Despite its welcoming title, the plot of Spring Breakers isn't really something you'd want to happen on Spring Break. While on vacation, four young women (including Rachel Korine, Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, and Selena Gomez) meet a weirdo drug dealer named Alien. Alien soon drags the four women into the seedy underbelly of the crime world, and things, of course, go to absolute hell.
Spring Breakers was only the third movie released by A24, which has since gone on to become one of the leading names in the independent movie industry. And we have ten movies just like it.
These are ten movies like Spring Breakers that everyone needs to see.
10 Kids (1995)
Kids was a massively controversial movie when it was released in 1995. But that doesn't mean it's without merit. Like Spring Breakers, Kids concerns a group of young adults who are primarily concerned with partying, drugs, and hooking up. So, spring break.
Only Kids takes place within one day in New York City - very not spring break. Kids initially received an NC-17 rating for its crude and explicit content and received a mixed response from critics. However, some of them still found merit in the movie - like Rogert Ebert, who awarded it 3.5 stars out of 4.
9 Trash Humpers (2009)
Trash Humpers doesn't really make for an easy viewing experience, that's for sure. But then again, neither does Spring Breakers. Fittingly, they both share the same director.
Trash Humpers is a super low-budget experimental black comedy shot on a worn VHS tape, which is meant to give it a homegrown, authentic, and old school feel. The movie follows a band of sociopathic elders living in the dumps of Nashville, Tennessee. It has a 59% ratting on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a way better score than a provocative film like this typically receives. It speaks to its quality. Divisive quality, but quality nonetheless.
8 The Beach Bum (2019)
The Beach Bum is yet another movie from Harmony Korine, the writer and director behind Spring Breakers and Trash Humpers. And, like both of those movies, The Beach Bum is a divisive film. But fans of Matthew McConaughey absolutely need to check it out.
Even the critics and viewers who detested the film conceded that McConaughey was brilliant, and many people thought he would receive some major award recognition. He obviously didn't, but he really should have. It's the role of a lifetime.
7 Mister Lonely (2007)
Yep, it's another Harmony Korine movie! We would call that cheating, but Korine has such a distinctive filming and writing style that fans of Spring Breakers are sure to enjoy his prior work. Mister Lonely was released in 2007, and it concerns a Michael Jackson lookalike meeting a Marilyn Monroe impersonator and following her to a commune.
Here he meets other impersonators, including ones of the Pope, Madonna, and James Dean. It's deliriously weird, but then again, that's what Harmony Korine does well.
6 Good Time (2017)
Good Time is stylish, rapidly-paced, and completely off the walls crazy. Just what fans of Spring Breakers want! Good Time was directed by the Safdie brothers and earned quite a lot of buzz when it was released in 2017.
Critics lauded the movie (92% on Rotten Tomatoes), putting emphasis on its unique sense of style, the brilliant and rapid-fire editing, the general excitement of the plot, and especially Robert Pattinson's surprisingly great performance. Some would even argue that Good Time is what Spring Breakers wanted to be!
5 The Bling Ring (2013)
The Bling Ring sort of came and went in 2013, despite its stellar cast and crew. The movie was written and directed by Sofia Coppola and stars the likes of Emma Watson, Taissa Farmiga, and Leslie Mann. The story itself centers around a shallow and materialistic group of teenagers known as The Bling Ring who track celebrities on social media and use the knowledge of their locations to rob their homes.
Like Spring Breakers, it concerns a small group of young women who tend to bend the rules for their own personal benefit. It's good stuff.
4 Inherent Vice (2014)
Paul Thomas Anderson hit it out of the park yet again with Inherent Vice. This movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as Doc Sportello, a well-meaning but generally useless private investigator (and massive stoner) who investigates the disappearance of her ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend.
And, if you know Paul Thomas Anderson, then you know the movie is actually a lot more than that simple premise suggests. But if you like movies about seedy underbellies, then you should definitely check it out. You can't go wrong with Joaquin Phoenix.
3 Uncut Gems (2019)
Uncut Gems is another A24 film that shares a lot in common with movies like Spring Breakers and Good Time. Like them, Uncut Gems values style and a rapid pace. Like them, it concerns a story of unseasoned people getting in over their heads with crime and the seedy underbelly of the criminal world.
And, like them, everything ends in tragedy. Uncut Gems is also from the Safdie brothers, and some people may argue that they perfected their craft and signature style with this film. It's a masterpiece.
2 Ken Park (2002)
Okay, just one more Harmony Korine film. That said, Ken Park is a little different in that Korine only supplied the screenplay - the movie was co-directed by Larry Clark and Edward Lachman.
Like Spring Breakers, Ken Park follows a group of young adults/older teenagers, this time in Visalia, California. Said teenagers are the victims of unfortunate home lives, which include both physical and mental abuse at the hands of their parents and guardians. Can't forget that signature Korine darkness.
1 Heaven Knows What (2014)
Heaven Knows What is another film by the Safdie brothers, and it is much in keeping with Good Time and Uncut Gems.
This movie is quite unique in that it stars Arielle Holmes, an ex-heroin addict who lived homeless on the streets of New York. She was discovered by the Safdie brothers while they were working on Uncut Gems, and Josh Safdie paid her to write a memoir after learning of her amazing personal story. This unpublished memoir became the basis of Heaven Knows What, which was written (or adapted) by Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie.
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