Film

Wild Tales

Six unconnected short films stitched together by one idea: what happens when people who are usually good stop holding it in. Weddings, road rage, bureaucratic injustice, all detonate into gleeful, occasionally horrifying escalation. It's darkly funny, expertly staged, and weirdly cathartic — for anyone who has ever fantasized about really telling someone off.

TMDb rating7.9

If you liked this

In Bruges2008

Two hitmen hide out in a fairy-tale Belgian city while guilt, farce and sudden violence collide; it nails the same trick as Wild Tales — comedy and cruelty sharing one breath.

But The tonal whiplash between slapstick and genuine anguish isn't for everyone, and the ending turns properly bleak.

In Bruges poster

Burn After Reading2008

A lost gym disc spirals into blackmail, adultery and murder among the most self-satisfied idiots the Coens ever assembled — pure escalating-chaos comedy with a genuinely mean streak.

But Everyone in it is stupid or awful, which some viewers find hilarious and others find exhausting after an hour.

Burn After Reading poster

Force Majeure2014

One split-second cowardly decision on a ski holiday quietly demolishes a marriage; it's Wild Tales' slow-motion cousin, watching civility crack under pressure instead of exploding outright.

But There's no catharsis here, just excruciating, funny-because-it-hurts discomfort that builds rather than releases.

Force Majeure poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Inside No. 92014

It's the anthology-with-a-sting-in-the-tail structure of Wild Tales, stretched across years of television instead of one sitting — same DNA, different format.

Each episode is a wholly separate short story, often about ordinary people cornered by greed, spite or bad luck into doing something unforgivable — the same anthology-with-a-sting idea, sharpened across a decade of television.

But Episodes vary wildly in tone and quality, and some are quieter puzzle-box mysteries rather than explosive comedy.

Inside No. 9 poster
More like this (8)

Amores Perros2000

Three stories collide around a single car crash in Mexico City, each one a study in how desperation curdles into violence — the same triptych-of-rage structure, done as tragedy.

But It's much longer and heavier than any single Wild Tales segment, with none of the punchline relief.

Amores Perros poster

Nocturnal Animals2016no page yet

A woman reads her ex-husband's violent manuscript and can't tell if it's fiction or a threat; a sleek, nasty revenge story told with the same relish for comeuppance.

But It's cold and stylised where Wild Tales is warm and messy — gorgeous to look at, harder to love.

Sightseers2012

A British couple's caravan holiday turns into an accidental murder spree over things as small as litter and rudeness — pettiness escalating to homicide, played dead straight for laughs.

But The humour is bone-dry and very English; it may not land the same broad, cathartic punch.

Sightseers poster

Kind Hearts and Coronets1949

A postwar classic about a man murdering his way up the family tree, delivered with such impeccable manners that the horror barely registers — proof this genre is decades old.

But Its black-and-white, stiff-upper-lip style is a world away from Wild Tales' modern, hot-blooded energy.

Kind Hearts and Coronets poster

Crash2005

An ensemble of strangers in Los Angeles collide over prejudice and simmering resentment, each story detonating from the same well of injustice Wild Tales taps into.

But It's earnest where Wild Tales is gleeful, and its message can feel heavy-handed compared to the anthology's lighter touch.

Crash poster

Seven Psychopaths2012

A screenwriter gets tangled with actual criminals while trying to write a movie about criminals — meta, violent, very funny, with the same appetite for people behaving badly.

But It's shaggier and more self-indulgent than Wild Tales, more interested in its own cleverness than in landing every story.

Seven Psychopaths poster

Le Corbeau1943

Same subject — what people do when secret grievances finally surface — but as a patient, collective unraveling instead of six separate individual snaps.

A French town is torn apart by anonymous poison-pen letters exposing everyone's secrets, and the resulting paranoia turns neighbours into enemies — the same explosion of buried resentment, decades before Wild Tales, shot in stark wartime black-and-white.

But It's a slow-burn noir with no jokes and no release valve; the tension simmers rather than detonates.

Le Corbeau poster

The Act of Killing2012

Wild Tales asks what ordinary people do without consequences; this documentary shows the real, horrifying answer, with no punchline to soften it.

Real Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their killings for the camera, sometimes as musical numbers, revealing what happens when violence goes not just unpunished but celebrated.

But This is not entertainment in any conventional sense — it's disturbing, morally vertiginous, and stays with you for the wrong reasons.

The Act of Killing poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by

Inside No. 9, Amores Perros, Paris Je T'aime, Lust Stories 3, Lust Stories