Movies like Elephant (2003)
The best movies like Elephant (2003) are Zero Day (2003), Bully (2001) and The Dirties (2013). If Elephant hooked you with its crime and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedAmerican History X (1998)8.3/10 from 13,121 votes
- NewestAnd Then I Go (2017)Released 2017
Zero Day (2003)
Two troubled adolescents chronicle the events that ultimately lead up to a terrifying assault on their school.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBully (2001)
A group of teenagers in South Florida enact a murder plot against their mutual bully, Bobby, who has emotionally, physically, and sexually abused them for years.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dirties (2013)
The line between reality and fiction starts to blur when two best friends start making a movie about getting revenge on bullies.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPolytechnique (2009)
A dramatization of the École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal, on December 9, 1989, where 14 female engineering students were murdered (and 13 were wounded) by a 25 year old psychotic misogynist armed with a semi-automatic weapon.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMean Creek (2004)
Teenagers living in small-town Oregon take a boat trip for a birthday celebration. When they get an idea to play a mean trick on the town bully, it suddenly goes too far. Soon they're forced to deal with the unexpected consequences of their actions.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Outsiders (1983)
In 1960s Tulsa, class divisions ignite a violent rivalry between the working-class Greasers and the privileged Socs. When a deadly encounter forces two Greasers, Ponyboy and Johnny, to flee, their struggle for survival and redemption exposes the fragile innocence and enduring bonds of youth on the wrong side of town.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisParanoid Park (2007)
A teenage skateboarder becomes suspected of being connected with a security guard who suffered a brutal death in a skate park called "Paranoid Park".
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBang Bang You're Dead (2003)
A troubled and bullied high school student fights against judgement from his community after threatening to bomb the football team.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI'm Not Ashamed (2016)
Based on the journal entries of Rachel Joy Scott, the first student killed in the Columbine High School shooting in 1999.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKids (1995)
A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMysterious Skin (2005)
A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRiver's Edge (1986)
A group of high-school friends must come to terms with the fact that one of them, Samson, killed another, Jamie. Faced with the brutality of death, each must decide whether to turn their friend in to the police, or to help him escape the consequences of his dreadful deed.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRequiem for a Dream (2000)
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMy Suicide (2009)
After declaring that he's going to film himself committing suicide for a school project, Archie videotapes his surprising interactions with worried family members, interested classmates, unreliable medical experts and the hottest girl in school.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Woodsman (2004)
After twelve years in prison, Walter returns home. His family has abandoned him, save for his brother-in-law. Few know he's a sex offender and pedophile. Walter finds an apartment and is regularly visited by his parole officer. He gets a job at a lumber mill and starts seeing a coworker. Then his new world begins to unravel; as his past becomes known, he strikes up a high-risk friendship with a young girl and realizes that a man loitering near a schoolyard is a child molester prowling for his next victim.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBully (2011)
This year, over 5 million American kids will be bullied at school, online, on the bus, at home, through their cell phones and on the streets of their towns, making it the most common form of violence young people in this country experience. The Bully Project is the first feature documentary film to show how we've all been affected by bullying, whether we've been victims, perpetrators or stood silent witness. The world we inhabit as adults begins on the playground. The Bully Project opens on the first day of school. For the more than 5 million kids who'll be bullied this year in the United States, it's a day filled with more anxiety and foreboding than excitement. As the sun rises and school busses across the country overflow with backpacks, brass instruments and the rambunctious sounds of raging hormones, this is a ride into the unknown.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAnd Then I Go (2017)
In the cruel world of junior high, Edwin suffers in a state of anxiety and alienation alongside his only friend, Flake. Misunderstood by their families and demoralized at school daily, their fury simmers quietly until an idea for vengeance offers them a terrifying release.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLast Days (2005)
The life and struggles of a notorious rock musician seeping into a pit of loneliness whose everyday life involves friends and family seeking financial aid and favors, inspired by rock music legend Kurt Cobain and his final hours.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Tracey Fragments (2007)
Tracey Berkowitz, 15, a self-described normal girl, loses her 9-year old brother, Sonny. In flashbacks and fragments, we meet her overbearing parents and the sweet, clueless Sonny. We watch Tracey navigate high school, friendless, picked on and teased. She develops a thing for Billy Zero, a new student, imagining he's her boyfriend. We see the day she loses Sonny and we watch her try to find him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Class (2007)
An average guy of an Estonian high-school decides to defend his bullied classmate. This starts a war between him and the informal leader of the class.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Gamechangers (2015)
The struggle of Houser's legal feud against American lawyer Jack Thompson, over the morality of the "Grand Theft Auto" video game series.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisGerry (2002)
Two friends named Gerry become lost in the desert after taking a wrong turn. Their attempts to find their way home only lead them into further trouble.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSins of Our Youth (2014)
Sins of Our Youth is the story of four teenagers who accidentally murder a younger boy while shooting off assault weapons recreationally and the perilous decisions they make in the wake of the murder.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
L.I.E. (2001)
With his mother dead and his father busy at work, Howie feels adrift in his New York suburb. He and his friend Gary spend their time burglarizing their neighbors' homes — until they make the mistake of robbing the house of Big John, a macho former Marine who is also an unrepentant pedophile. He propositions Howie, who declines, but the two eventually develop an unlikely and dangerous friendship.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSnow on tha Bluff (2012)
When Curtis Snow steals a video camera from some college kids during a dope deal, he gives the camera to his best friend, Pancho, and they start documenting their lives. At first its business as usual for Curtis. He robs dope boys, he runs from the cops, he sells drugs, all while trying to provide for his two-year-old son. But when one of the dealers he ripped off comes for revenge, Curt’s life starts to spiral out of control.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
American History X (1998)
Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two African-American men. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisGummo (1997)
Teenagers Solomon and Tummler kill time in Xenia, Ohio, a small town that has never recovered from the tornado that ravaged the community in the 1970s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBen X (2007)
Harassed by bullies because of his mild autism, teen Ben finds refuge in an online computer game, which leads him to his virtual dream girl, Scarlite. Together, the odd couple seeks revenge against Ben's tormentors.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Laramie Project (2002)
"The Laramie Project" is set in and around Laramie, Wyoming, in the aftermath of the murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard. To create the stage version of "The Laramie Project," the eight-member New York-based Tectonic Theatre Project traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, recording hours of interviews with the town's citizens over a two-year period. The film adaptation dramatizes the troupe's visit, using the actual words from the transcripts to create a portrait of a town forced to confront itself.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOut of the Blue (2006)
Ordinary people find extraordinary courage in the face of madness. On 13–14 November 1990 that madness came to Aramoana, a small New Zealand seaside town, in the form of a lone gunman with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. As he stalked his victims the terrified and confused residents were trapped for 24 hours while a handful of under-resourced and under-armed local policemen risked their lives trying to find him and save the survivors. Based on true events.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Elephant?
The closest matches to Elephant are Zero Day (2003), Bully (2001) and The Dirties (2013). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Elephant?
People who watched Elephant most often go on to Zero Day (2003), Bully (2001) and The Dirties (2013).
What is the highest-rated movie like Elephant?
American History X (1998), rated 8.3/10 by 13,121 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Elephant?
And Then I Go (2017) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Elephant?
Yes: Zero Day (2003), Bully (2001) and The Dirties (2013).
How are movies similar to Elephant chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Elephant, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.