Best movies like Night of the Pencils

A coming of age story set in 1975 working-class Brooklyn, in which two teenage brothers living with their abusive father and their well-meaning but ineffective mother are caught up in a life of petty crime. Older brother Danny concocts a daring scheme to steal enough money for the two to escape, timed around the chaos of an upcoming Rolling Stones concert. The sensitive younger brother, Brian, ultimately has a choice: remain loyal to the brother with whom he shares a powerful love-hate bond, or use his hidden talent as an artist as his own ticket out of their dead-end existence.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1983. In the last and turbulent days of the military dictatorship, Alicia, a high school history teacher, begins to ask uncomfortable questions about the dark origins of Gaby, her adopted daughter.

In 1976, a Mi'gMaq teenager plots revenge against the sadistic Indian agent who imprisoned her in a residential school where rape and abuse are common.

In 1976, Argentina fell into the hands of a de facto government. Thousands of citizens are persecuted and kidnapped. This is the case of the parents of two children, who, knowing they are wanted, decide to hide.

A teaching assistant at a private Buenos Aires school begins obsessively spying on her students in the early 1980s, as the public rises up against the military dictatorship.

Young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan decides it's time for an adventure after he finishes his formal education, so he decides to try his luck in Uganda, and arrives during the downfall of President Obote. General Idi Amin comes to power and asks Garrigan to become his personal doctor.

A police detective in a South American country is dedicated to hunting down a revolutionary guerilla leader.

Set in the 1980s, an American journalist covering the Salvadoran Civil War becomes entangled with both the leftist guerrilla groups and the right-wing military dictatorship while trying to rescue his girlfriend and her children.

Santiago, capital of Chile during the Marxist government of elected, highly controversial president Salvador Allende. Father McEnroe supports his leftist views by introducing a program at the prestigious "collegio" (Catholic prep school) St. Patrick to allow free admission of some proletarian kids. One of them is Pedro Machuca, slum-raised son of the cleaning lady in Gonzalo Infante's liberal-bourgeois home. Yet the new classmates become buddies, paradoxically protesting together as Gonzalo gets adopted by Pedro's slum family and gang. But the adults spoil that too, not in the least when general Pinochet's coup ousts Allende, and supporters such as McEnroe.

An impassioned three-part documentary of the liberation struggle waged throughout Latin America, using Argentina as a historical example of the imperialist exploitation of the continent. Part I: Neo-Colonialism and Violence is a historical, geographic, and economic analysis of Argentina. Part II: An Act For Liberation examines the ten-year reign of Juan Perón (1945-55) and the activities of the Peronist movement after his fall from power. Part III: Violence and Liberation studies the role of violence in the national liberation process and constitutes a call for action.

David, an independent photographer, and Katia, an unemployed woman, leave Los Angeles, en route to the southern California desert, where they search a natural set to use as a backdrop for a magazine photo shoot. They find a motel in the town of Twentynine Palms and spend their days in their sport-utility vehicle, discovering the Joshua Tree Desert, and losing themselves on nameless roads and trails. Frantically making love all the time and almost everywhere, they regularly fight, then kiss and make up, with little else going on in their empty relationship and quite ordinary daily life--until something horrible and hideous brutally puts an end to their trip.

Maimed by bullies at a California high school, a new student engineers acts of revenge.

Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.

A young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody ever escaped from.

Set during the unsettling disappearances in Buenos Aires during the dictatorship of the 1970s, the film involves theater director Carlos Rueda and his wife Cecilia. Shortly after Cecilia writes an editorial commentary questioning the mysterious abductions, she is herself abducted and taken into police custody.

The story of Aung San Suu Kyi as she becomes the core of Burma's democracy movement, and her relationship with her husband, writer Michael Aris.

Chile, 1970. During a night of heavy drinking, Jaime, a lonely 20-year-old young man, is sentenced to prison. There, he meets “The Stallion”, an older and respected man in whom he finds protection, and from whom he learns about love and loyalty. But as their relationship grows stronger, “The Stallion” faces the violent power struggles within the prison.

The Square looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarak’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out.

Returning to the same medical school where they were test subjects years before, two twisted serial killers use brutal sex acts to kill off a group of med students.

A biopic based on the life of one of the pioneer argentine rock stars 'Tanguito'. The movie tells the story of his rise and fall from grace, encompassed in violent times of a military regime.

Lucio, a prestigious university professor, takes the position of substitute teacher at a high school in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, where he grew up. Through tales, novels and poetry, he tries to distract his class from the harsh reality of their everyday lives. But soon, he must step out of his professional duties when Dilan, one of his students, is threatened by a local drug kingpin.

The true story of four men who narrowly escaped death at the hands of Argentina's military death squads in 1977. Claudio Tamburrini is a goalie for a minor-league football team when he is abducted by members of the Argentine military police and taken to an unofficial detention center on the false suspicion that he is a terrorist. As he is tortured by intelligence agents looking for information he doesn't have, Tamburrini fully expects to be killed. After many sessions of brutal torture, Tamburrini and his fellow captives Guillermo and Tano are being readied for execution when, in a final desperate act, Tamburrini dives out a window during a rainstorm.

A history of Argentina's last military dictatorship (1976-1983). After "La Republica Perdida" was made, which covered 1930 to 1976, there was an important part of Argentina's history yet to be told, which was too recent to be covered by the first documentary. The first movie was made at the end of the last dictatorship. This second documentary covers this last dictatorship from 1976 to 1983.

This documentary follows the events of the recient history of Argentina, especially from 1930 to 1976

Race-car driver Blaine Striker grows concerned about his younger brother, a student at a medical school on the Caribbean island of St. Heron. General Turner has led a violent coup on this island and may be planning to blow up the school in order to blame the destruction on counterrevolutionaries. Striker infiltrates St. Heron, is captured, stripped to his tighty-whiteys, and electrotortured. He escapes, joins forces with the counterrevolutionaries, and foils a plot to assemble Russian missiles on the island.

She Wolf is a serial killer who traps her men in the subway in Buenos Aires. She seduces, has sex with them and kills them. But one of those men is a police officer who is investigating her crimes. Running away from him she meets a dealer with whom she stars a relationship. This romance unravels a war between her three personalities: the monster woman, the sensual woman and the human woman who can still love.

Uruguay, 1973. Having been crushed by the military dictatorship, surviving members of the Tupamaro guerillas are imprisoned and tortured. They must find a way to endure the coming 12 years.

In a country (alluded to be Chile) under dictatorship, a police night raid comes up with a few usual anti-regime suspects. They are sent to a camp in the middle of nowhere. Their friends on the outside start to plan their escape.

Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground resistance movement, Francisco opens her eyes and her heart to the atrocities being committed by the state.

A beautiful Argentine activist receives preferential treatment from a man supposed to torture her.

An American couple in Chile is drawn into the turmoil that followed President Salvador Allende's 1973 overthrow.

A striking political activist and refugee from Paraguay escapes to Paris and falls in love with a rich law student changing their lives forever. The beauty of their love is challenged by a fervent devotion to fighting for a cause.

The fighting between the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the Contra rebels backed by U.S. money and expertise is the focus of this pro-Sandinista film by Haskell Wexler. On a secret mission to help the U.S. Special Forces train Contra rebels in the jungles of Nicaragua, American soldier Eddie Guerrero begins to question the morality of the task at hand and consider how his actions may influence the fate of a nation.

In 1920, workers from Patagonia, in Southern Argentina, gather around an anarcho-syndicalist society and go on strike, demanding better working conditions. When the situation turns unsustainable, President Yrigoyen sends Lieutenant Colonel Zavala to impose order.

A portrait of a brutal Pinochet military dictatorship made during a three month visit to Chile in 1985 by David Bradbury. The footage reveals a country torn with civil strife and political unrest; military intimidation of the population; indiscriminate arrests: murder torture and disappearances were facts of Chilean life.