Highest-Rated Movies about 'Psychological Manipulation'

Inception (2010), Sunset Blvd. (1950), Some Like It Hot (1959), Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992), Gone Girl (2014), In the Name of the Father (1993), Le Samouraï (1967), Omkara (2006) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Psychological Manipulation movies.

#1. Inception (2010)

Storyline: Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible - inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.

Plot Keywords: dream, subconscious, ambiguous ending, thief, psycho thriller, surprise ending, written by director ...

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#2. Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Storyline: In Hollywood of the 50's, the obscure screenplay writer Joe Gillis is not able to sell his work to the studios, is full of debts and is thinking in returning to his hometown to work in an office. While trying to escape from his creditors, he has a flat tire and parks his car in a decadent mansion in Sunset Boulevard. He meets the owner and former silent-movie star Norma Desmond, who lives alone with her butler and driver Max Von Mayerling. Norma is demented and believes she will return to the cinema industry, and is protected and isolated from the world by Max, who was her director and husband in the past and still loves her. Norma proposes Joe to move to the mansion and help her in writing a screenplay for her comeback to the cinema, and the small-time writer becomes her lover and gigolo. When Joe falls in love for the young aspirant writer Betty Schaefer, Norma becomes jealous and completely insane and her madness leads to a tragic end.

Plot Keywords: butler, madness, recluse, hollywood california, actress, delusion, comeback ...

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#3. Some Like It Hot (1959)

Storyline: When two Chicago musicians, Joe and Jerry, witness the the St. Valentine's Day massacre, they want to get out of town and get away from the gangster responsible, Spats Colombo. They're desperate to get a gig out of town but the only job they know of is in an all-girl band heading to Florida. They show up at the train station as Josephine and Daphne, the replacement saxophone and bass players. They certainly enjoy being around the girls, especially Sugar Kane Kowalczyk who sings and plays the ukulele. Joe in particular sets out to woo her while Jerry/Daphne is wooed by a millionaire, Osgood Fielding III. Mayhem ensues as the two men try to keep their true identities hidden and Spats Colombo and his crew show up for a meeting with several other crime lords.

Plot Keywords: sex comedy, comedy of errors, 1920s, disguise, farce, organized crime, prohibition ...

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#4. Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992)

Storyline: This film showcases Noam Chomsky, one of America's leading linguists and political dissidents. It also illustrates his message of how government and big media businesses cooperate to produce an effective propaganda machine in order to manipulate the opinions of their populations. The key examples featured for this analysis are the simultaneous events of the massive coverage of the communist atrocities of Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia and the suppression of news of the US supported Indonesian invasion and subjugation of East Timor.—Kenneth Chisholm <kchishol@execulink.com>

Plot Keywords: media, media coverage, media manipulation, vietnam war, intellectual, theory, speech ...

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#5. Gone Girl (2014)

Storyline: On the occasion of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne reports that his wife, Amy, has gone missing. Under pressure from the police and a growing media frenzy, Nick's portrait of a blissful union begins to crumble. Soon his lies, deceits and strange behavior have everyone asking the same dark question: Did Nick Dunne kill his wife?

Plot Keywords: disappearance, missing person, murder suspect, husband wife relationship, based on novel, infidelity, missing wife ...

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#6. In the Name of the Father (1993)

Storyline: Young Belfastian Gerry Conlon admits that he was in London at the time of the incident. He also admits that he is not a model citizen, having committed a petty robbery while in London. He does however profess his innocence when it comes to the bombing of the Guildford Pub in London in 1974, the event which killed several people inside. A self-professed non-political person, he and his three co-accused, dubbed the Guildford Four, are thought to be provisional members of the IRA. Their self-professed innocence is despite each having signed a statement of guilt which they claim were signed under duress. Their case includes having provable alibis for the time frame of the bombing. And eventually, Joe McAndrew, a known IRA member, admits to the bombing. Dubbed the Maguire Seven, seven others, primarily members of Gerry's extended family including his father Giuseppe, are accused of being accessories to the bombing. Following on the work initiated by Giuseppe, Gerry works on a campaign to ...

Plot Keywords: prison, father son relationship, based on true story, prisoner, wrongful arrest, prison guard, prison warden ...

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#7. Le Samouraï (1967)

Storyline: Hitman Jef Costello is a perfectionist who always carefully plans his murders and who never gets caught. One night however, after killing a night-club owner, he's seen by witnesses. His efforts to provide himself with an alibi fail and more and more he gets driven into a corner.

Plot Keywords: neo noir, police lineup, detective, very little dialogue, paris france, nightclub, based on novel ...

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#8. Omkara (2006)

Storyline: Advocate Raghunath Mishra has arranged the marriage of his daughter, Dolly, with Rajan, knowing fully well that Dolly loves Omkara Shukla. Before the marriage could take place, the groom's party is attacked, they flee, and Dolly is reportedly abducted. Raghunath is able to trace Dolly to Omkara, a criminal and hit-man, a verbal confrontation ensues until Politician Bhaisaab telephonically intervenes, and a crestfallen Raghunath faces the reality that Dolly was not abducted but is here with Omkara by her own free will. He warns Omkara, and departs. Shortly thereafter, Bhaisaab is shot at and wounded, announces that Omkara should stand in the next election, and as a result, Omkara appoints one of his lieutenants', Keshav Upadhyay in his place as the 'Bahubali". Omkara realizes that he may have blundered in having Keshav succeed him, as Keshav is unable to control his temper when under the influence of alcohol, which puts him in the bad books of Omkara. Then Omkara suspects that Keshav ...

Plot Keywords: character name as title, train, murder of wife, motorcycle, envy, deception, dancer ...

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#9. Moon (2009)

Storyline: Sam Bell has a three year contract to work for Lunar Industries. For the contract's entire duration, he is the sole employee based at their lunar station. His primary job responsibility is to harvest and periodically rocket back to Earth supplies of helium-3, the current clean and abundant fuel used on Earth. There is no direct communication link available between the lunar station and Earth, so his only direct real-time interaction is with GERTY, the intelligent computer whose function is to attend to his day to day needs. With such little human contact and all of it indirect, he feels that three years is far too long to be so isolated; he knows he is beginning to hallucinate as the end of his three years approaches. All he wants is to return to Earth to be with his wife Tess and their infant daughter Eve, who was born just prior to his leaving for this job. With two weeks to go, he gets into an accident at one of the mechanical harvesters and is rendered unconscious. Injured, he ...

Plot Keywords: moon, solitude, memory, minimal cast, cult film, panties, wedding ring ...

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#10. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Storyline: The real story behind the world of sales. This is a realistic portrayal of what it is to try making a life in high pressure sales with all its highs and lows; promises of fortunes and deliveries of dross. Red-leads and dead-leads are to blame for life's outcomes. Living with "Objection, Rebuttal, Close".

Plot Keywords: dialogue driven, office, rain, all male cast, employer employee relationship, money, men's bathroom ...

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#11. The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Storyline: Passengers on a scheduled train out of the mountainous European country of Mandrika are delayed by a day due to an avalanche, and thus get up close and personal with each other out of necessity in the only and what becomes an overcrowded inn in the area. Once the train departs, the one person who it is uncertain is on the train is a middle aged English governess named Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty). Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood), who was vacationing in Mandrika with girlfriends before heading back to England to get married, is certain that Miss Froy was on the train as they were in the same compartment and they had tea together in the dining car, but all those people who can corroborate her story don't seem to want to do so. Iris' thoughts are easily dismissed as a possible concussion as Iris was hit over the head just before boarding the train. Iris will take anyone's help in finding Miss Froy, even that of an Englishman named Gilbert (Sir Michael Redgrave), a musicologist with ...

Plot Keywords: train movie, spy, manipulative behavior, psychological manipulation, disappearance, train, receptionist ...

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#12. Night Is My Future (1947)

Storyline: The ambitious Stanton "Stan" Carlisle works in a sideshow as carny and assistant of the mentalist Zeena Krumbein, who is married with the alcoholic Pete. The couple had developed a secret code to pretend to read minds and was successful in the show business before Pete starts drinking. Stan stays with them expecting to learn their code and leave the carnival to be a successful mentalist. Stan also flirts with the gorgeous Molly that lives in the carnival with the strong Bruno. Zeena and The Savage, an alcoholic man that eats live chickens that the audiences believe that is a savage, are the greatest attractions of the sideshow. When Stan gives booze to Pete and he dies, Stan finds that Pete had drunk methyl alcohol and not his booze, but he feels guilty for the death of him. Zeena teaches the code to him and Molly helps Stan to learn them. After an incident, Stan is forced to marry Molly and he decides to move to Chicago with her to become a sensation in a night club. One day, he meets the psychologist Lilith Ritter and he finds that she tapes the sessions with her clients from the high-society. The trickster Stan envisions a scheme to raise a high amount of money swindling rich people. But his ambition brings him back to the life in the sideshow.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Plot Keywords: blackmail, con artist, mind reading, tarot card, psychologist, carnival, alcoholic ...

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#13. Ex Machina (2014)

Storyline: Caleb, a 26 year old programmer at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.

Plot Keywords: artificial intelligence, minimal cast, video surveillance, robot, written by director, existentialism, female frontal nudity ...

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#14. Whistle Down the Wind (1962)

Storyline: Little Kathy (Hayley Mills) discovers a man wanted for murder hiding in her family's barn. When she asks him who he is, he says Jesus Christ just before he goes unconscious. Kathy and her siblings are convinced that he is Jesus, and try to hide him from grown-ups.—Nasser <NasKU@aol.com>

Plot Keywords: farm, directorial debut, fugitive, coming of age, based on novel, manipulative man, pretending to be someone else ...

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#15. Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

Storyline: In Mexico City, late teen friends Tenoch Iturbide and Julio Zapata are feeling restless as their respective girlfriends are traveling together through Europe before they all begin the next phase of their lives at college. At a lavish family wedding, Tenoch and Julio meet Luisa Cortés, the twenty-something wife of Tenoch's cousin Jano, the two who have just moved to Mexico from Spain. Tenoch and Julio try to impress the beautiful Luisa by telling her that they will be taking a trip to the most beautiful secluded beach in Mexico called la Boca del Cielo (translated to Heaven's Mouth), the trip and the beach which in reality don't exist. When Luisa learns of Jano's latest marital indiscretion straight from the horse's mouth, she takes Tenoch and Julio's offer to go along on this road trip, meaning that Tenoch and Julio have to pull together quickly a road trip to a non-existent beach. They decide to head toward one suggested by their friend Saba, who seems a little confused himself of ...

Plot Keywords: female sex abuser, threesome, on the road, skinny dipping, male male kiss, cunnilingus, bikini ...

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