Best movies like Once Upon a Time There Was a Singing Blackbird
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Gia is a carefree young percussionist who works at a theater in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia. He lives in a small apartment with his mother. Gia spends his days flitting from friend to friend, lover to lover, avoiding any responsibility, and never staying still for five minutes. However, he always manages to arrive at the theater just in time to play the drums at the end of the ballet.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Best tv shows and movies like Once Upon a Time There Was a Singing Blackbird (1970):
Similar in 90%
Tbilisi-Paris-Tbilisi (1980)
Plot Summary:
Tbilisi in the beginning of the 20th century . Emigrants who moved from Tbilisi to Paris for various reasons cannot resist the feeling of nostalgia and decide to return to their homeland by air balloon.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 26
Genere: Drama, Adventure, Comedy
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
Come Tomorrow (1962)
Plot Summary:
Young girl from the country come to Moscow, she wants to get into University, but it's too late... Anyway, she won't give up and will do everything to get a meeting with dean and sing for him.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 609
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Music, Romance
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: cult film
Similar in 87%
Melodies of the Vera Quarter (1973)
Plot Summary:
This musical is based on old Georgian vaudevilles and plays. The early 20th century. Old Tiflis is in confusion and turmoil. A mysterious fairy is helping the poor Pavle’s family: real wood is burning in his old, neglected fireplace, wherein a pot with meat would suddenly appear. The good fairy is impersonated by laundress Vardo who helps not only the poor Pavle, but other families in this quarter as well. Vardo is known to many people in the town, but no one ever suspected that she was capable of performing miracles. The film’s colorful folk melodies, merry songs and fiery dances leave no viewer indifferent. Starring in the leading role is the great Georgian actress Sofiko Chiaureli.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 742
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Musical, Romance
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
We and Our Mountains (1969)
Plot Summary:
Calm of the mountain village is disturbed by the investigation on stray sheep.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 405
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
I Used to Be Famous (2022)
Plot Summary:
A former boy band star unexpectedly gets a second shot at success when he forms a bond with a gifted young drummer.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: buddy comedy
Similar in 90%
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1967)
Plot Summary:
Katerina Izmailova is a filmization of Dmitry Shostakovich's long-suppressed 1936 opera. Galina Vishnevskaya stars as Katerina, a bored 19th century farm wife. At the behest of her grungy lover, Katerina murders her husband and her father-in-law. She and her new beau are both sent to Siberia, where the lover almost immediately takes up with a younger woman. Banned by Stalin for its bleak portrait of Soviet life, Katerina Izmailova was not given a Russian staging for over 40 years; its Metropolitan Opera debut did not occur until 1994. Dmitri Shostakovich also wrote the screenplay for the screen version of Katerina Izmailova.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 82
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
The Republic SHKID (1966)
Plot Summary:
The film is based on the eponymous book, written by two former street gangsters - Grigori Belykh and Leonid Panteleyev. Film is set in the 1920s St. Petersburg, Russia. Streets of the city are full of the homeless boys. They are caught to be raised and educated at the correction school named after Dostoevsky. The boys are street smart and difficult. But the faculty stands up to the challenge. The teaches are being devoted and caring, and gradually win the respect of the most difficult kids. The school director Vicknixor is a refined intellectual, who becomes a role model for the boys.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Family
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Pastorale (1975)
Plot Summary:
In the mountain village comes a group of young musicians in Tbilisi. Here they are going to relax and rehearse. Sad story about the final rupture occurred, the peasants do not sing beautiful old songs, the musicians play music incomprehensible to them ... Far from the idyllic image of rural life.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 543
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 85%
The Entreaty (1967)
Plot Summary:
Based on the poems “Aluda Ketelauri” and “The Guest and the Host” by the classic of Georgian literature Vazha Pshavela This film opens Tengiz Abuladze’s trilogy (“The Plea”, “The Wishing Tree”, “Repentance”), which discusses the subject of common human values using original national material. The death of heroes, the knights of truth and good, leads the Poet to the conclusion that the evil is invincible. Exhausted by struggle and privations, the Poet lays down his arms. He is visited then by all of his favorite heroes. They put out candles by dipping them into a beer cup – a ritual Khevsuri gesture meaning renunciation. And only after seeing what misfortune and harm the rejection of fighting the evil results in, the Poet takes up arms again.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 869
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: spiritual, crying, avant garde
Similar in 77%
Falling Leaves (1966)
Plot Summary:
A young idealist takes a job at a local state run winery only to discover and become disillusioned by the corruption of the Soviet State.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 955
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 76%
Love at First Sight (1975)
Plot Summary:
Murad, a Muslim guy brought up in the noisy yard of Tbilisi, falls in love with a Belorussian girl Anya, who lives in the same neighborhood, though Anya is impervious to Murad’s feelings.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 92
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
The Legend of Suram Fortress (1985)
Plot Summary:
A film version of a well-known Georgian folk-tale. A young boy has to be immured into the walls of a fortress in order to stop it from crumbling to pieces.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: art house, spiritual, surreal, contemplative, poetic, serious, stylized, gloomy, folk tale, weird
Similar in 90%
Farewell (1983)
Plot Summary:
Matyora is a small village on a beautiful island with the same name. The existence of the village is threatened with flooding by the construction of a dam. This is the story of the inhabitants of Matyora and their farewell to their homeland.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 743
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 79%
Short Encounters (1967)
Plot Summary:
After leaving their native village, Nadia (Nina Ruslanova at her debut) and her friend travel to the big city. Along the way, Nadia gets a job in a tea shop and meets Maxim (Russian icon Vladimir Vysotsky), and she falls in love with him and decides to finally go to the city. There, she is hired as a maid by Valentina Ivanovna (played by the film's director), a civil servant, who also has a relationship with Maxim.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 967
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Don't Grieve (1968)
Plot Summary:
Benjamin, the local doctor is a soul of a local society, the educated, friendly, democratic person who often treats the poor for free. It makes him very popular with the locals but most certainly does not help with his bank account. He is in love with a beautiful Manette who is also crazy about him but is being watched closely by her father who called his daughter "his small capital" and is determined to protect her virginity until the moment the marriage contract has been signed.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Blue Mountains, or Unbelievable Story (1983)
Plot Summary:
An author - a passive young man - enters the Soviet-controlled bureaucracy of Georgia attempting to get his novel published only to be neglected and compartmentalized at every turn.
IMDB Rating: 8.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: absurd
Similar in 76%
Ashik Kerib (1988)
Plot Summary:
Wandering minstrel Ashik Kerib falls in love with a rich merchant's daughter, but is spurned by her father and forced to roam the world for a thousand and one nights - but not before he's got the daughter to promise not to marry till his return. It's told in typical Paradjanov style, in a series of visually ravishing 'tableaux vivants' overlaid with Turkish and Azerbaijani folksongs.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: spiritual, art house, surreal, fairy tale, atmospheric, serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, allegory
Similar in 84%
Carnival (1982)
Plot Summary:
A young Russian girl is in love with show business and wants to leave her small town for Moscow and make it big in the big city. She encounters her long missing, remarried father and gets a boy friend who uses her and then leaves her.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 151 min
Plot tags: sincere, humorous, captivating, touching
Similar in 82%
The Theme (1979)
Plot Summary:
A self-pitying but popular playwright drives to Vladimir to relax with a doting female student and another writer. He's convinced his writing is of no lasting value, but he still has an ego, about his work and his masculine appeal. He's drawn to a museum guide he sees on his first afternoon.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 557
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: intelligent, psychological, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative, talky, intellectual
Similar in 84%
Mimino (1977)
Plot Summary:
Georgian bush pilot Valentin (Valiko) Mizandari a.k.a. Mimino works at small local airlines, flying helicopters between small villages. But he dreams of piloting large international airlines aircrafts, so he goes to Moscow for refresher courses. There in a hotel he meets truck driver Robik who is given a place in that hotel by mistake, and they have a lot of adventures in Moscow. Always amicable and open to people, Mimino does not feel at home in the big city. Nevertheless, he becomes a pilot of a supersonic jet liner, the Tupolev Tu-144, flying all over the world. But feeling homesick, he finally comes back to his native town of Telavi in Georgia, to his family and friends.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: feel good, smart, humorous, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 79%
Orchestra Rehearsal (1978)
Plot Summary:
Orchestra Rehearsal (Italian: Prova d'orchestra) is a 1978 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini. It follows an Italian orchestra as the members go on strike against the conductor. The film was shown out of competition at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. Considered by some to be underrated Orchestra Rehearsal was the last collaboration between composer Nino Rota and Fellini, due to Rota's death in 1979.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: Italy, West Germany
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags: spiritual, art house, neorealism, black comedy, cult classic, poetic, serious, realistic, contemplative, masterpiece
Similar in 87%
Days of Eclipse (1988)
Plot Summary:
This bleak late soviet-era drama follows the career of Malyanov, a young medical school graduate who has been sent to work in Turkmenia. Here he runs into a hodge-podge of people of differing ethnicities, all of them victims of the government's earlier mania for relocating and eliminating whole ethnic groups and classes of people. These desperately unhappy people are unable to find any pleasure in this diverse companionship, but instead are antagonistic to it, and often resort to desperate measures in their doomed attempts to ease their pain.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags: spiritual, poetic, avant garde
Similar in 88%
You and Me (1971)
Plot Summary:
A neurosurgeon returns back to the USSR from Sweden and has to deal with rejection - both at work and at home.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 431
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
War and Peace: Part II (1965)
Plot Summary:
In the end of 1809, Natasha attends her first ball. Andrei falls in love with her and intends to marry her, but her father demands they wait. The prince travels abroad, and Natasha desperately longs for him. But she then meets Anatol Kuragin and forgets of Andrei. At the last minute, she regrets and abandons her plans to elope with Anatol. Bolkonsky hears of this and declares their betrothal is over. Pierre, trying to calm her down, suddenly announces he loves her.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: historical drama, period drama
Similar in 82%
My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1985)
Plot Summary:
Russian provincial town in the middle of the 1930s Stalin's Great Purge. Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police, does what he has to do. And he does it well.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: slow cinema, spiritual, aesthetic
Similar in 78%
The Lonely Voice of Man (1987)
Plot Summary:
The film is Sokurov's feature film debut and is based on the novel The River Potudan by Andrei Platonov. It's a story about the lives of people in the Russian countryside in the beginning of the 20th century. The film was completed in 1979 as a graduation film, but was banned by the Soviet state and didn't premiere until 1987.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 716
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: poetic, spiritual, contemplative, avant garde
Similar in 84%
The Second Circle (1990)
Plot Summary:
A man tries to come to terms with his father's death and to deal with the mundane details of his burial in a society cut off from spirituality.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 767
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: spiritual, avant garde
Similar in 78%
The Asthenic Syndrome (1989)
Plot Summary:
In the old days it was called hypochrondria, or black melancholia. Now, apparently, it's termed the Asthenic Syndrome. Whatever it is, Nikolai, a teacher of epicly indifferent pupils, has got it, and it's not much fun.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 153 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 83%
The Wishing Tree (1976)
Plot Summary:
This poetic parable is part of Tenghiz Abuladze’s cinematic triptych: “The Supplication” – “The Wishing Tree” – “Repentance”. The place is Georgia at the beginning of the 20th century. That’s how director Tenghiz Abuladze described his film: “’The Wishing Tree’ is a film about the people lit up by a dream. Every character has its own ideal. One is worshipping the skies, another the earth, some idolize the body, others elevate the spirit. Some destroy the body, others the soul…” Marita, the film’s heroine, arrived here to live with her aunt. She meets a poor young lad, Gedia, and falls in love with him. But her relatives are determined to marry the girl off to a local rich man….
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
Nine Days of One Year (1962)
Plot Summary:
Two young scientists are exploring new fields of nuclear physics. Dmitry Gusev and Ilya Kulikov are good friends, but rivals in love. Dmitry marries Lyolya and they live happily together. Luck has it that he makes an important discovery. Unfortunately he exposes himself to radioactivity during the experiments. As a result he falls seriously ill. However Dmitry has a strong spirit. His will to live, the deep passion for his work and his strong love for mankind makes it possible for him to recover.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: spiritual