(Photo by NEON / courtesy Everett Collection)
20 Movies To Watch If You Loved Parasite
If you’re looking for more movies like Parasite, you’re not alone. Ever since Parasite‘s arrival in theaters, the Best Picture winner has ignited conversations across America over a range of topics, from fruit allergies to one-inch subtitles to, of course, social class warfare. In the darkly comedic thriller, a family from the slums swindles their way into the graces of a wealthy young family. As the line between street and elite blurs and as the scheme spirals out of control, the viewer is forced to reckon just what exactly is the parasitic entity to which the title alludes.
If you’re looking for more movies to watch after Parasite, we’ve found 20 films which share thematic and atmospheric blood. First recommendation is one of director Bong Joon-ho‘s primary influences: 1963’s twisted, table-turning The Servant. If you’re just starting out with Joon-ho’s filmography, you can start with Snowpiercer, another take on class entrenchment, albeit via hard sci-fi. The South Korean director has yet to make a bad movie, so you might as well continue on with The Host, Mother, and Memories of Murder. Meanwhile, The Handmaiden also hails from South Korea.
Mexico’s The Chambermaid and The Good Girls are parables which shine a light on economic mobility. Same with Japan’s Shoplifters, but with more uplift. The Ruling Class and The Exterminating Angel are both satires of the 1%. And if you liked the surrealism Luis Bunuel brings to Angel, you’ll love to what extremes Sorry to Bother You and Society go to make their respectively bizarre and disgusting cases.
Robert Altman’s Gosford Park takes the most good-natured jabs on the subject, while Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game is the most earnest. And if you’re most attracted to Parasite‘s genre elements, it’s hard to go wrong with the wild and wacky Ready or Not, David Fincher’s efficient potboiler Panic Room, or the Coens’ violently absurd Burn After Reading. We’d recommend anything by Joel and Ethan Coen normally, but their remake of The Ladykillers (about crooks who get their comeuppance when they move into an old woman’s house intending to rob her) is a pale imitation of the Alec Guinness original.
And as for how The People Under The Stairs relates… Well, we’ll let you figure that one out. —Alex Vo
#20
Adjusted Score: 64421%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A Beverly Hills teen (Billy Warlock) discovers his parents are part of a gruesome orgy cult for the social elite....
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#19
Adjusted Score: 72290%
Critics Consensus: Held aloft by gonzo black comedy and socially conscious subtext, The People Under The Stairs marks a unique -- though wildly uneven -- change of pace for director Wes Craven.
Synopsis: When young Fool (Brandon Adams) breaks into the home of his family's greedy and uncaring landlords, he discovers a disturbing...
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#18
Adjusted Score: 82346%
Critics Consensus: Elevated by David Fincher's directorial talent and Jodie Foster's performance, Panic Room is a well-crafted, above-average thriller.
Synopsis: Trapped in their New York brownstone's panic room, a hidden chamber built as a sanctuary in the event of break-ins,...
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#17
Adjusted Score: 88135%
Critics Consensus: With Burn After Reading, the Coen Brothers have crafted another clever comedy/thriller with an outlandish plot and memorable characters.
Synopsis: When a disc containing memoirs of a former CIA analyst (John Malkovich) falls into the hands of Linda Litzke (Frances...
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#16
Adjusted Score: 78011%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: When the Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews) dies in a cross-dressing accident, his schizophrenic son, Jack (Peter O'Toole), inherits the...
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#15
Adjusted Score: 96278%
Critics Consensus: Thanks in no small part to stellar work from director Joseph Losey and screenwriter Harold Pinter, The Servant strikes at class divisions with artful precision.
Synopsis: Posh Tony (James Fox) hires the seemingly proper and very attentive Barrett (Dirk Bogarde) as his manservant. Soon Tony's lady...
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#14
Adjusted Score: 92850%
Critics Consensus: A mixture of Upstairs, Downstairs, Clue, and perceptive social commentary, Gosford Park ranks among director Altman's best.
Synopsis: Robert Altman, one of America's most distinctive filmmakers, journeys to England for the first time to create a unique film...
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#13
Adjusted Score: 86698%
Critics Consensus: The Good Girls uses its period setting and specific character canvas to explore the widely relatable struggle for perceived social status.
#12
Adjusted Score: 105983%
Critics Consensus: Smart, subversive, and darkly funny, Ready or Not is a crowd-pleasing horror film with giddily entertaining bite.
Synopsis: Grace couldn't be happier after she marries the man of her dreams at his family's luxurious estate. There's just one...
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#11
Adjusted Score: 97180%
Critics Consensus: Memories of Murder blends the familiar crime genre with social satire and comedy, capturing the all-too human desperation of its key characters.
Synopsis: In 1986, Park (Song Kang-ho) and Cho (Kim Roi-ha) are two simple-minded detectives assigned to a double murder investigation in...
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#10
Adjusted Score: 97505%
Critics Consensus: Societal etiquette devolves into depravity in Luis Buñuel's existential comedy, effectively playing the absurdity of civilization for mordant laughs.
Synopsis: Edmundo Nobile (Enrique Rambal) invites friends over for an opulent dinner party. While the guests enjoy their food, the servants...
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#9
Adjusted Score: 99140%
Critics Consensus: As populace pleasing as it is intellectually satisfying, The Host combines scares, laughs, and satire into a riveting, monster movie.
Synopsis: Careless American military personnel dump chemicals into South Korea's Han River. Several years later, a creature emerges from the tainted...
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#8
Adjusted Score: 110269%
Critics Consensus: Fearlessly ambitious, scathingly funny, and thoroughly original, Sorry to Bother You loudly heralds the arrival of a fresh filmmaking talent in writer-director Boots Riley.
Synopsis: In an alternate reality of present-day Oakland, Calif., telemarketer Cassius Green finds himself in a macabre universe after he discovers...
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#7
Adjusted Score: 106437%
Critics Consensus: Snowpiercer offers an audaciously ambitious action spectacular for filmgoers numb to effects-driven blockbusters.
Synopsis: A post-apocalyptic ice age forces humanity's last survivors aboard a globe-spanning supertrain. One man (Chris Evans) will risk everything to...
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#6
Adjusted Score: 106662%
Critics Consensus: The Handmaiden uses a Victorian crime novel as the loose inspiration for another visually sumptuous and absorbingly idiosyncratic outing from director Park Chan-wook.
Synopsis: With help from an orphaned pickpocket (Kim Tae-ri), a Korean con man (Ha Jung-woo) devises an elaborate plot to seduce...
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#5
Adjusted Score: 100410%
Critics Consensus: As fleshy as it is funny, Bong Joon-Ho's Mother straddles family drama, horror and comedy with a deft grasp of tone and plenty of eerie visuals.
Synopsis: A widow (Kim Hye-ja) resides with her mentally challenged son (Won-bin) in a small South Korean town, where she scrapes...
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#4
Adjusted Score: 105078%
Critics Consensus: Its genius escaped many viewers at the time, but in retrospect, The Rules of the Game stands as one of Jean Renoir's -- and cinema's -- finest works.
Synopsis: André is having an affair with Christine, whose husband Robert is himself hiding a mistress. Christine's married maid is romantically...
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#3
Adjusted Score: 111468%
Critics Consensus: Understated yet ultimately deeply affecting, Shoplifters adds another powerful chapter to director Hirokazu Koreeda's richly humanistic filmography.
Synopsis: On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders is united by fierce loyalty and a penchant for petty...
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#2
Adjusted Score: 103433%
Critics Consensus: The Ladykillers is a macabre slow-burn with quirky performances of even quirkier characters.
Synopsis: Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson) likes to report suspicious behavior to the police. Unaware of her reputation, the dapper thief Professor...
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#1
Adjusted Score: 102099%
Critics Consensus: The Chambermaid uses one woman's experiences to take audiences inside a life -- and a culture -- that's as bracingly unique as it is hauntingly relatable.
Synopsis: A young chambermaid working in one of the most luxurious hotels in Mexico City enrolls in the hotel's adult education...
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