15 Movies Like Carandiru

Loved Carandiru? Based on its unique Cinema DNA—including its pacing, themes, and emotional tone—we've curated the ultimate list of what you should watch next.

Burning Betrayal
#1

Burning Betrayal

Babi discovers a betrayal by her long-term partner and decides to embark on a new adventure in life. On this journey, she meets judge Marco and they begin to live a story permeated by a lot of sexual tension.

💡Why it's a match: A fantastic follow-up watch to Carandiru.

City of God
#2

City of God

In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood, while José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer diving into a dangerous life of crime.

💡Why it's a match: A fantastic follow-up watch to Carandiru.

New Dubai
#3

New Dubai

In a middle-class neighbourhood in a city in the countryside of Brazil, the real estate speculation is a menace to the affective memory of a group of friends. Their answer to this imminent transformation is to fuck in the construction sites. And what about love? Is love just a construction?

💡Why it's a match: A fantastic follow-up watch to Carandiru.

Giselle
#4

Giselle

Sexy girl seduces all the members of her family. She indirectly causes the failure of his father's marriage, for her stepmother falls in love with her. Then, she has affairs with her father's stepson, and with the farm housekeeper. She and some friends are also raped by some bad guys. But they all celebrate the ruin of traditional family values.

💡Why it's a match: A fantastic follow-up watch to Carandiru.

Caramelo
#5

Caramelo

After a life-changing diagnosis, a promising chef finds hope and humor with the help of a fur-midable dog friend.

💡Why it's a match: A fantastic follow-up watch to Carandiru.

The Secret Agent
#6

The Secret Agent

Brazil, 1977. Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run. Hoping to reunite with his son, he travels to Recife during Carnival but soon realizes that the city is not the safe haven he was expecting.

💡Why it's a match: A highly-rated genre match based on the viewing habits of people who liked Carandiru.

Love Strange Love
#7

Love Strange Love

A man remembers forty-eight crucial hours in his life when, as a child, he visited his mother, the favorite woman of an important politician, in a bordello owned by him, right before some important political changes in 1937 Brazil. In those hours, he discovers his own sexuality.

💡Why it's a match: A fantastic follow-up watch to Carandiru.

State of Fear
#8

State of Fear

As São Paulo erupts in an unprecedented wave of violence, a lawyer with underworld ties must strike a deal with the police to rescue her kidnapped niece.

💡Why it's a match: A fantastic follow-up watch to Carandiru.

A Dog's Will
#9

A Dog's Will

The lively João Grilo and the sly Chicó are poor guys living in the hinterland who cheat a bunch of people in a small town in Northeastern Brazil. When they die, they have to be judged by Christ, the Devil and the Virgin Mary before they are admitted to paradise.

💡Why it's a match: A fantastic follow-up watch to Carandiru.

The Dutchman
#10

The Dutchman

A successful black businessman, haunted by his crumbling marriage and identity crisis, is drawn into a psychological game of cat and mouse with a mysterious white woman he encounters on a New York subway.

💡Why it's a match: A fantastic follow-up watch to Carandiru.

The Silence of the Lambs
#11

The Silence of the Lambs

Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.

💡Why it's a match: A highly-rated genre match based on the viewing habits of people who liked Carandiru.

Cool Hand Luke
#12

Cool Hand Luke

When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.

💡Why it's a match: A highly-rated genre match based on the viewing habits of people who liked Carandiru.

Elite Squad
#13

Elite Squad

In 1997, before the visit of the pope to Rio de Janeiro, Captain Nascimento from BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) is assigned to eliminate the risks of the drug dealers in a dangerous slum nearby where the pope intends to be lodged.

💡Why it's a match: A highly-rated genre match based on the viewing habits of people who liked Carandiru.

Emancipation
#14

Emancipation

Inspired by the gripping true story of a man who would do anything for his family—and for freedom. When Peter, an enslaved man, risks his life to escape and return to his family, he embarks on a perilous journey of love and endurance.

💡Why it's a match: A highly-rated genre match based on the viewing habits of people who liked Carandiru.

Dirty Harry
#15

Dirty Harry

When a madman dubbed 'Scorpio' terrorizes San Francisco, hard-nosed cop, Harry Callahan – famous for his take-no-prisoners approach to law enforcement – is tasked with hunting down the psychopath.

💡Why it's a match: A highly-rated genre match based on the viewing habits of people who liked Carandiru.