The Driftless AreaMovies like The Driftless Area
- Key Features:
- Fate versus free will, Small town setting, Crime, Mystery, Romance, Money, Criminal, Dark comedy, Existential themes, Neo-noir, Quirky characters
- Tone:
- serious, whimsical, poetic
- Target Audience:
- Indie film enthusiasts, Fans of neo-noir, Viewers interested in philosophical themes, Those who enjoy quirky romances
- Emotional Arc:
- Optimism → Intrigue → Uncertainty
The Driftless Area

Pierre Hunter, a bartender with unyielding optimism, returns to his tiny hometown after his parents' death. When he falls for the enigmatic Stella, Pierre is unknowingly pulled into a cat-and-mouse game that involves a duffel bag full of cash, a haphazard yet determined criminal, and a mystery that will determine all of their fates. A contemporary fable about the ways we struggle to control time and fate in a possibly predetermined universe.
The Driftless Area
When the quiet and amiable Vann Siegert drifts into town, no one suspects the evil that lies beneath the surface. Despite his easy charm, Vann is merely a reflection of what those he encounters want him to be. Soon, as locals start to disappear, it becomes clear that an eerie subtraction is at work in the sleepy hamlet.

After the murder of his beloved wife, a man in search of redemption is set adrift in a world where nothing is as it seems. On his journey, he befriends slacker Jimmy "The Finn", becomes involved in rescuing his neighbor Colette from her own demons, and gets entangled in a web of deceit full of unexpected twists and turns.

After he accidentally kills his father, Mike, during a sting, Joe tries to carry out Mike's dying wish by recovering valuables that Mike's twin brother Lou stole from him years earlier. But Uncle Lou is also a confidence artist, and Joe is soon drawn into his increasingly dangerous schemes.

In a world with no guns, a mysterious drifter, a bartender and a young samurai plot revenge against a ruthless leader and his army of thugs, headed by nine diverse and deadly assassins.

A divorced writer from the Midwest returns to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who's now married with a family.

On a dark Christmas Eve in a small town, the lone Sheriffs on the night shift encounter a mysterious man who goes by the name of Mr. Nobody. As the night progresses, the Sheriffs discover that this isn't just a nobody, but a vengeful killer whose past threatens to haunt them all.

Three magazine employees head out on an assignment to interview a guy who placed a classified ad seeking a companion for time travel.

Struggling actor John Person agrees to drive a blue suitcase from Los Angeles to the small town of Baker, Calif., and hand it over to a mysterious cowboy in return for having his credit card debt of $27,000 paid off. Upon his arrival, John can't find the cowboy but receives an ominously head-shaped package he's supposed to hang onto. While waiting, John gets close to Ruthie, whose psychotic boyfriend, Randy, keeps threatening to kill him.

A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.

Upon arriving to a small town, a drifter quickly gets into trouble with the local authorities — and the local women — after he robs a bank.

Aspiring rock musician Neal Downs manages a cereal bar. Stylish Miss Pussy Katz is the creator of radically-themed art clothing. When the cereal bar, brings in an offbeat crew of locals, who debate the arcana of cereal history and ideal milk/flake ratios, an aspiring capitalist rips off their concept.

A nameless drifter navigates a barren landscape punctuated by satellite dishes, radio towers and droning airplanes. Stopping periodically in anonymous hotel rooms, she makes attempts to connect to an unidentified second party.

A once-celebrated kid detective, now 31, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity. Until a naive client brings him his first 'adult' case, to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.

In the not-too-distant future, two drifters traveling through the desert stumble across the biggest gold nugget ever found and the dream of immense wealth and greed takes hold. They hatch a plan to excavate their bounty, with one man leaving to secure the necessary tools while the other remains with the gold. The man who remains must endure harsh desert elements, ravenous wild dogs, and mysterious intruders, while battling the sinking suspicion that he has been abandoned to his fate.

A dockworker seeking revenge on the killer of his sister finds himself the object of desire for two women.

A lone scientist in the Arctic races to contact a crew of astronauts returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe.

Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.

In an American desert town circa 1955, the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.

A psychotic young man returns to his old neighborhood after release from prison. He seeks out the woman he previously tried to rape and the man who protected her, with twisted ideas of love for her and hate for him.

Two young men seek the solitude of the country; their peace is disturbed when a set of random occurrences suggest to their susceptible minds a pattern with sinister meanings.

Waitress Annie has separated from her suicidal alcoholic husband, Glenn. Glenn has become an evangelical Christian, but his erratic attempts at getting back into Annie's life have alarmed her. High school student Arthur works at Annie's restaurant, growing closer to a new kid in town, Lila, after class. When Glenn and Annie's daughter go missing, the whole town searches for her, as he increasingly spirals out of control.

A woman who survived the brutal killing of her family as a child is forced to confront the events of that day.

After murdering his daughter's drug-dealing boyfriend, a wealthy ad executive stumbles into a bar and strikes up an uneasy alliance with Joe Curran, a drunken bigot with a bloodlust who works at a local factory.

American gunslinger Sean Rafferty—aka The Montana Kid—is unable to find someone to duel in a Canadian town where no one understands the brutal code of the American Wild West.

Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.

Ben Chase is an on-the-rise Boston attorney currently defending a wealthy client in a high-profile murder case. Martin Thiel is the wealthy young man on trial for a particularly brutal murder. The verdict sets Thiel free. Within 24 hours another grizzly and all-too-familiar murder has taken place with striking similarities to the first crime. Chase inexplicably agrees to act as his defense attorney; but this time it will be to gather evidence that will put away his client for good.

Based on Michael Chabon's novel, the film chronicles the defining summer of a recent college graduate who crosses his gangster father and explores love, sexuality, and the enigmas surrounding his life and his city.

Mike Kendall, a disgraced ex-cop, is fighting a losing battle with the bottle. When he finds a woman left for dead at the side of a road, Kendall turns private eye to track down her killers, taking one last shot at redemption.

An alcoholic becomes involved in a fellow A.A. member's plan to kidnap her young son from the boy's wealthy grandfather.

A disgraced former cop, fresh off a six-year prison sentence for attempted murder, returns home looking for redemption but winds up trapped in the mess he left behind.

A bank teller discovers he is actually a background player in an open-world video game, and decides to become the hero of his own story. Now, in a world where there are no limits, he is determined to be the guy who saves his world his way before it's too late.

Jacques is the curmudgeonly owner of a gritty New York dive bar that serves as home to a motley assortment of professional drinkers. Jacques is determinedly drinking and smoking himself to death when he meets Lucas, a homeless young man who has already given up on life. Determined to keep his legacy alive, Jacques deems Lucas is a fitting heir and takes him under his wing.

The tragic death of a beautiful young girl starts a tense and atmospheric game of cat and mouse between hunter John Moon and the hardened backwater criminals out for his blood.

A particle physicist grieving over the loss of her husband in a car crash uses a revolutionary machine to bring him back, with dire consequences for her family.

Deputy Sheriff Joe "Deke" Deacon joins forces with Sgt. Jim Baxter to search for a serial killer who's terrorizing Los Angeles. As they track the culprit, Baxter is unaware that the investigation is dredging up echoes of Deke's past, uncovering disturbing secrets that could threaten more than his case.

A young woman's life spirals into chaos after she is involved in a hit-and-run accident. Then she encounters a mysterious man named Evian who offers her an opportunity for redemption. Narrated by a fish.

A man afflicted with clairvoyance tries to change his fate when a series of events leads to a vision of his own imminent murder.

Disturbing and mysterious things begin to happen to a bartender in New Orleans after he picks up a phone left behind at his bar.

25-year-old Dwayne McLaren, a former athlete turned auto mechanic, dreams of getting out of tiny Cut Bank, Montana the coldest town in America. But his effort to do so sets in motion a deadly series of events that change his life and the life of the town forever...

The quiet life of Baker Dill, a fishing boat captain who lives on the isolated Plymouth Island, where he spends his days obsessed with capturing an elusive tuna while fighting his personal demons, is interrupted when someone from his past comes to him searching for help.

An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his hometown of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades.

Lulu Danger's unsatisfying marriage takes a turn for the worse when a mysterious man from her past comes to town to perform an event called "An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn: For One Magical Night Only."

Set in the small town of Devil's Gate, North Dakota, the film examines the disappearance of a local woman and her young son. Schull plays an FBI agent who helps the local sheriff search for answers. Partnering with a deputy , they track down the missing woman's husband and find that nothing is as it seems.

A depressed housewife who learns her husband was killed in a car accident the day previously, awakens the next morning to find him alive and well at home, and then awakens the day after to a world in which he is still dead.

A successful lawyer returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral only to discover that his estranged father, the town's judge, is suspected of murder.

A shy teenager on a summer vacation experiences the joy and pain of young adulthood when he forges an unlikely bond with an older girl.

A drama set at a Swiss ski resort and centered on a boy who supports his sister by stealing from wealthy guests.

Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.

A teenage skateboarder becomes suspected of being connected with a security guard who suffered a brutal death in a skate park called "Paranoid Park".

Freed after a lengthy term in a juvenile detention center, convicted child killer Jack Burridge finds work as a deliveryman and begins dating co-worker Michelle. While out on the road one day, Jack notices a distressed child, and, after reuniting the girl with her family, becomes a local celebrity. But when a local newspaper unearths his past, Jack must cope with the anger of citizens who fear for the safety of their children.

At school, Roseanne is the object of fellow student Vincent's infatuation. By night, she deals with a troubled family life: her mother, Maggie, cheats on her drunken husband, Fred. When Maggie's adultery is revealed, Fred viciously takes his anger out on stepdaughter Roseanne. With the help of her boyfriend, Jimmy, Maggie plots her revenge, but Vincent might be the one to help her forge a new life in this contemporary fable loosely based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment".

Jérémie returns to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. He decides to stay for a few days with Martine, the man's widow. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbor and a priest with strange intentions make Jérémie's short stay in the village take an unexpected turn.

In the near future, where Earth has been devastated by man's pollution and giant winds rule the planet, bounty hunter Matt kidnaps a murderer out of the hands of two police officers, planning to get the bounty himself.

A mind-bending love story following Greg who, after recently being divorced and then fired, meets the mysterious Isabel, a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is just a computer simulation. Doubtful at first, Greg eventually discovers there may be some truth to Isabel’s wild conspiracy.

A suicidal artist goes into the desert, where he finds his doppelgänger, a homicidal drifter.

A small town loner and a rebellious punk rocker unexpectedly fall in love as they are forced on the run and soon discover violence follows them everywhere.

After a colleague is murdered, insurance worker Kafka gets embroiled in an underground group who are attempting to thwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society.

Actress Reese Holden has been offered a small fortune by a book editor if she can secure for publication the love letters that her father, a reclusive novelist, wrote to her mother, who has since passed away. Returning to Michigan, Reese finds that an ex-grad student and a would-be musician have moved in with her father, who cares more about his new friends than he does about his own health and well-being.

A pistol-packing teen meets an unstable rebel and a cocaine-snorting drifter as she hitchhikes her way out West.

When a teenager suddenly disappears without a trace, the case is assigned to an alcoholic police officer who maintains a complicated relationship with his own troubled teenage son, suspected of drug trafficking.

Oona, a recent graduate in anthropology, has returned to her dead mother’s seaside cottage in southern England to prepare it for sale. Her arrival disturbs Mani, a wary vagrant who has been squatting on the property.

Travis and Gabby first meet as neighbors in a small coastal town and wind up in a relationship that is tested by life's most defining events.

A beautiful young gold-digger mistakes a lowly hotel clerk as a rich and therefore worthwhile catch.

A thriller that follows two siblings who decide to fend for themselves in the wake of a botched casino heist, and their unlikely reunion during another family's Thanksgiving celebration.

When an alcoholic relapses, causing him to lose his wife and his job, he holds a yard sale on his front lawn in an attempt to start over. A new neighbor might be the key to his return to form.

A farm girl is on an epic quest to recover a cherished family heirloom. Her journey leads her to a strange and dangerous city where she meets her one true love – but in order to save his soul, she must put the power of destiny and song to the ultimate test.

A young drifter working on a river barge disrupts his employers' lives while hiding the fact that he knows more about a dead woman found in the river than he admits.

An FBI agent teams with the town's veteran game tracker to investigate a murder that occurred on a Native American reservation.

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.

A troubled actor, a television show runner, and an acclaimed videogame designer find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways.

Everybody has one—the sibling who is always just a little bit behind the curve when it comes to getting his life together. For sisters Liz, Miranda and Natalie, that person is their perennially upbeat brother, Ned. But as each of their lives begins to unravel, Ned's family comes to realise that Ned isn't such an idiot after all.

After serving time for murder, Josh Hutton returns to his home town where he meets Audry Hugo. No one can remember exactly what Josh did...

A reformed hunter becomes involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse when he and the local sheriff set out to track a vicious killer who may have kidnapped his daughter years ago.

The relationship between a middle-aged French widow and a young drifter takes a turn when her young niece pays a visit.

Young and disenchanted Sam meets a mysterious and beautiful woman who's swimming in his building's pool one night. When she suddenly vanishes the next morning, Sam embarks on a surreal quest across Los Angeles to decode the secret behind her disappearance, leading him into the murkiest depths of mystery, scandal and conspiracy.

A debauched Hollywood movie actor tries to piece together one wild night in Miami years earlier which remains a drug-induced blur, and soon finds out that some questions about his past are best left unanswered.

After overhearing a shocking secret, precocious orphan Lyra Belacqua trades her carefree existence roaming the halls of Jordan College for an otherworldly adventure in the far North, unaware that it's part of her destiny.

Since losing her husband, Sophie has struggled to manage grief, a full-time job, and parenting her devastated daughter, but when a former physicist reveals a secret time-bending machine, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice.

Rachel Carson, a best-selling crime novelist, is devastated and filled with guilt over the accidental death of her son. Hoping that a change of scenery will help alleviate her suffering, she leaves her home in the city and moves into a vacant country house owned by a friend and begins a relationship with charming local Angus. But, just as her life is taking a turn for the better, Rachel realizes she's being romanced by a ghost, leading her to doubt her own sanity.

When her mother sends her on a quest to complete a teenage bucket list, a young woman uncovers family secrets, finds romance — and rediscovers herself.

A grieving father in a downward spiral stumbles across a box of his recently deceased son's demo tapes and lyrics. Shocked by the discovery of this unknown talent, he forms a band in the hope of finding some catharsis.

Henry’s and Fay's son Ned sets out to find and kill his father for destroying his mother's life. But his aims are frustrated by the troublesome Susan, whose connection to Henry predates even his arrival in the lives of the Grim family.

A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregon wilderness must visit Portland to find the mysterious person who stole his beloved foraging pig.

Two quirky, cynical teenaged girls try to figure out what to do with their lives after high school graduation. After they play a prank on an eccentric, middle aged record collector, one of them befriends him, which causes a rift in the girls’ friendship.

Two whimsical, aimless thugs harass and assault women, steal, murder, and alternately charm, fight, or sprint their way out of trouble. They take whatever the bourgeoisie holds dear, whether it’s cars, peace of mind, or daughters. Marie-Ange, a jaded, passive hairdresser, joins them as lover, cook, and mother confessor. She’s on her own search for seemingly unattainable sexual pleasure.

During a raging snowstorm, a drifter returns home to the blue-collar bar located in the remote Canadian town where he was born. When he offers to settle an old debt with a grizzled bartender by telling him a story, the night's events quickly spin into a dark tale of mistaken identities, double-crosses and shocking violence.

After a love affair ends badly, a young Parisian named Paul sinks into the same kind of deep depression that led his sister to kill herself. He moves back home with his father and aimless brother Jonathan but refuses to get out of bed.

A disparate group of characters unknowingly bond by the sexual choices they make. Consumed by loneliness, a British businessman ponders a rendezvous with a prostitute. The businessman's wife prepares to call it quits with her younger lover. A Brazilian student breaks up with her boyfriend in London. A recovering alcoholic travels to Phoenix in search of his missing daughter. A paroled sex offender struggles to stay composed when propositioned in a Denver airport. A widower's religious devotion is put to a difficult test.

A motorcycle stunt rider considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with a cop-turned-politician.

A discount store clerk strikes up an affair with a stock boy who considers himself the incarnation of Holden Caulfield.

Middle-aged and divorced, Wilson finds himself lonely, smug, and obsessed with his past.

Newly arrived to a remote desert town, Catherine and Matthew are tormented by a suspicion when their two teenage children mysteriously vanish.

In the middle of the night, someone brings Ivan's body home to his wife and his young son. Flashbacks reveal the relationships among Ivan and his brother Alex, a cop with a cleanliness fetish; siblings Juliette and Jimmy, Ivan's partners in a seedy nightclub; the love triangle of Alex, Juliette, and Marie, a professor of philosophy; and of Alex and his nephew, Ivan's dour, stoic son. Ivan's death changes every relationship.

Callum Crane, a lawyer and would-be federal judge, jeopardizes his chances at a judgeship by forcing himself on his secretary. He then worsens the situation by trying to have the woman murdered. Further complicating matters, he assigns the task to a young man who, unbeknownst to Crane, is actually his son, Nathan. Nathan refuses to do the deed, but not before informing several people, one of whom tries to take on the job.

The life of a woman is transformed after she is diagnosed with a terminal disease, fired from her job and abandoned by her boyfriend. Given two months to live, she throws caution to the wind to pursue her dreams.

When Michael McCann is thrown over by the woman he loves, he becomes something of a misanthrope and a miser, spending all of his spare money on collectible gold coins. Living in the same town is an affluent family with two sons: John and Tanny. Tanny's a wild boy, whom John cannot control, and one night he breaks into McCann's house, and steals the gold and disappears, which nearly confirms McCann's distrust of mankind. But then, a mysterious young woman dies in the snow outside McCann's house, and her small daughter makes her way to McCann's house and into McCann's life and heart.

Clay is a young man in a small town who witnesses his friend, Earl, kill himself because of the ongoing affair that Clay was having with the man's wife, Amanda. Feeling guilty, Clay now resists the widow when she presses him to continue with the affair. Clay unknowingly befriends a serial killer named Lester Long who murders the widow in an attempt to "help" his "fishing buddy."

A supernatural love story that centers on two parents whose life together falls apart after their son dies. The man, now a successful lawyer, and the woman, now married and an author, get a chance at reconciliation ten years later.

Chris is a once promising high school athlete whose life is turned upside down following a tragic accident. As he tries to maintain a normal life, he takes a job as a janitor at a bank, where he ultimately finds himself caught up in a planned heist.
