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Movies that feel likeLa bola negra (2026)

The intertwined lives of three men in three different eras, three lives intimately linked by sexuality and desire, pain, and legacy.

If you loved La bola negra, the closest films we have are A War (2015), In Darkness (2011) and Beanpole (2019). All three share La bola negra's contemplative and bleak feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Shame (1968).

🍅 92% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Javier Ambrossicontemplativebleak
9 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Amazon Prime Video · Criterion Channel

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If La bola negra hit the spot, these will too

A War poster
A War
2015 · dir. Tobias Lindholm
🍅 90%★ 7drama · war

Contemplative and bleak in the same breath

Company commander Claus Michael Pedersen and his men are stationed in Helmand, Afghanistan. Meanwhile back in Denmark, with a husband at war and three children missing their father, everyday life is a struggle for Claus' wife Maria. During a routine mission, the soldiers are caught in heavy Taliban crossfire. In order to save his men, Claus makes a decision that ultimately sees him return to Denmark accused of a war crime.

In Darkness poster
In Darkness
2011 · dir. Agnieszka Holland
🍅 88%★ 7.3drama · war

Contemplative drama, and it commits to that

A dramatization of one man's rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied city of Lviv. In Darkness tells the true story of Leopold Soha who risks his own life to save a dozen people from certain death. Initially only interested in his own good, the thief and burglar hides Jewish refugees for 14 months in the sewers of the Nazi-occupied town of Lviv (formerly Poland).

Beanpole poster
Beanpole
2019 · dir. Kantemir Balagov
🍅 93%★ 7.2drama · warRent or buy

War with a pulse of bleakness, in both cases

1945, Leningrad. World War II has devastated the city, demolishing its buildings and leaving its citizens in tatters, physically and mentally. Two young women, Iya and Masha, search for meaning and hope in the struggle to rebuild their lives amongst the ruins.

Sobibor poster
Sobibor
2018 · dir. Konstantin Khabenskiy
🍅 73%★ 6.4war · dramaPrime Video

Drama built on stillness, twice over

The film is based on a real story that happened in 1943 in the Sobibor concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. The main character of the movie is the Soviet-Jewish soldier Alexander Pechersky, who at that time was serving in the Red Army as a lieutenant. In October 1943, he was captured by the Nazis and deported to the Sobibor concentration camp, where Jews were being exterminated in gas chambers. But, in just 3 weeks, Alexander was able to plan an international uprising of prisoners from Poland and Western Europe. This uprising resulted in being the only successful one throughout the war, which led to the largest escape of prisoners from a Nazi concentration camp.

Persian Lessons poster
Persian Lessons
2020 · dir. Vadim Perelman
🍅 80%★ 7.4war · drama

Both lean on bleakness more than on war

Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch.

The Counterfeiters poster
The Counterfeiters
2007 · dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky
🍅 93%★ 7.5drama · war

Both working the same drama territory

The story of Jewish counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch, who was coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.

Shame poster
Shame
1968 · dir. Ingmar Bergman
🍅 67%★ 8war · drama

Both play war straight

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

In the midst of a civil war, a pair of former violinists in a tempestuous marriage oversee a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.

The Champion poster
The Champion
2021 · dir. Maciej Barczewski
★ 6.8drama · history · warPrime Video

Drama in the same key

The difference: Leans harder into history than La bola negra does

It is 1940. The first transport of prisoners arrives at the newly created concentration camp Auschwitz. One of them is Tadeusz “Teddy” Pietrzykowski, pre-war boxing champion of Warsaw. The camp officers force him to fight in the ring for his and other prisoners’ lives. However, his every win strengthens the hope that Nazis are not invincible. Auschwitz officers notice the growing resistance. The confrontation with the authorities of the camp becomes inevitable.

Paisan poster
Paisan
1946 · dir. Roberto Rossellini
🍅 100%★ 7.6drama · warMax

Both know what they want from war

The difference: Made in the 1940s, in a different era of the craft

Six stories unfold in various regions, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley as American military personnel interact with a variety of Italian locals over eighteen months in the push north during the Italian Campaign of WWII as German forces retreat.

Lifeboat poster
Lifeboat
1944 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 90%★ 7.6war · drama

The same drama instincts

During World War II, a small group of survivors is stranded in a lifeboat together after the ship they were traveling on is destroyed by a German U-boat.

Kalashnikov AK-47 poster
Kalashnikov AK-47
2020 · dir. Konstantin Buslov
★ 6.6war · history · dramaPrime Video

War approached the same way

A Russian military propaganda film about the tank commander Kalashnikov, severely injured in battle in 1941. The accident leaves him incapacitated and unable to return to the front line. While recovering in the hospital, he begins creating the initial sketches of what will become one of the world’s most legendary weapons. A self-taught inventor is only 29 when he develops the now iconic assault riffle — the AK-47. Shot in occupied Crimea.

Katyn poster
Katyn
2007 · dir. Andrzej Wajda
🍅 91%★ 7drama · history · war

The drama is handled with the same confidence

On September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany invades Poland, unleashing World War II. On September 17th, the Soviet Red Army crosses the border. The Polish army, unable to fight on two fronts, is defeated. Thousands of Polish men, both military and government officials, are captured by the invaders. Their fate will only be known several years later.

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