#1. The Unloved (2009)

Storyline: Lucy is 11-years-old and lives with her father. One day, not for the first time, he beats her. The next time she returns to school, Lucy asks to see her social worker Jackie. Lucy is known to social services and has been in foster care before, but none of her foster parents have any placements available. Jackie takes her to a children's home, Crop Row, where she is left with nothing except the school uniform she is wearing.

Plot Keywords: child, father, social worker, teen girl, dark, sad, raw ...

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#3. I'm Not Scared (2003)

Storyline: In a small town in Italy in 1978, 9-year-old Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano) finds Fillipo (Mattia Di Perro), seemingly dead in a deep hole in the ground, while on a bike ride with friends. Terrified of what he has seen, Michele decides not to tell his father. After returning to the scene, Michele discovers that Fillipo is still alive and bound by a chain. Michele continues to keep his secret as he makes several visits to Fillipo, who has no memory of the events leading up to his captivity.

Plot Keywords: boy, abductee, father, bad guy, disturbing, sad, shocking ...

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#4. Mouchette (1967)

Storyline: Young teen Mouchette (Nadine Nortier) faces hardships everywhere in her difficult life. Her father (Paul Hébert) is a cruel drunk who neglects her. Meanwhile, her mother (Marie Cardinal) lies ill, slowly dying. One day, fleeing a rainstorm, Mouchette comes across Arsène (Jean-Claude Guilbert), a poacher with a violent streak. He lets her take shelter in his cabin but then assaults her. Arsène even blackmails Mouchette to involve her in a cover-up for a crime he's committed.

Plot Keywords: teen girl, father, mother, poacher, warden, teacher, dark ...

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#5. Sybil (1976)

Storyline: This tale of child abuse and and its deep psychological scars, based on a true story, follows Sybil (Sally Field), an introverted student living alone in New York City who suffers from multiple personality disorder. Haunted by nightmares of her past, Sybil starts seeing a psychiatrist named Dr. Cornelia B. Wilbur (Joanne Woodward). When Dr. Wilbur discovers Sybil has over a dozen different personalities, she becomes obsessed with uncovering her patient's tortured childhood in order to heal her.

Plot Keywords: student, psychiatrist, mother, doctor, sad, intense, shocking ...

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#7. Udaan (2010)

Storyline: After being abandoned for eight straight years in boarding school, Rohan returns to the small industrial town of Jamshedpur and finds himself closeted with an authoritarian father and a younger half brother who he didn't even know existed. Forced to work in his father's steel factory and study engineering against his wishes, he strives to forge his own life out of his given circumstances and pursue his dream of being a writer.

Plot Keywords: student, half brother, father, uncle, emotional, moving, charming ...

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#9. Nobody Knows (2004)

Storyline: In Tokyo, the reckless single mother Keiko moves to a small apartment with her twelve years old son Akira Fukushima and his siblings Shigeru and Yuki. Kyoko, another sibling arrives later by train. The children have different fathers and do not have schooling, but they have a happy life with their mother. When Keiko finds a new boyfriend, she leaves the children alone, giving some money to Akira and assigning him to take care of his siblings. When the money runs out, Akira manages to find means to survive with the youngsters without power supply, gas or water at home, and with the landlord asking for the rent.

Plot Keywords: brother, sister, mother, friend, landlord, touching, sad ...

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#10. The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Storyline: It's the Great Depression. In the process of robbing a bank of $10,000, Ben Harper kills two people. Before he is captured, he is able to convince his adolescent son John and his daughter Pearl not to tell anyone, including their mother Willa, where he hid the money, namely in Pearl's favorite toy, a doll that she carries everywhere with her. Ben, who is captured, tried and convicted, is sentenced to death. But before he is executed, Ben is in the state penitentiary with a cell mate, a man by the name of Harry Powell, a self-professed man of the cloth, who is really a con man and murderer, swindling lonely women, primarily rich widows, of their money before he kills them. Harry does whatever he can, unsuccessfully, to find out the location of the $10,000 from Ben. After Ben's execution, Harry decides that Willa will be his next mark, figuring that someone in the family knows where the money is hidden. Despite vowing not to remarry, Willa ends up being easy prey for Harry's outward ...

Plot Keywords: boy, girl, preacher, wife, murderer, chilling, brooding ...

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#11. Shoplifters (2018)

Storyline: A Japanese couple stuck with part-time jobs and hence inadequate incomes avail themselves of the fruits of shoplifting to make ends meet. They are not alone in this behaviour. The younger and the older of the household are in on the act. The unusual routine is about to change from care-free and matter-of-fact to something more dramatic, however, as the couple open their doors to a beleaguered young girl. The reasons for the family's habit and their motivations come under the microscope.

Plot Keywords: shoplifter, man, outsider, child, orphan, abusive father, engaging ...

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#12. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Storyline: The story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's Kaun Banega Crorepati? (2000) (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. Each chapter of Jamal's increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show's seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really ...

Plot Keywords: teenager, young boy, young girl, criminal, police officer, host, inspiring ...

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#13. Mystic River (2003)

Storyline: In the summer of 1975 in a neighborhood in Boston, three kids, Dave Boyle and two of his friends, Jimmy Markum and Sean Devine, are playing on the sidewalk when Dave gets abducted by two men and endures several days of sexual abuse. Eventually, Dave escapes traumatized throughout adulthood. Jimmy (Sean Penn) is an ex-con and a father of three, whose daughter Katie (Emmy Rossum), is found dead, and Dave (Tim Robbins) becomes the number one suspect. Sean (Kevin Bacon) is a homicide detective, investigating Katie's murder, ends up finding himself faced with past and present demons as more is uncovered about Katie's murder. Learning Katie had a boyfriend, ballistics later turn up a gun belonging to the father, which then puts her boyfriend as the suspect. Will Sean find out who killed Katie? Will Jimmy make it through the investigation? And will Dave ever find out what really happened when he was abducted?

Plot Keywords: ex-convict, detective, blue-collar worker, daughter, police chief, wife, dark ...

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#14. Dark Days (2000)

Storyline: Near Penn Station, next to the Amtrak tracks, squatters have been living for years. Marc Singer goes underground to live with them, and films this "family." A dozen or so men and one woman talk about their lives: horrors of childhood, jail time, losing children, being coke-heads. They scavenge, they've built themselves sturdy one-room shacks; they have pets, cook, chat, argue, give each other haircuts. A bucket is their toilet. Leaky overhead pipes are a source of water for showers. They live in virtual darkness. During the filming, Amtrak gives a 30-day eviction notice.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: homeless person, convict, prisoner, dark, dense, uneasy, prison ...

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#15. Happiness (1998)

Storyline: A woman breaks up with her boyfriend, he thinks it's because he's fat. A man is unable to tell her next door neighbor he finds her sexually attractive. An old couple wants to split up, but they don't want to get a divorce. A therapist masturbates to teen magazines. An 11 year old kid is insecure about the fact that he hasn't cum yet. Office workers try to recall the face of a coworker who recently died. A woman is sure she has everything she could ever want. The lives of these individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.

Plot Keywords: musician, writer, wife, psychiatrist, young boy, neighbor, dark ...

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