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Movies like Stray Dogs

Key Features:
Poverty, Homelessness, Alcoholism, Family survival, Social realism, Desperation, Redemption, Human connection, Urban decay
Tone:
serious, restrained, poetic
Target Audience:
Fans of social realism, Viewers interested in character-driven dramas, Those who appreciate art house films, Audiences seeking thought-provoking stories
Emotional Arc:
Despair → Hope → Uncertainty

Stray Dogs

2014-02-21
Stray Dogs Poster - Find Similar Movies

An alcoholic man and his two young children barely survive in Taipei. They cross paths with a lonely grocery clerk who might help them make a better life.

Genres
Drama
Cast
Lee Kang-sheng, Lu Yi-ching, Chen Shiang-Chyi, Yang Kuei-mei, Lee Yi-cheng, Lee Yi-Chieh, Wu Jin-Kai
Crew
Tsai Ming-liang, Song Peng Fei, Tsai Ming-liang, Chen Yu Tung
Rating
6.3(94 votes)
Stray DogsStray Dogs
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Black Dog
Black Dog(2024)
7.2

On the edge of the Gobi desert in Northwest China, Lang returns to his hometown after being released from jail. While working for the local dog patrol team to clear the town of stray dogs before the Olympic Games, he strikes up an unlikely connection with a black dog. These two lonely souls embark on a journey together.



Dodes'ka-den
7

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.



Pickpocket
7.22

A small town pickpocket whose friends have moved on to higher trades finds himself bitter and unable to adapt.



MOTHER
MOTHER(2020)
6.995

Shuhei is leading a tough life. His alcoholic mother Akiko can only hook up with bad guys and order Shuhei to go get money from his disapproving grandparents instead of going to school. Except raising the little half-sister, his rock-bottom life seems to have no end.



Yi Yi
Yi Yi(2000)
7.9

Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they live through everyday quandaries. NJ is morose: his brother owes him money, his mother-in-law is in a coma, his wife suffers a spiritual crisis when she finds her life a blank and his business partners make bad decisions.



Perro callejero
7.889

An abandoned child steals to survive and has problems when he decides to steal from the priest who helps him.



Rainy Dog
Rainy Dog(1997)
6.776

A Japanese assassin stranded in Taiwan must take work from a local crime boss to make ends meet when suddenly a woman from his past delivers a son to him.



Taipei Story
7.457

A young woman urgently seeks to navigate the maze of contemporary Taipei and find a future. She hopes that her boyfriend Lung is the key to the future, but Lung is stuck in a past that combines baseball and traditional loyalty that leads him to squander his nest egg bailing her father out of financial trouble.



Barking Dogs Never Bite

An idle part-time college lecturer is annoyed by the yapping sound of a nearby dog. He decides to take drastic action.



Dog Eat Dog
5.1

Carved from a lifetime of experience that runs the gamut from incarceration to liberation, Dog Eat Dog is the story of three men who are all out of prison and now have the task of adapting themselves to civilian life.



Pather Panchali
7.846

Impoverished priest Harihar Ray leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work. His wife, Sarbojaya, looks after their rebellious daughter, Durga, and young son, Apu. The children enjoy the small pleasures of their difficult life.



Strays
Strays(2023)
7.2

When Reggie is abandoned on the mean city streets by his lowlife owner, Doug, Reggie is certain that his beloved owner would never leave him on purpose. But once Reggie falls in with Bug, a fast-talking, foul-mouthed stray who loves his freedom and believes that owners are for suckers, Reggie finally realizes he was in a toxic relationship and begins to see Doug for the heartless sleazeball that he is.



Strayed
Strayed(2003)
5.808

Fleeing the June 1940 arrival of Hitler's army in Paris, a young war widow and her two children are rescued from dive-bombing German fighters by a cocky, reckless teenager. He finds them refuge in an abandoned house, but despite the fact that the family quickly comes to be depending much on his cunning and survival abilities, their cohabitation proves uneasy.



The Wild Pear Tree
7.536

Fresh out of university, a Turkish young man with literary aspirations returns to his home village, and to his father, a debt-ridden man with a gambling problem.



Eat Drink Man Woman

Retired and widowed Chinese master chef Chu lives in modern day Taipei, with his three attractive daughters, all of whom are unattached. Soon, each daughter encounters a new man in their lives. When these new relationships blossom, stereotypes are broken and the living situation within the family changes.



Vive L'Amour
7.25

Three lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment: May, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat.



Her Story
Her Story(2024)
7.534

Wang Tiemei, a single mother, loses her job and moves, befriending neighbor Xiaoye who appears cheerful but is depressed. Their bond grows as Tiemei navigates relationships with her ex-husband causing trouble.



Unknown Pleasures
6.415

Two disaffected, unemployed Chinese youth drift through life on the streets of their industrial town, their paths crossing with that of a local young singer and dancer working for a liquor company as a spokesmodel.



Cities of Last Things
6.397

Three key events during three different time periods, in three seasons, and on three nights culminate to change the life of Zhang Dong Ling.



What Time Is It There?

A street vendor with a grim home-life forges a connection with a young woman on her way to Paris.



Pitfall
Pitfall(1962)
7.288

A man wanders into a seemingly deserted town with his young son in search of work. But after a bit of bad luck, he joins the town's population of lost souls.



Strays
Strays(1991)
6.657

A young married couple and their daughter are terrorized by a pride of ferocious feral felines.



Fences
Fences(2016)
6.872

In 1950s Pittsburgh, a frustrated African-American father struggles with the constraints of poverty, racism, and his own inner demons as he tries to raise a family.



Tokyo Godfathers
7.9

On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.



An Elephant Sitting Still

In the northern Chinese city of Manzhouli, they say there is an elephant that simply sits and ignores the world. Manzhouli becomes an obsession for the protagonists of this film, a longed-for escape from the downward spiral in which they find themselves.



Well
Well(2016)
5.5

At a gas station in the middle of nowhere, a young man arrives to meet his father he hasn't seen for 30 years. On the same day, a van with four prostitutes breaks down at the very same gas station, on the way to Switzerland. The three days they spend together in the station change their lives forever.



The Naked Island
7.993

A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.



Mad World
Mad World(2016)
6.95

An absentee father and his bipolar son are forced to live together as they struggle with a recent family tragedy. The tension and anxiety boil as they live and try to cope in a tiny apartment. As time passes, they realize their shared pain is not their only source of grief, as they find the outside world is a cruel and unjust place.



Dog Bite Dog
6.6

A young Cambodian man who has been trained to fight for money in his country is hired to kill someone in Hong Kong. He performs the hit and then flees from Hong Kong police, who are wrestling with internal problems of a model cop and his son, who is also on the force and who was told by his dad not to become a police officer.



Rebels of the Neon God

In Taipei, revenge and love twist the paths of wayward youths.



Sun and Concrete
6.986

The four friends Lukas, Julius, Gino and Sanchez are trying to survive the everyday life in Neukölln, Berlin between drugs, gangs, rap, violence and boredom. Until they are one day making a serious decision with serious consequences because of a dead certain plan.



Paper Lives
8

In the streets of Istanbul, ailing waste warehouse worker Mehmet takes a small boy under his wing and must soon confront his own traumatic childhood.



The River
The River(1997)
6.7

A young man develops severe neck pain after swimming in a polluted river for a movie shoot, but nobody can provide him any relief.



Benji
Benji(1974)
6.3

Benji is a stray who has nonetheless worked his way into the hearts of a number of the townspeople, who give him food and attention whenever he stops by. His particular favorites are a pair of children who feed and play with him against the wishes of their parents. When the children are kidnapped, however, the parents and the police are at a loss to find them. Only Benji can track them down, but will he be in time? If he can save the day, he may just find the permanent home he's been longing for.



Life Without Principle

A criminal, a bank clerk and a police officer find their destinies entwined when a loan shark gets assaulted after having withdrawn $10 million from the bank in the midst of the world financial crisis.



Bungo Stray Dogs: Dead Apple

A large scale catastrophe is occurring across the planet. Ability users are discovered after the appearance of a mysterious fog, apparently having committed suicide, so the Armed Detective Agency sets out to investigate these mysterious deaths. The case seems to involve an unknown ability user referred to as "Collector," a man who could be the mastermind behind the incident. Trust and courage are put to the test in order to save the city of Yokohama and ability users across the world from the grip of Collector where the Armed Detective Agency forms an unlikely partnership with the dangerous Port Mafia.



Sour Apples
7

In an eastern Turkish town, suitors knock on the door of the mayor and father of three beautiful daughters who choose to follow their own paths.



Old Men in New Cars: In China They Eat Dogs II

The last wish of the dying "Monk" is for his foster child, Harald, to find his real son, Ludvig. But the latter is currently in a Swedish prison cell...



Shoplifters
7.8

In the outskirts of Tokyo, a poor but close-knit group living on the fringes of society survives through shoplifting and odd jobs. When Osamu and his son take in a neglected young girl, their already fragile existence begins to unravel. As the family grows attached to her, buried secrets surface, forcing them to confront the true meaning of love, belonging, and what makes a family.



Dev.D
Dev.D(2009)
6.96

The son of a wealthy businessman finds solace in drugs and alcohol when he breaks up with his childhood love.



Shower
Shower(1999)
6.873

An aged father and his younger, mentally challenged son have been working hard every day to keep the bathhouse running for a motley group of regular customers. When his elder son, who left years ago to seek his fortune in the southern city of Shenzhen, abruptly returns one day, it once again puts under stress the long-broken father-son ties. Presented as a light-hearted comedy, Shower explores the value of family, friendship, and tradition.



The Strays
5.45

A Black woman's meticulously crafted life of privilege starts to unravel when two strangers show up in her quaint suburban town.



Le Havre
Le Havre(2011)
7.005

In the French harbor city of Le Havre, fate throws young African refugee Idrissa into the path of Marcel Marx, a well-spoken bohemian who works as a shoe-shiner. With innate optimism and the tireless support of his community, Marcel stands up to officials pursuing the boy for deportation.



Shinjuku Triad Society

Tatsuhito, a cop, pursues Chinese warlord Wang through the underworld of Shinjuku and over to Taiwan.



Wild Life
Wild Life(2014)
6.4

The new film by French director Cédric Kahn focusses on Philippe Fournier, a man who lives with his 2 sons, having decided not to give them back to their mother after she won custody of the children. The children Okyesa and Tsali must grow up in the shadow, hunted by the police but always free and on the move.



Umberto D.
7.9

When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.



Rabid Dogs
5.5

After a bank job goes badly wrong, three desperate criminals take a young woman and a father and child hostage - it's the beginning of a frantic and violent road trip that not all of them will survive.



Made in Italy
6.067

Riko is an honest and hardworking man who can count on a group of real friends and a loving wife. Things change after he loses his job and experiences a midlife crisis.



The Boys from Fengkuei

Ah-Ching and his friends have just finished school in their island fishing village, and now spend most of their time drinking and fighting. Three of them decide to go to the port city of Kaohsiung to look for work. They find an apartment through relatives, and Ah-Ching is attracted to the girlfriend of a neighbor. There they face the harsh realities of the big city.



Submarino
Submarino(2010)
7.1

As children, Nick and his little brother take care of their baby brother while their mother drinks herself senseless. But the baby dies, and both brothers blame themselves. Many years later, Nick is out of prison after serving time for an assault. He drinks, lives in a shelter and tries to help an old friend. When their mother dies, Nick meets his brother at the funeral. The brother, who remains nameless, is a single father to a young boy, but also supports a drug habit that is spiraling out of control. When an opportunity presents itself, he becomes a drug dealer to secure his son's future. Eventually, the two brothers meet again.



Yearning
Yearning(1964)
8.1

War widow Reiko rebuilds and runs the grocery shop in the house of her husband's family. Many years later, their business is threatened by a newly built supermarket and Reiko's in-laws plan to convert their small shop into a supermarket, to her detriment.



Clean
Clean(2004)
6.4

After she ends up in prison and loses custody of her son, a woman struggles to assimilate outside her former life and remain clean long enough to regain custody of her son.



Nobody Knows
7.972

In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.



Wolf Children
8.2

After her werewolf lover unexpectedly dies in an accident, a woman must find a way to raise the son and daughter that she had with him. However, their inheritance of their father's traits prove to be a challenge for her.



Human Animals
6.778

The harmony of a seemingly idyllic neighborhood is disrupted when a dog attacks a young girl.



Benji
Benji(2018)
6.927

Two school kids strike up a friendship with an orphaned puppy named Benji. When danger befalls them and they end up kidnapped by robbers who are in over their heads, Benji and his scruffy sidekick come to the rescue.



King of Comedy
7.4

Wan Tin-Sau is an actor who cannot seem to catch a break, since his only professional jobs are limited to being a movie extra. As well as being an actor, he is also the head of his village's community center.



Wendy and Lucy
6.835

A near-penniless drifter's journey to Alaska in search of work is interrupted when she loses her dog while attempting to shoplift food for it.



Tokyo Family
7.271

An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their grown children, only to find them preoccupied and self-involved.



Dog Pound
Dog Pound(2010)
7.2

Three juvenile delinquents arrive at a correctional center and are put under the care of an experienced guard.



Cyclo
Cyclo(1996)
6.982

Follows a young cyclo driver on his poverty-driven descent into criminality in modern-day Ho Chi Minh City. The boy's struggles to scratch out a living for his two sisters and grandfather in the mean streets of the city lead to petty crime on behalf of a mysterious Madame from whom he rents his cyclo.



The New Life of Paul Sneijder

Following a rare accident, Paul Sneijder opened his eyes to the reality of his life as a "senior manager" in Montreal: his work no longer interested him, his wife annoyed him and deceived him, his two sons despised him ... How can we continue to live under these conditions? Starting with a change of profession: dog walker for example! Will his relatives accept this change that will turn him into a free man?



Tokyo Sonata
7.4

A young boy takes interest in piano while his family begins to disintegrate around him after his father loses his job.



Concrete Utopia
6.9

After a massive earthquake, only one apartment building is left standing in Seoul, South Korea. Survivors flock to Hwang Gung Apartments, but residents cannot cope with the increasing numbers.



Clean
Clean(2022)
6.245

Tormented by a past life, garbage man Clean attempts a life of quiet redemption. But when his good intentions mark him a target of a local crime boss, Clean is forced to reconcile with the violence of his past.



A Sun
A Sun(2019)
7.7

A family of four fractures under the weight of unmet expectations, unexpected tragedy, and uncompromising pride.



In China They Eat Dogs

Arvid is an ordinary bank clerk who lives a rather unassuming life with his dear girlfriend. But his life is turned completely upside down when he bravely manages to avert a robbery against the bank where he works.



Pitbull. Last Dog
5.953

A policeman gets killed and the short-staffed police chief sends for a few experienced officers to support him in his fight with organized crime. Meanwhile, a conflict between local gangster groups escalates.



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.



Fireworks
Fireworks(1997)
7.686

Beleaguered police detective Nishi takes desperate measures to try and set things right in a world gone wrong. With his wife suffering from leukemia and his business partner paralyzed from a brutal gangster attack, Nishi borrows from a yakuza loan shark and then robs a bank to clear his debt.



Ice Merchants
7.704

Every day, a father and his son jump with a parachute from their vertiginous cold house, attached to a cliff, to go to the village on the ground, far away where they sell the ice they produce daily.



Tekkonkinkreet
7.4

Two penniless orphans, Black and White, struggle to survive on the mean streets of Treasure Town. When a megacorporation threatens to tear down the town to build an amusement park, Black and White engage in the fight of their life.



Gorbaciof
Gorbaciof(2010)
6.05

Marino Pacileo has a soft spot for gambling. When he discovers that Lila's father, the young Chinese girl that he is in love with cannot pay a debt, the gambler steals money from the jail he is in to help the love of his life.



Three
Three(2016)
6

Realising that he will be defeated in no time during a police showdown, a thug shoots himself to force the cops to cease fire and take him to the hospital. In the hospital, he claims human rights to refuse immediate treatment in order to buy time for his underlings to rescue him. The detective in charge sees through his scheme but decides to play along so as to capture his whole gang once and for all.



The Hole
The Hole(1999)
6.937

In the final days of the year 1999, almost everyone in Taiwan has died from a strange plague that ravished the island. As rain pours down relentlessly, a single man is stuck with an unfinished plumbing job and a hole in his floor. This results in a very odd relationship with the woman who lives below him.



Mr. Long
Mr. Long(2017)
7.3

Long is a Taiwanese killer known for his sword skills. After Long fails a Tokyo mission, he moves to a small town where no one knows about him.



Fenced In
Fenced In(2022)
5.719

After a nervous breakdown, Walter trades the city for the countryside. But his hopes for a calm life are shattered once he meets his loud new neighbors.



The Great Buddha+
7.87

Security guard Pickle and his trash collector friend Belly Button kill time together in night shifts watching the American-educated boss's dash-cam recordings of his various sexual encounters with women. Against the buddies' will, something horrifying rather than erotic reveals.



Howling
Howling(2012)
6

A beat cop and his rookie partner investigate a series of killings that seem to be carried out by a mysterious wolfdog.



İnek Şaban
6.6

A poor grocery owner becomes a popular goalkeeper.



Pets United
5.9

When Roger (a Robin Hood-esque, stray dog) and Belle (an elegant yet spoilt pet cat) are thrown together amidst the chaos of a robot take-over of their home city, they must push all their preconceptions aside in order to survive, as they embark on a high-stakes, action-packed adventure.



Beasts Clawing at Straws

A struggling restaurant owner, caring for his sick mom, finds a bag of cash in a sauna locker, while a customs officer gets into trouble when his girlfriend runs off with money he borrowed from a loan shark.



I Saw the Sun
6.4

In the southeast region of Turkey, the Kurdish family of Altun lives in a small mountainside village plagued by a 25-year war that makes their daily lives a hellish struggle. As the war intensifies, the family is forced to migrate west to the city of Istanbul.



If Cats Disappeared from the World

A postman learns that he doesn't have much time left to live due to a terminal illness. A devil then appears in front of him and offers to extend his life if he picks something in the world that will disappear. The man thinks about his relationships with ex-friends, ex-lovers, relatives and colleagues who will be sincerely sad when he dies.



Lost in Beijing
6.5

A look at modern-day life in China's capital centered on a ménage-a-quatre involving a young woman, her boss, her husband and her boss's wife.



The Legend of the Holy Drinker

Andreas Kartak, a homeless man living under the bridges of Paris, is lent 200 francs by a stranger as long as he promises to repay it to a local church when he can afford to. Kartak is determined to pay back his debt but circumstances, and his alcoholism, forever intervene.



Aachi and Ssipak
6.225

Sometime in the future, mankind has depleted all energy and fuel sources, however they have engineered a way to use human excrement as fuel. To reward production, the government hands out extremely addictive, popsicle-like "Juicybars", which in turn also act as a laxative. Aachi and Ssipak are street hoodlums who struggle to survive by trading these bars in the black market.



Pawn
Pawn(2020)
8.433

A debt collector who looks intimidating, but actually has a warm heart, ends up becoming the guardian of a child, who has been left behind as collateral by her illegal immigrant mother.



Good Boy
Good Boy(2025)
6.8

A loyal dog moves to a rural family home with his owner Todd, only to discover supernatural forces lurking in the shadows. As dark entities threaten his human companion, the brave pup must fight to protect the one he loves most.



A Short Story
6.254

An abandoned cat embarks on a journey to discover the most precious thing in the world.



Sheep Without a Shepherd

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



The Present
7.3

On his wedding anniversary, Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift. Between soldiers, segregated roads and checkpoints, how easy would it be to go shopping?



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.



Wiener-Dog
5.6

A dachshund passes from oddball owner to oddball owner, whose radically dysfunctional lives are all impacted by the pooch.



Dogman
Dogman(2018)
7.528

Marcello, a small and gentle dog groomer, finds himself involved in a dangerous relationship of subjugation with Simone, a former violent boxer who terrorizes the entire neighborhood. In an effort to reaffirm his dignity, Marcello will submit to an unexpected act of vengeance.



Empties
Empties(2007)
6.739

Czech literature teacher Josef Tkaloun, who is past retirement age, realises one day that he no longer understands his pupils, and so he quits… dramatically. What he does not predict is that in doing this he will lose his sense of place in society.



Himizu
Himizu(2011)
7.021

After two teenagers from abusive households befriend each other, their lives take a dark adventure into existentialism, despair, and human frailty.



Togo
Togo(2022)
6.371

Togo just wants to watch his neighbors' homes, wash their cars and clean up their sidewalks. But the drug traffickers want more from him.



All or Nothing
7

Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.

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