experienced driver".



Consequences
6

After being sent to a youth detention centre, 18-year-old Andrej has to fight for his place within the group of inmates while getting closer to Željko, their informal leader, and struggling to keep his repressed secret in the dark.



Class Enemy
6.7

Relations between the students and the new teacher of German are extremely tense. When one female student commits suicide, her schoolmates blame the teacher for her death. An awareness that things are not quite so black and white comes too late.



Shame
Shame(1968)
7.517

In the midst of a civil war, a pair of former violinists in a tempestuous marriage oversee a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.



Human Capital
7.5

The destinies of two families are irrevocably tied together after a cyclist is hit off the road by a jeep in the night before Christmas Eve.



Night on Earth
7.512

A quintet of cabbies in five cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.



Anita, Swedish Nymphet

Anita, a young woman with a troubled childhood and a hunger for love, finds a soul mate in Erik, a kindly college student.



About Endlessness
6.541

A reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendor and banality, guided by a Scheherazade-esque narrator. Inconsequential moments have the same significance as historical events. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence.



Border
Border(2018)
6.688

When a border guard with a sixth sense for identifying smugglers encounters the first person she cannot prove is guilty, she is forced to confront terrifying revelations about herself and humankind.



The Idiots
6.5

A group of people gather at a Copenhagen suburban home to break all the limitations and to bring out the 'inner idiot' in themselves.



Shortcut
Shortcut(2020)
5.315

A group of five classmates is trapped inside their school bus after an encounter with a mysterious creature on the road. Amid constant threats from the creature, the teen's anxiety increases while their survival chances decrease.



Slovenian Girl
5.9

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



Panic Attack
5.757

Tragedy meets comedy in seven stories about how our entire world can collapse at any given moment.



Evil
Evil(2003)
7.3

Stockholm, in the 1950s. Erik is expelled from the local school for getting into one brawl too many. To protect Erik from his violent stepfather’s reaction to his expulsion, Erik's mother arranges for Erik to spend a year at Stjärnsberg Boarding School, the only school willing to accept him. This is Erik's last chance to graduate to Upper School and he promises his mother, for his and her sake, to do all he can to stay out of trouble.



Accident
Accident(2017)
5.2

A group of teenagers suffer a terrible accident during a joy ride and get trapped at the bottom of a ravine.



Aniara
Aniara(2019)
6.1

A ship carrying settlers to a new home on Mars after Earth is rendered uninhabitable is knocked off-course, causing the passengers to consider their place in the universe.



Urge
Urge(2016)
4.307

A group of friends on holiday on an island experiment with a new designer drug that makes them lose their ability to control their urges.



Enforcement
6.341

The exact details of what took place while Talib Ben Hassi was in police custody remain unclear. Police officers Jens and Mike are on routine patrol in Svalegården's ghetto when news of Talib's death comes in over the radio, igniting uncontrollable, pent-up rage in the ghetto's youth, who lust for revenge. Suddenly, the two officers find themselves fair game and must fight tooth and claw to find a way out.



Mouth to Mouth
5.387

An aimless adolescent joins several itinerant misfits who live on the fringe of society and welcome at-risk youths into their fold.



I Am Curious (Yellow)
5.622

Lena, aged twenty, wants to know all she can about life and reality. She collects information on everyone and everything, storing her findings in an enormous archive. She experiments with relationships, political activism, and meditation. Meanwhile, the actors, director and crew are shown in a humorous parallel plot about the making of the film and their reactions to the story and each other. Nudity, explicit sex, and controversial politics kept this film from being shown in the US while its seizure by Customs was appealed.



Lilya 4-ever
7.6

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.



Stolen
Stolen(2024)
6.202

A young woman struggles to defend her Sámi heritage in a world where xenophobia is on the rise, climate change is threatening reindeer herding, and young people choose suicide in the face of collective desperation.



Stories Not to be Told

Five tales of human vulnerability and the hilarious, painful, and awkward curveballs life throws us.



Southbound
5.9

The film contains five stories set on desolate stretches of a desert highway. Two men on the run from their past, a band on its way to a gig, a man struggling to get home, a brother in search of his long-lost sister and a family on vacation are forced to confront their worst fears and darkest secrets in these interwoven tales.



After the Rehearsal
6.766

Rational, exacting, and self-controlled theater director, Henrik Vogler, often stays after rehearsal to think and plan. On this day, Anna comes back, ostensibly looking for a bracelet. She is the lead in his new production of Strindberg's A Dream Play. She talks of her hatred for her mother, now dead, an alcoholic actress, who was Vogler's star and lover.



Pity
Pity(2018)
6.3

The story of a man who feels happy only when he is unhappy: addicted to sadness, with such need for pity, that he’s willing to do everything to evoke it from others. This is the life of a man in a world not cruel enough for him.



Storytelling
6.5

College and high school serve as the backdrop for two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil.



Elling
Elling(2001)
7.2

40-year-old Elling, sensitive, would-be poet, is sent to live in a state institution when his mother, who has sheltered him his entire life, dies. There he meets Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and female-obsessed virgin, also in his 40s.



A Short Film About Killing

Jacek climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar, tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him, seemingly without motive.



Body Shots
4.8

The Los Angeles club scene is a place of booze-fueled decadence and debauchery. In a night full of possibilities, eight 20-somethings take to the clubs seeking good times, companionship and maybe a little sex. But in the harsh light of the morning after, their worlds are thrown into a spin of confusion when hungover Sara accuses hard-partying Mike of date rape. Loyalties are tested as each among them is forced to take sides.



After
After(2012)
5.53

When two bus crash survivors awake to discover that they are the only people left in their small town, they must form an unlikely alliance in a race to unravel the truth behind their isolation. As strange events begin to unfold, they start to question whether the town they know so well is really what it seems.



A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

An absurdist, surrealistic and shocking pitch-black comedy, which moves freely from nightmare to fantasy to hilariously deadpan humour as it muses on man’s perpetual inhumanity to man.



17 Girls
17 Girls(2011)
5.453

When Camille accidentally becomes pregnant, she encourages her friends and fellow high school classmates to follow suit. It's only a matter of time, before seventeen girls in the high school are pregnant and the town is thrown into a world of chaos.



Evil Ed
Evil Ed(1995)
5.327

Edward is a friendly, harmless film editor in the splatter and gore department of a horror film company. Ed is assigned to work on the new Loose Limbs series of horror films after the previous editor killed himself with a hand grenade. Later his reality begins to twist and distort into a horrifying world where nothing is as it seems. Soon enough this turns Ed into Evil Ed!



Triangle of Sadness
7.023

A celebrity model couple are invited on a luxury cruise for the uber-rich, helmed by an unhinged, alcoholic captain. What first appears Instagrammable ends catastrophically, leaving the survivors stranded on a desert island in a struggle of hierarchy.



Stranded
Stranded(2015)
4.846

The last train travel of the year from Barcelona to Madrid, suddenly stops by a voltage drop in the middle of nowhere during a fierce snowstorm. Because of the peculiarity of its passengers, will begin to emerge hilarious conflicts between them.



Appassionata
5.709

Two teenage friends conspire to find out how much their youthful sensuality can disrupt one of their households, headed by a dentist and his mentally-ill wife.



Open Hearts
7.03

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.



Dancing Queens
5.9

The story of Dylan Pettersson, a 23-year-old girl from a small island in the Swedish archipelago with big dancing aspirations.



Cadaver
Cadaver(2020)
5.603

In the aftermath of a nuclear disaster, a starving family find hope in a charismatic hotel owner. Lured by the prospect of a free dinner, they discover that the evening's entertainment blurs the lines between performance and reality. Will they wind up the spectators or the spectacle?



Are We Lost Forever

One morning it is over. For Hampus it is a relief to break up from their destructive relationship, while Adrian is devastated. Will he be able to survive without the love of his life, or is there a way of somehow getting him back?



Natural Selection
5.3

Tyler is a young man who is desperately seeking direction from a world that seems to have abandoned him. Searching for answers he looks to his new friend Indrid who appears to have it all figured out.



Ears
Ears(2016)
7.1

A man wakes up one morning with an annoying ringing sound in his ears. A note on the fridge says: "Your friend Luigi has died. P.S. I took the car". The problem is that he does not even remember who this guy Luigi is. This is just the beginning of a tragicomic day during which he will be plunged into the folly of the world. One of those days that changes your life forever.



Dimensions of Dialogue

Three surreal depictions of failures of communication that occur on all levels of human society.



Patrik, Age 1.5
6.8

Göran and Sven have been cleared for adoption and they have a possibility to adopt a swedish orphan, Patrik 1,5. But when Patrik arrives he turns out to be someone else, not the little boy they were expecting. A comma had been misplaced, and in comes a 15-year-old homophobic with a criminal past.



Why
Why(1971)
7.244

Giuseppe Di Noi, an Italian surveyor living in Swiden, gets arrested at the border while going back to Italy with his family for a vacation. But can someone tell the man why?



France
France(2021)
5.213

A celebrity journalist, juggling her busy career and personal life, has her life over-turned by a freak car accident.



The Place
The Place(2017)
7.126

The fates of an apparently random group of strangers who each come into contact with a mysterious figure who they believe possesses the power to grant any wish, in return for which they must carry out a task he assigns them.



The Teachers' Lounge
7.237

When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her actions threaten to break her.



Possession
7.3

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.



Subconscious Cruelty
4.721

A surrealistic anthology of horror films; four segments structured as an intense fever dream...



Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person

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.



The Wave
The Wave(1981)
6.9

A teacher conducts an experiment in an American high school where students learn how easy it is to be seduced by the same social forces which led to the horrors of Nazi Germany.



Italians
Italians(2009)
5.7

Two stories of Italians abroad: in Dubai, a truck driver who smuggles Ferraris for a living teaches the tricks of the trade to his young disciple; in Russia, a clumsy dentist experiences the consequences of sex tourism.



Brink of Life
7.461

Three women in a maternity ward share their lives and intimate thoughts, and face the choice of keeping their babies or offering them for adoption.



JJ+E
JJ+E(2021)
5.799

Elisabeth and John John are raised in the same city, yet they live light years apart, separated economically, socially and culturally. That is until the day they start in the same high school class.



The Trigger Effect
5.7

A blackout leaves those affected to consider what is necessary, what is legal, and what is questionable, in order to survive in a predatory environment.



Oslo, August 31st
7.479

A recovering drug addict is granted a day’s leave from rehab and returns to Oslo, where he reconnects with friends, faces the weight of his past, and struggles with uncertainty about his future. Over the course of one day, he drifts through encounters that reflect his longing for connection and his deep sense of alienation.



Traffic Jam
6.8

A tremendous congestion hits the Rome highway ring. The biggest traffic jam ever seen lasts more than 36 hours. At the beginning the people blocked in their cars react normally. But as more time passes, the more we witness personal dramas, hysteric reactions and other grotesque situations. All the episodes are linked as if in a single plot. Cars and their hosts are a microcosm of stories part of a larger universe: the congestion.



Conspirators of Pleasure

Six outwardly average individuals have elaborate fetishes they indulge with surreptitious care. A mousy letter carrier makes dough balls she grotesquely ingests before bed. A shop clerk fixates on a TV news reader while he builds a machine to massage and masturbate him. One of his customers makes an elaborate chicken costume for a voodoo-like scene with a doll resembling his plump neighbor. She, in turn, has a doll that resembles him, which she whips and dominates in an abandoned church. The TV news reader has her own fantasy involving carp. Her husband, who is indifferent to her, steals materials to fashion elaborate artifacts that he rubs, scrapes and rolls across his body.



Wild Strawberries
8.094

Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara, a dead ringer for the doctor's own first love.



Who Pulled the Plug?

To secure an order for 1 000 cruise ships from an Arab prince, two companies have to compete by racing each other by canal from Stockholm to Gothenburg. A small family owned company on the brink of bankruptcy is pitted against their major competitor and they both have to resort to dirty tricks in order to reach the goal line first. Plot by Mattias Thuresson.



The Dinner
6.3

Story about two brothers and their wives, and the interactions between them and their two high school age children. When the kids get into serious trouble together, how will the parents relationships change with and among each other? Will the parents protect the kids or force them to face the consequences of their actions?



Tale of Cinema
6.796

In Seoul, a suicidal student meets a young woman who decides to join him in his fatal gesture. Dong-soo, an unsuccessful filmmaker, spots a beautiful young woman, who happens to be the lead actress in the film he has just seen. Their stories will cross paths thanks to their love for cinema.



Kids
Kids(1995)
6.9

A day in the life of a group of teens as they travel around New York City skating, drinking, smoking and deflowering virgins.



Incoherence
7

Over three episodes, three respectable middle-aged men find themselves behaving badly. A teacher hides his pornographic magazine from a female student. A jogger steals milk and blames it on a newspaper delivery boy. A drunk man desperately searches for a public toilet late at night.



The Show
The Show(2017)
5.7

An unsettling look at reality television, where a disturbing game show has its contestants ending their lives for the public's enjoyment.



The Complexity of Happiness

Enrico is a corporate man whose job is to manipulate inexperienced scions into selling their flailing companies. His latest assignment proves more difficult than anticipated—since his target are two young siblings whose parents just died in a car accident.



The Marco Effect
5.8

When a homeless Romani boy is arrested at the Danish border for possession of a missing public servant's passport, police inspector Carl Mørck and Department Q are tasked with finding the connection.



The After
The After(2024)
5.645

After losing a family member to a violent crime, a shattered rideshare driver picks up a passenger that forces him to confront his grief.



There Is No Evil
7.5

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.



Cries and Whispers
7.9

As Agnes slowly dies of cancer, her sisters are so immersed in their own psychic pains that they are unable to offer her the support she needs.



Aftermath
Aftermath(2017)
5.7

A fatal plane crash changes the lives of Roman and Jake forever. Roman loses his wife and daughter in the accident, while Jake loses his mind—as he happens to be the air traffic controller who failed to avert the nightmare. Rage and revenge engulfs Roman and Jake finds himself swamped with guilt and regret.



Compulsion
7.1

Two close friends' plan to execute a flawless crime is crushed when one of them inadvertently leaves his glasses at the crime scene.



Shadow Puppets
5

Director Michael Winnick's chilling tale stars James Marsters as Jack, one of eight captives who awaken in an abandoned asylum not knowing who they are or why they are together. They discover that they've been used in an experiment to erase disturbing memories, but instead, a murderous creature has been unleashed. Reaching out from the shadows, the monster hunts the eight strangers as they race to escape the asylum.



The Square
6.75

A prestigious Stockholm museum's chief art curator finds himself in times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a controversial new exhibit.



The Five Obstructions

In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.



Mockingbird
4.675

A couple are given a camera and a set of instructions which they must follow or else someone will die.



Poison
Poison(1991)
5.9

A trio of interweaved transgressive tales, telling a bizarre stories of suburban patricide and a miraculous flight from justice, a mad sex experiment which unleashes a disfiguring plague, and the obsessive sexual relationship between two prison inmates.



Sami Blood
7.325

Elle Marja, 14, is a reindeer-breeding Sami girl. Exposed to the racism of the 1930s and phrenological examinations at her boarding school, she starts dreaming of another life. To achieve this other life she has to become someone else and break all ties with her family and culture.



Koko-di Koko-da
5.8

As a couple goes on a trip to find their way back to each other, a sideshow artist and his shady entourage emerge from the woods, terrorizing them, luring them deeper into a maelstrom of psychological terror and humiliating slapstick.



Goodbye Solo
6.914

A man planning to commit suicide hires a taxi driver to take him to his jumping-off point.



Drained
Drained(2006)
7.1

A pawn shop proprietor buys used goods from desperate locals – as much to play perverse power games as for his own livelihood, but when the perfect rump and a backed-up toilet enter his life, he loses all control.



Below Her Mouth
6.791

An unexpected affair quickly escalates into a heart-stopping reality for two women whose passionate connection changes their lives forever.



Bottom of the World

On their road trip through the southwestern desert, Alex and his girlfriend Scarlett arrive in a town in the middle of nowhere and take a room in a mysterious hotel so that Scarlett, who is feeling increasingly ill, can get some rest.



America Latina
6.1

Massimo Sisti is a reputable professional with a nice house, a happy marriage, and two loving daughters, whose life is turned upside down when one day he finds a little girl tied up in his basement.



An Affair
An Affair(2018)
5.4

A newly appointed teacher finds herself being followed, and soon discovers that one of her own students is obsessed with her.



Fat People
6.056

Due to many reasons, ranging from insecurity to trauma, a group of people have gained a lot of weight in recent times.



On the Edge
6.013

One night, Leo, a Spaniard working in Brussels as a subway driver, sees a young man on the edge of the platform, just before he falls onto the tracks.



Flatliners
5.6

Five medical students, hoping to understand the mystery of what lies beyond life, embark on a dangerous experiment. When their hearts are stopped for a short period of time, they have a near-death experience…



Ship of Theseus
6.9

Three stories about persons forced to think about the ethics and moral issues raised by medical advances.



Together
Together(2000)
6.996

Elisabeth leaves her abusive and drunken husband Rolf, and goes to live with her brother, Göran. The year is 1975 and Göran lives in a commune called Together. Living in this leftist commune Elisabeth learns that the world can be viewed from different perspectives.

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