Based on the award winning novel by Aravind Adiga, Ramin Bahrani’s The White Tiger is a powerful and and gripping satire on the complex enigma that is modern India. It is one part rags-to-riches story, one part Dickensian melodrama, and one part psychological thriller. With direction that is smart and stylish, and dialogue that is quick witted and incisive, this is an incredibly faithful adaptation that manages to avoid the pitfalls that usually come with such fidelity. (We reviewed the movie on The Goggler Podcast, which you can listen to here.)
The greatest thing to come out of this country… is the Rooster Coop. The roosters in the coop smell the blood from above. They see the organs of their brothers. They know they’re next. Yet they do not rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with human beings in this country.
The themes in the film – class oppression, systemic corruption, and moral compromise – are both uniquely Indian and utterly universal. They speak to the plight of every society in every country, which makes the movie immediately relatable, irrespective of where in the world you are.
While watching The White Tiger, I couldn’t help but be reminded of these seven movies. None of them served to inspire the source material, but they nevertheless put forward a similar thesis. So, if you enjoyed The White Tiger and were looking for similar movies to sate your appetite for social criticism and the drawbacks of democracy, then you’ve come to the right place. (I promise you that Slumdog Millionaire isn’t on this list.)
In no particular order…
Shoplifters
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s meditation on family, love, and societal inequity in Tokyo has one of the most powerful final acts in any movie, ever. The last thirty minutes is an emotional roller-coaster that leave you deeply conflicted for long after the movie is over. It is haunting.
Joker
Balram’s journey in The White Tiger mirrors that of Arthur Fleck’s in Joker. Both men are used and abused by society. Both men are pushed to their psychological breaking points. And both men believe that they are trapped within a system that offers them no choice or opportunity for escape. Except maybe through violent means.
City of God
Even if Martin Scorsese and Charles Dickens made a movie about the slums of Rio, it wouldn’t come close to what Fernando Meirelles has accomplished with City of God. Much like The White Tiger, this unflinching look into the lives of all those trapped by an accident of birth makes a terrifying, yet truthful, claim: that poverty, and injustice, and inhumanity is designed into the system to keep its underclasses where they are. Forever.
The Intouchables
Let’s take a quick break now and indulge in something of a soothing fantasy. This simplistic fable about a rich white man who finds enlightenment by way of a wise Black man from the Paris ghettos sounds like the kind of movie that would make you gag. But it isn’t. The formula may be familiar (and even a little problematic), but there is so much joy in these performances that the movie manages to overcome any condescension or reductionist messaging. The Intouchables may be more Driving Miss Daisy than Gooodbye Solo (also by The White Tiger‘s director Ramin Bahrani), but you loved Omar Sy in Lupin, so why not watch him in his best role to date?
Parasite
Well, duh! Any list of movies about society, class, and the perils of capitalism must include Bong Joon-ho’s masterpiece. It is, after all, one of those rare critical darlings that actually exceeds expectations, both in its message and in the way it is delivered.
Ma Rosa
Filipino director Brillante Mendoza’s realist take on police corruption takes us into the deepest, darkest crevices of Manila, where the have-nots desperately do whatever it takes to survive in a world where they have no escape routes, and no access to justice. This is a hard movie to watch, but one that’s is made with such control and clarity that it never feels preachy or exploitative.
World of Tomorrow
After all of that despair, I felt like this playlist needed a hopeful coda. Don Hertzfeldt’s 16-minute animated masterpiece, World of Tomorrow, is a funny, moving, endlessly inventive tale about love, mortality, and humanity’s longing for connection. Its message is simple: “Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away, and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well, and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.”
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