Best movies like Il ritorno di Cagliostro
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In the Sicily of the late 1940s, two brother sculptors, tired of selling madonnas to the local churches, finally realize their dream, and set up a Sicilian production company, thanks to the help of a local bishop. They start producing one box-office failure Z-movie after the other, all with terribly bad local non-pros as actors. Covered in debts, they finally have their great chance, when a local nobleman obsessed by magic decides to invest all his wealth in the making of a movie about Cagliostro, just one year after Orson Welles' Black Magic (1949). They hire a famous American actor (Robert Englund) and start shooting "The Return of Cagliostro".
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 387
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: avant garde, grotesque, fake documentary
Best tv shows and movies like Il ritorno di Cagliostro (2003):
Similar in 84%
Crucial Years (1967)
Plot Summary:
Juraj, a Slovak artist living in Prague, takes stock in hus life, realizing that his days pass without purpose. He lives a carefree life. But now he has to choose between two women, between the city and the country, and between creative work and craftsmanship. He has a passion for art but he also has to make a living. Through his relationships with close people, he grows aware of his position and this knowledge helps him to live a more fulfilling and better life.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 246
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: freeze frame
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The Virgin's Bed (1969)
Plot Summary:
30 year old child enters the new city, riding on a donkey. He says he is the Savior. He has spent no time among men. He is trembling with cold. His clothes are soaked. His mother was overprotective ; his father conspicuously absent. He knows that he must face the mockery, refusal, ignorance and blindness of the men around him. They travel in gangs, in large numbers : soldiers, mercenaries or the like, on majestic, imposing horses. Everything is out of proportion to his thin, bewildered, innocent body ; he is the madman of the new city.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 438
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: France
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: avant garde, experimental
Similar in 80%
Wild 90 (1968)
Plot Summary:
Norman Mailer’s first feature filmmaking effort stars the director and his two longtime collaborators Buzz Farbar and Mickey Knox as a trio of gangsters holed up in a ramshackle New York apartment, drinking, braying, and fighting.
IMDB Rating: 3.5
IMDB Votes: 139
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: independent film, cinema verite, fake documentary
Similar in 76%
The Uncle from Brooklyn (1995)
Plot Summary:
The best italian film of the 90's, the most extreme and radical work since SALO', a ruthless representation, in a surreal-metaphorical key, of a civilization condemned to worshipping its own blindness. The two sicilian directors use a language free from compromise and from the traditional storyline rules: the movie is photographed in a sharp and very contrasting black & white, with no beautiful pimp music, and lacks a logical story. There are no women (the ones we see are actually men), and the language is strict sicilian dialect. The directing style is characterized by long fixed shots on a post-atomic world, which is really present-day Palermo, inhabited by fat people in socks and underwear who burp and fart while roaming around smelly alleyways and waste dumps.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 289
Genere: Comedy
Country: Italy
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Charge! (2000)
Plot Summary:
Two friends with very different personalities decide to write a script for a movie. Their discussions and confrontations are constant, but the story slowly takes shape around a poor family that has a small car repair business. Times are hard and will have to fight to prevent a multinational tear down the garage.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 291
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: political drama
Similar in 89%
Saturday, Sunday & Monday (2004)
Plot Summary:
Although this sounds like a weekend like many others, in the Prior house the atmosphere is rather tense because of some nervousness on the part of individual members of the family, especially the father, Peppino, who gets angry with anyone who happens to shoot: with their children, Juliana and Roberto, and his sister, aunt Meme. Meanwhile, his wife Rosa is dedicated to the preparation of the sauce, which she will serve for Sunday's lunch, to which she invited the neighbors, the accountant Ianniello and his wife.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 97
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1969)
Plot Summary:
This is the story of a bookstore thief named Birdy, who is led through various adventures in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by salesgirl Umeko.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 817
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: experimental, avant garde, weird
Similar in 76%
Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight (1975)
Plot Summary:
A film without a beginning or an end, Moment to Moment is a rush of curious sketches, scenes, and shots that takes on a rhythmic life of its own.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 232
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: absurd, avant garde
Similar in 82%
Toto Who Lived Twice (1998)
Plot Summary:
The film has three stories. First is about local village idiot Paletta, who can not afford the services of a whore and so steals a locket from a holy shrine belonging to local mafia don. Second shows the story of betrayal of Pitrinu (who's dead now) by his lover Fefe. Final episode is about lowlife Lazarus. He is killed by mob boss Toto, but raised from the dead by a local messiah, who is also known as Toto (and is played by same actor).
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 570
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: experimental, controversial, anthology, aesthetic, disturbing, avant garde, grotesque
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Salome (1972)
Plot Summary:
A psychedelic re-telling of the biblical story. Salome is the daughter of the second wife of King Herod. The King is infatuated with her and after she fails to seduce the prophet John (The Baptist) she dances for the King in order to ask for his execution. The story is told in a bizarre way of fast cuts, repetitive dialogue and extreme satire.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 431
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 76 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, experimental, avant garde, weird
Similar in 75%
Our Lady of the Turks (1968)
Plot Summary:
A man (Carmelo Bene) can not bear to be part of society. He considers himself a "jerk" and so invents its own philosophy, which involves the destruction of his land of Puglia where all citizens are devoted to the Catholic religion. However, the man can not destroy the belief of the pilgrims of Salento, because a woman would prevent that. It is an unknown "Santa Margherita", which tries to divert man from his weird and impossible philosophy. Successive scenes of the film show various situations unreal and dream in which the two protagonists try to obtain the best one on the other. After a blasphemous dialogue between monks, the man includes his whole philosophy in a Moorish building. In fact, this seems to have been the scene of the massacre of the famous 800 Martyrs of Otranto, which are considered by the scetic man the absolute death of Christianity.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 353
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: experimental, aesthetic, avant garde
Similar in 85%
Diary of a Maniac (1993)
Plot Summary:
In this stylish and offbeat black comedy, Benito ( Jerry Calà) keeps a diary of his sexual fantasies and cravings. As a result of his on-again, off-again relationship with the beautiful and insatiable Luigia (Sabrina Ferilli), his thoughts along these lines have grown increasingly bizarre. For his own part, he is driven to pick up and bed women at almost every opportunity. As the fantasies recorded in his diary consume more and more of his life, and grow darker and darker, his ordinary waking life becomes flatter and duller, until he disappears altogether.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 298
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: erotic, ambiguous ending, psychotronic, grotesque
Similar in 84%
La rabbia (2008)
Plot Summary:
A young director years old, lives with a girl. Active part of the Intellectual society, he represents perfectly the union between fear and determination, that changes deeply his way of understanding the world that surrounds him. His only aim is to leave a footstep of his presence on this world realizing a film.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 157
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: psychological, disturbing, intellectual, independent film
Similar in 80%
A Brighter Tomorrow (2023)
Plot Summary:
A film director unhappy with the movie he's shooting about a Hungarian circus stranded in Rome during the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising faces divorce from his producer wife.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Wild Innocence (2001)
Plot Summary:
A movie director does a new film against heroine consumption, and the producers are heroine dealers.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 531
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France, Netherlands
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Stefano Quantestorie (1993)
Plot Summary:
La storia di Stefano (Maurizio Nichetti) sembra molto "normale" ma cosa sarebbe successo nella sua vita se... Le molte vite possibili di Stefano si intrecciano in modi imprevedibili.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 166
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sexy, thought provoking, intellectual, enigmatic, unusual plot structure, suspense, melancholic, surreal, harsh, dark fantasy
Similar in 76%
The Ceremony (1971)
Plot Summary:
Oshima’s magisterial epic, centering on the ambivalent surviving heir of the Sakurada clan, uses ritual and the microcosm of the traditional family to trace the rise and fall of militaristic Japan across several decades.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: spiritual, avant garde, cult film
Similar in 75%
And in the Morning They Woke Up (2003)
Plot Summary:
And in The Morning They Woke Up.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 124
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, humorous, captivating
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The Sensual Man (1973)
Plot Summary:
From his youth, Paolo Castorini, a Sicilian baron, is as attracted to women as they to him. Giovanna, a servant girl, Lillian, a serious girlfriend in Rome, a hostess at a post-war party, Paolo makes love to them all. He also feels dissatisfied with a life only of the body, compared to his journalist friend Vincenzo and his own father, a sober and serious thinker. When his father is on his deathbed, Paolo learns of syphilis in the family and something of the curse of dissolution. Some years later, he resolves to marry Katrina, the pure daughter of the woman he should have married. He wants her purity to redeem him so he can make something of his life. But is it too late?.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 168
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: erotic, sexy, hot
Similar in 79%
We Have a Pope (2011)
Plot Summary:
The newly elected Pope suffers a panic attack just as he is about to greet the faithful who have gathered to see him. His advisors, unable to convince him he is the right man for the job, call on a renowned therapist who also happens to be an atheist. But the Pope's fear of his newfound responsibility is one he must face alone. Winner Best Film at the Italian Golden Globes.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, clever, humorous, witty, tragicomedy, philosophical, sad, buddy comedy, sentimental
Similar in 85%
Nowhere (2002)
Plot Summary:
In a country (alluded to be Chile) under dictatorship, a police night raid comes up with a few usual anti-regime suspects. They are sent to a camp in the middle of nowhere. Their friends on the outside start to plan their escape.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 218
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, Spain, Argentina
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious, captivating
Similar in 89%
Interview (1987)
Plot Summary:
Federico Fellini welcomes us into his world of film making with a mockumentary about his life in film, as a Japanese film crew follows him around.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Italy
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: art house, neorealism, mockumentary, sentimental, humorous, realistic, surreal, stylized, semi serious, meta
Similar in 84%
Let's Have a Brainwash (1963)
Plot Summary:
This consists of four short films by different directors. Rosselini's 'Chastity' ('Illibatezza') deals with an attractive air hostess who receives the unwelcome attentions of a middle aged American. Godard's 'New World' ('Il Nuovo Mondo') illustrates a post-apocalypse world the same as the pre-apocalyptic one but for an enigmatic change in attitude in most people, including the central character's girlfriend. In Pasolini's 'Curd Cheese' ('La Ricotta'), a lavish film about the life of Jesus Christ is being made in a poor area. The impoverished people subject themselves to various indignities in the name of moviemaking in order to win a little food. The central character is hoisted up on a cross for filming, and dies there. Finally comes Gregoretti's 'Free Range Chicken' ('Il Pollo Ruspante') in which a family of the materialist culture inadvertantly illustrate the cynical, metallic voiced doctrine of a top sales theorist.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: anthology, offbeat, realistic, surreal, contemplative, semi serious, black comedy, avant garde
Similar in 79%
Anita Takes a Chance (2001)
Plot Summary:
Fifty-something widow Anita loses her lifetime dream job as a cinema attendant when the new owner wants to tear down the old theater and build a trendy multiplex in its stead. Depressed at first, Anita finds comfort in watching the shirtless hunks on the theater's construction site. She befriends a married excavator operator, Antonio, and the two start their secret candlelit trysts in the site's office cabin. But soon Anita learns that excavators are only needed in the early phase of a construction project.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 342
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: realistic, semi serious, humorous, sexual, sexy
Similar in 82%
The Seduction of Mimi (1972)
Plot Summary:
Mimi is a Sicilian dockworker who loses his job when he votes against the Mafia candidate in what he thinks is a secret ballot. He leaves his wife behind and goes to Turin, where he meets and moves in with Fiore, a street vendor and Communist organizer. They have a child, he works non-union jobs, and again he comes to the Mafia's attention. This time they're impressed, promoting him to a supervisor's job back in Sicily. He must keep Fiore and the child a secret, which is fine with Fiore, as long as he never makes love to his wife. He doesn't, and when she becomes pregnant, he knows he's a cuckold. His personal revenge and the Mafia's tentacles then intertwine in tragicomic ways.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: black comedy, political, cult classic, sexy, clever, humorous, realistic, talky, semi serious, sitcom
Similar in 85%
Sweet Dreams (1981)
Plot Summary:
Michele Apicella is a young film and theater director, who lives his troubles as an artist. In Italy reach the Eighties, and Michele, who was contestant in the Sixties, now finds himself in a new era full of crisis of values and ignorance. So Michele, with his works, meants to represent the typical outcast and left indifferent intellectual outcast who establishes a breach between him and the world of ordinary people.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: semi autobiographical
Similar in 86%
Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
Plot Summary:
The inhabitants of an institution in a remote country rebel against their keepers. Their acts of rebellion are by turns humorous, boring and alarming. An allegory on the problematic nature of fully liberating the human spirit, as both commendable and disturbing elements of our nature come forward. The film shows how justifiable revolt may be empowering, but may also turn to chaos and depravity. The allegory is developed in part by the fact that the film is cast entirely with dwarfs.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: black and white, cult classic, surreal, disturbing, art house, black comedy, atmospheric, experimental, dark comedy, mind bending
Similar in 83%
Roma (1972)
Plot Summary:
A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: art house, atmospheric, stylized, non-linear, visual, colorful, neorealism, visually appealing, cerebral, surreal
Similar in 82%
It Was the Son (2012)
Plot Summary:
The Ciraulo family lives in the miserable district of Palermo called "Zen". When one of their children dies in a shootout between mafia gangsters they receive compensation and buy a luxury black Volvo. Things go wrong when Trancredi, another son, takes the car out and damages the car door.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: captivating, psychological, light, humorous, serious, realistic, black comedy, dark comedy
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The Milky Way (1969)
Plot Summary:
Two drifters go on a pilgrimage from France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Along the way, they hitchhike, beg for food, and face the Christian dogmas and heresies from different Ages.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France, Italy, West Germany
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: surreal, spiritual, road movie, psychedelic, satirical, dark comedy, cult classic, mystical, parody, philosophical