Best movies like Heat Wave
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
One hot afternoon in the south of France, several paths are converging towards a tragic conclusion. Those involved are: Stéphane and Luigi, two cousins who have just emerged from adolescence; Georges, a retired old man; Amélie, Luigi’s girlfriend; and Amélie’s mother Anne. Little do they know how their lives, scarred by fear, humiliation and weariness, will become intertwined and propel them to a terrible outcome.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 436
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, crying
Best tv shows and movies like Heat Wave (2011):
Similar in 78%
Mateo Falcone (2009)
Plot Summary:
Corsica in the 19th century. An isolated farm at the edge of some scrub. Left to alone by his parents, Fortunato must deal with a fugitive who asks the boy to hide him in exchange for a gold coin. From then on, the boy finds himself caught up in a world of male violence.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 28
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 65 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, tense, serious, realistic, suspense, biting
Similar in 78%
Cold Water (1994)
Plot Summary:
An outer suburb of Paris, 1972. Gilles and Christine, both sixteen, are classmates and lovers who have become frustrated with the aloofness of their families and the general monotony of their lives. When the pair are caught shoplifting, Christine's father ships her off to a home for emotionally disturbed children, temporarily putting space between her and Gilles. Luckily for them, though, she escapes and the couple contemplate running away together.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, realistic, serious, emotional, thought provoking, art house, independent film, atmospheric, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Pretend I'm Not Here (2000)
Plot Summary:
Student Eric kills time by spying on his neighbors. Compulsively taking notes on everything within binocular range from his bedroom window, he harasses his neighbors by sending unsigned notes and making their private affairs public. When they discover his identity and draw him in, will this release him from his solitude, or confirm in his mind that he will always be the outsider?.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 425
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, suspenseful, tense, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 80%
Summer (2008)
Plot Summary:
Shaun and Daz are vibrant kids, wasted by their experience of education. All they have is friendship and Shaun's first love Katy. From the moment Shaun steps into our world he is bound to lose. Labeled as a violent bully he destroys himself and Daz with him. Shaun has twelve years to reflect on an intense summer of love, sex and loyalty. But Daz's imminent death forces Shaun to confront his past.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Germany
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, atmospheric, realistic, independent film, crying
Similar in 87%
Aliyah (2012)
Plot Summary:
Paris 2011. Alex is 27. He's lives off dealing and pays the debts of his brother, Isaac, who after being his support has now become dead weight. When his cousin announces he's going to open a restaurant in Tel Aviv, Alex imagines he can join him and change his life. Set on emigrating, Alex has to find money, leave his beloved Paris, end his complicated love life, drop his destructive brother and find his way.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 567
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, captivating, emotional, touching, serious, contemplative
Similar in 82%
The Mouth Agape (1974)
Plot Summary:
The portrait of a woman going through a terminal illness and the tumorous lives of her husband and son.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 84%
This Is My Body (2001)
Plot Summary:
Gifted student Antoine goes against his family’s wishes and accepts the lead role in a controversial director’s film. He learns that the role had previously been offered to a young man who committed suicide after an on-set affair – and events conspire to draw Antoine towards the same lover.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 213
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Portugal
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 84%
The Devils (2002)
Plot Summary:
Les Diables (The Devils) chronicles the struggle of an autistic girl and her brother trying to survive without their parents.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Spain
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: disturbing, captivating, emotional, realistic, bleak, serious, weird
Similar in 77%
In Mom's Head (2007)
Plot Summary:
Lulu's mother is depressed and has been as far back as she can remember, Lulu is determined to discover the truth behind her listlessness.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 407
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, captivating, realistic
Similar in 84%
I'm Glad My Mother Is Alive (2009)
Plot Summary:
This finely acted, delicate and provocative new film by one of France’s most impressive filmmakers—working here with his son, Nathan—depicts the troubled life of an adopted boy who, as a taciturn adult, visits his birth mother and strikes up a relationship fraught with tension and emotion.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 574
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, tense, emotional, realistic
Similar in 79%
Bi, Don't Be Afraid (2010)
Plot Summary:
In an old house in Hanoi, Bi, a 6-year-old child lives with his parents, his aunt and their cook. His favorite playgrounds are an ice factory and the wild grass along the river. After being absent for years, his grandfather, seriously ill, reappears and settles at their house. While Bi gets closer to his grandfather, his father tries to avoid any contact with his family. Every night, he gets drunk and goes and see his masseuse, for whom he feels a quiet strong desire. Bi's mother turns a blind eye on it. The aunt, still single, meets a 16-year-old young boy in the bus. Her attraction to him moves her deeply.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 402
Genere: Drama
Country: Vietnam, France, Germany
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, atmospheric, touching, offbeat, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Hidden Diary (2009)
Plot Summary:
In the 1950s, Louise left her husband when their children were still little. She was never heard from again. Her daughter Martine stayed in the small seaside town, where she became a doctor. Martine's daughter, Audrey, a thirty-year-old independent woman, returns to visit her parents. By chance, she finds a notebook that belonged to her grandmother, a diary that may at last explain her departure. Will it reveal the things left unsaid, that have altered the relationships within the heart of the family ever since? In it, will Audrey find answers to the questions that she is asking herself about her own future?.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 549
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Canada
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Family Tree (2010)
Plot Summary:
When Frédérick, the patriarch of the Alsatian Muller family, is conspicuously absent from his son Charles' funeral, Frédérick's surviving son and his granddaughter, raw from their loss, await an explanation. Once revealed, Frédérick's reasons and the painful secret Charles harbored for years threaten the foundations of the entire family.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 205
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 77%
The Staple of News (2013)
Plot Summary:
The story of a destiny. Suzanne's and her family's. The ties that bind them, keep them together, and the love she pursues... to the point of leaving everything behind.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, touching, serious, bleak
Similar in 80%
Sandcastle (2010)
Plot Summary:
En is an 18-year-old who has lost his father to cancer. As his family is drawn together in a sudden tragedy, he has to decide what he believes in. But in a country where ideologies are forged on constantly shifting sands, he struggles to stay true to what he knows to be right. And in a family that prefers to forget, the sandcastles of all he holds dear seem doomed to be washed away by the tides of time.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 144
Genere: Drama
Country: Singapore
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, emotional, psychological, captivating, sincere, touching, serious
Similar in 85%
The Sex of the Stars (1993)
Plot Summary:
Every child who has lost a parent early in life (whether due to death or the separations of divorce or for any other reason) longs to see that parent again. Many have kept up a running dialogue in their heads of things they would say to them if they ever see them again, and many of these things are bitter indeed. In this story, Camille (Marianne-Coquelicot Mercier is such a child. Her father (Denis Mercier) left years before, and now she is thirteen. Stargazing appeals to her as a hobby because "stars have no sex." Surprisingly, her father does reappear, but now he is a "she." This casts a pall over their reunion, and Camille is forced to come to terms with her new father, and cannot renew a relationship with the man who (in his view at least) never was. Her mother (Sylvie Drapeau), however, is not about to be easily reconciled to this transformation. This story is based on a novel by Monique Proulx, a relative to the better known Annie Proulx.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 238
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 86%
Milk (2008)
Plot Summary:
A high school graduate, Yusuf could not pass the university entrance exam. Writing poetry is his greatest passion and some of his poems are being printed in various obscure literary journals. But neither these poems, nor the rapidly falling price of the milk they sell, are being of any benefit to Yusuf and Zehra's lives. When Yusuf finds out about Zehra's secret affair with the town's stationmaster he gets disconcerted. Will he find the way to cope with his anxiety for the unknown future, the rapid change that he is going through and the pain of taking a step into adulthood and leaving his youth behind.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, France, Germany
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, art house, atmospheric, captivating, contemplative, slow cinema, aesthetic, sincere, serious
Similar in 79%
Son of Babylon (2009)
Plot Summary:
A willful young boy follows his just as obstinate grandmother in a journey across Iraq, determined to discover the fate of her missing son, Ahmed's father, who never returned from war.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iraq, UK, France, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Egypt
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, touching, captivating, emotional, independent film, islamic, tense, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 75%
A Single Girl (1995)
Plot Summary:
A young Parisian must make major decisions about pregnancy, a job and her boyfriend.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: erotic, sexual, psychological, sincere, atmospheric, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, rough
Similar in 79%
Rebounce (2011)
Plot Summary:
REBOUNCE is a colorful, tough and powerful film featuring Frederikke Dahl Hansen in the leading role. She plays opposite Anne Sofie Espersen and Dar Salim, and despite being only 16 years old she portrays toughness, charm, and vulnerability admirably. REBOUNCE is an intense drama. Louise's mother is just out of prison and in the eyes of a teenager she's cool, tough and enchanting. To win her love, Louise follows her lead and enters a world of partying, drugs, fast cash and men. Meanwhile, everyone seems to forget that she is just a teenager.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 330
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: realistic, rough, captivating, emotional, psychological, tense, serious
Similar in 76%
Lena (2011)
Plot Summary:
Lena is a lonely, plump adolescent girl. Much to her surprise she gets a relationship with the popular but unreliable Daan. Lena moves in with Daan and his strange father Tom and is willing to do a lot for his love. More than a lot.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 584
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands, Belgium
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, atmospheric, captivating, sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, ambiguous ending
Similar in 82%
Blondie (2012)
Plot Summary:
Three sisters, all adrift and in crisis, reunite at their childhood home as their domineering mother arranges a big birthday. But as the festivities come to an end, repressed conflicts rise to the surface. Old wounds are opened and a new family is born.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 707
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, touching, serious, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 90%
Cold Showers (2005)
Plot Summary:
Mickael's family is struggling (they don't have enough money to pay for hot water) however his life is full with Judo and his girlfriend Venessa. Then Mickael makes a decision to open up his relationship to include Clement his rich-kid Judo partner, starting a chain of events.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: realistic, erotic, serious, emotional, melancholic, captivating, sexual, art house, eros, sensual
Similar in 83%
The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie (2003)
Plot Summary:
A troubled teen is given the chance to redeem his criminal debt to society.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 594
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, UK, USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 89%
Mothers (2010)
Plot Summary:
Two nine-year-old girls report a flasher to the police even though they never saw him. Three filmmakers meet the only residents of a deserted village - an elderly brother and sister who have not spoken to each other in 16 years. Retired cleaning women are found raped and strangled in a small town. The fiction slowly turns into a documentary.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 804
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Bulgaria
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: captivating, realistic, disturbing, psychological, thought provoking, serious, anthology, emotional, contemplative, entertaining
Similar in 89%
A Butterfly Kiss (2011)
Plot Summary:
Billie and Louis have the good fortune of loving each other passionately and of having a family. But then one day terrible news turns their existence and that of their friends' upside down. Marie, a famous actress who is Billie's friend and confidant, redoubles her determination to give life, while Alice, her nurse, fighting for freedom, maintains that life 'is here and now and in the moment.' A film about love, hope, and the conviction that the force of life, despite the toughest tests, will always gain the upper hand.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 174
Genere: Drama
Country: France, UK
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, psychological, captivating, serious, gloomy
Similar in 86%
The Last Hammer Blow (2014)
Plot Summary:
When he first enters the Montpellier Opera House, Victor knows nothing about music. Nor does he know his father, Samuel Rovinski, who is there to conduct Mahler’s 6th symphony. To change the course of his suddenly uncertain future, for Nadia his mother, for Luna whom he has fallen in love with, Victor has decided to step out of the shadows. He’ll go as far as he needs to.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 520
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: realistic, sentimental, touching, emotional, captivating, sincere, serious
Similar in 90%
Sisters (2009)
Plot Summary:
Lyon, France in 1970s, Sibylle, Corinne, and Georgette are sisters who share everything, as they live with their Italian mother. Sibylle is the only blonde in the family, except for their father who abandoned them, and she feels isolated. She dreams of meeting her French father one day.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 230
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, captivating, entertaining
Similar in 80%
Face (2002)
Plot Summary:
Genie, a Chinese-American teenager, develops feelings for a charming African-American DJ, but her grandmother forbids their romance forcing Genie to choose between family and love.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 350
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, emotional, sentimental, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 83%
Pandora's Box (2008)
Plot Summary:
When an aging matriarch starts showing signs of dementia, her dysfunctional family in Istanbul must navigate a minefield of unresolved issues to care for her.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, France, Germany, Belgium
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, psychological, sincere, atmospheric, captivating, emotional, realistic, contemplative