Movies like Yeelen (1987)
The best movies like Yeelen (1987) are Moolaadé (2004), The Horse Thief (1986) and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2002). If Yeelen hooked you with its drama and fantasy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Dead (1987)6.9/10 from 200 votes
- NewestBamako (2007)Released 2007
Moolaadé (2004)
When a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female genital mutilation, she starts a conflict that tears her village apart.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Horse Thief (1986)
Devout Buddhists, Norbu and Dolma live with their young son Tashi in a clan in Tibet. Norbu is a highwayman. After Norbu is charged with stealing from the temple, he and his family are banished. Impoverished and marginalized, they can do little when their beloved son becomes ill. Tashi dies of a fever. After a second son is born, Norbu focuses his every action on keeping this child alive, seeking re-admission to the clan for his wife and child, then risking all to save them from isolation and starvation in winter.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAtanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2002)
Based on a local legend and set in an unknown era, it deals with universal themes of love, possessiveness, family, jealousy and power. Beautifully shot, and acted by Inuit people, it portrays a time when people fought duels by taking turns to punch each other until one was unconscious, made love on the way to the caribou hunt, ate walrus meat and lit their igloos with seal-oil lamps.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSambizanga (1973)
Domingos is a member of an African liberation movement, arrested by the Portuguese secret police, after bloody events in Angola. His wife goes from a prison station to another, trying in vain to find out where he is.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
No Fear, No Die (1990)
Dah and Jocelyn come from former French colonies to coach their rooster, "S'en fout la mort", for an illicit cock-fight in the basement of a restaurant.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Hyenas (1992)
A now-rich woman returns to her poor desert hometown to propose a deal to the populace: her fortune, in exchange for the death of the man who years earlier abandoned her and left her with his child.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Touki Bouki (1973)
Mory, a cowherd, and Anta, a university student, try to make money in order to go to Paris and leave their boring past behind.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMandabi (1968)
A money order from a relative in Paris throws the life of a Senegalese family man out of order. He deals with corruption, greed, problematic family members, the locals and the changing from his traditional way of living to a more modern one.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTea in the Harem (1985)
The story of two youths – one Algerian, one French – who become juvenile delinquents in a Paris suburb.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Soleil O (1973)
An educated native of Mauritania tries to find work in Paris but encounters difficulty because of his race.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Utu (1983)
In New Zealand in the 1860s the native Māori people fought the British colonials to keep the land guaranteed to them by treaty. The warrior Te Wheke fights for the British until betrayal leads him to seek utu (revenge). The settler Williamson in turn seeks revenge after Te Wheke attacks his homestead. Meanwhile Wiremu, an officer for the British, seems to think that resistance is futile.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Ceddo (1978)
The Ceddo people try to preserve their traditional African culture against the onslaught of Islam, Christianity, and the slave trade. When King Demba War sides with the Muslims, the Ceddo kidnap his daughter, Princess Dior Yacine, to protest their forcible conversion to Islam.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Emitaï (1973)
As World War II rages in Europe, a conflict arises between the French and the Diola-speaking tribe of Africa, prompting the village women to organize their men to sit beneath a tree to pray.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
A Question of Silence (1982)
When three women with no previous acquaintance kill a male shopkeeper in the middle of the day, the female psychiatrist assigned to the case sets out to understand why.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSong of Love (1972)
Two prisoners in complete isolation, separated by the thick brick walls, and desperately in need of human contact, devise a most unusual kind of communication.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & fantasy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBamako (2007)
Caught in the stranglehold of debt and structural adjustment, Africa is fighting for its survival. In the face of disaster, representatives of African society bring an action against international financial institutions. The trial takes place in Bamako, in the yard of a house, among its inhabitants.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMuna Moto (1975)
Ngando and Ndomé share an extremely perfect love. Yet, tradition demands a dowry for Ndomé’s hand that Ngando, an orphan, cannot afford. Forced to ask his uncle for assistance, Ngando finds himself at the mercy of his uncle’s lust and greed. How can Ngando and Ndomé find peace together? Their journey will be challenging and everyone will learn that not everything special can be saved.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Lute: Forge On or Die (1987)
In Spain of the 1960s, a poor family of quinquis - a nomadic ethnic group with a tradition as old as that of the gypsises of Spain but with even more obscure origins - have a nomadic life marked by poverty. The son, Eleuterio Sánchez Rodriguez, nicknamed "El Lute", steals some chickens and is condemned to six months in jail. El Lute moves to the slum outskirts of Madrid with his common law wife, Chelo, starting an itinerant life as a peddler of pots and pans and living in a quinqui shantytown. He gradually embarks upon as life of petty criminality, eventually participating in the theft of a jewelry store during which a bystander is killed.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisGuelwaar (1993)
As funeral preparations begin for Pierre Henri 'Guelwaar' Thioune, rumour spreads that his death may have been an assassination in retaliation for his radical political beliefs and constant criticism of the current regime. When the heroic Guelwaar's cadaver is stolen, his Francophile son, Barthelemy, contacts the authorities. As Detective Gora begrudgingly investigates, he discovers that Guelwaar was a complicated man guilty of his own share of sins.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Moment of Truth (1965)
Miguel, a poor young man living in Franco's Spain becomes a bull fighter to escape poverty.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Black Girl (1966)
Eager to find a better life abroad, a Senegalese woman becomes a mere governess to a family in southern France, suffering from discrimination and marginalization.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBorn in Flames (1983)
In near-future New York, ten years after the “social-democratic war of liberation,” diverse groups of women organize a feminist uprising as equality remains unfulfilled.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEl Norte (1983)
Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Dead (1987)
After a convivial holiday dinner party, things begin to unravel when a husband and wife address some prickly issues concerning their marriage.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Little Girl Who Sold the Sun (1999)
A young girl with a physical disability arrives in Dakar and challenges the convention of boys selling newspapers on the street.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Intruder (2005)
An emotionally cold man leaves the safety of his Alpine home to seek a heart transplant and an estranged son.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisXala (1975)
A rich businessman in Senegal is cursed with crippling erectile dysfunction upon the day of his marriage to his third wife; the only cure is brutal public humiliation.
Why it matches: Fans watch both
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSankofa (1993)
On a photo shoot in Ghana, an American model slips back in time, becomes enslaved on a plantation and bears witness to the agony of her ancestral past.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & fantasy
Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
Siblings Maisie and Tony, along with their mother, gather for their sister Eileen's wedding. It is a joyous occasion, but through flashbacks, it becomes clear that the family was not always happy. Their father was physically abusive to his wife and left the children emotionally traumatized. As a result, the children have grown into unhappy adults, looking for love they didn't receive when they were young.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNorthfork (2003)
The year is 1955, and a great flood is coming to Northfork, Montana. A new hydroelectric dam is about to be installed in the mountains above the town, ready to submerge the valley in the name of progress. It is the responsibility of a six-man Evacuation Committee to relocate the townsfolk to higher ground. Most have duly departed, but a few stubborn stragglers remain – among them a priest caring for a sickly orphan, a boy whose fevered visions are leading him to believe he is a member of a roaming band of lost angels desperately searching for a way home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both fantasy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Yeelen?
The closest matches to Yeelen are Moolaadé (2004), The Horse Thief (1986) and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2002). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Yeelen?
People who watched Yeelen most often go on to Moolaadé (2004), The Horse Thief (1986) and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2002).
What is the highest-rated movie like Yeelen?
The Dead (1987), rated 6.9/10 by 200 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Yeelen?
Bamako (2007) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Yeelen chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Yeelen, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.