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Movies like Mothers' Instinct

Key Features:
Psychological thriller, Friendship betrayal, Grief, Guilt, Paranoia, Suspicion, Motherhood, Tragedy, Suburban setting, Secrets, Distrust
Tone:
serious, suspense-driven, dramatic
Target Audience:
Thriller enthusiasts, Fans of psychological dramas, Viewers interested in suspenseful narratives, Those who enjoy character-driven stories
Emotional Arc:
Contentment → Suspicion → Paranoia

Mothers' Instinct

2019-04-17
Mothers' Instinct Poster - Find Similar Movies

When a sudden tragedy uproots the lives of two women and their families, they begin to question the relationships they once held so dear.

Genres
Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Cast
Veerle Baetens, Anne Coesens, Mehdi Nebbou, Arieh Worthalter, Jules Lefebvre, Luan Adam, Annick Blancheteau, Eveline Delfosse, Jacky Druaux, Dominique Rongvaux
Crew
Olivier Masset-Depasse, Olivier Masset-Depasse, Giordano Gederlini
Rating
6.319(155 votes)
Mothers' InstinctMothers' Instinct
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Mothers' Instinct
6.895

Housewives Alice and Celine are best friends and neighbours who seem to have it all. However, when a tragic accident shatters the harmony of their lives, guilt, suspicion and paranoia begin to unravel their sisterly bond.



Motherly
Motherly(2022)
6.132

Kate and her daughter Beth live alone in an isolated farmhouse in the woods, but when Kate slowly begins to suspect that something sinister is happening, her motherly instincts are put to the test.



Instinct
Instinct(2019)
4.9

Nicoline, a criminal psychologist, begins work at a prison where one of her new cases, Idris — an apparently reformed sex offender — is preparing for release after five years of confinement. Despite her professional misgivings, she becomes infatuated with her charismatic, manipulative patient.



Mother
Mother(2019)
6.73

Ten years have gone by since Elena's six-year old son has disappeared. The last thing she heard of him was a phone call he gave her, saying that he was lost on a beach in France and couldn't find his father. Nowadays, Elena lives on this same beach and manages a restaurant. She is finally beginning to emerge from this tragic episode when she meets a French teenager who strongly reminds her of her lost son. The two of them will embark on a relationship which will sow chaos and distrust around them.



Mom and Dad
5.402

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



Feelings
Feelings(2003)
5.9

Two seemingly happily married French couples are forced to contend with a number of issues.



Mother's Boys
5.3

Sexy but unstable wife and mother Jude walked out on her family three years ago. Now, just as suddenly, she is back. But her husband, Robert, has fallen in love with Callie, an assistant principal at his sons' school. He asks Jude for a divorce. She responds by trying to turn her three boys against Callie, then by slashing herself and blaming her rival and finally by drawing her 12-year-old, Kes, into a murderous plot.



M.O.M. Mothers of Monsters

A distraught mother suspects her teenage son is a psychopath who may shoot up his high school, but when he outsmarts the mental healthcare system she is forced to take matters into her own hands.



Dear Mother
5.8

One day, Jean-Louis discovers that his heart has stopped. He is not dead, can walk and talk, but his heart is no longer beating. With the help of his wife and a friend, he tries to understand the origin of this mystery.



Amer
Amer(2009)
6.207

Ana is confronted with body and desire at three key moments of her life. As a young girl, she brings her dead grandpa back to life. In her puberty, she discovers the power of decay and sexuality. Finally, she wrestles with loss and loneliness when she returns to her parental home, now derelict.



Son
Son(2021)
6.009

When a young boy contracts a mysterious illness, his mother must decide how far she will go to protect him from terrifying forces in her past.



My Mother
My Mother(2015)
6.6

Margherita, a director in the middle of an existential crisis, has to deal with the inevitable and still unacceptable loss of her mother.



Mommy
Mommy(2014)
8.2

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



Hold Me Tight
6.48

At dawn, Clarisse takes a last look at her husband and two sleeping children, hesitates to leave a note, and hits the road. A desperate escape that gradually reveals its layers as Clarisse — who seems to have an extra-sensory connection to the family she has left behind — loses herself in the world.



Joy House
Joy House(1964)
6.419

A small-time con man on the run from the gangster-husband of his girlfriend hides out in a strange, brooding mansion run by two mysterious women, where he finds himself trapped in deception between the two women.



Femme Fatale
6.1

A $10-million diamond rip-off, a stolen identity, a new life married to a diplomat. Laure Ash has risked big, won big. But then a tabloid shutterbug snaps her picture in Paris, and suddenly, enemies from Laure's secret past know who and where she is. And they all want their share of the diamond heist. Or her life. Or both.



Like Mother, Like Daughter

An attention-craving mother nearing 50, unemployed and living with her pregnant daughter and son-in-law, suddenly finds herself with child, too...



Our Women
Our Women(2015)
5.379

Max, Paul and Simon have been friends for 35 years. They take great pleasure in their one vacation a year together without their partners and meet-up regularly to spend evenings drinking or playing cards. Each has a successful career and they all appear to have perfect lives until the night Simon announces to his friends that he has just strangled his wife, Estelle after a blazing row. Max and Paul are horrified by Simon's confession, but worse is to come when Simon asks them to lie and provide him with an alibi for the time Estelle was killed. Both men are torn between lying or turning over their best friend to the police.



Hidden
Hidden(2009)
5.6

Painful memories arise when Kai Koss inherits his dead mother's house and goes back to his childhood home after 19 years.



Moka
Moka(2016)
6.047

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



In Syria
In Syria(2017)
6.469

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



Matriarch
Matriarch(2022)
4.898

Afflicted with a mysterious disease after surviving an overdose, a woman returns to her childhood home to confront her personal demons but instead discovers a real one.



Now or Never
6.1

As a mother, in principle, you do not rob banks. But these days, it can be a solution for the future of your home, and not to give up on your dreams. Playing the thieves can quickly become dangerous and bad encounters can turn into a love story ...



Our Children
6.7

Young and full of life, Murielle has a promising future ahead of her when she meets and falls head over heels for Mounir. A wedding soon follows, and the happy couple quickly set about preparing to make a family. However, with family come ties, and none come as tight as that between Mounir and his adoptive father. As Murielle continues to bring new life into the family, frictions between Mounir and Doctor Pinget reach boiling point. Helpless to extract her husband and children from the wealthy nest that Doctor Pinget has provided for them, Murielle is drawn into an unhealthy family dynamic. There is only one way out of this nightmare, and for Murielle all sense of reasoning begins to abandon her.



Diary of a Fleeting Affair

A single mother and a married man enter into an affair with the understanding that their relationship is purely sexual. Though they agree the relationship has no future, they find themselves increasingly drawn into each other's company.



Mother
Mother(2009)
7.7

A mother lives quietly with her son. One day, a girl is brutally killed, and the boy is charged with the murder. Now, it's his mother's mission to prove him innocent.



Depravity
Depravity(2024)
5.445

A group of residents begins to suspect that their strange neighbor might be hiding something dark.



Restless
Restless(2022)
6.1

After going to extremes to cover up an accident, a corrupt cop's life spirals out of control when he starts receiving threats from a mysterious witness.



Not on My Watch
5.325

A single mother gets entangled in a web of lies to protect her sons.



Basic Instinct
6.927

Catherine, a novelist with an insatiable sexual appetite, becomes a prime suspect when her boyfriend is brutally murdered -- a crime she had described in her latest story.



Instinct
Instinct(1999)
6.493

In a prison for the criminally insane, deranged anthropologist Ethan Powell is set to be examined by a bright young psychiatrist, Theo Caulder. Driven by ambition and a hunger for the truth, Caulder will eventually risk everything—even put his very life on the line—in a harrowing attempt to understand the bizarre actions of this madman.



Headwinds
Headwinds(2011)
5.76

Sarah tells Paul that she wants out of their marriage; the next day she disappears. A year later and Paul along with their children return to his childhood town to start anew after the loss of his wife and their mother.



Femmes Fatales
6.1

Two men, fortyish, worn out by their wives, abandon everything to go and live in the back of beyond. There they meet a truculent priest, a boozer, Émile who recalls them to life's simple pleasures. Calm is what they want. But soon their example inspires thousands of disorientated males...



Vinyan
Vinyan(2008)
5.1

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.



Mother
Mother(2017)
6.913

An everyday conversation between Marta and her mother turns into a tragic race against the clock when Marta receives a phone call from Iván, her six-year-old son, who is on holiday in France with his father.



Inconceivable
5.576

A mother looks to escape her abusive past by moving to a new town where she befriends another mother, who grows suspicious of her.



mother!
mother!(2017)
6.966

A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.



Saint Omer
6.161

A novelist attends the trial of a woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her to the rising tide on a beach in northern France. But as the trial continues, her own family history, doubts, and fears about motherhood are steadily dislodged as the life story of the accused is gradually revealed.



Home
Home(2008)
6.86

Along with her husband and three children, Marthe lives in an eden of her own creation, nearly isolated from the rest of the world. The arrival of a construction vehicle, however, pierces their tranquil, hermetic existence—before long a disused highway has been re-opened, and the family finds their home situated in the midst of rush-hour traffic. While the privileges of clean air, quietude and privacy are thus denied them, Marthe remains determined to stay no matter the cost.



The Woman in the Yard

In the aftermath of her husband's death, widow Ramona's struggle to raise her two kids is hindered by the arrival of a mysterious woman with supernatural abilities.



The Good Mother
4.877

A journalist and her son's pregnant girlfriend attempt to track down those responsible for the murder of her estranged son. Together, they confront a world of drugs and corruption in the underbelly of their small city in upstate New York, where they uncover an even darker secret.



8 Women
8 Women(2002)
6.894

Eight women gather to celebrate Christmas in a snowbound cottage, only to find the family patriarch dead with a knife in his back. Trapped in the house, every woman becomes a suspect, each having her own motive and secret.



This Man Must Die
7.361

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.



Control
Control(2017)
5.99

The once unconditional friendship between police officers Vincke and Verstuyft hits a very rough patch when they come up against a series of gruesome murders. Complicating matters even further, a survivor of the killer drives a wedge between them when Verstuyft falls for her charms. Meanwhile, the serial killer has a new victim in sight...



Boomerang
Boomerang(2015)
6.212

When Antoine returns to the island of Noirmoutier, secrets kept in the past resurfaces and threatens to change his family’s present.



Nightcap
Nightcap(2000)
6.3

Mika, heiress to a Swiss chocolate company, is married to celebrated pianist André and stepmother to his son, Guillaume, whose mother died in a car wreck on his tenth birthday. Their lives are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Jeanne, a young woman who has learned she was almost switched with Guillaume at birth.



Secrets of War
6.628

Tuur and Lambert are best friends. But the war is closing in and is about to change their lives forever. Tuurs dad joined the resistance and even his big brother seems so be part of it. Lamberts family on the other hand choose to obey the Germans. Then a new girls from the city shows up, befriending the boys but telling her secret to only one of them. A choice that separates the boys and ultimately gets her in trouble.



Mama
Mama(2013)
6.3

Guillermo del Toro presents Mama, a supernatural thriller that tells the haunting tale of two little girls who disappeared into the woods the day that their parents were killed. When they are rescued years later and begin a new life, they find that someone or something still wants to come tuck them in at night.



Crime Wave
5.785

Leyre lives a quiet and comfortable life which ends abruptly when an act of rage of her teenage son leads her to protect him by any means necessary.



Force Majeure
6.858

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



Little White Lies 2
6.665

The result of the small handkerchiefs "Petits mouchoirs", 7 years later. The band, which erupted, is found on the occasion of the anniversary surprise organized for Max.



The Burned Barns
6.5

The body of a young woman is discovered near a farm. The judge, Larcher is in charge and thinks that the farmers have something to do with the murder.



Hideaway (Le refuge)

Mousse and Louis are young, beautiful, rich and in love. But drugs have invaded their lives. One day, they overdose and Louis dies. Mousse survives, but soon learns she's pregnant. Feeling lost, Mousse runs away to a house far from Paris. Several months later, Louis' brother joins her in her refuge.



Elisa
Elisa(1995)
6.4

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.



Demonic
Demonic(2021)
4.8

A young woman unleashes terrifying demons when supernatural forces at the root of a decades-old rift between mother and daughter are ruthlessly revealed.



Ghostland
Ghostland(2018)
7.387

A mother of two inherits a home from her aunt. On the first night in the new home she is confronted with murderous intruders and fights for her daughters’ lives. Sixteen years later the daughters reunite at the house, and that is when things get strange...



Elle
Elle(2016)
6.7

When Michèle, the CEO of a gaming software company, is attacked in her home by an unknown assailant, she refuses to let it alter her precisely ordered life. She manages crises involving family, all the while becoming engaged in a game of cat and mouse with her stalker.



Inside
Inside(2007)
6.8

Scarred for life after a harrowing near-death experience, emotionally fragile mother-to-be Sarah is still struggling to come to terms with her loss. Overcome with silent grief, Sarah now seeks solace in work; however, she is on a collision course with sheer terror when a knock at the door in the dead of night chills her bones to the marrow. Now, the raven-haired, late-night visitor in black wants something precious from Sarah, and will stop at nothing to get it.



DNA
DNA(2020)
5.9

A woman has a close bond with her beloved Algeriann grandfather, who protected her from a toxic home life as a child; his death triggers a deep identity crisis as tensions between her extended family members escalate, revealing new depths of resentment and bitterness.



Thérèse Raquin
6.593

Star-crossed lovers Thérèse and Laurent think they've gotten away with murder after Thérèse's weakling husband "falls" from a speeding train. But when forced to contend with a blackmailer's demands and the mute accusations of Thérèse's mother-in-law, it's only a matter of time before the law, their passion or blind chance trips them up.



Monolith
Monolith(2016)
5.334

A mother and her son plan a surprise visit to Los Angeles to see her husband/his father. Halfway there they get into a terrible accident in the middle of nowhere and now must fight to survive.



Chrysalis
Chrysalis(2007)
5.297

Paris 2020, a high tech surgeon and her daughter are involved in a horrific car accident, the surgeon saves her daughter's life at the cost of manipulating her dreams and memories.



Mother's Day
5.6

Three girls discover that two men are willing to do anything to impress Mother and what impresses Mother is watching her sons commit acts of rape and murder. Now these women are prisoners and lowered to pawns in the game of checkers between two dim wits and their Maniac Mommy and the question becomes, can any of them escape, alive?



Alice
Alice(2020)
5.971

Alice, a perfect wife and mother, lives happily with her husband and child until the day she discovers he is living a double life that has ruined her financially and left her a single mother. Alice fights back and dives into a world beyond anything she has ever known.



Après moi le bonheur

A dying woman is fighting to choose a new family to keep her four children together, after she's gone.



The Mother
5.96

A grandmother has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.



Paris Belongs to Us

A young woman joins a theatrical troupe where she slowly believes that the director is involved with a secret group and that he is in grave danger.



Back to Mom's
5.656

At 40, Stephanie loses her job and is forced to move back in with her mother. She is welcomed with open arms to the joys of overheated apartment, Francis Cabrel playing on loop, Scrabble games and precious motherly advice on how to behave at the table and live her life.



Anatomy of a Fall
7.54

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



Petite Maman
7.141

After the death of her beloved grandmother, eight-year-old Nelly meets a strangely familiar girl her own age in the woods. Instantly forming a connection with this mysterious new friend, Nelly embarks on a fantastical journey of discovery which helps her come to terms with this newfound loss.



Ritual
Ritual(2022)
6.452

The discovery of a chopped-off hand in a Brussels canal forces Belgian police diver Kiki to face deep guilt from the past, her own and her country’s. Based on the book ‘Ritual’ by Mo Hayder.



The Mother
6.627

A deadly female assassin comes out of hiding to protect the daughter that she gave up years before, while on the run from dangerous men.



Angst
Angst(1983)
7.1

A killer is released from prison and breaks into a remote home to kill a woman, her handicapped son and her pretty daughter.



Two Eyes Staring
5.4

Nine-year-old Lisa discovers her sinister new friend is the ghost of the dead twin of Lisa's mother. Then Lisa's father also begins to suspect his wife of hiding a terrible secret, resulting in deadly consequences…



Mercy
Mercy(2016)
4.285

Brought together at their childhood home over their dying mother, an estranged family is thrust into a deadly fight for their own survival.



Lila & Eve
6.098

Lila, a grief-stricken mother reeling from her son’s murder, attends a support group where she meets Eve, who urges her to take matters into her own hands to track down her son’s killers.



The Secret
6

Husband, wife, and daughter have moved from Boston to Williamstown. At 16, Samantha treats her mother shabbily, but when the two of them are in a horrific car crash, the mother wills Sam to live, somehow losing her own life while her spirit enters Sam.



Mea Culpa
Mea Culpa(2014)
6.363

Franck and Simon are both good cops. They work as partners. But their lives take a tailspin when Simon, driving drunk, causes a tragic car wreck. A few years later, out of the police, he is forced to take matters into his own hands when his family is in danger.



Ma mère
Ma mère(2004)
4.4

After his father's death, a young man is introduced to a world of hedonism and depravity by his amoral mother.



Love at First Child

Gabriell is a single mother, her 17-year-old daughter Claire is pregnant, however the child's father Simon has no desire to be involved with his future baby. When Gabrielle takes matters into her own hands and asks Simon's father Ange for help, an unexpected relationship begins.



The Flower of Evil

Three generations of a wealthy Bordeaux family are caught in the crossfire when Anne decides to run for mayor, thanks to a political pamphlet that revives an old murder scandal.



Mrs. Hyde
Mrs. Hyde(2018)
4.3

Mrs. Géquil is an eccentric teacher despised by her colleagues and students. On a stormy night, she is struck by lightning and faints. When she wakes up, she feels different. Will she now be able to keep the powerful and dangerous Mrs. Hyde contained?



Freestyle
Freestyle(2022)
6.7

One morning, Louise, 45, is suddenly unable to step out of her car. Sweats, anxieties, palpitations... she is having an inexplicable panic attack. She is tetanized and simply cannot set foot outside.



A Man and a Woman
7.3

A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their childrens' boarding school. Slowly, they reveal themselves to each other, finding that they have something deeply in common.



Kidnap
Kidnap(2017)
6.236

A mother (in her Minivan) stops at nothing to recover her kidnapped son.



Grace
Grace(2009)
5.447

In the wake of a horrific car accident that kills her husband, Michael, expectant mother Madeline Matheson discovers that her daughter, Grace, has died in the womb. Ignoring her doctor's warnings that the fetus must be removed from her body, a grief-stricken Matheson demands to carry the child to term -- even if it endangers her own life to do so. Curiously, little Grace emerges undead -- and with a craving for human blood.



Mommy Dead and Dearest

Child abuse, mental illness, and forbidden love converge in this mystery involving a mother and daughter who were thought to be living a fairy tale life that turned out to be a living nightmare.



Loft
Loft(2008)
6.9

Five close friends, all of them married, share a loft to meet their mistresses. One day they find the body of a young woman in the loft. Since there are only five keys to the loft, the five men begin to suspect each other of murder.



Matriarch
Matriarch(2018)
5.2

A pregnant woman and her husband are taken in by a farmer and his wife after crashing their car in the Scottish countryside. Once inside, they realize their hosts’ daughter is a missing child from the news years earlier. Things take a sinister twist when the farmer and his wife inform the couple they intend to keep their baby once born.



Revoir Paris
7.081

Three months after surviving a terrorist attack in a bistro, Mia is still traumatized and unable to recall the events of that night. In an effort to move forward, she investigates her memories and retraces her steps.



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.



Harmonium
Harmonium(2016)
6.543

Toshio hires Yasaka to work in his workshop. But then this old acquaintance, who has just been released from prison, begins to meddle in Toshio's family life.



High Tension
6.8

Best friends Marie and Alexia decide to spend a quiet weekend at Alexia's parents' secluded farmhouse. But on the night of their arrival, the girls' idyllic getaway turns into an endless night of horror.



Athena
Athena(2022)
6.606

Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos.



Black Box
Black Box(2005)
5.46

An accident survivor wakes from a coma and confronts old, uncomfortable memories.



The Past
The Past(2013)
7.2

After four years apart, Ahmad returns to his wife Marie in Paris in order to progress their divorce. During his brief stay, he cannot help noticing the strained relationship between Marie and her daughter Lucie. As he attempts to improve matters between mother and daughter Ahmad unwittingly lifts the lid on a long buried secret...



My Mother's Castle
7.2

To his chagrin, young Marcel Pagnol and his family move back to their home in Marseille, France, far from their pastoral holiday cottage in the hills. Determined, Marcel makes the long voyage back to the cottage on foot and lands himself in trouble. One day Marcel's father discovers a shortcut to the cottage, but it requires trespassing. Despite their trepidations, Marcel and his family begin using the secret trail to reach their cottage.



The Seventh Juror
6.8

In a moment of madness a middle-aged, married and respectable pharmacist kills a young woman who is sun-bathing by a lake. Unable to take in what he has done, he flees from the scene of the crime and behaves as if nothing has happened. Eventually her boyfriend is charged with the crime and, in a strange twist of fate, the killer finds himself serving on the jury.



Whirlpool
Whirlpool(1950)
6.4

The wife of a psychoanalyst falls prey to a devious quack hypnotist when he discovers she is an habitual shoplifter. Then one of his previous patients now being treated by the real doctor is found murdered, with her still at the scene, and suspicion points only one way.

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