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Movies like The Indian Runner

Key Features:
Brotherhood, Split personality, Violence, Antisocial behavior, Family drama, Rural setting, Moral conflict, Estrangement, Misunderstanding, Social alienation, Character study, Tragedy, Loss, Despair, Violence-moderate
Tone:
serious, restrained, dramatic
Target Audience:
Drama lovers, Character-driven movie fans, Independent film enthusiasts, Viewers interested in family dynamics
Emotional Arc:
Hope → Disappointment → Resignation

The Indian Runner

1991-09-20
The Indian Runner Poster - Find Similar Movies

Two brothers cannot overcome their opposite perceptions of life. One brother sees and feels bad in everyone and everything, subsequently he is violent, antisocial and unable to appreciate or enjoy the good things which his brother desperately tries to point out to him.

Genres
Drama
Cast
David Morse, Viggo Mortensen, Valeria Golino, Patricia Arquette, Charles Bronson, Sandy Dennis, Dennis Hopper, Jordan Rhodes, Enzo Rossi, Harry Crews
Crew
Sean Penn, Sean Penn
Rating
6.503(147 votes)
The Indian RunnerThe Indian Runner
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Run the Race
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Reeling from his mother’s death and his father’s abandonment, Zach, an All-State athlete, finds glory on the football field, working to earn a college scholarship and the brothers’ ticket out of town. When a devastating injury puts Zach—and his dreams—on the sidelines, David laces up his track cleats to salvage their future and point Zach toward hope.



Phantom Halo
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Two brothers barely scrape by as their father continues to gamble and drink away the money they do bring home. They hatch a plan for a robbery but at what price?



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Two Tarahumara brothers, with a deep spiritual connection and a fervent desire to become the best ultramarathon runners in the world, will see their dreams shattered when they are violently recruited by a dangerous cartel as drug runners, putting their family at risk and forcing them to join forces to finally take control of their own destiny.



A River Runs Through It

The Maclean brothers, Paul and Norman, live a relatively idyllic life in rural Montana, spending much of their time fly fishing. The sons of a minister, the boys eventually part company when Norman moves east to attend college, leaving his rebellious brother to find trouble back home. When Norman finally returns, the siblings resume their fishing outings, and assess where they've been and where they're going.



American Flyers
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When Dr. Marcus Sommers realizes that he and his troubled, estranged brother David may be prone a fatal brain disease that runs in their family, he decides to make peace with his sibling, and invites him on a trip to the Rockies. There, the brothers bond over their shared enthusiasm for cycling and decide to enter a grueling bike race through the mountains. However, Marcus' health soon begins to fail, and David must compete without his brother at his side.



Vanishing Point
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When his wife goes into a troubled labor while he is on the road over 1200 miles away James Kowalski, an ex race car driver and a former Army Ranger, attempts to elude police while trying to get home. After numerous chases he turns into a Native American reservation and reflects on his life, and his wife. He heads off to break through a police roadblock.



Runner Runner
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When a poor college student who cracks an online poker game goes bust, he arranges a face-to-face with the man he thinks cheated him, a sly offshore entrepreneur.



The Runner
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In the aftermath of the BP oil spill, an idealistic but imperfect New Orleans politician (Nicolas Cage) finds his plans of restoration unraveling as his own life becomes contaminated with corruption, scandal and deceit.



Hombre
Hombre(1967)
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John Russell, disdained by his "respectable" fellow stagecoach passengers because he was raised by Indians, becomes their only hope for survival when they are set upon by outlaws.



It Runs in the Family

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The Road
The Road(2009)
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A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind and water. It is cold enough to crack stones and, when the snow falls, it is gray. Their destination is the warmer south, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there.



The Good Son
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A young boy stays with his aunt and uncle, and befriends his cousin who's the same age. But his cousin begins showing increasing signs of psychotic behavior.



An Indian Tale
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The life of two men changed unexpectedly when Ajith, an Indian sailor who was robbed and lost everything, appears out of nowhere in front of Pierre, a single and grumpy Frenchman.



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When his helicopter goes down during his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan, Marine Sam Cahill is presumed dead. Back home, brother Tommy steps in to look over Sam’s wife, Grace, and two children. Sam’s surprise homecoming triggers domestic mayhem.



Wind River
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The Motel Life
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A pair of working-class brothers flee their Reno Motel after getting involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident.



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The Darjeeling Limited

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Smoke Signals
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Young Native American man Thomas is a nerd in his reservation, wearing oversize glasses and telling everyone stories no-one wants to hear. His parents died in a fire in 1976, and Thomas was saved by Arnold. Arnold soon left his family, and Victor hasn't seen his father for 10 years. When Victor hears Arnold has died, Thomas offers him funding for the trip to get Arnold's remains.



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The Kid
The Kid(2019)
6

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Paris, Texas
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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.



Running with Scissors

Young Augusten Burroughs absorbs experiences that could make for a shocking memoir: the son of an alcoholic father and an unstable mother, he's handed off to his mother's therapist, Dr. Finch, and spends his adolescent years as a member of Finch's bizarre extended family.



Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

Based on a local legend and set in an unknown era, it deals with universal themes of love, possessiveness, family, jealousy and power. Beautifully shot, and acted by Inuit people, it portrays a time when people fought duels by taking turns to punch each other until one was unconscious, made love on the way to the caribou hunt, ate walrus meat and lit their igloos with seal-oil lamps.



Warrior
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The youngest son of an alcoholic former boxer returns home, where he's trained by his father for competition in a mixed martial arts tournament – a path that puts the fighter on a collision course with his estranged, older brother.



The Savages
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Americana
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When a rare Lakota Ghost Shirt falls into the black market in a small town in South Dakota, the lives of local outsiders and outcasts violently intertwine.



Run of the Arrow

When the South loses the war, Confederate veteran O'Meara goes West, joins the Sioux, takes a wife and refuses to be an American but he must choose a side when the Sioux go to war against the U.S. Army.



A History of Violence
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An average family is thrust into the spotlight after the father commits a seemingly self-defense murder at his diner.



Running for Grace
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An orphan boy of mixed race finds family with the newly arrived white village doctor in Hawaii. The boy can run like the wind, and begins bringing Doc's medicine to coffee pickers throughout the mountainous region. On an errand, the medicine runner meets the daughter of the plantation owner and a forbidden, young love blossoms like the white "Kona Snow" of the surrounding coffee trees.



Race Gurram
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Ram and Lakshman, aka Lucky, are brothers who are polar opposites in nature. Their mother wishes to see them united.



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Hell or High Water
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Run the Tide
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The Strange Ones
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Mountain Men
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Two estranged brothers, Toph and Cooper, must journey to a remote family cabin in the mountains to evict a squatter. Buried resentment and bruised egos soon derail the plan and when the smoke clears they've destroyed their car and burned down the cabin, leaving them stranded in the cold Rocky Mountain winter. With their very survival at stake, they must learn to work together as brothers to get back to civilization.



21 Grams
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Paul Rivers, an ailing mathematician lovelessly married to an English émigré; Christina Peck, an upper-middle-class suburban housewife and mother of two girls; and Jack Jordan, a born-again ex-con, are brought together by a terrible accident that changes their lives.



Mystic River
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The lives of three men who were childhood friends are shattered when one of them suffers a family tragedy.



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Leaves of Grass
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The Thin Red Line
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The story of a group of men, an Army Rifle company called C-for-Charlie, who change, suffer, and ultimately make essential discoveries about themselves during the fierce World War II battle of Guadalcanal. It follows their journey, from the surprise of an unopposed landing, through the bloody and exhausting battles that follow, to the ultimate departure of those who survived.



Don't Tell a Soul
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Two thieving teenage brothers, stealing money to help their sick mom, match wits with a troubled security guard stuck at the bottom of a forgotten well.



Bleeder
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Two stories for the price of one: a video store clerk tries to get acquainted with a waitress; a man beats his pregnant wife, unaware that her brother is a violent racist.



Badlands
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An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town and her older greaser boyfriend embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota badlands.



The Hitcher
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While driving through the New Mexico Desert during a rainy night, college students Jim Halsey and his girlfriend Grace Andrews give a ride to a hitchhiker. While in their car, the stranger proves to be a psychopath threatening the young couple with a knife, but Jim successfully throws him out of the car. This sets off a chain of events that will change all of their lives forever.



Back Roads
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A young man cares for his younger sisters after their mother is imprisoned for murdering their abusive father. When he strikes up an affair with a married woman, long-dormant family secrets bubble to the surface.



Along the Ridge
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A young father and his two children struggle to find harmony after his wife leaves them for another man.



Cassandra's Dream
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The tale of two brothers with serious financial woes. When a third party proposes they turn to crime, things go bad and the two become enemies.



The Tribes of Palos Verdes

When the situation at her idyllic Palos Verdes home turns volatile, young Medina attempts to surf her way to happiness.



The Reunion
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The Cleary brothers, Sam, Leo and Douglas took dysfunctional families to a new level: Sam and Leo have grown up hating each other and neither likes their juvenile delinquent kid brother, Douglas, to whom they've only recently been introduced. The sons share the same father, a womanizing drunk, but all have different mothers. Their father died a rich man and when they're brought together by their sister Nina to learn which of them will inherit the old man's fortune, they are handed an unpleasant surprise.



The Notebook
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In a village on the Hungarian border, two young brothers grow up during war time with their cruel grandmother and must learn every trick of evil to survive in the absurd world of adults.



Songs My Brothers Taught Me

This complex portrait of modern-day life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation explores the bond between a brother and his younger sister, who find themselves on separate paths to rediscovering the meaning of home.



The Missing
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When rancher and single mother of two Maggie Gilkeson sees her teenage daughter, Lily, kidnapped by Apache rebels, she reluctantly accepts the help of her estranged father, Samuel, in tracking down the kidnappers. Along the way, the two must learn to reconcile the past and work together if they are going to have any hope of getting Lily back before she is taken over the border and forced to become a prostitute.



The River Wild
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Gail and Tom Hartman are struggling to stay together and decide to take a white-water rafting holiday adventure in Montana for their son Roarke's 10th birthday, only to meet up with a pair of mysterious men whose desperation grows, turning their vacation into a nightmare.



Mean Creek
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Teenagers living in small-town Oregon take a boat trip for a birthday celebration. When they get an idea to play a mean trick on the town bully, it suddenly goes too far. Soon they're forced to deal with the unexpected consequences of their actions.



Inherit the Viper
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Since the death of their father, the Riley siblings have kept their heads above water by illegally dealing in painkillers. Josie is managing the business with an iron fist, when her brother, War veteran Kip, is concerned that the risky business is increasingly turning them into outsiders in their small community. While Kip wants to keep his younger brother out of their illegal endeavors, his younger brother is already making plans of his own.



The Crossing Guard
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Unable to move on from the loss of his daughter, Freddy, now a shell of the person he was before, swears to kill the man responsible for her death.



The Desperado Trail

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Broken Lance
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The Messengers
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When the Solomons trade in the craziness of big-city life for the quiet of a North Dakota farm, little do they expect the nightmare that follows. Soon after arriving, teenage Jess (Kristen Stewart) and her younger brother see terrifying apparitions and endure attacks from a supernatural source. Jess must warn her disbelieving family before it is too late to save them.



Anemone
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Jungle Run
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Rocco and His Brothers

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Running on Empty
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The Popes are a family who haven't been able to use their real identity for years. In the late sixties, the parents set a weapons lab afire in an effort to hinder the government's Vietnam war campaign. Ever since then, the Popes have been on the run with the authorities never far behind. Their survival is threatened when their eldest son falls in love with a girl, and announces his wish to live his life on his own terms.



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The Marksman
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Out of the Furnace
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The Brave
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A down-on-his-luck American Indian recently released from jail is offered the chance to "star" as the victim of a snuff film, the resulting pay of which could greatly help his poverty stricken family.



A Violent Separation

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Peacock
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The Unforgiven
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Jacob's Ladder
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Scenic Route
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American Heist
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The Power of the Dog

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7.083

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The Codes of War
6.2

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Junior Bonner
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The Sunchaser
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Brother Bear
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Our Idiot Brother
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Rumble Fish
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