The Young Poisoner's HandbookMovies like The Young Poisoner's Handbook
- Key Features:
- True crime, Psychological manipulation, Anti-hero, Dysfunctional family, Mental illness, Suburban setting, 1960s, Black comedy, Medical drama, Criminality, Obsession, Isolation, Chemistry, Poisoning, Psychiatric hospital, Guilt, Death
- Tone:
- cynical, humorous, serious
- Target Audience:
- True crime enthusiasts, Psychological thriller fans, Black comedy aficionados, Independent film viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Disgust → Unease
The Young Poisoner's Handbook

Graham Young is a teenage misfit living in suburban London in the 1960s. He hates his stepmother but loves chemistry, and the two impulses unite in a wicked plot to slowly poison her. After she dies, he's found guilty and sent to a psychiatric hospital, where an idealistic doctor thinks he can be cured.
The Young Poisoner's Handbook
A troubled arsonist spins a tale of espionage to a captivating girl, who becomes enthralled and entangled in his dangerous fantasies, leading to unexpected murder and chaos that change their lives forever.

A straight-laced pharmacist's uneventful life spirals out of control when he starts an affair with a trophy wife customer who takes him on a joyride involving sex, drugs and possibly murder.

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.

In a near-future Britain, young Alexander DeLarge and his pals get their kicks beating and raping anyone they please. When not destroying the lives of others, Alex swoons to the music of Beethoven. The state, eager to crack down on juvenile crime, gives an incarcerated Alex the option to undergo an invasive procedure that'll rob him of all personal agency. In a time when conscience is a commodity, can Alex change his tune?

An abused 15 year old is charged with a murder that carries the death penalty in this fact-based story.

Paul Braconnier and his wife Blandine only have one thing in mind: to find a way to kill each other without risk. After listening to a radio show, Paul decides to go to Paris to meet a famous lawyer in the acquittal of the murderers. He tells the lawyer that he killed his wife. The lawyer asks Paul to reconstruct the circumstances of the drama. Without knowing it, he explains, in spite of himself, the way for Paul to murder his wife by putting the odds on his side to avoid death penalty or even be released...

William has failed to kill himself so many times that he outsources his suicide to aging assassin Leslie. But with the contract signed and death assured within a week (or his money back), William suddenly discovers reasons to live... However Leslie is under pressure from his boss to make sure the contract is completed.

Two teenage boys from inner-city Cork steal bicycles and ride off on a 160km quest to find an unrecovered bale of cocaine worth 7,000,000 euros.

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.

A seductive teen befriends an introverted high school student and schemes her way into the lives of her wealthy family.

Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton, who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family's sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten.

A dissolute scriptwriter and a dejected actor become unwittingly drawn into a labyrinthine mess when several people experience bizarre accidental deaths in their flat. Though the men didn't deliberately cause any of the incidents, they fear that they will be unfairly pegged as murderers if they relay information to the cops, and promptly set about disposing of the corpses in gruesome ways.

While drying out on the West Coast, an alcoholic hit man befriends a tart-tongued woman who might just come in handy when it's time for him to return to Buffalo and settle some old scores.

A guy's life is turned around by an email, which includes the names of everyone he's had sex with and ever will have sex with. His situation gets worse when he encounters a femme fatale (Ryder) who targets men guilty of sex crime.

Victor Maynard is a middle-aged, solitary assassin who lives to please his formidable mother, despite his own peerless reputation for lethal efficiency. His professional routine is interrupted when he finds himself drawn to one of his intended victims. After sparing her life, he unexpectedly acquires a young apprentice. Believing Victor to be a private detective, his two new companions tag along, while he attempts to thwart the murderous attentions of his unhappy client.

Young Nigel Slater has big culinary aspirations, even though all his mother knows how to make is toast. When his mother dies, relations grow strained between Nigel and his father, especially when he remarries a woman who wins his heart with a lemon meringue pie. Nigel enters culinary school, starts working in a pub, and finds himself competing with his stepmother - both in the kitchen and for his father's attention.

When a high school party goes dangerously off the rails, one teenager finds that revenge is just a computer click away.

The outrageous life of Reagan Collins, a model high school student with a "killer" after-school job that involves arranging “accidents” for his classmates' parents. When seasoned police detective Cliff Dawkins starts putting the pieces together, it's a battle of wits to see if Reagan can keep business booming.

Ingrid becomes obsessed with a social network star named Taylor Sloane who seemingly has a perfect life. But when Ingrid decides to drop everything and move west to be Taylor's friend, her behaviour turns unsettling and dangerous.

In the middle of a performance at la Comédie-Française, an actor dies on stage, poisoned. Martin, member of the troupe and friend of the victim, becomes the center of everyone’s attention. Suspected by the police, he’s also chased by a mysterious organization, Le Parfum vert, that seems to have ordered the murder.

A serial killer whose mother was a prostitute starts killing streetwalkers as a way of paying back his mother for her abuse.

A very gentle middle-aged man is married, but when he falls in love with another woman, he decides that to divorce his wife would humiliate her too much – so instead he decides to kill her.

After arguing with his girlfriend, Ali, Tyler lands in the arms of sexy new girl, Holly. The next morning, he finds that not only does Ali agree to take him back, but Holly is a new student at their school and is dead set on her new man.

Madison Avenue executive Graham Marshall has paid his dues. A talented and devoted worker, he has suffered through mounting bills and a nagging wife with one thing to look forward to: a well-deserved promotion. But when the promotion is given to a loud-mouthed yuppie associate, Graham unleashes his rage on an overly aggressive panhandler, who he accidently kills by pushing him into the path of an oncoming subway train. He re-thinks his problems with an entirely new solution. First, he arranges an "accident" for his annoying wife. Then he creates another "mishap" for his boss. It seems like the world is once more Graham's oyster…but a missing cigarette lighter and a prying police detective may change all that.

A mysterious story of two magicians whose intense rivalry leads them on a life-long battle for supremacy -- full of obsession, deceit and jealousy with dangerous and deadly consequences.

London, England. Mike, a fifteen-year-old boy, gets a job in a bathhouse, where he meets Susan, an attractive young woman who works there as an attendant.

Two lifelong friends head up to an isolated Scottish Highlands village for a weekend hunting trip that descends into a never-ending nightmare as they attempt to cover up a horrific hunting accident.

When the young, attractive Joe Orton meets the older, more introverted Kenneth Halliwell at drama school, he befriends the kindred spirit and they start an affair. As Orton becomes more comfortable with his sexuality and starts to find success with his writing, Halliwell becomes increasingly alienated and jealous, ultimately tapping into a dangerous rage.

The family of Raymond, his wife Val and her brother Billy live in working-class London district. Also in their family is Val and Billy's mother Janet and grandmother Kath. Billy is a drug addict and Raymond kicks him out of the house, making him live on his own. Raymond is generally a rough and even violent person, and that leads to problems in the life of the family.

Jealous of her vapidly "good" sister's popularity, poisonous Viktoria doses pretty Klara's tea with a slow-acting fatal substance. As the latter grows hysterically weak, the former finds success increasingly compromised by guilt, blackmail, and the pesky need to kill others lest she be exposed.

Hapless Henry Palfrey is patronised by his self-important chief clerk at work, ignored by restaurant waiters, conned by shady second-hand car salesmen, and, worst of all, endlessly wrong-footed by unspeakably rotten cad Raymond Delauney who has set his cap at April, new love of Palfrey's life. In desperation Henry enrolls at the College of Lifemanship to learn how to best such bounders and win the girl.

A no-nonsense cop has a flair for fashion and a celebrity takes revenge on the paparazzi in a collection of comedic sketches.

A young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant. A number of indiscretions cause him to lie in order to avoid the penalties. His life turns into a mess and he has an opportunity to run away and leave it all behind.

Three detectives become embroiled in a tense struggle after a tragic accident that leaves a child in critical condition. One is guilty of a crime, one will try to cover it up, and the other attempts to expose it. How far will these men go to disguise and unravel the truth?

A coming of age dramedy where infidelity, real estate, and Lyme disease have two families falling apart on Long Island in the early eighties. Scott, 15, is at the point in his life when he finds out that the most important people around him, his father, his mother, and his brother, are not exactly who he thought they were. They are flawed and they are human.

In 1860, Inspector Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard is sent to rural Wiltshire to investigate the murder of the three-year-old boy Saville Kent, who was snatched from his bed at night and murdered.

A dentist finds himself a murder suspect after a sexy patient seduces him into prescribing her drugs.

In the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and murder.

A bigoted junkie cop suffering from borderline personality disorder and drug addiction manipulates and hallucinates his way in a bid to secure promotion.

Sasha is a young vampire with a serious problem: she's too sensitive to kill. When her exasperated parents cut off her blood supply, Sasha's life is in jeopardy. Luckily, she meets Paul, a lonely teenager with suicidal tendencies who is willing to give his life to save hers. But their friendly agreement soon becomes a nocturnal quest to fulfill Paul's last wishes before day breaks.

Chip's problem is that he can't say no to beautiful women. This weakness gets him into a world of trouble when he agrees to help his girlfriend steal $68,000.

A teenager stops off to see his dealer to test a new drug before heading off for a night of partying. On the way home, he picks up an injured woman, and the night takes a surreal turn.

Experienced New York Police Detective John Harris is sent to London to help a local task force investigate a series of gangster killings organized by a new player in town, an American. With the help of a young teen wronged by gangsters, Harris navigates London's seedy, drug-fuelled underworld in order to take down its new criminal empire.

Teenagers Zach and Josh have been best friends their whole lives, but when a gruesome accident leads to a cover-up, the secret drives a wedge between them and propels them down a rabbit hole of escalating paranoia and violence.

A young woman, traumatized by a tragic event in her past, seeks out vengeance against those who crossed her path.

A smooth-talking ad executive attributes his remarkable success with women to his ability to manipulate their emotions from the moment he first meets them. When his teenage nephew drops in for a visit, he soon learns that his approach isn't as foolproof as he thought when he attempts to teach the boy how to pick up women.

Clairvoyant femme fatale, Nicola Six has been living with a dark premonition of her impending death by murder. She begins a tangled love affair with three uniquely different men — one of whom she knows will be her murderer.

During the 1930s in England, a group of young socialites dominate the national gossip with extravagant and outlandish antics. Among the group is the aspiring novelist Adam Fenwick-Symes, who is attempting to raise enough money to marry fellow member Nina Blount. However, after customs officials confiscate his first manuscript, Fenwick-Symes must recover from the financial setback and figure out new ways to earn money for a wedding.

A picture-perfect family is torn apart after Tyler finds a cache of disturbing images in his father's possession. He begins to suspect that the man he trusts most in the world may be responsible for the murder of 13 women ten years prior.

Teenagers Luke, Malachy, and Michelle embark on a wild weekend of drink, drugs, shop-lifting and stealing cars. But what starts out as a game turns deadly serious when the three discover that they can't get off the wild ride they've set in motion.

Based on the Vanity Fair article of the same title, a story about a young boy drawn into a web of lies through an online chatroom.

A sex-addicted con-man pays for his mother's hospital bills by playing on the sympathies of those who rescue him from choking to death.

A down-on-his-luck PI is hired by his old flame to investigate a murder. But while the case at first appears routine, it slowly reveals itself to be a complex interwoven web of crimes, suspects and dead bodies.

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.

Medical student Ted Grey graduates at the top of his class and quickly joins an elite pathology program, whose top students invite him into their circle. There he uncovers a gruesome secret: They play a game in which one tries to commit the perfect, undetectable murder, then the others compete to determine the victim's cause of death.

The adventures of an upper-class suburban family abruptly confronted with the younger brother's discovery of his homosexuality, the elder sister's suicide attempt and sadomasochist tendencies, and the intrusion of a very free-spirited maid and her husband. And it all started with the arrival in the family of an innocent looking rat.

Two con artists hire an unwitting medical-school student as a secretary for their latest scam.

A young man learns that his parents had been used in an atomic-weapons experiment shortly before his birth, and that the results have had some unexpected effects on him.

When 19-year-old Adam agrees to do a day's driving for his mum's gangster boyfriend Peter, it takes him on a 24-hour journey into a nightmarish world of murder, sex trafficking and revenge, in the company of aging hit man Roy.

15-year-old deep-thinking Welsh schoolboy Oliver Tate struggles to initiate and maintain a relationship with Jordana, his devilish, dark-haired classmate at their Swansea high school. As his parents' marriage begins to fall apart, similar problems arise in his relationship with Jordana.

When a Russian mobster sets up a real estate scam that generates millions of pounds, various members of London's criminal underworld pursue their share of the fortune. Various shady characters, including Mr One-Two, Stella the accountant, and Johnny Quid, a druggie rock-star, try to claim their slice.

A&R man Steven Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music business, a world where 'no one knows anything' and where careers are made and broken by chance and the fickle tastes of the general public. Fuelled by greed, ambition and inhuman quantities of drugs, Stelfox lives the dream, as he searches for his next hit record.

In London, a drug dealer grows increasingly desperate over the course of a week after a botched deal lands him in the merciless clutches of a ruthless crime lord. The more desperate his behavior, the more isolated he becomes until there is nothing left standing between him and the bullet his debtors intend to fire his way.

Hallam's talent for spying on people reveals his darkest fears-and his most peculiar desires. Driven to expose the true cause of his mother's death, he instead finds himself searching the rooftops of the city for love.

When the denizens of Littlehampton – including conservative Edith – begin receiving letters full of hilarious profanities, rowdy Irish migrant Rose is charged with the crime. Suspecting something amiss, the town's women band together to investigate.

Marty Mackenzie is an unsuccessful stage actor who takes an interest in private investigating. He takes a job working with Jack Potter, a crusty private eye. They both take a case in Beaver Ridge, a seedy small town where a murder is being planned against a rich gravel pit owner. Marty realizes that private investigating is not as it seemed to be.

After being sent to a detention centre, a teenage skinhead clashes with the social workers who want to conform him to the status quo.

The Chumscrubber is a dark comedy about the lives of people who live in upper-class suburbia. It all begins when Dean Stiffle finds the body of his friend, Troy. He doesn't bother telling any of the adults because he knows they won't care. Everyone in town is too self consumed to worry about anything else than themselves. And everybody is on some form of drug just to get through their days.

A story set in the 90s and in the outskirts of Rome to Ostia. A world where money, luxury cars, night clubs, cocaine and synthetic drugs are easy to run. A world in which Vittorio and Cesare, in their early twenties, act in search of their success.

Mikey and Rose are professional assassins. They are also lovers, and once upon a time Rose also knew Mikey's father. During an elaborate hit job for a malicious gangster, Rose fails to kill the main target, the gangster's pregnant girlfriend. Instead, she delivers her baby and convinces Mikey to help her protect them both. As Rose weakens from cancer, Mikey becomes breadwinner for this unusual family. But tranquility will not last.

A group of young gunmen, led by Billy the Kid, become deputies to avenge the murder of the rancher who became their benefactor. But when Billy takes their authority too far, they become the hunted.

A recent college graduate flees to Paris after a break-up, where his involvement with a prostitute begins to reveal a potentially dark recent past.

A collection of intersecting short stories set in early 1980s Los Angeles, depicts a week in the lives of an assortment of socially alienated, mainly well-off characters who numb their sense of emptiness with casual sex, violence, and drugs.

American expat Mickey Pearson has built a highly profitable marijuana empire in London. When word gets out that he’s looking to cash out of the business forever it triggers plots, schemes, bribery and blackmail in an attempt to steal his domain out from under him.

A teenager lives out the hilarious and often tragic consequences of being lethally attractive, until he meets a girl with a congenital defect.

A young man drops out of university and goes to the police. He's done nothing wrong he just wants a job. A particular job. Playing the victim in murder reconstructions. Maybe by getting close to death he can manage to cheat on his own.

The mother of the family for which Michelle baby-sits dies unexpectedly. Michelle is asked to take over looking after the children and is gradually "seduced" by the father.

On his birthday, a hitman reluctantly takes on the easy task of killing a writer, only to find the job a lot more difficult than expected.

An English bon-vivant osteopath is enchanted with a young exotic dancer and invites her to live with him. He serves as friend and mentor, and through his contacts and parties she and her friend meet and date members of the Conservative Party. Eventually a scandal occurs when her affair with the Minister of War goes public, threatening their lifestyles and their freedom.

A search for love, meaning and bathroom solitude. Danny goes through a series of shared housing experiences in a succession of cities on the east coast of Australia. Together these vignettes form a narrative that is surprisingly reflective.

A successful lawyer, with a new wife and infant, agrees to care for his teenage son from a previous marriage after his ex-wife becomes concerned about the boy's wayward behavior.

19-year-old Eric, arrogant and ultra-violent, is prematurely transferred to the same adult prison facility as his estranged father. As his explosive temper quickly finds him enemies in both prison authorities and fellow inmates — and his already volatile relationship with his father is pushed past breaking point — Eric is approached by a volunteer psychotherapist, who runs an anger management group for prisoners. Torn between gang politics, prison corruption, and a glimmer of something better, Eric finds himself in a fight for his own life, unsure if his own father is there to protect him or join in punishing him.

Bill Whitney is worried that he is different to his sister and parents. They mix with other upper-class people while Bill is more down to earth. Even his girlfriend seems a bit odd. All is revealed when Bill returns home to find a party in full swing.

When a seemingly straight-forward drug deal goes awry, XXXX has to break his die-hard rules and turn up the heat, not only to outwit the old regime and come out on top, but to save his own skin...

A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. But in the course of a single day he unknowingly captures a death on film.

A mysterious serial killer is shocking the underworld. Scotland Yard is investigating the case. Clues lead the detectives to Blackwhite Castle.

When awkward teen Ronald Wilby accidentally kills a young girl whose sister rejected his affections, his overbearing mother decides to hide him from the law by creating a concealed room in their home for him to live.

A seductive teen becomes vindictive when her boyfriend tries to end the relationship.

Georgia Nicolson is fourteen, lives with nosey parents who don't understand her, an annoying three year old sister and has to wear a beret to school. She would, however, rather be blonde, have a smaller nose and a boyfriend. Revolving around her hilarious journal entries, prepare to be engulfed in the world of the soaring joys and bottomless angst of being a teenager.

An elderly ex-serviceman and widower looks to avenge his best friend's murder by doling out his own form of justice.

Rachel, a rookie cop, is about to begin her first night shift in a neglected police station in a Scottish, backwater town. The kind of place where the tide has gone out and stranded a motley bunch of the aimless, the forgotten, the bitter-and-twisted who all think that, really, they deserve to be somewhere else. They all think they're there by accident and that, with a little luck, life is going to get better. Wrong, on both counts. Six is about to arrive - and All Hell Will Break Loose!

Counselors are being killed off at summer camp, and Sam is stuck in the middle of it. Instead of contacting the cops, he calls his friend and slasher-film expert Chuck to discuss his options.

Lily and Amanda, two high school students living in suburban Connecticut, rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of drifting apart. Together, they devise a plan to kill Lily's abusive stepfather by hiring a lowlife drug dealer.

The discovery of an illicit love affair leads two young Angelenos on a violent, sexually charged tour through the dark side of human nature.

Long separated from his family, hitman Joshua returns to Brighton Beach for a contract killing for the Russian Mafia. His abusive father, Arkady, banned him from returning after Joshua committed his first murder. He takes up residence in a hotel, and soon everyone knows he has returned. He goes home to visit his dying mother, Irina, and prepares for the assassination, getting drawn back into the criminal community he left behind.

Two 19th-century opportunists become serial killers so that they can maintain their profitable business supplying cadavers to an anatomist.

A web of blackmail and murder attracts the attention of a barrister with a seemingly idyllic life, threatening to derail his career on the path of success.

A girl who halfheartedly tries to be part of the "in crowd" of her school meets a rebel who teaches her a more devious way to play social politics: by killing the popular kids.

Ben Cronin has it all: the admiration of his many friends, a terrific girlfriend, and he's on the fast-track to an athletic scholarship. Ben's rock-solid, promising future and romance are turned upside-down with the arrival of Madison Bell. Madison, the new girl in town, quickly sets her sights on the impressionable Ben. While their first few meetings are innocent enough, the obsessive and seductive Madison wants more ... much more.
