Film

Underground

Name: Underground
Genre: Comedy, Drama, War
Released: 1995
Cast: Predrag 'Miki' Manojlović, Lazar Ristovski, Mirjana Joković, Slavko Štimac, Ernst Stötzner

Other titles called Underground: the 2016 series (NewsNation).

War drama

Emir Kusturica's three-hour epic follows black marketeers navigating WWII Belgrade and post-Communist Yugoslavia with surreal dark comedy. It's a carnival of corruption, betrayal, and survival across decades, mixing knockabout humor with genuine horror. For those willing to sit with moral ambiguity and bizarre tonal shifts, it's unforgettable; simultaneously satirical and savage.

TMDb rating

3.9

If you liked this

Come and See1985

A masterpiece about childhood obliterated by war. Elem Klimov creates something that feels less like cinema and more like a wound. Brutal, visionary, and absolutely essential.

But It is relentlessly, almost unwatchably dark. No relief, no reprieve. This is not entertainment; it demands endurance and emotional surrender.

The Death of Stalin2017

Armando Iannucci's savage comedy about political chaos in the Soviet power vacuum. Sharp, cynical, endlessly inventive—bureaucratic absurdity as black comedy at its finest.

But The satirical speed and density require active attention. If you want cozy, this isn't it. Also shot in black and white, which not everyone vibes with.

Stalker1979

Tarkovsky's philosophical meditation on desire, faith, and meaning. Hypnotic, deliberately paced, visually stunning. A film that trusts you to sit with long silences and find profundity there.

But It moves at its own glacial speed and offers no plot in the conventional sense. Some find it transcendent; others find it a three-hour wait for something to happen.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Underground

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Happiness1998

Both mix vicious comedy with moral horror. Both suggest that ordinary people contain extraordinary capacity for betrayal and cruelty. Both refuse to look away or offer comfort.

Todd Solondz's savage suburban comedy-tragedy. Shocking, grotesque, deeply funny, deeply sad. It finds absurdity and monstrosity in ordinary lives with a tone that shifts from laugh-out-loud to nauseated.

But Contains extreme content—pedophilia, obscenity, humiliation. Not shocking for its own sake, but genuinely unsettling. The tonal whiplash isn't for everyone.

Werckmeister Harmonies2001

Béla Tarr's apocalyptic vision of a town collapsing into chaos and violence. Long takes, crushing atmosphere, moral vertigo. Utterly distinctive and devastating.

But Black and white, minimal plot, seven minutes between cuts. It's as much an endurance test as an experience. Not for viewers seeking narrative momentum.

The Notebook2004

Sergei Kossakovsky documents a Ukrainian couple's sixty-year marriage with tenderness and specificity. Intimate, meditative, genuinely moving without sentimentality. A quiet masterpiece.

But Nothing much happens. It's a portrait, not a story. The pace is glacial, the subject matter domestic. If you need plot, look elsewhere.

A Prophet2009

Jacques Audiard's brutal, propulsive prison drama about a young man's metamorphosis into a criminal operator. Visceral, intelligent, impossible to look away from.

But Violent and bleak throughout. The protagonist isn't sympathetic—he's ruthlessly ambitious. If you want moral clarity or redemption, you won't find it.

Ran1985

Kurosawa's Lear on the battlefield. Epic, painterly, devastating. A meditation on power, betrayal, and the meaninglessness of ambition wrapped in samurai spectacle.

But Nearly three hours, dense with characters and political intrigue. The pacing is unhurried. Some sequences are slow even by art-film standards.

The Lives of Others2006

A Stasi informant is transformed by surveillance of a playwright and his lover. Tense, emotionally precise, morally complex. One of the finest films about the cost of totalitarianism.

But The second half becomes more conventional and slightly less interesting. Some find the emotional arc sentimental after the cold precision of the first hour.

Winter Light1963

Bergman's bleak masterpiece about a pastor losing his faith amid moral paralysis. Sparse, intimate, crushing. Raw existential despair without sentimentality.

But Glacially slow, shot in black and white, preoccupied with doubt and emptiness. If you watch films to feel better about yourself, this isn't the one.

The Ascent1977

Same director as Come and See, same moment in history, but where that film is visceral realism, this is hallucinatory poetry. Both depict moral degradation under totalitarianism through completely different formal strategies.

Elem Klimov's (Come and See) earlier masterpiece about two Soviet partisans during WWII that becomes something else entirely—spiritual, surreal, apocalyptic. A fever dream of suffering and transcendence.

But Russian language, made during the Soviet era, deliberately obscure and unsettling. The surrealism intensifies as it goes. Requires genuine engagement; it won't explain itself.