6 Movies Like “The Good Nurse” on Netflix: Based on real-life incidents, Danish director Tobias Lindholm’s The Good Nurse, is a brutal tale of a serial killer Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne), working as a nurse in Parkfield Memorial Hospital, New Jersey. Cullen’s modus operandi is injecting insulin into the saline of the patients. When Nurse Amy Loughren joins the hospital as a colleague to Cullen, she comes across a startling discovery. Cullen has been killing innocent patients for the last sixteen years. His crimes are spread across two states and nine hospitals. However, this has gone undetected from the eyes of the administration. How Amy paves the way for Cullen to confess his crime is what the film is all about.
By letting the camera capture the primary characters and the murders committed within the confines of the hospital, Lindholm brings a kind of claustrophobic feel within the milieu of the film. By doing so he enters into the mind of Cullen who is trapped within the make-believe world of his crime. It also puts the viewers into the shoes of Amy to make us feel psychologically tormented in regard to someone who has witnessed such a heinous act of madness and decides to bring the culprit to the book.
Here are six Films to Watch If You Liked The Good Nurse (2022).
1. Le Boucher (The Butcher, 1970)
This psychological drama by one of the French auteurs Claude Chabrol is set in the rural region of Trémolat, France. Paul Thomas is a butcher by profession and a chance encounter with the school head teacher Hélène Daville (Stéphane Audran) at a wedding, initiates the beginning of a friendship. When two individuals are murdered in the village strain starts to develop in their relationship, as Hélène begins suspecting Paul as the person behind the murders.
Chabrol is intrigued by more than just the spinning out of the story. There is something more going on. These themes are always there under the surface, possibly not perceived by his characters. They come into play when the plot takes an ironic direction after Hélène discovers a lighter at the murder spot that she had once gifted to Paul.
The film has extraordinary beauty. Indeed, the visuals by cinematographer Jean Rabier are so awesome that the characters almost seem belittled, which may be the filmmaker’s purpose. The meticulously designed mise-en-scene helps to create subtle dramatic compositions that reflect the suspense and tension of the film. The construction of the sequence announces a significant role in the visual impact of the film, a promise that is kept as the film proceeds and makes it worth a watch multiple times.
2. The Snowtown Murders (2011)
Australian filmmaker, Justin Kurzel’s, debut feature film, is based on the actual events of a series of murders that took place in and around Adelaide, South Australia. In the film, Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) is a teenage boy living with his mother, who has a boyfriend named Elizabeth (Louise Harris). When her brother rapes Jamies, she approaches the police. But she does not get any justice. Then, she gets in touch with John (Daniel Henshall), who helps her get rid of her brother. John also becomes like a father figure for Jamie. But slowly, Jamie realizes that John is homophobic and has a disturbed mind.
Kurzel’s take on the actual incident is full of intelligent twists and inversions that expand on his humanist plea. Some mysteries are revealed, and others fall through the gaps, but Kurzel has created a brutal coming-of-age story that seeks to unflinchingly narrate a ghastly tale with very ordinary physical magic. Kurzel who is also the composer weaves dread into his imaginative score, and Adam Arkapaw composes steely-hued tableaux that are starkly beautiful, even if they sometimes risk aestheticizing the murders.
The film is exhaustingly and maddeningly dense. Every object and line of dialogue is symbolic of the intangible tensions existing between primordial animalistic urges and the choice to remain social.
3. Der Goldene Handschuh (The Golden Glove, 2019)
In German filmmaker Fatih Akin’s, tenth outing, we meet serial killer Fritz “Fiete” Honka (Jonas Dassler). He has an ordinary-looking guy who suffers from erectile dysfunction. He resides in a grimy apartment in Hamburg, Germany. From 1970 to 1974 he is involved in multiple killings of women, mostly prostitutes, in his apartment and dismembers their bodies and organs. His crimes go undetected by the administration. One night his apartment catches fire and the firefighters discover the dead bodies. Fritz is arrested and that brings an end to his killing spree.
Akin seamlessly strings together complex yet saturated images with an ultra-charismatic performance by Jonas and entwined the narrative in a rhapsody of uncertainties. The film is definitely not for the faint of heart, and it is indeed a disturbing watch. The tone of the film is sinister and much darker. Other than the drama about his personal life, the series also recounts Fritz’s crimes in graphic detail, which includes sexual violence. The first murder in the film alone will have your heart sinking as it’s dark as heck.
Despite being an uncomfortable watch at times, The Golden Glove is able to effectively build tension while balancing the morality displayed. It’s a film that has real edginess and provides a comprehensive account of the disturbing life of a killer.
4. The House That Jack Built (2018)
Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier never disappoints to shock us. In this film, he introduces us to a fictional serial killer Jack (Matt Dillon). The film begins with Jack describing all of his murders to a priest-like person named Verge (Bruno Ganz). Through flashback, we are informed how Jack has killed multiple people that includes men and women. In due course of time, he is detected by the police. In an attempt to escape he meets his death by falling into an abyss.
The daring attribute that Trier has displayed in this film is the creative employ of Dante’s ‘Inferno’ as a metatext and weaving it skilfully into the narrative. The film is so violent, it shows such cruelty, that it is a test most people will not want to endure. But it is unflinchingly honest about the manner in which Jack kills his victims.
Through this film, Tries is clearly trying to tell us something about the nature of humanity, about how we are all animals in the final analysis, capable of all kinds of savagery. His technique is fascinating and worthy of notice. At the same time, his philosophical perspective is as advanced as his cinematic skills.
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5. Raatchasan (2018)
Arun (Vishnu Vishal) wants to become a filmmaker and pitches his screenplay on a serial killer to various prospective producers in the city of Chennai, India. He has extensively researched over the years on serial killers. But as fate would have it, he is compelled to join the police force as an officer of low rank. But soon the city is terrorized by a serial killer who kidnaps, tortures, and murders young, teenage school girls. he police force under a rookie cop, Aun, begin their investigation to hunt down the criminal.
To the filmmaker Ram Kumar’s credit, the film has a polished approach. The ingenuity of its plots and the skillful evocation of the mood of suspense and fear make the Tamil thriller an edge-of-the-seat experience. Ghibran’s music and P V Sankar’s cinematography works with the dark mood of the film. San Lokesh’s editing maintains a fast pace to beef up tension.
But there is more to the film than its shock value. It also makes the viewer empathize with the past of the antagonist but not with his heinous acts of killing. The film has been remade in the Hindi language titled Cuttputlli, where one event after the other unravels in a manner that feels worn out and uninvolving, to say the least.
6. Sound of Violence (2021)
Filmmaker Alex Noyer’s debut venture narrates the tale of Alexis Reeves (Jasmin Savoy Brown), who witnessed the brutal killing of her parents during childhood. This brutal incident has awakened her synesthetic abilities. She pursues a career in creating experimental sounds that include the shrieks of people getting killed.
The protagonist of the film acts as the filmmaker’s archetype that he is using to make a metaphysical statement about the timelessness of evil. He’s telling us that humans have the inherent and dormant intention of being violent for eternity. Moreover, he is not seemed to be preoccupied with technical finesse at the expense of characterization, tension, fear meaning. The crucial dramatic strength is that the film has a powerful emotional center.
The Cinematography by Daphne Qin Wu and editing by Hannu Aukia and Verti Virkajärvi works in tandem to deliver a feeling of insidious ease. The disquieting score by the trio-Jaakko Manninen, Alexander Burke, and Omar El-Deeb strikes exactly the right cord of fear and tension. Jasmin Brown playing the troubled character of Alexis brings both empathy and abhorrence to her role. Her acting rises to fit the style of the film. The supporting cast is given rather less nuanced, extensive parts, but does well with what they have.
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The Good Nurse (2022) Links: IMDb, Wikipedia
