Movies like Zankoku! Shōjo tarento (1984)
The best movies like Zankoku! Shōjo tarento (1984) are Hounddog (2008), One Million Yen Girl (2008) and The Short History of the Long Road (2019). If Zankoku! Shōjo tarento hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)6.4/10 from 321 votes
- NewestMagazine Dreams (2025)Released 2025
- In JapaneseOne Million Yen Girl (2008)Also in Japanese
Hounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOne Million Yen Girl (2008)
A 21-year-old girl is released from prison, only to deal with the neighborhood gossip about her and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to where no one knows her and keep repeating the process.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Short History of the Long Road (2019)
Nola grew up living in a van with her father, Clint—two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past, and her new destination.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLucky Them (2013)
More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search to discover what really happened to long lost rock god, Matt Smith, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. Teaming up with an eccentric amateur documentary filmmaker, Ellie hits the road in search of answers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisI Believe in Unicorns (2015)
Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTeen Spirit (2019)
A shy teenager living on the Isle of Wight dreams of pop stardom. With the help of an unlikely mentor, she enters a singing competition that will test her integrity, talent, and ambition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIron Jawed Angels (2004)
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this1 Chance 2 Dance (2014)
When a 17-year old aspiring dancer is uprooted in her high school senior year, she finds herself divided between two boys, and she will have one last shot at making her dream a reality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCome Sunday (2018)
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMagazine Dreams (2025)
Aspiring bodybuilder Killian Maddox struggles to find human connection in an exploration of celebrity and violence. Nothing deters him from his fiercely protected dream of superstardom, not even the doctors who warn him of the permanent damage he causes to himself with his quest.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977)
A disturbed and institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisTokyo Decadence (1992)
A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEl Chicano (2019)
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSuburbia (1984)
When household tensions and a sense of worthlessness overcome Evan, he finds escape when he clings with the orphans of a throw-away society. The runaways hold on to each other like a family until a tragedy tears them apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPimp (2018)
An urban love story set on the hard streets of the Bronx. A struggling female pimp, named Wednesday, grows up learning the game from her dad. Once he's gone she's left to look out for her prostitute mother and girlfriend Nikki.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoney: Rise Up and Dance (2018)
Street dancer Skyler comes out of the shadow of her trained dancer sister, Tosha, & joins a dance competition with the Honey dance studio; the prize is a college scholarship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisElectrick Children (2012)
Rachel is a rambunctious girl from a polygamist colony in southern Utah. On Rachel’s 15th birthday, she finds a forbidden cassette tape. Having never seen anything like it before, Rachel plays the cassette tape, and finds glorious rock & roll thereupon. Weeks later, Rachel realizes a miracle has occurred - and the cassette tape must have something to do with it. She leaves her family and runs away to the closest city: Las Vegas. There she searches for the singer of the band on the cassette tape.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSometimes... Like a Prostitute (1978)
A man with a medical condition and a guilty past becomes obsessed with a simple minded girl he finds in a park. His wife is not thrilled when he brings her home.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Bathhouse 911: Jellyfish Bliss (1978)
A young woman and her boyfriend are recruited to work in a bathhouse but find their relationship falling apart when she falls for a dangerous gangster.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Ecstasy of the Angels (1972)
A militant revolutionary group is torn apart by betrayal as its members descend into paranoia and sexual decadence.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Sex Zone (1968)
Inspired by the true story of a Geisha murdered in a city famous for its baths, Adachi forged here his favorite style, a kind of conceptual documentary recounting the incident in monotone. The same event that at the beginning of Violated Angels escaped every principle of causality, is portrayed here as a singular anti-spectacle.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Emmanuelle 3 (1977)
Emmanuelle and her architect husband continue their amoral lifestyle in the Seychelles. But when a casual dilliance between her and a film director starts to turn serious her husband shows very traditional signs of jealousy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHappily Ever After (1974)
A woman takes revenge on the three college men who abused her a decade earlier.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Sex Documentary Technique (1978)
Pink film by Mamoru Watanabe.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Married Women Who Want to Do It (2003)
Annoyed by her husband's boorish sexual behavior, newlywed Aya joins her female friend Kei in an extra-marital fling. She records the experience on her cell phone camera to show her husband the advantages of a more romantic love-making technique. Kei later introduces the couple to a sex counselor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Bullying Housewives: Lewd Heaven (2000)
Byakumaru, who achieved great sales as a supermarket manager in a rural town in the Kanto region, received a special bonus of 1 million yen and a three-day vacation. Byakumaru decides to use the bonus and vacation time to reunite with his older sister, who he lost in his childhood. His parents died in a traffic accident, and he grew up in a relative's home, but was later placed in different homes and his whereabouts were never known. As a result of the investigation by Koshinsho, there are four housewives from Shiromaru's area living in a certain housing complex in Tokyo, and one of them appears to be Shiromaru's older sister. Shiromaru heads to the housing complex with Ayaka, an employee of Koshinsho, but...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Saki Mizusawa's Mistress Application (1994)
A woman who works part-time at a publishing company while attending university. She has good taste, but she has a shy personality, and she was the type to lose money. One day, she was predicted by a fortune teller who was passing by that "another you will appear", and on her way home, she suddenly felt dizzy and when she opened her eyes, she had a strange experience in which everything appeared red. And from that day on, her personality changed...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Zankoku! Shōjo tarento?
The closest matches to Zankoku! Shōjo tarento are Hounddog (2008), One Million Yen Girl (2008) and The Short History of the Long Road (2019). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Zankoku! Shōjo tarento?
Start with Hounddog (2008), the closest match to Zankoku! Shōjo tarento.
What is the highest-rated movie like Zankoku! Shōjo tarento?
The Trials of Cate McCall (2013), rated 6.4/10 by 321 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Zankoku! Shōjo tarento?
Magazine Dreams (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Zankoku! Shōjo tarento?
Yes: One Million Yen Girl (2008), Tokyo Decadence (1992) and Sometimes... Like a Prostitute (1978).
How are movies similar to Zankoku! Shōjo tarento chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Zankoku! Shōjo tarento, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.