Movies Like Tales of the Peony Lantern

If you liked Tales of the Peony Lantern (2006), a drama and horror movie directed by Akira Fukamachi, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
The Surrender (2025)
★ 5.9/10Also drama and horror
A fraught mother-daughter relationship is put to a terrifying test when the family patriarch dies, and the grieving mother hires a mysterious stranger to bring her husband back from the dead.
2
Imprint (2006)
★ 6.8/10Also horror
An American journalist travels through 19th-century Japan to find the prostitute he fell in love with but instead learns of the physical and existential horror that befell her after he left.
3
A Thousand and One Nights (1969)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and horror
Aldin, a vagabond water vendor, embarks of a series of fantastical and tragic misadventures through the Middle East in search of love, fortune, and power.
4
Tokyo Decadence (1992)
★ 6/10Also drama
A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that…
5
Female Yakuza Tale (1973)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
Ocho is accidentally captured by a drug trafficking cartel who use Chinese women to smuggle drugs into Japan by hiding it in their vaginas. She is tortured, and manages to escape, fighting both the male yakuzas and a…
6
Audition (2000)
★ 7.1/10Also horror and drama
Seven years after the death of his wife, widower Shigeharu seeks advice on how to find a new wife from a colleague. Taking advantage of their position as a film company, they stage an audition. Interviewing a series of…
7
Goodnight Mommy (2022)
★ 6.3/10Also horror
When twin brothers arrive home to find their mother’s demeanor altered and face covered in surgical bandages, they begin to suspect the woman beneath the gauze might not be their mother.
8
Urotsukidōji III: Return of the Overfiend (1993)
★ 6.6/10Also horror
As the Overfiend slumbers, the mad emperor Caesar rises to power, enslaving a new race of demon beasts. Into this cruel existence is born the Lord of Chaos, the Overfiend's nemesis. As the blood-thirsty beasts capture…
9
Southbound (2015)
★ 5.9/10Also horror
The film contains five stories set on desolate stretches of a desert highway. Two men on the run from their past, a band on its way to a gig, a man struggling to get home, a brother in search of his long-lost sister…
10
Lockdown (2000)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
Avery (Jones) returns to college as a competitive swimmer after getting his life back on track. But his life takes another unexpected turn when he and his two friends (Bonds, Casseus) are wrongly accused of murder and…
11
Werewolf: The Beast Among Us (2012)
★ 5.9/10Also drama and horror
Set in a 19th century village, a young man studying under a local doctor joins a team of hunters on the trail of a wolf-like creature.
12
The Last House on the Left (2009)
★ 6.5/10Also horror and drama
When athletic teen Mari Collingwood opts to hang out with her friend Paige in town rather than spend an evening in with her parents vacationing at the family's remote lake house, it marks the beginning of a night no…
13
Savaged (2014)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and horror
After thugs brutalize a deaf-mute woman, the spirit of an Apache warrior takes over her lifeless body and sets out on a bloodthirsty quest for revenge.
14
Ichi the Killer (2001)
★ 7/10Also horror
As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of.
15
Nymphomaniac: Vol. II (2013)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
The continuation of Joe's sexually dictated life delves into the darker aspects of her adult life and what led to her being in Seligman's care.
16
Night of the Hunted (2023)
★ 6.1/10Also horror
When an unsuspecting woman stops at a remote gas station in the dead of night, she's made the plaything of a sociopath sniper with a secret vendetta. To survive, she must not only dodge his bullets and fight for her…
17
Strange Darling (2024)
★ 6.9/10Also horror
Nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer’s vicious murder spree.
18
Tomie: Rebirth (2001)
★ 7.2/10Also horror
Young art student Hideo paints an unnerving portrait of Tomie, who whispers that she loves him. Inexplicably, he reacts by stabbing her to death with a painting trowel. Two friends, Takumi and Shunichi, arrive on the…
19
Antichrist (2009)
★ 6.6/10Also drama and horror
A grieving couple retreats to their cabin 'Eden' in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.
20
Wasp (2003)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Zoë is a single mother who lives with her four children in Dartford. She is poor and can't afford to buy food. One day her old flame drives by and asks her to go on a date with him. Scared that he doesn't want to go…