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Movies like The Wave

Key Features:
Social experiment, Authoritarianism, Group dynamics, Manipulation, Ideology, Conformity, Loss of individuality, High school setting, Teacher-student relationship, Historical context, Political commentary, Cult of personality, Violence-moderate
Tone:
serious, dramatic
Target Audience:
Drama enthusiasts, Thought-provoking cinema lovers, Social commentary seekers, Psychological thriller fans
Emotional Arc:
Curiosity → Enthusiasm → Disillusionment

The Wave

2008-03-13
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A school teacher discusses types of government with his class. His students find it too boring to repeatedly go over national socialism and believe that dictatorship cannot be established in modern Germany. He starts an experiment to show how easily the masses can become manipulated.

Genres
Drama, Thriller
Cast
Jürgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Max Riemelt, Jennifer Ulrich, Christiane Paul, Elyas M, Cristina do Rego, Jacob Matschenz, Maximilian Vollmar, Tim Oliver Schultz
Crew
Peter Thorwarth, Dennis Gansel, Dennis Gansel
Rating
7.485(3491 votes)
The WaveThe Wave
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The Wave
The Wave(1981)
6.9

A teacher conducts an experiment in an American high school where students learn how easy it is to be seduced by the same social forces which led to the horrors of Nazi Germany.



The Wave
The Wave(2019)
6.025

A man on the verge of a promotion takes a mysterious hallucinogenic drug that begins to tear down his reality and expose his life for what it really is.



The Experiment
7.409

20 volunteers agree to take part in a seemingly well-paid experiment advertised by the university. It is supposed to be about aggressive behavior in an artificial prison situation. A journalist senses a story behind the ad and smuggles himself in among the test subjects. They are randomly divided into prisoners and guards. What seems like a game at the beginning soon turns into bloody seriousness.



The Teacher
6.8

The principal of an elementary school calls a special parents meeting after it’s alleged that the seemingly empathetic and kindly-looking teacher Mrs. Drazděchová uses her students to manipulate their parents.



The Silent Revolution

Stalinstadt, East Germany, 1956. While the Hungarian uprising against Soviets is taking place, teenage members of a classroom of the local school perform a seemingly harmless act that causes unexpected consequences.



The White Ribbon
7.48

An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.



The Experiment
6.386

20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.



The Hunt
The Hunt(2012)
8.095

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.



The Teachers' Lounge
7.237

When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her actions threaten to break her.



The Free Will
6.9

After nine years in psychiatric detention Theo, who has brutally assaulted and raped three women, is released. Living in a supervised community, he connects well with his social worker Sascha, finds a job at a print shop and even a girlfriend, Nettie, his principal's brittle and estranged daughter. But even though superficially everything seems to work out Theo's seething rage remains ready to erupt.



The Wave
The Wave(2015)
6.7

Although theorised, no one is really ready when a mountain pass above the scenic and narrow Geiranger fjord in Norway collapses and creates a tsunami over 300 feet high. A geologist is one of those caught in the middle of it.



The Sect
The Sect(1991)
6.2

A spree of grisly murders is perpetrated in Frankfurt by a group of Satan worshippers. A lonely schoolteacher almost runs over an elderly man and takes him in, unbeknown to her the man has plans for her – plans that involve a permanent future with the Satanic cult.



The Teacher
6.547

Teacher in the most prestigious highschool in the country, François enjoys the life he’s always known, in the intellectual and bourgeois society of Paris. Trapped in a situation where he’s forced to accept a job in a school of a tough underprivileged suburb, he finds himself confronted to his own limits and to the upheaval of his values and certainties.



Lesson of the Evil
6.6

Seiji Hasumi is a popular English teacher in a private high school. He is also a violent and sociopathic killer who concocts an extreme plan to deal with the rise of bullying and bad behavior among the student body.



Godless Youth
6.2

German students compete to enter one of the country's elite schools.



The White Sound
7

Lukas, a young schizophrenic man, has to deal with a new town, a new relationship, and the paranoia in his head.



Stereo
Stereo(2014)
6.1

Erik has is own motorbike workshop in a sleepy little town. He may have the telling word ‘scoundrel’ tattooed onto his lower arm but he nonetheless creates an impression of a well-behaved average Joe. His relationship with his girlfriend Julia is going well and her daughter Linda is very fond of her new Dad. But then all of a sudden the mysterious Henry appears and begins following him about like a sinister shadow. The more Erik tries to shake off his diabolical guest the more Henry intrudes into his life. But then when a violent gangster named Keitel enters the fray and threatens not only Erik but Julia and Linda, Erik’s seemingly ideal world begins to run off the rails.



My Führer
5.6

Hitler no longer believes in himself, and can barely see himself as an equal to even his sheep dog. But to seize the helm of the war he would have to create one of his famous fiery speeches to mobilize the masses. Goebbels therefore brings a Jewish acting teacher Grünbaum and his family from the camps in order to train the leader in rhetoric. Grünbaum is torn, but starts Hitler in his therapy ...



The Privilege
5.2

A wealthy teen and his friends attending an elite private school uncover a dark conspiracy while looking into a series of strange supernatural events.



Serial Teachers
5.439

With only 12 percent of its pupils obtaining their baccalaureate, Jules Ferry High School is the worst school in France. The Inspector of Schools has already exhausted all the conventional means to raise standards at the school and he has no choice but to take the advice of his deputy. It is a case of having to fight fire with fire: the worst pupils must be taught by the worst teachers...



The Captain
7.187

Germany, 1945. Soldier Willi Herold, a deserter of the German army, stumbles into a uniform of Nazi captain abandoned during the last and desperate weeks of the Third Reich. Newly emboldened by the allure of a suit that he has stolen only to stay warm, Willi discovers that many Germans will follow the leader, whoever he is.



The Conformist
7.6

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.



Hitler: A Career
7.4

A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of mass psychology and how the desperate crowd can be deceived and shepherded to the slaughterhouse.



Contra
Contra(2020)
7.2

With his uncouth manner, Professor Pohl doesn’t enjoy the best reputation at the university where he works. To make matters worse, he makes a racist remark when student Naima arrives late for his lecture. Unfortunately for him, a video of his verbal outburst spreads like wildfire on the Internet, and the university’s president, Lambrecht, is called to deal with the incident. But Pohl is not dismissed. Instead, he is put to the task of helping Naima prepare for an important debating competition. The lecturer and the student could not be more different, yet they are thrown together to work as a team.



The Class
The Class(2008)
7

Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.



The Faculty
6.6

When some very creepy things start happening around school, the kids at Herrington High make the chilling discovery that confirms their worst suspicions: their teachers really are from another planet!



Breaking the Waves
7.493

In a small, conservative Scottish village, an oilman is paralyzed in an accident. His wife, who prayed for his return, feels guilty; even more, when he urges her to have sex with another.



The Brain
The Brain(1988)
5.175

Dr. Blake runs a TV show called "Independent Thinkers", which is sort of a Scientology-like self-help/religion program. But he's not making his audience think any more independently - with the help of an alien organism he calls The Brain, he's using brainwashing and mind control. The only thing that stands between them and world domination is a brilliant but troubled high school student with a penchant for pranks...



The Tunnel
7.1

Inspired by true events, Olympic swimmer Harry Melchior defects from East Germany in the 1960s and hatches a daring plot to help his sister and others flee East Berlin through a 145-yard underground tunnel.



Frau Müller muss weg!

Because of their children's bad grades, some parents want the teacher Mrs. Müller gone. They meet with Mrs. Müller and try to convince her to leave the class.



P.R.O.F.S.
6.123

A clique of four young teachers at a high school looks critically at their colleagues. To avoid falling in the same routine, they bring new ideas into the school lessons and play little games and pranks in their spare time -- sometimes get even more childish than their pupils. When they get opposition from the other teachers, they play tricks to get rid of them.



The Substitute
5.568

6th Grade gets a new substitute teacher. She wants to train the class for an international competition in Paris. But something isn't right. How is she able read kids' minds? Why is she so mean? And how does she manage to convince everyone's parents she is so great when the whole class knows she is really an alien?



The Slap
The Slap(1974)
6.6

A Parisian teacher loses his cool when his teenage daughter tells him she plans to drop out of school and move in with her boyfriend.



The Dictator
6.213

The heroic story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.



Goebbels and the Führer

As Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels creates films and pictures used to prepare the Germans for Total War and the Holocaust. When the war is lost, he conceives his last staging, the most radical propaganda act still possible to him.



The Castle
6.1

When land surveyor K arrives at a small village that houses a castle, local authorities refuse to allow him to enter. As he tries to convince the officials that they sent for him, they clamp down with increasingly complicated bureaucratic obstacles.



Before the Fall
7

In 1942, Friedrich Weimer's boxing skills get him an appointment to a National Political Academy (NaPolA) – high schools that produce Nazi elite. Over his father's objections, Friedrich enrolls. During his year in seventh column, Friedrich encounters hazing, cruelty, death, and the Nazi code. His friendship with Albrecht, the ascetic son of the area's governor, is central to this education.



School's Out
5.827

A few days before the baccalaureate, a high school student decides to settle accounts with the most cowardly teacher in the school.



The Bridge
7.5

A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge. The film is based on a West German anti-war novel of the same name, written by Gregor Dorfmeister.



The Perfect Teacher

A spoiled, selfish teenager becomes infatuated with her teacher. She befriends his daughter as a way of worming her way into the family, and sets about manipulating every aspect of his life.



The Student
6.4

A high school student becomes convinced that the world is lost to evil and begins to challenge the morals and beliefs of the adults surrounding him.



Downfall
Downfall(2004)
7.857

In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.



The Bunker
6.114

A student moves in with a family that lives in an underground house in the middle of the forest, far from civilization. His hopes of peace and quiet are soon shattered, when it becomes apparent that both the parents and their son have a screw loose.



In the House
7.2

A sixteen-year-old boy insinuates himself into the house of a fellow student from his literature class and writes about it in essays for his French teacher. Faced with this gifted and unusual pupil, the teacher rediscovers his enthusiasm for his work, but the boy’s intrusion will unleash a series of uncontrollable events.



Girls in Uniform
6.114

A new student, Manuela, enters a strict girls' boarding school after her mother’s death, where she finds comfort in a kind teacher, stirring complex emotions within her.



Vanishing Waves
5.9

Lucas is a scientist who works near the European experimental project that focus on advanced ‘human neuron research’. The project is to transfer neuron information from one human mind to another. Lukas is chosen to connect his mind with a comatose woman he named Aurora.



The Damned
7.2

In the early days of Nazi Germany, a powerful noble family must adjust to life under the new dictatorship regime.



The Marco Effect
5.8

When a homeless Romani boy is arrested at the Danish border for possession of a missing public servant's passport, police inspector Carl Mørck and Department Q are tasked with finding the connection.



An Affair
An Affair(2018)
5.4

A newly appointed teacher finds herself being followed, and soon discovers that one of her own students is obsessed with her.



Absent
Absent(2011)
6

Sebastiano teaches high school gym classes and coaches swimming. He’s got a job, a girlfriend, and a pretty normal life. But as young Martin starts to infiltrate Sebastiano’s life, his world will get turned upside down. Eerie from the first frame, this Hitchcockian thriller portrays sexual obsession with terrifying realism.



Another Round
7.6

Four stagnant high school teachers decide to test out a theory that maintaining a constant level of intoxication will improve their overall lives.



Katzelmacher
6.382

A group of young slackers spend most of their time hanging out in front of a Munich apartment building. When a Greek immigrant named Jorgos moves in, however, their aimless lives are shaken up. Soon, new tensions arise both within the group and with Jorgos.



Fog in August
7.5

A Yenish boy is placed in a mental hospital and experiences the Nazi euthanasia program. Aware of what was happening and attached to friends, the lad attempts to sabotage the program. The film addresses the complexities of the program director, the lives of the child victims, and the struggles of the child protagonist. More than five thousand children died in the Nazi euthanasia program.



The Good Teacher
6.345

Julien, a young teacher, is wrongfully accused of sexual misconduct by a teenage girl from his class. As he faces mounting pressures from the girl’s older brother and her classmates, the situation spirals out of control. Allegations spread, the entire school is thrown into turmoil, and the teacher has to fight to clear his name.



Waves
Waves(2024)
7.451

At the end of the 1960s, when the air is filled with rock-and-roll and student rebellions are changing the world, the older of two brothers joins a prestigious newsroom of the public radio broadcaster. Not long after, he finds himself in the middle of a dangerous conflict between journalists and the secret service.



The Last Wave
6.7

A Sydney lawyer defends five Aboriginal Persons in a ritualised taboo murder and in the process learns disturbing truths about himself and premonitions.



The Method
6.7

Seven candidates to a high executive position on a multinational company show up for a selection test in a skyscraper at the financial district. Among them, the most disparate personalities: the winner, the aggressive, the insecure, the critic, the indecisive…



F
F(2010)
6.106

A group of teachers must defend themselves from a gang of murderous kids when their school comes under siege after hours.



The Servant
7.6

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.



The Fencer
7.006

Fleeing from the Russian secret police, a young Estonian fencer is forced to return to his homeland, where he becomes a physical education teacher at a local school. The past however catches up and puts him in front of a difficult choice.



Labyrinth of Lies
7.2

A young prosecutor in postwar West Germany investigates a massive conspiracy to cover up the Nazi pasts of prominent public figures.



A Teacher
A Teacher(2013)
4.495

Diana Watts, a high school teacher in Austin, Texas, is in the midst of an affair with one of her students, Eric Tull. As the reality of their situation forces itself upon them, Diana puts the relationship on hold. It’s only a matter of time before she gives in again to her desire; this time even more recklessly than before.



The Trotsky
6.667

Leon Bronstein is not your average Montreal West high school student. For one thing, none of his peers can claim to be the reincarnation of early 20th century Soviet iconoclast and Red Army hero, Leon Trotsky. When his father sends Leon to public school as punishment for starting a hunger strike at Papa's clothing factory, Leon quickly lends new meaning to the term 'student union', determined as he is to live out his pre-ordained destiny to the fullest and change the world.



Combat Girls
6.7

Marisa, a 20-year-old German girl, hates foreigners, Jews, cops, and everyone she finds guilty for the decline of her country. She provokes, drinks, fights and her next tattoo will be a portrait of Adolf Hitler. But Marisa's convictions begin to crumble when she meets a young Afghan refugee, and she learns that the black and white principles of her gang are not the only way.



The German Lesson
6.5

In a small North German village a drama played out during and shortly after the Second World War about duty versus individual conscience and morality.



Sanctuary
Sanctuary(2015)
7.3

Summer 1968. 14-year-old Wolfgang is deported from his family in the secluded Church Welfare Institution sanctuary. One thing is clear for Wolfgang: His yearning for freedom, he will not soon buried in the bog.



Ignorance Is Bliss
5.9

Ernesto and Filippo, two high school teachers, couldn’t be more different: Filippo is a cheerful liberal who is constantly online. Handsome and youthful, he is a serial seducer on the social networks. Ernesto, instead is a stern conservative, rigorously computerless. He is probably the last person around who still has a first-generation cell phone and his teaching methods are very traditional. They used to be best friends but an unresolved fight kept them far apart, until the day fate intervened and they found themselves teaching at the same school. Their opposite viewpoints will soon and inevitably lead to a new clash. The internet will force them to deal with their past, which resurfaces in the shape of Nina, a young woman who conducts an experiment on them: Filippo must try to leave the world of Internet and Ernesto must try to enter it.



Class of 1984
6.4

Andy is a new teacher at an inner city high school that is unlike any he has seen before. There are metal detectors at the front door and the place is basically run by a tough kid named Peter Stegman. Soon, Andy and Stegman become enemies and Stegman will stop at nothing to protect his turf and drug dealing business.



The Tutor
The Tutor(2023)
6.1

When a professional tutor takes a job at a remote manor, he soon finds himself battling his disturbed student’s obsessions, which threaten to expose his darkest secrets and unravel his carefully crafted persona.



Inherit the Wind
7.659

Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.



Suicide Club
6.462

When 54 high school girls throw themselves in front of a subway train it appears to be only the beginning of a string of suicides around the country. Detective Kuroda tries to find the answer to this mystery, which isn't as simple as he had hoped.



Barbara
Barbara(2012)
7.2

In 1980s East Germany, Barbara is a Berlin doctor banished to a country medical clinic for applying for an exit visa. Deeply unhappy with her reassignment and fearful of her co-workers as possible Stasi informants, Barbara stays aloof, especially from the good natured clinic head, Andre.



Polytechnique
7.1

A dramatization of the Montreal Massacre of 1989 where several female engineering students were murdered by an unstable misogynist.



Tidal Wave
6.9

On Haeundae Beach, a guilt-ridden fisherman takes care of a woman whose father accidentally got killed. A scientist reunites with his ex-wife and a daughter who doesn't even remember his face. And a poor rescue worker falls in love with a rich city girl. When they all find out a gigantic tsunami will hit the beach, they realize they only have 10 minutes to escape.



The Cruise
7

A stowaway sneaks aboard a ship departing on a cruise down the Vistula River. The captain takes him for a Communist Party cultural coordinator and the intruder gladly adapts to his new role, immediately setting to work at manipulating the passengers and crew into silly and vaguely humiliating games. Before long, Tym has got everyone under his thumb and created his own comedic dictatorship.



Apt Pupil
Apt Pupil(1998)
6.5

One day in 1984, Todd Bowden, a brilliant high school boy fascinated by the history of Nazism, stumbles across an old man whose appearance resembles that of Kurt Dussander, a wanted Nazi war criminal. A month later, Todd decides to knock on his door.



Involuntary
6.5

In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.



The Principal
6.5

Burglary. Drugs. Assault. Rape. The students at Brandel High are more than new Principal Rick Latimer bargained for. Gangs fight to control the school using knives - even guns - when they have to. When Latimer and the head of security try to clean up the school and stop the narcotics trade, they run up against a teenage mafia. A violent confrontation on the campus leads to a deadly showdown with the drug dealer's gang, and one last chance for Latimer to save his career... and his life.



Higher Power
5.1

When the Universe decides what it wants, it's pointless to resist. With his family's life at stake, Joseph Steadman finds himself the unwilling test subject of a maniacal scientist in a battle that could save the world – or destroy it.



Club Zero
Club Zero(2023)
5.784

Miss Novak joins the staff of an international boarding school to teach a conscious eating class and forms a strong bond with five students that eventually takes a dangerous turn.



The Piano Teacher
7.253

Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.



The Surfer
5.767

A man returns to the idyllic beach of his childhood to surf with his son. When he is humiliated by a group of locals, the man is drawn into a conflict that keeps rising and pushes him to his breaking point.



Good
Good(2008)
6.1

When John Halder's latest novel is enlisted by powerful political figures in the Nazi party to push their agenda, his career and social standing instantly advance. But after learning of the Reich's horrific plans for the future and the devastating effects they will have on people close to him, John must decide whether or not to take a stand and risk losing everything.



Gym Class
Gym Class(2023)
5.9

Three middle school parents are summoned by the principal after their children are implicated in a serious incident. In the gym, transformed into an impromptu courtroom, they wage a fierce battle of denials and obfuscations to suppress the truth.



The Exchange Student

Malo and Stéphane are two students who are kind of losers and have just started high school. Their plan to become popular: to host a German exchange student with a lot of style. Too bad for Malo, who gets stuck with a Goth who will make his life hell.



Lesson Plan
6.025

After a teacher dies, his best friend — a former cop — takes a job at the school where he worked to confront the gang he thinks was responsible.



Lessons of a Dream
6.9

An English teacher brings soccer to a German school in the 19th Century.



Not My Type
6.208

Clement, a young philosophy teacher, is sent to Arras for a year. He meets Jennifer, a pretty hair stylist, and the two freely share their hearts and bodies as they try to overcome the cultural and social divide between them.



Tag
Tag(2015)
6.497

Mitsuko, a young student, encounters a series of horrifying incidents set in alternate realities where people wind up dead in the most horrendous fashion.



The Platform
6.968

A slab of food descends down a vertical facility. The residents above eat heartily, leaving those below starving and desperate. A rebellion is imminent.



Dread
Dread(2009)
5.5

Three college students set out to document what other people dread the most. However, one of the three turns out to secretly be a sadistic psychopath who uses this knowledge to gruesomely torture the subjects.



The Trial
The Trial(1962)
7.4

The surreal tale of an unassuming man who is accused of a never-specified crime and shambles through bizarre encounters to escape this nightmare.



Kill Theory
5.318

While celebrating a graduation at a secluded vacation home, a group of college students find themselves targeted by a sadistic killer who forces them to play a deadly game of killing one another in order to survive.



Cry_Wolf
Cry_Wolf(2005)
5.8

After a local woman is murdered, a group of teenage liars create a warning e-mail of a serial killer named “The Wolf”, coming on the next full moon. The teens describe each death method The Wolf uses, but when the described victims actually do start turning up dead, suddenly no one knows where the lies end and the truth begins.



The Signal
5.9

A horror film told in three parts, from three perspectives, in which a mysterious transmission that turns people into killers invades every cell phone, radio, and television.



Control
Control(2017)
5.99

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



We Are Young. We Are Strong.

On 24th August 1992 in the eastern German city of Rostock, a rampaging mob, to the applause and cheering of more than 3,000 bystanders, besieged and set fire to a residential building containing, among others, more than 120 Vietnamese men, women, and children on what has since become known as "The Night of the Fire." The riots became a symbol of xenophobia in the just-reunited Germany. This film recounts the incident from the perspectives of three very different characters.



The Champion
6.641

Christian is an extremely talented as well as unpredictable football player. After his latest screw-up, the president of his team decides to assign him a personal tutor, to help him in controlling his temper. Valerio is a shy and solitary professor, the exact opposite of the champion. Sparks will fly between the two at first, but soon their relationship will change both for the better.



As God Commands
6.434

An 11-year-old boy and his neo-Nazi dad struggle with being outcasts in their suburban town.

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