UndertowMovies like Undertow
- Key Features:
- Forbidden love, Small town life, Social stigma, Internal conflict, Marital infidelity, Homosexuality, Tradition vs. modernity, Devotion, Secrecy, Moral dilemma, Relationship drama
- Tone:
- serious, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, LGBTQ+ audiences, Independent film viewers, Character-driven stories
- Emotional Arc:
- Longing → Conflict → Resignation
Undertow

A married fisherman struggles to reconcile his devotion to his male lover within his town's rigid traditions.
Undertow
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.

Igor is a plumber; Pina serves coffee. It is winter and they both deeply desire each other, but they are not free. In trying to figure out how to realize their love, she decides to make a lion costume for her little son and he decides to buy a photocopying machine for his wife. Spring will come at last and with it the consummation of love, filling their lives with hope and sex.

Lucía and Ofelia, two sisters, finally meet after 7 years of cold relationships upon Lucia 's wedding. But when Juan, Lucia's husband, and Ofelia meet, they feel like a disruptive fantasy have enchanted their minds and bodies...

The Munns, father John and sons Chris and Tim, recede to the woods of rural Georgia. Their life together is forever changed with the arrival of Uncle Deel, though the tragedy that follows forces troubled Chris to become a man.

A man searches for his father, Pedro Páramo, in a town doomed by violence and the fury of a frustrated love.

A well-to-do husband who allows his wife to have affairs in order to avoid a divorce becomes a prime suspect in the disappearance of her lovers.

After her estranged brother's sudden death, young wife Lucia bonds with his fiancée through their shared grief and finds herself falling in love.

In a windswept fishing village, a mother is torn between protecting her beloved son and her own sense of right and wrong. A lie she tells for him rips apart their family and close-knit community.

Four interwoven stories about love and self-acceptance: An eleven year-old boy struggles to keep secret the attraction he feels towards his male cousin. Two former childhood friends reunite and start a relationship that gets complicated due to one of them’s fear of getting caught. A gay long lasting relationship is in jeopardy when a third man comes along. An old family man is obsessed with a young male prostitute and tries to raise the money to afford the experience.

Ezequiel, a sixteen-year-old gay teenager in his sexual awakening, meets a boy of twenty-one. They quickly start a relationship and the situation unravels unexpectedly.

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

Desperate to flee but consumed by fear, Alejandra, a young mother and working housewife, is trapped in a violent and unsatisfying relationship with her husband, Angel. She leans on her brother Fabián for support, but he has secrets of his own. The troubled couple locate a meteorite, initiating an encounter with a mysterious creature. Their lives are turned upside down by the discovery of the creature, which is a source of both pleasure and destruction. A rag-tag collection of people also addicted to having mind-blowing sex with the monster come in and out...Alejandra’s gay brother, Fabian has sex with Ángel, his abusive, cheating brother-in-law. Eventually, for the second time, Ángel is tossed aside once Fabian discovers the Joy of (Squid) Sex. ...

A desperate love story between two young girls of extremely different social backgrounds who, unable to find a place for their love in the world they live in, are pushed to commit a crime.

Lucas travels to visit his sister to a remote town in southern Chile. In front of the ocean and the fog, he meets Antonio, a boatswain in a local fishing boat. When an intense romance grows between them, their strength, their independence and their adulthood become immovable in front of the tide.

A lonely beach on the southernmost coast of Brazil is the scene for two friends, on the brink of adulthood, to explore their understanding of themselves and one another. Martin has been sent by his father to retrieve what appears to be an inheritance-related document from the family of his recently deceased and estranged grandfather. Tomaz accompanies him, seemingly hoping to regain some of their former closeness. The two boys shelter themselves in a glass house, in front of a cold and stormy sea.

Daniela, raised in the bosom of a strict Evangelical family and recently unmasked as a fornicator by her shocked parents, struggles to find her own path to spiritual harmony.

In an attempt to help his friend Marcos with his impotence, Jaime sets up him up with another friend Josita. But the sex date fails, and so he comes in to help. What first appears to be just another sexual experience for all three evolves to a full romantic relationship.

The deeply held religious convictions of an idealistic young priest are challenged when he must face extraordinary events within his own congregation.

A woman married to the brutal and infertile owner of a dye mill in rural China conceives a boy with her husband's nephew but is forced to raise her son as her husband's heir without revealing his parentage in this circular tragedy. Filmed in glowing technicolour, this tale of romantic and familial love in the face of unbreakable tradition is more universal than its setting.

Seven years after their first infatuated encounter, Abril and Manuel meet again. Despite the fact that they are both married, it is soon apparent that their attraction has only grown.

People living at a seashore town are frightened by reports of an unknown creature called "the sea devil". Nobody knows what it is, but it's really the son of doctor Salvator. The doctor performed surgery on his son and now young Ichtiander can live under water. This gives him certain advantages, but also creates a lot of problems.

Johan and his family are Mennonites from the north of Mexico. Against the law of God and Man, Johan falls in love with another woman.

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.

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 shallow, provincial wife finds her relationship with her preoccupied husband strained by romantic notions, leading her further towards Paris and the country wilderness.

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

Three married couples undergoing therapy are summoned by their female psychologist to a meeting. The psychologist won’t be attending the reunion herself, but she will give to them instructions about what they must do. Thus, to the sound of a horn (literally), the six protagonists will gradually air their dirty laundry concerning their relationships and bring up issues like taking care of the kids, the different home tasks, money, jealousy and sex, until it all leads to a most unexpected and equally shocking end.

Lake is in a straight relationship with Desiree but finds himself becoming attracted to men at the pool. When he cannot control his desires any longer, he starts working at an adult home and begins a relationship with a much, much older man.

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.

After almost 10 years of marriage, attractive Zoe discovers that her marriage lacks passion and surprise, and is seduced by the possibility of finding those sensations already forgotten in her husband's brother. From this premise a series of events lead these three characters to a dangerous game of revenges, secrets and passions. Two brothers and one woman: the triangle is outlined in a disquieting way. It is a bomb that triggers family secrets, the contained rage of desire and the unmanageable power of love. An exciting story that subjugates the viewer from beginning to end. Even though Zoe/Sonia has been married to Ignacio/Ishan for about a decade, they are unable to have children. She wants to be intimate but he prefers to be ready for intimacy on Saturdays only, and she gets physically drawn to his artistic brother, Gonzalo/Rohan. Then things get complicated for her after she tests positive for motherhood and finds that her husband may be gay.

Martinón is the last inhabitant of Auzal, a village in the mountains where he lives in communion with nature. He only goes down to the valleys twice a year to trade and to buy provisions. But one day he’s convinced to take a wife, a decision intended to soften his calloused soul—but in some ways his real struggle is only just beginning.

Carmen is a gypsy teenager, destined to live a life that is repeated every generation: getting married and raising as many children as possible. But one day she meets Lola, an uncommon gypsy who dreams about going to university, does graffiti and is very different. Carmen quickly develops a complicity with Lola and discovers a world that, inevitably, leads them to be rejected by their families.

A writer secludes himself in the mountains and falls in lust with local Berta. After realizing the oddities of the rural community the author starts to question the lines between reality and fiction.

The love between Noah and Nick seems unwavering despite their parents' attempts to separate them. But his job and her entry into college open up their lives to new relationships that will shake the foundations of both their relationship and the Leister family itself.

It tells the story of Marcos and Ana, who have been married for more than 25 years, but enter into an existential crisis that leads them to separate. The life of singles seems fascinating and exciting at first, but soon it also becomes monotonous for her and nightmarish for him.

On their last night together, four longtime flatmates' lives are suddenly upended when a secret is revealed during the course of an evening celebration.

The wife of a pastor who preaches against homosexuality embarks on an affair with a female writer.

Studying under a disciple of Aleister Crowley, the leader of an upper class group invokes a supernatural force that slowly devours the village of Marienbad and its inhabitants, threatening to spread beyond its geographical limits. The mayor from the town nearby commissions the building of a dam which would flood the valley and therefore submerge the village forever sealing the evil force under water after leader and his followers were incapacitated to be kept from escaping. However, fate ensured the leader's freedom as he remained in the depths when the waters covered Marienbad. Now 40 years later an array of disappearances and deaths in mysterious circumstances are threatening the town next to the reservoir that now covers Marienbad.

Abandoned after coming out, Shun befriends Mio just before he has to move. Years later, Mio returns with a confession. How will Shun feel?

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.

Ramón Sampedro is a ship mechanic and part-time poet left a quadriplegic following a diving accident. Ramón fought for 30 years for the legal right to end his own life. He develops close relationships with his long-term lawyer Julia and his friend Rosa, who tries to convince him that his life is worth living. Despite his situation, Ramón manages to inspire those around him to live life to the fullest.

On a fishing boat at sea, a 60-year old man has been raising a girl since she was a child. It is agreed that they will get married on her 17th birthday. They live a quiet and secluded life, renting the boat to day fishermen and practicing strange divination rites. Their life changes when a teenage student comes aboard.

A reclusive elderly poet feels the fire of his youth when gamine schoolgirl Eun-gyo enters his life, to the chagrin of the old man's assistant.

For Pablo Escobar family is everything. When young surfer Nick falls for Escobar's niece, Maria, he finds his life on the line when he's pulled into the dangerous world of the family business.

Marina's life is thrown into turmoil following the death of her partner. Mourning the loss of the man she loved, she finds herself under intense scrutiny from those with no regard for her privacy.

Mariana and Julian are a couple that have been happily married for many years. They have two kids: Juan Maria and Bibiana. They are in love and are very successful in their professional lives. They have a wonderful sex life and in the foreplay that they enjoy in privacy, he tells her that she can have sex with other man if she tells him everything in detail.

In a traditional tribal society in the South Pacific, a young girl, Wawa, falls in love with her chief’s grandson, Dain. When an inter-tribal war escalates, Wawa is unknowingly betrothed as part of a peace deal. The young lovers run away, refusing her arranged fate. They must choose between their hearts and the future of the tribe, while the villagers must wrestle with preserving their traditional culture and adapting it to the increasing outside demands for individual freedom.

The Falls is a feature film about two missionaries that fall in love while on their mission. RJ travels to a small town in Oregon with Elder Merrill to serve their mission and teach the words of Joseph Smith. Living together and sharing the challenge of leaving home, the two men help each other discover their strengths. They share a passion for their faith and learn to express their feelings, risking the only community they have for a forbidden intimacy.

The Spanish Deep South, 1980. A series of brutal murders of adolescent girls in a remote and forgotten town bring together two disparate characters - both detectives in the homicide division - to investigate the cases.

Outside the Australian town of Jindabyne, local man Stuart Kane is on a fishing trip with friends when they discover the body of a murdered girl.

Various lives converge on an isolated island, all connected by an author whose novel has become inextricably entwined with his own life.

Donato fails in his attempt to save a drowning man, and meets one of the man's friends. He decides to start his life over, but pieces of his past keep coming after him.

Raquel's longtime crush on her next-door neighbor turns into something more when he starts developing feelings for her, despite his family's objections.

Lucio and Martina used to share an indescribable chemistry during their highschool years, however, they took separate ways. 25 years later they meet again, but this time they decide to invent an ideal life in order to hide themselves from an inevitable truth: they were really waiting for each other in all of these years.

In an alternate universe where twinned worlds have opposite gravities, a young man battles interplanetary prejudice and the laws of physics in his quest to reunite with the long-lost girl of his dreams in this visually stunning romantic adventure that poses the question: what if love was stronger than gravity?

Gloria is a 58-year-old divorcée. Her children have all left home but she has no desire to spend her days and nights alone. Determined to defy old age and loneliness, she rushes headlong into a whirl of singles’ parties on the hunt for instant gratification – which only leads to repeated disappointment and enduring emptiness. But when Gloria meets Rodolfo, an ex-naval officer seven years her senior, she begins to imagine the possibility of a permanent relationship.

A pretty young girl falls for an enigmatic, shy man who sweeps her off her feet. She becomes pregnant but is not allowed to tell him. His advisers are adamant. Back home, they have set up a wedding with the daughter of an antagonistic family and marriage will put an end to the blood feud between them.

A woman's life takes an unexpected turn when she falls for her boss's wife. She must soon defend herself as she becomes entangled in a web of malice.

The sexy Gin is the new love of Hache, but this can not forget his former girlfriend, so the love triangle is inevitable.

Segundo sees silence as his only option for dealing with his father Noé’s secret. The 14-year-old lives with his parents in a village high up in the mountains. Noé is a respected artisan and Segundo’s role model. With loving eye for detail, he artfully crafts altarpieces for church and homes, and is preparing his son to follow in his footsteps. But cracks form in their tight bond.

Arranged to marry a rich man, young Ada is crushed when her true love goes missing at sea during a migration attempt — until a miracle reunites them.

A tough young man, who helps to kick poor people out of their houses, falls in love with a girl. She lives with her father in the building about to be demolished.

Martin Ward is a cove fisherman, without a boat. His brother Steven has repurposed their father’s vessel as a tourist tripper, driving a wedge between the brothers. With their childhood home now a getaway for London money, Martin is displaced to the estate above the picturesque harbour. As his struggle to restore the family to their traditional place creates increasing friction with tourists and locals alike, a tragedy at the heart of the family changes his world.

The drama is centered on four friends and business partners who in one evening are forced to find a way to save their company and themselves. The impossible decision they face is agreeing on who will be the one to sacrifice their freedom to save the others from personal and financial demise. It is a race against time that will put their friendship and sanity to the test. Who will take the fall?

Alejandro, a freshman, and Sofia, who’s doing her thesis, meet in college. They build an asymmetrical relationship: he’s in love while she just wants to see her sexual desires fulfilled.

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

When her husband goes missing at the beach, a female professor begins to mentally disintegrate as her denial of his disappearance becomes delusional.

Gabriel rents a room in Juan’s House. They work together in a Woodwork place. Gabriel is a very quiet guy and has a little daughter. Juan is a party boy who has a lots of girls around. Inadvertently the sexual tension starts to grow between them. It opens a new hidden forbidden world they have to deal with.

A bizarre black comedy about a man whose overwhelming ambition in life is to be a renowned serial killer of women, and will stop at nothing to achieve it - but not everything goes according to plan...

A down-and-out businessman travels to a seaside town, where he meets a woman with unusual sexual powers.

Tangled in a troubled marriage, a frustrated couple finds hope in a watch-based app that rewards good deeds — until unhealthy obsessiveness takes over.

The wife of a British Judge is caught in a self-destructive love affair with a Royal Air Force pilot.

A man who loses his wife and goes to seclude himself in a cabin in the woods, where strange things happen.

In the late 1990s, the arrival of elderly invalid Patrick into Marion and Tom’s home triggers the exploration of seismic events from 40 years previous: the passionate relationship between Tom and Patrick at a time when homosexuality was illegal.

Tita is passionately in love with Pedro, but her controlling mother forbids her from marrying him. When Pedro marries her sister, Tita throws herself into her cooking and discovers she can transfer her emotions through the food she prepares, infecting all who eat it with her intense heartbreak.

After the death of his son, Javier hopes that restoring his family's abandoned ranch will allow him and his wife Mariana, who attempted suicide, a new beginning, but his grandmother refuses.

Carlos is a professionally frustrated screenwriter, and Irene is not sure what she wants to do with her life. When Irene meets Carlos at a coffee shop, she approaches him and, although she doesn't know him, proposes to play a game.

After her husband dies, Carmina keeps it a secret until a check that he had been expecting comes in.

Cultural critic David Kepesh finds his life -- which he indicates is a state of "emancipated manhood" -- thrown into tragic disarray by Consuela Castillo, a well-mannered student who awakens a sense of sexual possessiveness in her teacher.

A good-natured man has an unexpected deadly confrontation. Instincts kick in to clean up the mess caused in the name of self-defense but does one really get away free after killing someone?

A mysterious exterminator falls in love with two women who live in a distinctive wine-producing region in Spain.

Mateo is an intelligent boy who falls in love with Daniel, but when everyone reveals that relationship, Mateo is at a crossroads, and he will have to decide between fighting his adversities or giving up everything, even his life.

After a yachting accident, a millionaire and his wife are shipwrecked on a desert island along with their former deckhand, Manuel.

In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.

Two young wolves at opposite ends of their pack's social order are thrown together into a foreign land and need each other to return home, but love complicates everything.

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.

Two men commit a robbery. One is caught but the other escapes. He ends his escape on a lonely and deserted beach where he meets a beautiful woman named Erótica. They start a passionate love affair that is interrupted when the other con man escapes from prison and joins them. A sexual/sentimental love triangle begins leading to a violent confrontation between the two men.

A boy escaped from home, listening, crouched in the depths of his hiding place, the cries of the men who seek him. When the game passes, what remains before him is an infinite and arid plain that he must cross if he wants to get away definitively from what has made him flee. His steps will intersect with those of a pastor and, from that moment, nothing will be the same for either of them.

A family lives in the Mexican countryside raising fighting bulls. Esther is in charge of running the ranch, while her husband Juan, a world-renowned poet, raises and selects the beasts. Although in an open marriage, their relationship begins to crumble when Esther falls in love with an American horsebreaker and Juan is unable to control his jealousy.

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

Sent to Mexico to help take care of aging Father Benito, young Father Amaro faces a moral challenge when he meets a 16-year-old girl who he starts an affair with. Likewise, the girl's mother had been having an affair with Father Benito. Father Amaro must choose between a holy or sinful life.

The Nereus is a fifty-year-old Ice Breaker, salvaged by an idealistic crew on a mission to catch illegal fisherman. On chase, the crew find themselves well off-course and bearing down on a body mysteriously floating in the middle of the Devil’s Sea. Superstitious or not, the team soon discovers they’ve rescued a deadly creature feeding on the lifeless body. Their new mission—kill or be killed and preferably before they hit land.

A middle-aged tailor and his wife find their relationship challenged by the arrival of a handsome new apprentice.

Reza, residing in the wilderness with his wife and son, lives a retired life and devotes himself to freshwater fish farming. A private company that has targets on his land is ready to do anything to force him to sell.

After falling off a cliff and suffering substantial injures, for 48 long hours a young surfer must face a merciless nature and his own physical and mental agony to try to survive.

Gloria encounters Francisco, a man whose social veneer betrays a truer self burrowed underneath.

Quiet Jose woos cafe worker Ana, but she is unaware he has intentions other than the purely romantic.

Pablo, a successful film director, disappointed in his relationship with his young lover, Juan, concentrates in a new project, a monologue starring his transgender sister, Tina. Antonio, an uptight young man, falls possessively in love with the director and in his passion would stop at nothing to obtain the object of his desire.

