Winter SleepersMovies like Winter Sleepers
- Key Features:
- Intertwined narratives, Moral ambiguity, Rural setting, Loss and grief, Memory loss, Relationships, Guilt, Secrets, Accident, Small town dynamics, Mistrust, Isolation, German cinema, Betrayal, Tragedy, Redemption
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Art house cinema enthusiasts, Fans of complex narratives, Viewers interested in moral dilemmas, Those who appreciate slow-burn suspense
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Tension → Despair
Winter Sleepers

Young blonde translator Rebecca lives with her boyfriend ski instructor Marco in a mountain villa owned by her friend, nurse Laura. Rene, local cinema projectionist, steals Marco's car and gets into a car crash with local Theo, whose daughter, after being in coma for a time, dies. Rene suffers from partial short term memory loss and starts a relationship with Laura. Meanwhile Marco is looking for the man who stole his car and Theo - for the man who killed his daughter...
Winter Sleepers
Aydın is a hotel owner and a retired actor in rural Turkey. As winter emerges he begins navigating the conflicts within the relationships with his wife, sister and existence.

They are the perfect French haute bourgeois couple: Paul is a respected surgeon and Lucie cooks and gardens exquisitely. But now, in the autumn of his life, Paul can’t resist the lure of an ambiguous and dangerous relationship with a mysterious young woman. Might there be something sinister behind the roses delivered to his office and the “chance” meetings?

When a father is forced to abruptly depart for work, he leaves his children, Aidan and Mia, at their holiday home in the care of his new girlfriend, Grace. Isolated and alone, a blizzard traps them inside the lodge as terrifying events summon specters from Grace's dark past.

The 19 years old Thomas wakes up in a hospital after three years in a coma. He doesn't remember anything. The psychologist Anna tells him that his family has been murdered and that he is the only survivor of the massacre while his sister Laura is still missing.

An injured figure skater is sent to the mountains to recover from an injury. Once there, she meets an ex-hockey player and his young daughter and begins to realise that something is missing from her life.

Two gangsters seek revenge on the state jail worker who during their stay at a youth prison sexually abused them. A sensational court hearing takes place to charge him for the crimes.

Detectives Jonas and Erik are called to the midnight sun country of northern Norway to investigate a recent homicide, but their plan to arrest the killer goes awry, and Jonas mistakenly shoots Erik. The suspect escapes, and a frightened Jonas pins Erik's death on the fugitive. Jonas continues to pursue the killer as he seeks to protect himself; however, his mounting guilt and the omnipresent sun plague him with an insomnia that affects his sanity.

Samuel, a widower, is taking care of his 7-year-old daughter alone. Overwhelmed and stressed out, he decides to isolate in a chalet he was renovating with his wife in the Italian Alps. Indifferent to the anger of locals who help police to hunt down migrants, he comes across a woman who fled Afghanistan. Samuel decides to help her reach the border, thinking it will take them a few hours. But an agressive group of men comes after them…

An entirely ordinary day on the beds ward of a surgical department. The nursing team is understaffed due to a shortage of personnel. Despite the hectic environment, Floria cares for her patients with expertise and full dedication. Although she gives her all, the shift gradually spirals out of control – until it eventually leads to a dramatic outburst.

Michaela, an epileptic, enrolls in college to study education. She goes off her medication and soon begins hearing voices and seeing apparitions that tell her to avoid religious objects, although she is devoutly Roman Catholic. One priest scoffs at the idea that Michaela could be possessed by demons, but a younger pastor arranges an exorcism for the young woman.

A policeman suspects that several bizarre deaths in the same family were murders and that the killer is a mysterious woman who just moved to the village.

Germán, an honest family man, sees how his whole world wobbles the night when, driving home, accidentally runs over two teenage girls. From that moment, Germán will have to do everything in his power to prevent his life from being destroyed forever.

When three skiers find themselves stranded on a chair lift at a New England ski resort that has closed for the next week, they are forced to make life or death choices that prove to be more perilous than staying put and freezing to death.

After discovering her father put their house up for his bail bond and then disappeared, 17-year-old Ree Dolly must confront the local criminal underworld and the harsh Ozark wilderness in order to to track down her father and save her family.

Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.

On a winter morning, a mother goes to waken her son Heinrich; his bed is empty. She leaves her flat to find him. The neighbors' door, with a Star of David painted on it, is ajar, the furnishings in disarray, the family gone. She asks passersby, runs to the police then on to the rail yard. Flashbacks show that Heinrich and the neighbors' son Paul are six years old and best friends. Paul's family's deportation is expected soon; Heinrich's mother tells her son that they're going to Toyland. Heinrich wants to go with them, has a bag packed, and listens for their departure. His mother realizes he's joined them, and her resolve becomes more urgent. Will she arrive in time to save Heinrich?

In the heat of the summer lays a lonesome house in the countryside where nine year old twin brothers await their mother’s return. When she comes home, bandaged after cosmetic surgery, nothing is like before and the children start to doubt whether this woman is actually who she says she is.

Felicie and Charles have a whirlwind holiday romance. Due to a mix-up on addresses they lose contact, and five years later at Christmas-time Felicie is living with her mother in a cold Paris with a daughter as a reminder of that long-ago summer. For male companionship she oscillates between hairdresser Maxence and the intellectual Loic, but seems unable to commit to either as the memory of Charles and what might have been hangs over everything.

After reluctantly moving to the German Alps with her father and his new family, Gretchen discovers that their new town hides sinister secrets, as she's plagued by strange noises and frightening visions of a woman pursuing her.

Peter Winter is a young schizophrenic who is desperately trying to get his daughter back from her adoptive family. He attempts to function in a world that, for him, is filled with strange voices, electrical noise, disconcerting images, and jarringly sudden emotional shifts. During his quest, he runs afoul of the law and an ongoing murder investigation.

It's winter in a small Scottish village near the sea, and multiple lives intersect in a day. Frances has just lost her husband to an early death, so her mother, Elspeth, travels to Frances' house to reconnect with her daughter and grandson, Alex. Meanwhile, old women Chloe and Lily go to a funeral, youngsters Sam and Tom cut class, and Alex gets a crush on tomboy Nita.

A deadly car crash sets off three parallel stories of women at crisis points, faltering behind the doors of the same, plain Vienna apartment block.

In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious French man who visits the fiance’s grave to lay flowers.

Alice and Niklas are a young couple who's biggest wish is to have a child of their own. After several failed attempts they decide to go on a holiday in Sardinia to clear their minds. There they meet a family from Austria that seems to have everything they ever wished for. But appearances can be deceiving...

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.

A mosaic of several intertwined stories questioning the meaning of life, love and hope, set during the last six days in the life of Eluana Englaro, a young woman who spent 17 years in a vegetative state.

Somewhere in Eastern Europe. Carole is a young nurse with a humanitarian aid group that has reached the end of its mission. But just then, the young woman and her two colleagues are kidnapped by strangers for mysterious reasons. Held captive, cared for and kept alive in an oppressive and sinister setting, the three prisoners soon discover with horror what their kidnappers truly have in store for them.

Young nurse Sissi lives a secluded life entirely devoted to her patients at Birkenhof asylum. Her first encounter with ex-soldier and drifter Bodo has a lasting impact. He causes an accident in which he provides first aid, Sissi wonders if he may be the man of her dreams. But when she finds him weeks later she is rejected, as Bodo is stuck somewhere between a traumatic past and a criminal future.

When Irene takes a position at a hotel deep in the woods of the Austrian Alps, she soon discovers the girl she replaced vanished without a trace.

Ichiko works as a private nurse for a family she almost became a part of. While Ichiko cares for the grandmother, she is also a confidant to Motoko, the eldest sister. But one day, Motoko’s younger sister disappears. And the media soon reveal the kidnapper to be Ichiko’s own nephew.

A German woman on a ship returning to Europe notices a face of another woman which brings recollections from the past. She tells her husband that she had been an overseer in Auschwitz during the war, but she has actually saved a woman's life.

Actress Reese Holden has been offered a small fortune by a book editor if she can secure for publication the love letters that her father, a reclusive novelist, wrote to her mother, who has since passed away. Returning to Michigan, Reese finds that an ex-grad student and a would-be musician have moved in with her father, who cares more about his new friends than he does about his own health and well-being.

The destinies of two families are irrevocably tied together after a cyclist is hit off the road by a jeep in the night before Christmas Eve.

A union pensioner and his wife are robbed, but find that merely getting the assailants brought to justice is not enough for their consciences.

After moving into a cottage together, two young lovers confront horrors of a forgotten childhood.

Barely escaping an avalanche during a family ski vacation in the Alps, a married couple is thrown into disarray as they are forced to reevaluate their lives and how they feel about each other.

A nurse taking care of her daughter's mysterious affliction struggles to hide her secrets when uninvited strangers take shelter in her house during a lethal blizzard.

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

Two families' idyllic ice-fishing vacation turns deadly when they awaken a creature beneath the frozen lake, forcing them to rely on each other if they want to make it safely back to land.

Richie Bravo, once upon a time a successful pop star, chases after his faded fame in wintry Rimini. Trapped between permanent intoxication and concerts for busloads of tourists, his world starts to collapse when his adult daughter breaks into his life.

Social media sensation Magalie, known for posting shocking content, suffers a serious accident while filming one of her videos. She retreats to the mountains, accompanied by her assistant. Her peace is disrupted when a journalist begins blackmailing her.

When Holly’s dark secret is accidentally uncovered by her new emotionally unstable neighbor Tom, they are pulled into a violent confrontation with her father, who will do anything to keep the secret hidden.

When a schoolteacher is sacked, he projects his bad mood at his troubled teenage son. The son, in turn, buys a CD player from a pawnshop with counterfeit money. This starts a chain reaction of misery as every victim projects his problems on to another person.

Suddenly, Clara, Mónica's daughter, falls into a deep coma. With Clara left to die, a mysterious man proposes Monica to make a pact: Clara will be saved if Mónica does something for him.

Two young women, Margaret and Lisa, are set to take the overnight train from Munich in Germany to stay with Lisa's parents in Italy for Christmas. Unfortunately a pair of psychotic hoodlums and an equally demented nymphomaniac woman terrorize the pair.

A kindly nurse tries to unlock the secrets of a coma patient's injuries — and discovers the bitter rivalry, infidelity, betrayal and murder behind them.

Three people and a baby set off on separate journeys, along the same road; their disparate dreams and stories intertwine amidst the breathtaking deserted Patagonic route.

Christian, a reclusive young man from Leipzig, gets a job working the night shift at a big-box store. He's trained to stocks goods and operate a forklift by Bruno, a wistful former truck driver, who introduces Christian to a colorful group of overnight workers, including Marion, with whom Christian develops a troubled infatuation.

15 year-old Lyz, a high school student in the French Alps, has been accepted to a highly selective ski club whose aim is to train future professional athletes. Taking a chance on his new recruit, Fred, ex-champion turned coach, decides to make Lyz his shining star regardless of her lack of experience. Under his influence, Lyz will have to endure more than the physical and emotional pressure of the training. Will Lyz’s determination help her escape his grip?

Stranded at a rest stop in the mountains during a blizzard, a recovering addict discovers a kidnapped child hidden in a car belonging to one of the people inside the building which sets her on a terrifying struggle to identify who among them is the kidnapper.

1975, Swiss Alps: In a remote mountain village, a beautiful and mysterious woman shows up. Only the village policeman takes care of the strange woman and tries to find out who she is. There are hints that she came from the Höhenalp Alp, where herdsmen do unthinkable things to get the company of women. Many dark truths are revealed that should better have remained hidden. A tragedy of lust, insanity and murder is brought to a seemlingly pure and perfect world. It is the beginning of a nightmare of religious insanity, hypocrisy, abuse and belief in demons, who destroys a young family and brings a whole village to destruction.

A college professor wakes up to find his wife has not returned home, then struggles to understand her disappearance.

A playwright encounters a mysterious woman when he takes shelter in a chalet during a violent snowstorm and becomes obsessed with her.

Waitress Annie has separated from her suicidal alcoholic husband, Glenn. Glenn has become an evangelical Christian, but his erratic attempts at getting back into Annie's life have alarmed her. High school student Arthur works at Annie's restaurant, growing closer to a new kid in town, Lila, after class. When Glenn and Annie's daughter go missing, the whole town searches for her, as he increasingly spirals out of control.

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.

Laura Baxter is a young woman, literally a "sleeping beauty," who suffers from a medical condition called "parasomnia." A childhood accident victim, she is actually sleeping her life away, awakening briefly on rare occasions. Art student Danny Sloan falls in love with her, unaware that her hospital neighbor, a terrifying mass murderer and mesmerist named Byron Volpe has other, more sinister plans.

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.

Brenner returns to Graz, the city where he grew up. When confronted with his old friends, his former girlfriend and the major sin he committed when he was young, murders and a fateful gunshot to the head result. After Brenner comes out of a coma, he begins to search for the person who tried to kill him - however, everybody claims that he himself is responsible. In the beginning Brenner was at the end of his rope, but he could face a new beginning in the end.

At dawn, Clarisse takes a last look at her husband and two sleeping children, hesitates to leave a note, and hits the road. A desperate escape that gradually reveals its layers as Clarisse — who seems to have an extra-sensory connection to the family she has left behind — loses herself in the world.

Driving cross-country, Ray and his wife and daughter stop at a highway rest area where his daughter falls and breaks her arm. After a frantic rush to the hospital and a clash with the check-in nurse, Ray is finally able to get her to a doctor. While the wife and daughter go downstairs for an MRI, Ray, exhausted, passes out in a chair in the lobby. Upon waking up, they have no record or knowledge of Ray's family ever being checked in.

Through his work at a morgue, an incarcerated young man trying to build a new life starts to come to terms with the crime he committed.

The story of CARGO takes place on rusty space-freighter KASSANDRA on its way to Station 42. The young medic LAURA is the only one awake on board while the rest of the crew lies frozen in hibernation sleep. In 4 months will Laura's shift be over.

Stuck in a passionless marriage, a journalist must choose between her distant but loving husband and a younger ex-boyfriend who has reentered her life

Anna and Thomas want to get married in the South Tyrolean Alps. However, Stephan's daughter Antigone and the family clan bring so much chaos to the planned idyll that it's not just the wedding that is on the rocks.

Alex, an ex-con working as muscle in a Vienna brothel, dreams of escaping with his girlfriend Tamara, who also works there. Their attempt to break free sets off a chain of events that links their fate with a rural police officer and his troubled marriage. As their lives intersect, a quiet struggle unfolds between guilt, grief, and the desire for redemption.

A young and talented architect comes to his senses after a horrific accident only to find himself in the odd dystopian world. A world that is filled with the memories of all current coma patients. Just like a human memory this world is fragmental, chaotic and unstable. This is COMA: icecaps, rivers and cities can all exist in a space of a single room and laws of physics are no longer laws as they can be bent.

A woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident in her past. One day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.

While holidaying in the French Alps, a Swedish family deals with acts of cowardliness as an avalanche breaks out.

A widowed fisherwoman, travelling alone through snowbound northern Minnesota, interrupts the kidnapping of a teenage girl. Hours from the nearest town and with no phone service, she realizes that she is the young girl's only hope.

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.

Set in a near-future, militarized world marked by closed borders, virtual labor and a global digital network that joins minds and experiences, three strangers risk their lives to connect with each other and break the barriers of technology.

A nurse, a paramedic, a gymnast and her coach offer a service for hire wherein they stand in for dead people by appointment, hired by relatives, friends or colleagues of the deceased, to assist with the grieving process.

A family intervention goes horrifically awry within the snowy confines of an isolated lake house.

Sascha, the young and beautiful trophy girlfriend of a Danish drug lord, arrives at his holiday villa in the seaside town of Bodrum, on the Turkish Riviera, where she is welcomed into his inner circle. Under the summer sun, she lives a carefree dream of luxury and fun until she meets Tomas, a Dutch traveler trying to discover himself.

The old and overcrowded penitentiaries are just a memory. Inmates now serve their sentence in a state of deep sleep that renders them harmless, and has drastically reduced recidivism. Until one day, a psychologist in charge of monitoring the mental state of inmates finds himself confronted with a prisoner over whom he's lost all control.

Police officer Asger Holm, demoted to desk work as an alarm dispatcher, answers a call from a panicked woman who claims to have been kidnapped. Confined to the police station and with the phone as his only tool, Asger races against time to get help and find her.

After dating a wonderful man, Hope comes back home, sees her daughter Jennifer and goes to sleep. She wakes-up in the woods with a psychopath...

A drama set at a Swiss ski resort and centered on a boy who supports his sister by stealing from wealthy guests.

During their vacation in the French countryside, a wealthy German family becomes entangled with a young hotel worker harboring sinister intentions.

While visiting his favorite resort village during winter, a writer investigates the apparent suicide of a woman he was infatuated with.

In the 15th century, a young goatherd living alone in a mountain hut feels a dark presence in the woods.

16-year old Steffi just graduated from high school and is very much looking forward to her class trip to Paris where she has promised her boyfriend Fabian the romantic night that she has kept him waiting for so long. Her lifelong plan to join the police forces is already set up, her adult life is right around the corner. At a routine health check-up, just before the trip to Paris, Steffi and her parents are faced with a shattering diagnosis ...

In the aftermath of a car crash, a man discovers his dreams are tied to a stranger's sleepwalking.

While treating a policewoman for smoking, hypnotherapist Michael Strother has a telepathic vision of a young girl floating beneath the surface of a stream. The escaped victim of a ritualistic serial killer, the girl has become mute, and Michael is called upon by Scotland Yard to unlock the secrets she holds in order to catch a man who believes he has discovered the key to immortality.

A young female doctor and her 6-year-old daughter are on an overnight flight in a violent storm. When passengers on the half-empty plane inexplicably begin to die, the woman’s grip on reality weakens and she is forced to relive her worst childhood nightmare.

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.

When one of them breaks a leg, five friends snowboarding in the Norwegian mountains take shelter in an abandoned ski lodge and soon realize they’re not alone.

Japan, 2020, a few days before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics. Although she should be studying for her final exams, Kokone, a schoolgirl who lives in a small town with her widowed father, a mysterious and talented mechanic, falls asleep often, anywhere, anytime, entering, over and over, a dream-world where a squad of fantastic motorized contraptions fights against magic, a world close to reality where she will find out the keys of her true past.

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.

Stig-Helmer takes another vacation with his norwegian friend Ole. This time it's time for a skiing vacation in the Alps. Of course, Stig-Helmer has never learnt downhill skiing, but he attends a ski school. And together they manage to charm two women also on vacation.

The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.

Although he actually just wanted to steal money, the crook Denis finds himself in the position of caretaking for the stroke patient Raimund. When Raimund's granddaughter Charlotte turns up, Denis has enough of it and wants to skip. But because of an huge blizzard, escape is unimaginable.

John LeTour is a recovering drug user who suffers insomnia and still deals to a high-end New York clientele, even though he’s trying to move on from the business. John’s professional midlife crisis becomes something more acute — and dangerous — when he re-encounters an old flame while a string of seemingly drug-related murders rocks the city.

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.

There is just one week until Kate Mercer's 45th wedding anniversary and the planning for the party is going well. But then a letter arrives for her husband. The body of his first love has been discovered, frozen and preserved in the icy glaciers of the Swiss Alps. By the time the party is upon them, five days later, there may not be a marriage left to celebrate.

Five people travelling by camper crash into a tree. When they recover, the road they were driving on has been replaced by an impenetrable forest and a wooden house.

A young woman seeks help from a sleep clinic for her insomnia, but soon deals with her entire life being turned upside down.

A German student, Stefan, now finished with his studies, hitchhikes to Paris. There he meets a free-spirited American girl, Estelle, who he follows to Ibiza. The two begin a sad and dark path into heroin addiction.

While undergoing heart surgery, a man experiences a phenomenon called ‘anesthetic awareness’, which leaves him awake but paralyzed throughout the operation. As various obstacles present themselves, his wife must make life-altering decisions while wrestling with her own personal drama.
