Television series
Somos.
- Drug-trade crime
- Social drama
- Very dark
Somos. documents the 2011 massacre in Allende, Mexico, where cartel violence devastated a border community. It's a sober, anger-filled series that treats real suffering with gravity, weaving together testimony and reconstruction to show how ordinary people became trapped in catastrophe. Difficult and essential.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you want a slow, patient look at how ordinary households absorb violence they never invited, told through many small domestic moments rather than a single hero's arc.
Skip it if you need propulsive crime plotting and clear-cut villains, since this moves at a measured pace and keeps its attention on grief and community rather than on the gangsters themselves.
What it asks of you: Settle in for six episodes of about fifty-two minutes each, a slow build that lingers on ordinary routines before the mood darkens.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Narcos2015
The definitive dramatization of the drug trade's reach and consequence. It has Somos.'s unflinching eye for how criminality reshapes entire societies, with the advantage of narrative momentum and brilliant casting.
But Ten episodes is a commitment, and the earlier seasons can feel like they're celebrating the very violence they claim to critique. Some find that morally queasy.
Mare of Easttown2021
A murder investigation in a small American town where everyone knows everyone. Kate Winslet's detective is worn down by accumulated loss. It has the same quality of grief and community rupture as Somos.
But The crime itself is secondary to the emotional weight. Some viewers find the pacing glacial and want more conventional detective work.
City of God2002
A Brazilian favela's descent into cartel warfare told through interlocking stories and dizzying energy. It captures how structural violence devours a community's future with more stylistic power than most.
But The formal inventiveness—split screens, rapid cutting, typography—can feel at odds with the gravity of what's being shown. Some find it exploitative despite good intentions.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Somos.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Grave of the Fireflies1988
Both use intimate human detail to show how large historical violence erases ordinary life. Neither offers catharsis or the comfort of narrative shape. They document loss.
An animated film about two children surviving Japan's firebombing in WWII. Like Somos., it refuses to distance you from civilian catastrophe—the medium makes the intimacy inescapable.
But It is one of the most devastating experiences cinema offers. If you watch it, you will be affected for days. Not entertainment, even by the standards of difficult art.
More like this (7)
Sicario2015
A thriller about the machinery of border drug enforcement that reveals how complicit institutions enable cartels. It's Somos. as procedural: tense, methodical, corrupt at every level.
But Morally murky and deliberately unsatisfying. The protagonist's powerlessness extends to the viewer, which some experience as frustrating rather than clarifying.
The Killing2011
A Danish detective series where a single murder opens onto systemic corruption and institutional failure. It's meticulous about how violence destroys communities from within.
But The first season is 20 episodes of the same case, shot in perpetual rain and grey. If you need resolution and brightness, look elsewhere.
La Bête Humaine1938
Renoir's study of how violence infects ordinary life through jealousy and circumstance. A reminder that cartel narratives have deep roots in how cinema sees crime and desire.
But It's black-and-white 1930s cinema. The pacing is deliberate, the dialogue spare. Modern viewers often find it harder to enter than contemporary work.
Godless2017
A Western where a lawless town and its power structures collapse when one man arrives. Like Somos., it's about how violence destabilizes everything—community, kinship, safety—in real time.
But Ambitious but uneven. Some episodes drag, and the tonal shifts between drama and spectacle don't always land. It's a noble failure.
Élite2018
A Spanish series about wealth, class, and how violence erupts among privileged teenagers. It shares Somos.'s interest in how proximity and consequence remake a community.
But Increasingly baroque plotting in later seasons, with soap-opera twists. If you want realism over intrigue, it drifts further from that with each season.
Come and See1985
Both refuse to separate the political from the personal. Both show violence not as plot but as a force that annihilates the future.
A Belarusian film about a boy conscripted into WWII that shows warfare's dehumanization with unmatched intensity. The closest cinema has come to capturing what Somos. documents: the destruction of a person's capacity to live.
But Genuinely hard to watch. Not because of gore, but because of what it insists you witness. Some call it the most difficult film ever made.
The Act of Killing2012
Both examine atrocity through form and witness. Both ask how we record violence without either sanitizing or sensationalizing it. Both suggest there are no clean answers.
A documentary where Indonesian mass murderers reenact their killings. It inverts Somos.'s approach—instead of testimony from survivors, we hear from perpetrators forced to confront themselves. Extraordinary and unsettling.
But The ethical questions are real and unresolved. Asking killers to perform their crimes, even in reenactment, can feel complicit. Some viewers find it morally compromised by its own method.
