Movies Like Yôkai bôkô

If you liked Yôkai bôkô (1981), a movie directed by Kensuke Sawa, 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
Imprint (2006)
★ 6.8/10
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.
2
Star of David: Beauty Hunting (1979)
★ 6.2/10
The life of Tatsuya, a young man of proper yet mysterious descent, whose outward respectability hides his urges for rape and torture.
3
The Transgressor (1974)
★ 6.4/10
18 years after the mysterious death of her mother, Maya takes religious vows to find out what terrible things happened to her mother inside the Sacred Heart Convent. As soon as the door closes to the nunnery, the nuns…
4
Tokyo Decadence (1992)
★ 6/10
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
Original Sin (2001)
★ 6.2/10
A young man is plunged into a life of subterfuge, deceit and mistaken identity in pursuit of a femme fatale whose heart is never quite within his grasp.
6
A Thousand and One Nights (1969)
★ 6.7/10
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.
7
Antiporno (2017)
★ 6.6/10
Kyôko, a traumatized young Japanese girl, finds herself struggling with her self-confidence in her adult life. Growing up in a family without her mother and her sister, she constantly questions the rationale of sex and…
8
Tuesday (2024)
★ 6.8/10
A mother and her teenage daughter must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird.
9
Audition (2000)
★ 7.1/10
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…
10
Porno (2019)
★ 6/10
When a group of naive teens working at a movie theater in a small Christian town discover a mysterious film hidden in its basement, they unleash an alluring succubus who gives them a sex education…written in blood.
11
Heatwave (2022)
★ 6.2/10
A woman's life takes an unexpected turn when she falls for her boss's wife. She must soon defend herself as she becomes entangled in a web of malice.
12
Horrible Bosses 2 (2014)
★ 6.2/10
Dale, Kurt and Nick decide to start their own business but things don't go as planned because of a slick investor, prompting the trio to pull off a harebrained and misguided kidnapping scheme.
13
Ruthless People (1986)
★ 6.6/10
Sam Stone hates his wife Barbara so much that he wants her dead. He's ecstatic when she's taken by a duo of kidnappers who want $500,000 ransom in exchange for her life. Fully intending to ignore every one of the…
14
In the Realm of the Senses (1976)
★ 6.6/10
A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.
15
Nine to Five (1980)
★ 7/10
Three female employees of a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot find a way to turn the tables on him.
16
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
★ 5.9/10
When college senior Anastasia Steele steps in for her sick roommate to interview prominent businessman Christian Grey for their campus paper, little does she realize the path her life will take. Christian, as enigmatic…
17
The Mother (2023)
★ 6.6/10
A deadly female assassin comes out of hiding to protect the daughter that she gave up years before, while on the run from dangerous men.
18
The Last House on the Left (2009)
★ 6.5/10
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…
19
Sex and Fury (1973)
★ 6.2/10
Sex & Fury chronicles Ocho's exploits as she searches for her father's killers, each identified by unique tattoos on their backs (a deer, a boar, and a butterfly). Along the way, she also crosses paths with Shunosuke…
20
The Duke of Burgundy (2015)
★ 6.3/10
Day in and day out, lovers Cynthia and Evelyn enact an elaborate sadomasochistic fantasy as mistress and maid. But as their ritual of domination and submission begins to turn stale, Cynthia yearns for something more…