The Power of the DogMovies like The Power of the Dog
- Key Features:
- Toxic masculinity, Hidden motives, Psychological manipulation, Western, Repression, Family secrets, Brothers, Grief, Revenge, Complex characters, Period piece, Slow burn, Tension, Character study
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Fans of character-driven dramas, Viewers interested in psychological themes, Those who appreciate slow-burn narratives, Art house cinema enthusiasts
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Tension → Revelation
The Power of the Dog

A domineering but charismatic rancher wages a war of intimidation on his brother's new wife and her teen son, until long-hidden secrets come to light.
The Power of the Dog
In early 20th-century Montana, Col. William Ludlow lives on a ranch in the wilderness with his sons, Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel. Eventually, the unconventional but close-knit family are bound by loyalty, tested by war, and torn apart by love, as told over the course of several decades in this epic saga.

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

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

In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.

A simple yet proud rancher conspires to murder his wife for financial gain, convincing his teenage son to participate.

A small-town Oregon teacher and her brother, the local sheriff, discover a young student is harbouring a dangerous secret that could have frightening consequences.

Reeling from a terrifying assault, a nineteen year old enrolls into college with his brother and pledges the same fraternity. What happens there, in the name of 'brotherhood,' tests him and his loyalty in brutal ways.

A rancher, his clairvoyant wife and their family face turbulent years in South America.

Troy and his young transgender son Joe are on the run from his conservative mother in the Montana wilderness, with a detective in hot pursuit.

An authoritarian rancher rules an Arizona county with her private posse of hired guns. When a new Marshall arrives to set things straight, the cattle queen finds herself falling for the avowedly non-violent lawman. Both have itchy-fingered brothers, a female gunman enters the picture, and things go desperately wrong.

Tensions erupt within an Arizona cattle baron's household when his three sons vie for control of the ranch.

Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.

Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.

Jon Katz is close to burnout. He's a writer with writer's block; his wife has left for her sister's because he's emotionally distant; he rarely answers his phone. A kennel sends him a border collie that's undisciplined because of abuse. Despite a series of mishaps, Jon decides to keep trying with the dog, and he rents a dilapidated farm house to give the dog room to run. A local handyman refers Jon to a woman who might be able to help him train the dog. Reluctantly, Jon gives her a try. Is the dog the problem, or the owner?

Jess, a newly separated mother and nurse, moves into her old family farmhouse with Tyler, her teenage daughter, and Owen, her eight-year-old son. One night, the family dog senses something in the woods and runs off to find it. He returns a couple of days later and attacks Owen, savagely biting him before Jess is able to intervene. Owen is rushed to the hospital. His condition worsens, and no one can figure out why... until Jess discovers a disturbing cure...

In the grim Alaskan winter, a naturalist hunts for wolves blamed for killing a local boy, but he soon finds himself swept into a chilling mystery.

Buck is a big-hearted dog whose blissful domestic life is turned upside down when he is suddenly uprooted from his California home and transplanted to the exotic wilds of the Yukon during the Gold Rush of the 1890s. As the newest rookie on a mail delivery dog sled team—and later its leader—Buck experiences the adventure of a lifetime, ultimately finding his true place in the world and becoming his own master.

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.

1950s America. Since his mother‘s confinement to an institution, Andy has lived in the shadow of his stoic father. A family acquaintance, Dr. Wallace Fiennes, employs the introverted young man as a photographer to document an asylum tour advocating for his increasingly controversial lobotomy procedure.

A father gets trapped in a one-sided incestuous relationship with his abusive son.

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.

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.

A college student starts to experience extreme seizures. She soon learns that the violent episodes are a symptom of inexplicable abilities.

A Montana bounty hunter is sent into the wilderness to track three escaped prisoners. Instead he sees something that puzzles him. Later with a female Native Indian history professor, he returns to find some answers.

Confined to a claustrophobic hotel room, the heir to a hotel empire and the dominatrix who has primed him for success become locked in a battle of wits and wills as he tries to end his relationship with her.

Day in and day out, lovers Cynthia and Evelyn enact an elaborate sadomasochistic fantasy as mistress and maid. But as their ritual of domination and submission begins to turn stale, Cynthia yearns for something more conventional, while Evelyn tries to push their taboos even further.

A high-powered New York publicist finds herself in Montana promoting a charity calendar after being betrayed by her boss and fiancé. Unfortunately, matters of the heart are just as complicated in the wilds as they are in the big city.

Johnny Truelove likes to see himself as tough. He's the son of an underworld figure and a drug dealer. Johnny also likes to get tough when things don't go his way. When Jake Mazursky fails to pay up for Johnny, things get worse for the Mazursky family, as Johnny and his 'gang' kidnap Jake's 15 year old brother and hold him hostage.

When his cattlemen abandon him for the gold fields, rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his cowboys in order to get his herd to market in time to avoid financial disaster. The boys learn to do a man's job under Andersen's tutelage, however, neither he nor the boys know that a gang of cattle thieves is stalking them.

A gambler and a prostitute become thriving business partners in a remote Old West mining town until a large corporation arrives on the scene.

Hedda Gabler finds herself torn between the lingering ache of a past love and the quiet suffocation of her present life. Over the course of one charged night, long-repressed desires and hidden tensions erupt—pulling her and everyone around her into a spiral of manipulation, passion, and betrayal.

14-year-old Joe is the only child of Jeanette and Jerry — a housewife and a golf pro — in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled forest fire rages close to the Canadian border, and when Jerry loses his job (and his sense of purpose) he decides to join the cause of fighting the fire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves.

A sheriff sees his state senate bid slide out onto the ice when his daughter begins to date the son of a charming but psychologically disturbed woman with whom the sheriff has engaged in a two-decade-long affair.

Laura, traumatized by an abusive relationship, runs away from her former husband with her seven-year-old son Cody. But in their new, idyllic and remote sanctuary, they find they have another, bigger and more terrifying monster to deal with…

A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.

Following the loss of their son, a retired sheriff and his wife leave their Montana ranch to rescue their young grandson from the clutches of a dangerous family living off the grid in the Dakotas.

Once a rising star of the rodeo circuit, and a gifted horse trainer, young cowboy Brady is warned that his riding days are over after a horse crushed his skull at a rodeo. In an attempt to regain control of his own fate, Brady undertakes a search for a new identity and what it means to be a man in the heartland of the United States.

The rivalry between the manipulative boss of an advertising agency and her talented protégée escalates from stealing credit to public humiliation to murder.

When a son and mother move to Seattle in hopes for a better life, the mother meets a seemingly polite man. Things go south when the man turns out to be abusive, endangering their lives. As the mother struggles to maintain hope in an impossible situation, the son has plans to escape.

A 16-year-old girl visits her gay half-brother and ends up seducing his boyfriend, thus wreaking havoc on all of their lives.

Isaac LeMay, a murderous outlaw, learns he is cursed by a prophecy: one of his children will kill him. To prevent this, he hunts down each of his estranged children, including long-lost son Cal. With bounty hunters and Sheriff Solomon on his tail, LeMay must find a way to stop his children and end the curse.

Retired rodeo champion Jeff McCloud agrees to mentor novice rodeo contestant Wes Merritt against the wishes of Merritt's wife who fears the dangers of this rough sport.

Indolent aristocrat Tony employs competent Barrett as his manservant and all seems to be going well until Barrett persuades Tony to hire his sister as a live-in maid.

On a secluded family farm, a mother suffers a psychotic break due to postpartum depression, forcing the eldest son to protect his sibling from the mother they have always known and loved.

A charismatic psycho suspected of killing two innocent campers in a cold-blooded double homicide grows increasingly unstable as his suburban empire starts to crack at the foundations.

Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog.

In the Salinas Valley in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother for the love of their father. Cal is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, how to get ahead in business and in life, and how to relate to his estranged mother.

Jackson and Helen are in love and about to have their first child when they move in with Jackson's mother, Martha, in order to take care of the family estate. But all is not well in this household. Martha is jealous of her son's affection for Helen, and, despite her Southern smile, she's starting to act strangely. As Helen tries to create a happy home life, Martha attempts to divide the family so that Jackson will become hers alone.

Two brothers, on either side of the law, face off over organized crime in Brooklyn during the 1970s.

The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.

A ruthless rancher, and his gang, use extremely long range rifles to kill the men who kidnapped his wife.

After an accident leaves her a paraplegic, a former soap opera star struggles to recover both emotionally and mentally, until she meets her newest nurse, who has struggles of her own.

The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.

The mother of a severely traumatized daughter enlists the aid of a unique horse trainer to help the girl's equally injured horse.

Two brothers develop a very close relationship as they are growing up in an idyllic and happy family. When they are young adults their relationship becomes very intimate, romantic, and sexual.

Harvard graduate James Averill serves as the sheriff of prosperous Jackson County, Wyoming, standing at the center of a conflict between impoverished immigrants and affluent cattle farmers. Politically connected ranchers enlist mercenary Nathan Champion—who is also vying for the affections of local madam Ella Watson—to combat the immigrant uprising. As tensions escalate, both Averill and Champion start to question their decisions.

In the Old West, a 17-year-old Scottish boy teams up with a mysterious gunman to find the woman with whom he is infatuated.

A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

A powerful rancher always protects his wild adult son by paying for damages and bribing witnesses, until his crimes become too serious to rectify.

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.

Set against the turbulent backdrop of 1870s Montana, in the moments before the execution of Isaac Broadway, he gives his estranged son, Henry, an impossible task: murder the man who framed him for a crime he didn’t commit. Intent on fulfilling his promise, Henry travels to the remote town of Trinity, where an unexpected turn of events traps him in town and leaves him caught between Gabriel Dove, the town’s upstanding new sheriff, and a mysterious figure named St. Christopher.

When Mariam, a young Tunisian woman, is raped by police officers after leaving a party, she is propelled into a harrowing night in which she must fight for her rights even though justice lies on the side of her tormentors.

On a trip to the beach, a teenage girl named Tobe meets a charismatic stranger named Harlan, who dresses like a cowboy and claims to be a former ranch hand. The pair feel an instant attraction and begin a relationship, but her father, a lawman, is suspicious of her lover.

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

In the 1950s, a seemingly sensible newlywed and her wayward brother-in-law undertake parallel journeys of risk, romance, and self-discovery.

At the end of WWII, Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot who fought in France, suffers from unexplainable symptoms and is admitted to a military hospital. When doctors suspect schizophrenia, an eccentric psychoanalyst takes up the case and starts a conversation with the veteran.

Theresa, a haunted young woman spiraling in the wake of profound loss, is torn between her fractured emotional state and the reality-altering effects of a potent cannabinoid drug.

Oregon, 1851. Hermann Kermit Warm, a chemist and aspiring gold prospector, keeps a profitable secret that the Commodore wants to know, so he sends the Sisters brothers, two notorious assassins, to capture him on his way to California.

After a bad breakup with his girlfriend leaves him heartbroken, Carter Webb moves to Michigan to take care of his ailing grandmother. Once there, he gets mixed up in the lives of the mother and daughters who live across the street.

While filing for a divorce, beautiful ex-stripper Roslyn Taber ends up meeting aging cowboy-turned-gambler Gay Langland and former World War II aviator Guido Racanelli. The two men instantly become infatuated with Roslyn and, on a whim, the three decide to move into Guido's half-finished desert home together. When grizzled ex-rodeo rider Perce Howland arrives, the unlikely foursome strike up a business capturing wild horses.

A repressed gay man develops an unlikely friendship with a young masseur who teaches him to embrace life.

Ruthless silver miner, turned oil prospector, Daniel Plainview, moves to oil-rich California. Using his son to project a trustworthy, family-man image, Plainview cons local landowners into selling him their valuable properties for a pittance. However, local preacher Eli Sunday suspects Plainview's motives and intentions, starting a slow-burning feud that threatens both their lives.

A troubled woman living in an isolated community finds herself pulled between the control of her oppressive family and the allure of a secretive outsider suspected of a series of brutal murders.

An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.

Mysterious events surround the travels of two brothers as they make their way across a remote American landscape. On the surface all seems normal, but what appears to be a simple vacation soon gives way to a dark and complex web of secrets. This is the feature film version of the 2011 short film going by the same name.

An ambitious lawyer finds himself caught in a power struggle between a corrupt pharmaceutical executive and his firm’s senior partner. When the case takes a deadly turn, he must race to uncover the truth before he loses everything.

Clover is finishing a veterinary course when her brother dies and she is called home to her family's struggling Somerset farm.

A divorced dad and his ex-con brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family's farm in West Texas.

Joseph "Doc" Frail is a doctor with a past he's trying to outrun. While in Montana, he comes across a mining camp with a hanging tree and rescues a man named Rune from the noose. With Rune as his servant, Frail decides to settle down, and he takes over as town doctor. He meets Elizabeth, who is suffering from shock, and the two soon fall in love. But when Elizabeth is attacked, Frail's attempt to help her lands them both in trouble.

When a supernatural pit worshipped by a remote community in the woods demands a new blood sacrifice, a young woman struggles to find a way to survive as the pit lashes out in anger.

A lawyer puts his family in jeopardy when he captures the last member of a violent clan and tries to forcibly tame her.

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.

The beautiful O is taken by her boyfriend, Rene, to a bizarre retreat, where she is trained in bondage and sexual perversion...

A minor train accident in rural Nebraska gradually unveils a mystery involving the town's reclusive bank clerk.

Noël Schoudler, founder of an empire built on three foundations - sugar, banking and the press - reigns like an absolute sovereign over his business and his family. But someone is about to challenge this authority: his son François...

Following a breakdown and suicide attempt, an aging actor becomes involved with a much younger woman but soon finds that it's difficult to keep pace with her.

Ken Park focuses on several teenagers and their tormented home lives. Shawn seems to be the most conventional. Tate is brimming with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother. Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.

Though a childhood bout with polio left him dependent on an iron lung, Mark O'Brien maintains a career as a journalist and poet. A writing assignment dealing with sex and the disabled piques Mark's curiosity, and he decides to investigate the possibility of experiencing sex himself. When his overtures toward a caregiver scare her away, he books an appointment with sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene to lose his virginity.

A young cattle farmer is approached by an unscrupulous veterinarian to make a shady deal with a notorious beef trader.

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.

Two men, both hiding a deadly secret, are on a murderous rampage through the desert.

Set in the year 2024 in post-apocalyptic America, 18-year old Vic and his telepathic dog, Blood, are scavengers in the desolate wilderness ravaged by World War IV, where survivors must battle for food and shelter in the desert-like wasteland. Vic and Blood eke out a meager existence, foraging for food and fighting gangs of cutthroats.

Two years after she escaped a violent attack on her family, 16-year-old Becky attempts to rebuild her life in the care of an older woman -- a kindred spirit named Elena. However, when a violent group known as the Noble Men break into their home, attack them and take their beloved dog, Becky must return to her old ways to protect herself and her loved ones.

A woman snaps and assumes the psyche of a vicious dog as her checked-out, philandering husband attempts to keep the family together.

When a remote village is plagued by a deadly curse, one brother must fight to save his family from a terrifying supernatural threat.

The wealthiest man in a Texas town decides to teach his teenage son how to hunt to make a man out of him.

Rebellious, uncontrollable teenager, Rachel is hauled off by her dysfunctional mother to spend the summer with her estranged grandmother, Georgia. Her journey will lead all three women to revelations of buried family secrets and an understanding that - regardless what happens - the ties that bind can never be broken.


