10 Best Movies Set in or About Malaysia

10 Movies Set in or About Malaysia

Foreign-led films whose sustained setting or subject remains centered on Malaysia.

1. 

   1. A Time to Swim

   2017

   This documentary follows Mutang, once a leading voice of resistance for the indigenous Penan of Sarawak and now a family man in Montreal, as he returns to Malaysia for the first time since his exile. A moving portrait of activism and homecoming.

2. 

   2. The Jungle Princess

   1936

   A big-game hunter in Malaysia mauled and left for dead is nursed back to health by a beautiful jungle girl raised in the wild with a pet tiger, and the two fall in love across the divide of civilization. An exotic adventure romance.

3. 

   3. Almayer's Folly

   La Folie Almayer · 2011

   In a remote corner of Malaysia, a European trader obsessed with a fabled treasure to secure his mixed-race daughter's future watches his dreams curdle into ruin and resentment. Chantal Akerman's languid, haunting adaptation of Conrad.

4. 

   4. Sandokan to the Rescue

   Sandokan alla riscossa · 1964

   When the pirate hero Sandokan discovers he is the rightful heir to a throne in Malaysia, he sets off to reclaim his birthright by force. A swashbuckling adventure.

5. 

   5. The Sleeping Dictionary

   2003

   In 1930s colonial Malaya, a young British officer is assigned a local woman to teach him the language and customs, and the two fall in love across the rigid lines of empire. A lush colonial romance.

6. 

   6. White Woman

   1933

   A nightclub singer marries a wealthy rubber-plantation owner and returns with him to Malaysia, only to discover he is a cruel, jealous tyrant — driving her toward the plantation's sympathetic overseer. A steamy jungle melodrama.

7. 

   7. Pirates of Malaysia

   I pirati della Malesia · 1964

   The dashing rebel-pirate Sandokan and his band of renegades wage war against a scheming British general trying to bend a local kingdom to his will. A swashbuckling adventure.

8. 

   8. Rampage

   1963

   In the jungles of colonial Malaysia, a British big-game hunter and an American trapper clash over the ethics of catching versus killing — and over the woman between them — as they pursue a legendary beast. An adventure drama.

9. 

   9. Turtle Beach

   1992

   An Australian journalist travels to Malaysia to report on the plight of Vietnamese boat people and is drawn into a fraught romance and the human tragedy unfolding on the shore. A political drama.

10. 

    10. Kabut Berduri

    2024

    A big-city detective sent to investigate a string of gruesome killings along the Indonesia-Malaysia border finds the case forcing her to confront ghosts from her own past. A moody crime thriller.