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Movies like Manderlay

Key Features:
Slavery, Social commentary, Historical drama, Liberation, Moral dilemma, Ideology, Power dynamics, Racism, Oppression, Political intrigue, Ensemble cast
Tone:
serious, dramatic, gritty
Target Audience:
Art house enthusiasts, Political drama aficionados, Viewers interested in social issues
Emotional Arc:
Idealism → Disillusionment

Manderlay

2005-06-03
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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.

Genres
Drama
Cast
Bryce Dallas Howard, Isaach de Bankolé, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe, Michaël Abiteboul, Lauren Bacall, Jean-Marc Barr, Geoffrey Bateman, Virgile Bramly, Ruben Brinkman
Crew
Lars von Trier, Lars von Trier
Rating
6.9(375 votes)
ManderlayManderlay
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Mandingo
Mandingo(1975)
6.566

Warren Maxwell, the owner of a run-down plantation, pressures his son, Hammond, to marry and produce an heir to inherit the plantation. Hammond settles on his own cousin, Blanche, but purchases a sex slave when he returns from the honeymoon. He also buys his father a new Mandingo slave named Mede to breed and train as a prize-fighter.



Antebellum
6.2

Successful author Veronica finds herself trapped in a horrifying reality and must uncover the mind-bending mystery before it's too late.



Alice
Alice(2022)
5.734

Alice spends her days enslaved on a rural Georgia plantation, restlessly yearning for freedom. After a violent clash with plantation owner Paul, Alice flees through the neighboring woods and stumbles onto the unfamiliar sight of a highway, soon discovering the year is actually 1973.



Supremacy
Supremacy(2014)
5.7

The story centers on paroled white supremacist who has just killed a cop, and takes a black family hostage. Within hours of being released from 14 years of solitary confinement in maximum-security Pelican Bay State Prison, Garrett Tully is on the run again. When he finds a house off a dirt road and takes a family hostage, he thinks the Aryan Brotherhood has his back–and his kidnap victims are black. The family’s patriarch, Mr. Walker, is a jaded ex-con who hates cops so much he disavowed his own son for becoming one. Seeing a familiar desperation in Tully, Walker refuses to call the authorities for help, causing familial tensions to escalate, and soon grave missteps are made.



Mudbound
Mudbound(2017)
7.374

In the post–World War II South, two families are pitted against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad.



Dogville
Dogville(2003)
7.759

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.



Amistad
Amistad(1997)
7

In 1839, the slave ship Amistad set sail from Cuba to America. During the long trip, Cinque leads the slaves in an unprecedented uprising. They are then held prisoner in Connecticut, and their release becomes the subject of heated debate. Freed slave Theodore Joadson wants Cinque and the others exonerated and recruits property lawyer Roger Baldwin to help his case. Eventually, John Quincy Adams also becomes an ally.



The Handmaid's Tale

In a dystopian, polluted right-wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.



Free State of Jones
6.768

In 1863, Mississippi farmer Newt Knight serves as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery, Knight would rather help the wounded than fight the Union. After his nephew dies in battle, Newt returns home to Jones County to safeguard his family but is soon branded an outlaw deserter. Forced to flee, he finds refuge with a group of runaway slaves hiding out in the swamps. Forging an alliance with the slaves and other farmers, Knight leads a rebellion that would forever change history.



Django Unchained
8.185

With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.



Allegiant
Allegiant(2016)
6.1

Beatrice Prior and Tobias Eaton venture into the world outside of the fence and are taken into protective custody by a mysterious agency known as the Bureau of Genetic Welfare.



Son of the South
6.463

In civil rights era Montgomery, Alabama, Klansman's grandson Bob Zellner must choose which side of history to be on during the Movement. Defying his family and white Southern norms, he fought against social injustice, repression and violence to change the world around him



Origin
Origin(2023)
6.631

While investigating the global phenomenon of caste and its dark influence on society, a journalist faces unfathomable personal loss and uncovers the beauty of human resilience.



Mississippi Masala
6.319

Years after her Indian family was forced to flee their home in Uganda, twentysomething Mina finds herself helping to run a motel in the faraway land of Mississippi. It's there that a passionate romance with the charming Black carpet cleaner Demetrius challenges the prejudices of their conservative families and exposes the rifts between the region's Indian and African American communities.



The Beguiled
5.9

During the Civil War, at a Southern girls’ boarding school, young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they provide refuge and tend to his wounds, the house is taken over with sexual tension and dangerous rivalries, and taboos are broken in an unexpected turn of events.



Rosewood
Rosewood(1997)
6.5

Spurred by a white woman's lie, vigilantes destroy a black Florida town and slay inhabitants in 1923.



Rust
Rust(2025)
6.712

Infamous outlaw Harland Rust breaks his estranged grandson Lucas out of prison, after Lucas is convicted to hang for an accidental murder. The two must outrun legendary U.S Marshal Wood Helm and bounty hunter Fenton "Preacher" Lang who are hot on their tails. Deeply buried secrets rise from the ashes and an unexpected familial bond begins to form as the mismatched duo tries to survive the merciless American Frontier.



Adulterers
5.97

A man who returns home to find his wife cheating on him on their anniversary. He holds her and her naked and humiliated lover captive at gunpoint while he decides whether or not he's going to kill them. The story, inspired by true events, takes place over one day and is set in New Orleans during a stifling heat wave.



Freedomland
5.2

A black police detective must solve a strange case of a kidnapped boy and deal with a big racial protest.



Selma
Selma(2014)
7.385

"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.



Paris Je T'aime
6.8

Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.



White Material
6.8

In the midst of a volatile regime change in a Francophone African state, Maria Vial is fighting to sustain her family’s coffee plantation. With rebels and the army struggling for control, French peacekeeping forces move out, warning the remaining white residents that they’re on their own. But Maria refuses to be driven off the land, even as tragedy looms.



Places in the Heart
7.177

In 1935 rural Texas, recently widowed Edna Spaulding struggles to survive with two small children, a farm to run, and very little money in the bank - not to mention a deadly tornado and the unwelcome presence of the Ku Klux Klan. Edna is aided by her beautician sister, Margaret; a blind boarder, Mr. Will; and a would-be thief, Moze, who decides to teach Edna how to plant and harvest cotton.



Crazy in Alabama
5.995

An abused wife heads to California to become a movie star while her nephew back in Alabama has to deal with a racially-motivated murder involving a corrupt sheriff.



Breaking the Waves
7.493

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.



Levity
Levity(2003)
6.1

Manuel Jordan is a man who is free after serving 23 years for killing a teenager during an attempted robbery. After nearly two decades of staring at his victim's face on a newspaper clipping in his cell, the newly paroled man seeks redemption. Instead, redemption—in the form of a mysterious minister and two needy women— finds him.



White Man's Burden
5.144

The story takes place in alternative America where the blacks are members of social elite, and whites are inhabitants of inner city ghettos. Louis Pinnock is a white worker in a chocolate factory, loving husband and father of two children. While delivering a package for black CEO Thaddeus Thomas, he is mistaken for a voyeur and, as a result, loses his job, gets beaten by black cops and his family gets evicted from their home. Desperate Pinnock takes a gun and kidnaps Thomas, demanding justice.



The Birth of a Nation
6.558

Nat Turner, a former slave in America, leads a liberation movement in 1831 to free African-Americans in Virginia that results in a violent retaliation from whites.



Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Tensions rise when the trailblazing Mother of the Blues and her band gather at a Chicago recording studio in 1927. Adapted from August Wilson's play.



Burden
Burden(2018)
6.122

Ku Klux Klansman Mike Burden opens the Redneck Shop and KKK museum in historic Laurens, SC. He subsequently falls in love with a single mother and, under her influence, quits the Klan and is taken in by an African American Reverend.



Life
Life(1999)
6.7

Two men in 1930s Mississippi become friends after being sentenced to life in prison together for a crime they did not commit.



Vengeance: A Love Story

When a new friend is brutally assaulted, Detective John Droomor is put by chance in charge of the investigation. Although the evidence against the perpetrators seems overwhelming, there is nothing definitive in the case that guarantees justice is served, even more so if some people are willing to twist and betray it.



12 Years a Slave
7.938

In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.



A Streetcar Named Desire

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.



Galveston
Galveston(2018)
6.115

After a violent encounter, Roy finds Rocky and sees something in her eyes that prompts a fateful decision. He takes her with him as he flees to Galveston, an action as ill-advised as it is inescapable.



Arkansas
Arkansas(2020)
5.8

Kyle and Swin live by the orders of an Arkansas-based drug kingpin named Frog, whom they've never met. But when a deal goes horribly wrong, the consequences are deadly.



Sounder
Sounder(1972)
7.5

The oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for stealing food.



Civil War
Civil War(2024)
6.852

In the near future, a group of war journalists attempt to survive while reporting the truth as the United States stands on the brink of civil war.



Eddington
Eddington(2025)
6.491

In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.



American Fable
6

When 11-year-old Gitty discovers that her father, Abe, a good and beloved farmer, is holding a wealthy man hostage in their abandoned silo in order to save their suffering farm, she befriends the captive in secret. As the truth unfolds about who he is and what will happen if he escapes, Gitty chooses to confront the thin line between reality and fiction.



Us
Us(2019)
7

Husband and wife Gabe and Adelaide Wilson take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends. But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited.



Homegrown
Homegrown(1998)
5.558

Three laborers on a Northern California marijuana plantation become increasingly paranoid when they learn that their boss has been murdered. They know enough to run, taking with them enough of the crop to pay them for services rendered. Hooking up with go-between Lucy in the next town, they plot their next move.



M.F.A.
M.F.A.(2017)
6.1

After the accidental death of her rapist, an art student becomes an unlikely vigilante, set out to avenge college girls whose rapists were not charged.



Emancipation
7.8

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



The Retrieval
6.38

On the outskirts of the Civil War, a boy is sent north by a bounty hunter gang to retrieve a wanted man.



No Chains, No Masters
6.592

1759, Mauritius Island, Indian Ocean. The island is controlled by French settlers and the deported slave population live in fear while toiling in the sugar cane plantations. Unlike her disillusioned father Massamba, 16-year-old Mati refuses to keep her head down and accept her fate.



Good
Good(2008)
6.1

When John Halder's latest novel is enlisted by powerful political figures in the Nazi party to push their agenda, his career and social standing instantly advance. But after learning of the Reich's horrific plans for the future and the devastating effects they will have on people close to him, John must decide whether or not to take a stand and risk losing everything.



13th
13th(2016)
7.877

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.



Sommersby
Sommersby(1993)
6.346

Set in the South just after the US Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband, believed killed in battle. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he suddenly returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter. Laurel herself is unsure, but willing to take the man into her home, and perhaps later into her heart.



Marquis de Sade: Justine

Without a family, penniless and separated from her sister, a beautiful chaste woman will have to cope with an endless parade of villains, perverts and degenerates who will claim not only her treasured virtue but also her life.



A Jazzman's Blues
7.441

A tale of forbidden love and family drama unravels 40 years of secrets and lies against a soundtrack of juke joint blues in the Deep South.



The Furies
7.176

A New Mexico cattle man and his strong-willed daughter clash over land and love.



Detroit
Detroit(2017)
7.3

A police raid in Detroit in 1967 results in one of the largest citizens' uprisings in the history of the United States.



Old
Old(2021)
6.3

A group of families on a tropical holiday discover that the secluded beach where they are staying is somehow causing them to age rapidly – reducing their entire lives into a single day.



Alien: Covenant
6.2

The crew of the colony ship Covenant, bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise but is actually a dark, dangerous world.



Belle
Belle(2013)
7.107

Dido Elizabeth Bell, the illegitimate, mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy admiral, plays an important role in the campaign to abolish slavery in England.



Lawman
Lawman(1971)
6.48

While passing through the town of Bannock, a bunch of drunken cattlemen go overboard with their celebrating and accidentally kill an old man with a stray shot. They return home to Sabbath unaware of his death. Bannock lawman Jered Maddox later arrives there to arrest everyone involved on a charge of murder. Sabbath is run by land baron Vince Bronson, a benevolent despot, who, upon hearing of the death, offers restitution for the incident.



Cold Mountain
6.9

In this classic story of love and devotion set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, a wounded Confederate soldier named W.P. Inman deserts his unit and travels across the South, aiming to return to his young wife, Ada, who he left behind to tend their farm. As Inman makes his perilous journey home, Ada struggles to keep their home intact with the assistance of Ruby, a mysterious drifter sent to help her by a kindly neighbor.



A Time to Kill
7.4

A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.



The Long Walk Home
7.64

Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott led by Martin Luther King.



Gator
Gator(1976)
5.104

After his release from prison, notorious ex-con and moonshine distiller Gator McKlusky moves in with his father in a cabin in the Okefenokee Swamp. His bootlegging plans are cut short, however, when a federal agent tells McKlusky that he will lose custody of his 9-year-old daughter unless he helps bring down local crime lord Bama McCall. McKlusky enlists the help of reporter Aggie Maybank and a few local eccentrics to bring down McCall's empire.



Sling Blade
7.534

Karl Childers, a mentally disabled man, has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 for killing his mother and her lover. Although thoroughly institutionalized, he is deemed fit to be released into the outside world.



Badland
Badland(2019)
6.1

Detective Matthias Breecher, hired to track down the worst of the Confederate war criminals, roams the Old West seeking justice. His resolve is tested when he meets a determined pioneer woman who is far more than she seems.



Two Men in Town
5.5

A convict is released from prison in a small town in New Mexico. 18 years ago he killed a deputy. The then-and-now sheriff seeks revenge.



Vatel
Vatel(2000)
6.091

In 1671, with war brewing with Holland, a penniless prince invites Louis XIV to three days of festivities at a chateau in Chantilly. The prince wants a commission as a general, so the extravagances are to impress the king. In charge of all is the steward, Vatel, a man of honor, talent, and low birth. The prince is craven in his longing for stature: no task is too menial or dishonorable for him to give Vatel. While Vatel tries to sustain dignity, he finds himself attracted to Anne de Montausier, the king's newest mistress. In Vatel, she finds someone who's authentic, living out his principles within the casual cruelties of court politics. Can the two of them escape unscathed?



Mississippi Burning
7.68

Two FBI agents investigating the murder of civil rights workers during the 60s seek to breach the conspiracy of silence in a small Southern town where segregation divides black and white. The younger agent trained in FBI school runs up against the small town ways of his partner, a former sheriff.



Harrison Bergeron
6.7

"All men are not created equal. It is the purpose of the Government to make them so." This is the premise of the Showtime film adaption of Kurt Vonnegut's futuristic short story Harrison Bergeron. The film centers around a young man (Harrison) who is smarter than his peers, and is not affected by the usual "Handicapping" which is used to train all Americans so everyone is of equal intelligence.



Blindness
Blindness(2008)
6.5

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.



Red State
Red State(2011)
6.052

Set in Middle America, a group of teens receive an online invitation for sex, though they soon encounter Christian fundamentalists with a much more sinister agenda.



Miller's Crossing
7.45

Set in 1929, a political boss and his advisor have a parting of the ways when they both fall for the same woman.



Secretary
Secretary(2002)
6.8

A young woman, recently released from a mental hospital, gets a job as a secretary to a demanding lawyer, where their employer-employee relationship turns into a sexual, sadomasochistic one.



Native Son
5.443

A young black man named Bigger Thomas takes a job working for a highly influential Chicago family, a decision that will change the course of his life forever.



Straw Dogs
5.917

A young couple moves to a quaint southern town. Soon their perfect getaway turns out to become a living hell when dark secrets and lethal passions spiral out of control.



Blue Bayou
7.5

As a Korean-American man raised in the Louisiana bayou works hard to make a life for his family, he must confront the ghosts of his past as he discovers that he could be deported from the only country he has ever called home.



Let Joy Reign Supreme

A look at 18th-century France, when the depravity of the authorities contributed to social oppression, and the uprisings flared up one after another.



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.



Hang 'em High
6.8

Marshall Jed Cooper survives a hanging, vowing revenge on the lynch mob that left him dangling. To carry out his oath for vengeance, he returns to his former job as a lawman. Before long, he's caught up with the nine men on his hit list and starts dispensing his own brand of Wild West justice.



Monster's Ball
6.764

A prison guard begins a tentative romance with the unsuspecting widow of a man whose execution he presided over.



A Vigilante
5.404

A once-abused woman devotes herself to ridding victims of their domestic abusers while hunting down the one she must kill to be truly free.



Crimson Tide
7.2

After the Cold War, a breakaway Russian republic with nuclear warheads becomes a possible worldwide threat. U.S. submarine Capt. Frank Ramsey signs on a relatively green but highly recommended Lt. Cmdr. Ron Hunter to the USS Alabama, which may be the only ship able to stop a possible Armageddon. When Ramsey insists that the Alabama must act aggressively, Hunter, fearing they will start rather than stop a disaster, leads a potential mutiny to stop him.



Sweet Home Alabama
6.4

New York fashion designer, Melanie Carmichael suddenly finds herself engaged to the city's most eligible bachelor. But her past holds many secrets—including Jake, the redneck husband she married in high school, who refuses to divorce her. Bound and determined to end their contentious relationship once and for all, Melanie sneaks back home to Alabama to confront her past.



THX 1138
THX 1138(1971)
6.43

People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.



Storytelling
6.5

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



Felon
Felon(2008)
7.1

A family man convicted of killing an intruder must cope with life afterward in the violent penal system.



Ghosts of Mississippi

A Mississippi district attorney and the widow of Medgar Evers struggle to bring a white supremacist to justice for the 1963 murder of the civil rights leader.



Norma Rae
Norma Rae(1979)
7.2

Norma Rae is a southern textile worker employed in a factory with intolerable working conditions. This concern about the situation gives her the gumption to be the key associate to a visiting labor union organizer. Together, they undertake the difficult, and possibly dangerous, struggle to unionize her factory.



Martin
Martin(1978)
6.8

A young man, convinced he's a vampire, goes to live with his elderly and hostile cousin in a small Pennsylvanian town, where he tries to suppress his bloodlust.



Savior
Savior(1998)
7.187

A hardened mercenary in the Foreign Legion begins to find his own humanity when confronted with atrocities during the fighting in Bosnia.



Just Cause
6.2

A Harvard professor is lured back into the courtroom after twenty-five years to take the case of a young black man condemned to death for the horrific murder of a child.



Bad Country
5.517

When Baton Rouge police detective Bud Carter busts contract killer Jesse Weiland, he convinces Jesse to become an informant and rat out the South's most powerful crime ring.



Lady Chatterley
6.1

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.



What the Day Owes the Night

Algeria, the 1930s. Younes is nine years old when he is put in his uncle's care in Oran. Rebaptized Jonas, he grows up among the Rio Salado youths, with whom he becomes friends. Emilie is one of the gang; everyone is in love with her. A great love story develops between Jonas and Emilie, which is soon unsettled by the conflicts troubling the country.



Tess
Tess(1979)
7.1

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.



Shéhérazade
7.178

Zachary, 17 years old, gets out of jail. Rejected by his mother, he hangs out in the mean streets of Marseille. He falls in love with Shéhérazade, a young prostitute of whom he becomes the pimp without realizing it...



Sonny
Sonny(2002)
5

New Orleans, 1981. Sonny Phillips, just discharged from the Army, returns home. The only life he's known is as a gigolo, working for his mother, but he wants to leave that behind. However, the job his Army buddy promised doesn't materialize, and he can't escape his past.



Joe
Joe(2014)
6.5

The rough-hewn boss of a lumber crew courts trouble when he steps in to protect the youngest member of his team from an abusive father.



The Phenix City Story
6.548

A crime-busting lawyer and his initially reluctant attorney father take on the forces that run gambling and prostitution in their small Southern town.



Seraphim Falls
6.414

The Civil War has ended, but Colonel Morsman Carver is on one final mission – to kill Gideon, no matter what it takes. Launched by a gunshot and propelled by rage, the relentless pursuit takes the two men through frigid snow-capped mountains and arid deserts, far from the comforts and codes of civilisation, into the bloodiest recesses of their own souls.



Black Snake Moan
6.8

A God-fearing bluesman takes to a wild young woman who, as a victim of childhood sexual abuse, is looking everywhere for love, but never quite finding it.

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