Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for movies like Bad Apples:
The Drama
Like Bad Apples, Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama builds a whole movie out of one uncomfortable question and lets the cringe pile up. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson play an engaged couple whose wedding week unravels after a dinner-party game of “What’s the Worst Thing You’ve Ever Done?” goes very wrong. It’s a twisted rom-com that finds big laughs in watching nice people discover how ugly they can get.
Whiplash
Few films capture the toxic side of the teacher-student relationship as ferociously as Whiplash. Damien Chazelle pits Miles Teller’s ambitious young drummer against J.K. Simmons’ terrifying band leader Terence Fletcher, and the power struggle plays out with the tension of a thriller. More than a decade later, it still has a timeless, white-knuckle quality.
Send Help
Sam Raimi’s Send Help is another story about a mild-mannered professional who discovers just how far she’ll go once the rules disappear. Rachel McAdams plays Linda, an overlooked corporate strategist stranded on a deserted island with her smug boss (Dylan O’Brien) after a plane crash, and the power balance flips fast. It’s gleefully nasty, and Raimi fans are going to eat it up.
The Holdovers
For a much warmer look at a teacher stuck with a kid he can’t stand, there’s Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers. Paul Giamatti plays a rigid classics instructor forced to babysit the students who can’t go home for Christmas break at a New England boarding school in 1970, and Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph round out a perfect trio. It’s a gem and a modern holiday classic.
Kontinental ’25
Radu Jude’s Kontinental ’25 follows Orsolya (Eszter Tompa), a bailiff in Cluj who evicts a homeless man from a cellar and then spirals into a crisis of conscience when he takes his own life. Like Bad Apples, it’s a comedy about guilt that refuses to let its protagonist off the hook, and it’s a quieter, more disciplined film than Jude’s usual provocations.
Emily the Criminal
Aubrey Plaza is electric in Emily the Criminal as a debt-ridden woman who slides into a credit card fraud ring one “just this once” job at a time. John Patton Ford keeps the thriller lean and tense, and the film’s best moments come from watching an ordinary person realize she’s good at being bad.
How to Make a Killing
John Patton Ford’s follow-up to Emily the Criminal is a darker, sillier swing. Glen Powell stars as Becket Redfellow, a disinherited heir who decides the quickest route to the family fortune is bumping off the relatives standing in his way, with Margaret Qualley, Topher Grace, and Ed Harris along for the ride. It’s entertaining enough to recommend, with a few asterisks attached.
Saltburn
Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn shares Bad Apples’ taste for very British discomfort. Barry Keoghan plays Oliver, a scholarship student who wriggles his way into the summer plans of Jacob Elordi’s wealthy Felix Catton, and things get stranger and more depraved from there. It’s provocative and frequently compelling, even if it’s lighter on substance than it thinks.
Speak No Evil
If the scenes of polite people refusing to make a fuss are what hooked you on Bad Apples, Speak No Evil runs on the same anxiety. James McAvoy is a menacing host who invites a timid American family (Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy) to his remote English farmhouse. It’s a watered-down take on the brutal 2022 Danish original, but McAvoy is fun to watch.
Blitz
For more Saoirse Ronan, Steve McQueen’s Blitz casts her as a mother searching for her young son George (Elliott Heffernan) across a bombed-out London during World War II. It’s far too accomplished to dismiss, though Ronan feels restrained here, which makes her pitch-black comic turn in Bad Apples a welcome change of pace.
READ MORE: Movies Like Whiplash, Movies Like The Drama, Movies Like Lady Bird
