Top 250 Movies Like Katarsis

Despite vocal objections from Warden Blakely, prison psychologist Diana Purlow journeys deep inside the mind of serial killer Jesse Mowat in a desperate attempt to reveal the source of his psychotic tendencies.

New parents Adrienne and Matteo are forced to reckon with trauma amidst their troubled relationship. They must revisit the memories of their past and unravel haunting truths in order to face their uncertain future.

Jon, Tom, and Denise accidently kill their senile old Aunt while she's looking after them while their father is away on business. Not sure what to do, they decide to dispose of the body in the rented woodchipper in the backyard. But more trouble comes a-knocking when their cousin Kim, their Aunt's son, shows up unexpectedly.

After losing their baby, a married couple adopt 9-year old Esther, who may not be as innocent as she seems.

During a heated argument with her sister Joan, Gail discovers the shocking news that she is adopted. With the reluctant support of her adoptive parents and baby sister Penny, Gail goes in search of her biological mother and true identity.

Ramona, a young girl growing up on her adoptive mother's rancho in California, falls in love with the Indian lad Alessandro. When Ramona is denied permission to marry Alessandro, the two lovers elope, only to find a life of great hardship and unhappiness amidst the bigotry and greed of the white landowners.

A white girl raised by Indians sets out to find out who murdered her adoptive parents.

Anne Shirley, an orphan, is fostered by farmer Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla, who were expecting a boy to be sent them to help with their farm work. They accept Anne, who quickly endears herself to them and to the local villagers.

A young girl witnesses her brother murder a man through a reflection in a mirror. Twenty years later the mirror is shattered, freeing his evil spirit, which seeks revenge for his death.

When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?

A radio host takes in her troubled sister’s twin daughters, unknowingly putting her family, her friends, and herself at risk.

Vanessa proudly shares all her personal information, selfies and family photos with her online friends and is thrilled to welcome her 10,000th follower. Little does she know that her new fan is actually the biological mother of her adopted daughter Lacy and has been trying to track her down for seven years. Now that she knows all the family's movements and whereabouts, her cyber stalking turns into the real thing. Inserting herself into the family's lives and affections, she soon becomes indispensable as sous chef in Vanessa's restaurant and is always ready to babysit Lacy - just waiting for the right moment to abduct her - For she will stop at nothing to get her daughter back - not even murder.

A recently adopted child has gone missing and it's up to her parents to find her.

Katherine "Kathy" is happily married to businessman Greg Norris and lives in his beautiful home with his about 18-year old daughter Tara. When suddenly a charming young man, who Tara first saw lurking around in the garden, turns up on their doorstep claiming he must be Jamie, the baby son she once gave up for adoption as a teenage mother on her parents' orders, the couple is delighted to meet him. They even take him in as they hear his adoptive parents have died in car accident and he's looking for a place to stay during his business studies just like Greg, to pay for which he held various jobs, even in Rio. The only one who remains suspicious is Tara, who doesn't want to be the kid sister and starts looking for holes is Jamie's story, going trough his things and having a friend examine his past- there are, since he didn't tell the Norris family about his lover who helps him unconditionally with his sinister hidden agenda.

Genealogist Sophie McClaren is an expert at bringing families together. When her close friend Jonathan urgently needs to find a bone marrow donor, the case becomes personal.

After finding an ad online for “video work,” Sara, a video artist whose primary focus is creating intimacy with lonely men, thinks she may have found the subject of her dreams. She drives to a remote house in the forest and meets a man claiming to be a serial killer. Unable to resist the chance to create a truly shocking piece of art, she agrees to spend the day with him. However, as the day goes on, she discovers she may have dug herself into a hole from which she can’t escape.

A troubled college freshman, Luke, suffers a violent family trauma and resurrects his childhood imaginary friend Daniel to help him cope.

Nearly murdered as a child by her mother, a woman (Katrina Law) returns to the house where her mom went mad.

As a maniac slashes his way through the city, a lone survivor tries to stop his vicious murder spree, only to discover there is far more going on than just murder.

A man recently released from a mental institute inherits a mansion after his parents die. After a series of disturbing events, he comes to believe it is haunted.

Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.

The mother of a severely traumatized daughter enlists the aid of a unique horse trainer to help the girl's equally injured horse.

A boy kidnapped by two mismatched hitmen puts them at each other's throats while being driven to their employers, possibly to be killed. Cohen, an older professional becomes increasingly irritated with his partner Tate, a brutish killer, when their prisoner uses unnatural guile and resourcefulness to play them off against each other.

A boy haunted by nightmares about the night his entire family was murdered is brought up by a neighboring family in the 1880s. He falls for his lovely adoptive sister but his nasty adoptive brother and mysterious uncle want him dead.

A troubled Vietnam war vet deserts his wife and child shortly after he returns from the war. He returns after 10 years, where he's been living like an animal in the forest. He finds himself unprepared for the changes that he will have to cope with, and when the vet tries to contact his son, he realizes that he has caused more damage than he had imagined.

Frank Morrison is a divorced father with a 12-year-old son, Danny. His ex-wife Susan and son Danny now live with Rick Barnes, Susan's new husband. Danny, who has a reputation for telling lies, accuses his stepfather of committing a murder. Initially, no one believes his accusations, but then Frank becomes convinced and is the only one who believes him. Now, the father Danny trusts must protect him from the stepfather he fears.

The story of Exodus is relocated to the seaside town Margate. Moses lives in the Promised Lands with his adoptive parents, until he finds his mother in the shanty town, Dreamland, where she’s been ghettoised with other ‘undesirables’. He takes on his father, Pharaoh, and leads a radical campaign to liberate the people of Dreamland.

Two brothers are forced to confront a terrible crime that was hidden in their past.

Death and violence anger twelve year old drug courier Fresh, who sets his employers against each other.

Mean and domineering Jane and the sweet and ditsy Jackie are two radically contrasting sisters who suffer from severe trauma after witnessing the murder/suicide of their parents as well as seeing their other sibling Janice raped and killed by her assailants. The pair are deemed fit to re-enter society and get released from a sanitarium where they have undergone extensive rehabilitation therapy. However, Jane and Jackie prove to be anything but sane and harmless as they embark on a vicious spree in which they torture, murder, and mutilate any man luckless enough to cross their lethal paths.

Eight years after the disappearance of Cassandra, some disturbing incidents seem to indicate that she's still alive. Police, parents and Cassandra herself, will try to unravel the mystery of her disappearance.

Father and son coroners receive a mysterious unidentified corpse with no apparent cause of death. As they attempt to examine the "Jane Doe," they discover increasingly bizarre clues that hold the key to her terrifying secrets.

After a family moves into the Heelshire Mansion, their young son soon makes friends with a life-like doll called Brahms.

For years, mild-mannered Wall Street banker George Needleman has meandered through life oblivious to his family's dysfunction and his company's malfeasance, but he's forced to wake up when he learns that he's been framed in a mob-backed Ponzi scheme. Placed under federal protection, George and his family are shipped down South to Madea's house, where the no-nonsense matriarch whips them all into shape using her special brand of tough love.

After a plane crash, a young therapist, Claire, is assigned by her mentor to counsel the flight's five survivors. When they share their recollections of the incident -- which some say include an explosion that the airline claims never happened -- Claire is intrigued by Eric, the most secretive of the passengers.

Julia Kerbridge is working hard to get her doctorate. Suddenly, she finds herself the guardian of her young niece, Amanda, after the 7-year-old witnesses her parents' murder and is rendered mute. Julia soon discovers that her dead sister and brother-in-law may have held a secret life. Now, she must risk everything as the killers are still hunting Amanda for her parents' secret.

A survivor of the Jonestown massacre returns to the site 10 years later and discovers the cult's former home has become a breeding ground for the supernatural.

A group of high school teens steal a van full of music equipment and pretend to be a band called "Truckstop" in order to stay on the road. When the band starts playing gigs, their sound is largely inconsistent and incoherent, however, over time the band becomes increasingly competent in their musicianship.

When Pete and Ellie decide to start a family, they stumble into the world of foster care adoption. They hope to take in one small child but when they meet three siblings, including a rebellious 15 year old girl, they find themselves speeding from zero to three kids overnight.

Two boys, still grieving the death of their mother, find themselves the unwitting benefactors of a bag of bank robbery loot in the week before the United Kingdom switches its official currency to the Euro. What's a kid to do?

In the small town of Mumford, a psychologist of the same name moves in and quickly becomes very popular, despite a questionable past.

After flying home to L.A. for the funeral of his estranged record-producer father, a struggling man discovers that the will stipulates that he must deliver $150,000 in cash to a 30-year-old alcoholic sister he never knew existed, and her troubled 12-year-old son.

An African American couple (Winfield and Alice) adopt two orphans from a Vietnamese refugee camp. After twenty-two years, the children are reunited with their birth mother, bringing deeply submerged resentments and misconceptions to the surface and forcing the characters to reexamine their identity and relationships in both comical and poignant situations.

Little Billy witnesses his parents being brutally murdered by Santa. Years later, when he has to fill in for an absent in-store Santa Claus, his childhood trauma materializes once again.

College student Beth and her sorority sisters are stalked by an escaped psychopathic killer who shares a strange telepathic link with her.

After picking up a traumatized young hitchhiker, five friends find themselves stalked and hunted by a chainsaw-wielding killer and his family of equally psychopathic killers.

Jacob, a man who believes he is a wolf trapped in a human body, is sent to a clinic by his family where he is forced to undergo increasingly extreme forms of "curative" therapies at the hands of The Zookeeper. Jacob’s only solace is the enigmatic Wildcat, with whom he roams the hospital in the dead of night. The two form an improbable friendship that develops into infatuation.

At the end of WWII, Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot who fought in France, suffers from unexplainable symptoms and is admitted to a military hospital. When doctors suspect schizophrenia, an eccentric psychoanalyst takes up the case and starts a conversation with the veteran.

An alienated and misanthropic teenager gains sudden and unwanted celebrity status after he's taken hostage by terrorists where his indifference to their threats to kill him makes news headlines.

Nancy becomes increasingly convinced she was kidnapped as a child. When she meets a couple whose daughter went missing thirty years ago, reasonable doubts give way to willful belief.

After the death of a gangster, those familiar with his million dollar stash start mysteriously dying. Police detectives with the help of a clairvoyant try to determine who, living or dead, is responsible.

A recently-widowed science fiction writer considers whether to adopt a hyper-imaginative 6-year-old abandoned and socially-rejected boy who says he's really from Mars.

The difficult relationship between a british postal officer and his adoptive son.

Three delinquents murder a prosperous farmer at an isolated farm house. One witness to the crime - the dead man's secretary - is then taken hostage. The other witness - her young son - is thrown into state of shock. Can he recover soon enough to help the police - and his father - rescue his mother before it's too late?

Lt. Wakes is a vengeful police detective determined to solve the murders of his partner and an informant, and joins forces with a witness injured during the shootings. After the killers pursue the witness across the abandoned floor of a hospital, she confirms Wakes's worst fears.

Adapted from the Robert Cormier novel. This film follows the life of a young boy whose happy, if somewhat unusual life with his friends and family gradually starts to unravel, until the truth of the boy's situation is finally revealed.

Jumah is about to turn 16 and is already in need of a fresh start. Burdened with the shameful legacy of a past as a child soldier in the Congo, he lives with his adoptive mother in west London, where he struggles to keep a lid on his history of violence. One night, enjoying a rare carefree evening out with a new friend, Jumah witnesses something that draws him seemingly inescapably into his old ways. As he and others around him begin to question whether he can ever stop being a soldier, he’s set on a path to find out who he truly wishes to be.

Elyse appears, on the surface, to have it all - a beautiful family, and enviable home, a charmed lifestyle. However, all is not what it seems, and her enviable existence starts to unravel. Institutionalised following a catastrophic accident, she is deeply traumatised and seemingly unreachable. Only the care from her doctor and the unconditional love from her nurse might lead to her recovery.

An orphaned boy named Tomás is adopted by Maire O’Donnell to live on a whimsical Irish isle filled with new friends, secret caves and a lost baby pup seal stranded on the coast. But when Maire's reluctant husband Alec refuses to accept Tomás as his own son, the boy drifts down a fateful path of adventure and self-discovery, illuminating how rainbows can shine around - and within - us all.

When the daughter of a powerful senator is kidnapped by a psychopath, the senator requests a particular homicide detective, Caitlyn Conner, to head up the case. She knows the kidnapper better than anyone else - he just killed her husband. Against the advice of her closest friend, a police psychologist, Caitlyn enters the killer's web of sadistic games and discovers the crime is far more twisted than anyone imagined.

When an autistic boy witnesses his parents' double murder, controversial therapist Dr. Jake Rainer seeks to probe the child's mind in order to solve the case.

For the first time in 35 years, Daniel Lutz recounts his version of the infamous Amityville haunting that terrified his family in 1975. George and Kathleen Lutz's story went on to inspire a best-selling novel and the subsequent films have continued to fascinate audiences today. This documentary reveals the horror behind growing up as part of a world-famous haunting and while Daniel's facts may be others' fiction, the psychological scars he carries are indisputable. Documentary filmmaker Eric Walter has combined years of independent research into the Amityville case along with the perspectives of past investigative reporters and eyewitnesses, giving way to the most personal testimony of the subject to date.

Martha and Jed Richards live in Oregon in 1862. They and their two daughters moved there to make a new life, but the daughters died of cholera along the way. This has left Martha an emotional wreck, and she is unable to move on with her life. That is until an orphan named Danny comes to live with them. Jed immediately accepts Danny as his son, but Martha is still too upset to be able to love him. As time passes, however, she finds herself more and more able to accept him as part of the family.

The story of "Payne & Redemption" surrounds the psychological trauma endured by the film's main character, a weathered New York Detective, and his journey to seek redemption, after having to deal with a long line of traumatic incidents that have occurred in his recent life.

A school psychologist investigates the death of a student's mother and finds the boy believes he is the son of an alien being.

Young David, orphaned en route to California, falls into the hands of medicine-show rascal Baltimore Dan. Years later, now a trained thief, he's adopted by eccentric 'Doc' Brown, retired miner and pharmacist. Doc and David become fast friends in their scenic outdoor rambles. But when they discover a hidden treasure, the idyllic interlude gives way to more troubles and a strange coincidence.

A woman becomes suspicious when her adopted daughter's birth mother reenters her life and starts to display increasingly erratic behavior.

Since the death of their father, the Riley siblings have kept their heads above water by illegally dealing in painkillers. Josie is managing the business with an iron fist, when her brother, War veteran Kip, is concerned that the risky business is increasingly turning them into outsiders in their small community. While Kip wants to keep his younger brother out of their illegal endeavors, his younger brother is already making plans of his own.

A psychologist bonds with a child who witnessed his father's murder at the hands of rain-slicker wearing killer with a cargo hook.

In the year 2070, Caulder Benson is a government archivist officer charged by an increasingly invasive and restrictive government to destroy all elements and remnants of his society's self-indulgent and avaricious past.

Jenny Bilson, a high school senior, is the perfect student, a wonderful daughter to a veteran police detective and an all American Dream. But the one mistake she is unaware of making is about to haunt her in a very violent way, as her past returns for revenge.

Jim Rendall is 6 when his family gets killed. 25 years later he finds out why.

On Jonathan's seventh birthday, he witnessed a violent act toward his mother that triggered a mental collapse. After 10 years in a mental health facility, he is coming home to the only family he has left. Jonathan's aunt hopes he can live a normal life, but on the eve of his 17th birthday, things begin to get wicked as his imaginary friend decides to come out and play.

In Bangkok, an assassin who turns down a job that hits too close to home finds himself targeted by the elite members of his profession

During the last desperate months of World War II, an Allied mission to regain Ramree Island off the coast of Burma ends in horror when an embattled group of soldiers find themselves trapped in dense swampland infested with deadly saltwater crocodiles. As the men are picked off one by one by the hungry reptiles, those that remain resort to increasingly desperate measures to survive the onslaught of carnage and get off the island alive.

Four beautiful girls are down on their luck when one of them inherits a ramshackle broken down old Car Wash deep in the heart of South Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to the girls, ancient supernatural forces bringing murder, bloodshed and hilariously comical mayhem come along with it.

A mafia family from New Jersey is placed in the witness relocation program to an all-Mormon community in Utah.

(In development) Alex Watson is a young black man, raised in the secluded Highlands of Scotland by white adoptive parents. When Alex moves to Glasgow, he must leave his protective bubble behind and learn what being black in the modern world truly means.

Gangster and police look for a gangster's son who witnessed a murder.

Jeanine, an earnest theatre director, has been given the task of remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, she allows her repressed trauma to color the present as she re-enters the opera world after so many years away.

A compelling drama that explores the different meanings of being a parent through the gritty, realistic lives of a struggling family, and a privileged family. Their lives intersect, intertwine and collide, all for the love of a little boy. This film bravely exposes the humanity in each character reminding us that we each have the potential to be the best and worst versions of ourselves at any time.

A 12-year-old girl becomes jealous when her adoptive father develops a budding relationship with a woman and her teenage son.

The story of the pioneering project to rehabilitate child survivors of the Holocaust on the shores of Lake Windermere.

An author, who made a career by examining her own trauma sits down to interview her nephew for a new book about his history as a gender-nonconforming model and pansexual poster boy. Each of them reveal much more than expected and confront some of their most deeply hidden secrets.

A young man, Ben Freidman (Scott Wilson) raised by wealthy adoptive Jewish parents in Beverly Hills, decides that he is ready to finally meet his biological parents. He faces disappointment upon learning of the death of his biological mother. His biological father, meanwhile, resides in a psychiatric care unit.

A corrupt politician covers up his daughter Vicky's pregnancy by forcing her to give the baby up for adoption. The newborn is adopted by a loving couple unable to have children, but a year later Vicky, now in college, realizes she was forced into signing the papers and really wants her daughter back. After sneaking into the adoption agency to find out who the adoptive parents are, she takes them to court to fight for custody.

Amu is the story of Kaju, a twenty-one-year-old Indian American woman who returns to India to visit her family and discover the place where she was born. The film takes a dark turn as Kaju stumbles against secrets and lies from her past. A horrifying genocide that took place twenty years ago turns out to hold the key to her mysterious origins.

To the world Brian Roberts looks like a successful businessman, with a lovely wife and two children all living in a dream home. Nevertheless, he has really been working undercover for the Justice Department to snare a mob boss. When his cover is blown, he has to break the news to his family about the nature of his real job and, worse, that they are now in real danger! Consequently, they are forced into the federal government's Witness Relocation Program. However, the trauma to the family does not stop there, as the gangsters he double-crossed are determined he and his family shall not escape 'mob justice.'

During the brutal invasion of China in 1937 by Imperial Japanese forces, tens of thousands of civilians and prisoners of war are murdered and women raped in what is known simply as "The Rape of Nanking." This docudrama is a stirring account of a small band of courageous American missionaries who choose to stay in Nanking to try and protect a quarter million vulnerable Chinese civilians who are trapped in a city ruled by a savage, out of control army. Their stories are brought vividly to life through actual real-time letters and diaries as they bear witness to one of the worst wartime atrocities in history.

A young woman tries to repay her adoptive parents' kindness by shielding their biological child, who has gotten involved with an embezzler, from the police.

The outlaw Stragg has the town so intimidated that no one will speak against him no matter what he does. Sheriff Young heads for a nearby town, where there is a witness willing to testify. Meanwhile, Stragg hires a gunman to take care of the sheriff and the witness.

When a young woman overcoming her traumatic past is among several witnesses who see a man fatally assaulted and don't intervene, they find themselves targeted by someone, or something, out for revenge.

A group of broken souls attend a self-help seminar at a remote wooded retreat with a famous guru. In search of better lives, they must confront their deepest demons in the midst of their fellow wayward strangers. As they get pushed further and further by the program, they begin to confront their personal problems. But as their group therapy sessions become increasingly volatile - including lie detectors, fire arms, and experimental drugs - they begin to question the methods in spite of the results. What is their guru's real goal, and will his reckless pursuit of life change moments end up saving them...or destroying them?

After witnessing a brutal murder, a little girl is quickly surrounded by a group of law-enforcement professionals and a psychologist.

Rejected by her friends, harassed by the police, and dismissed by the medical profession, a determined Mia forces herself to attend a residential alternative therapy training, led by Franklin Spitz, a British celebrity therapist who specialises in resolving the causes of PTSD. Using increasingly provocative psychological techniques, he probes Mia for the hidden memories underlying her condition. But the goals of therapist and client are widely divergent - Mia is searching for reality and Franklin is desperately trying to avoid it.

An obsessive psychologist attempts to reprogramme her subconscious mind, but when her actions become increasingly uncharacteristic she fears her experiment is dangerously out of control.

Christy Dawson is a conduit between the worlds of the living and the dead. Unable to control or understand her ghostly visions, she's increasingly witness to disturbing glimpses into the future. Someone is killing everyone around her and she's running out of people who she can trust. Can Christy uncover the truth behind a decades-old mystery before ending up the next victim?

When a newlywed's husband is murdered she becomes stricken with agoraphobia. Trapped within the confines of her home, she begins to unravel the mystery of his death and invites in a world increasingly more dangerous.

A social worker is coming to Gru's house to check if it's suitable for children. Margo, Edith, Agnes and the Minions must take care of the situation.

The journey of a robot - ROZZUM unit 7134 - who is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings. The robot overcomes early suspicions to build relationships with the animals on the island and become the adoptive parent of an orphaned baby goose.