Best movies like The Scavengers
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Via the Chicago Reader: "After World War II an Italian soldier returns to his hometown near the Alps and, unable to find a job, hooks up with a crotchety hermit who scavenges buried shells and bombs for scrap metal.".
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 143
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like The Scavengers (1969):
Similar in 89%
Long Live the Lady! (1987)
Plot Summary:
The Lady (or Signora) of the title is a mysterious matron who lives in a crumbling mansion. Six catering trainees are brought to the castle upon its conversion into a resort hotel. They are ordered to prepare a special meal for the old lady, whom none of them have ever seen for more than an instant. As the caterers grow in wisdom and sophistication, we learn that the lady may very well be an urbane ghost rather than a flesh-and-blood entity.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 236
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: grotesque
Similar in 85%
Bandits of Orgosolo (1961)
Plot Summary:
A Sardinian peasant is implicated in the murder of a policeman and, although innocent, he doesn’t give himself up, lacking faith in the judicial system and fearing that he may lose his sheep while awaiting trial. He leaves for the mountains with his brother but life is difficult and his flock dies. Returning to the town he discovers his family in abject poverty. He procures a gun and, forced by his social predicament, resorts to banditry.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 693
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 89%
Soldati - 365 all'alba (1987)
Plot Summary:
Claudio Scanna is a private in the Italian army: during his first night in a new military base he gets in a fight with senior recruits. Lieutenant Fili, Claudio's commanding officer, is denied a promotion because his superiors discover he was absent without justification during the night of the fight. Fili blames Claudio and vows to make his remaining months in the service a living hell.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 387
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
The Wind Blows Round (2005)
Plot Summary:
The aging, conservative population of a small, sleepy village in the Italian Alps are surprised to see that a former French professor has settled there with his young wife and their three children to produce goat cheese, in order to escape the wrongs of civilization. At first they are suspicious of his unconventional ideas and lifestyle, then are conquered by the enthusiasm, kindness, helpfulness of the young family and start to see in them a possible rebirth of the place. But little by little misunderstandings, envy and conflicts take over.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 759
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 78%
Almost a Man (1966)
Plot Summary:
Jacques Perrin was awarded Best Actor at the 1966 Venice Film Festival for his gripping portrayal of a young writer's descent into madness. Alienated, neurotic, and plagued by guilt, Perrin retreats from reality, loses interest in work, and comes to the brink of suicide before being sent to an asylum for shock therapy. Escaping from the asylum, Perrin returns to his boyhood home, where he learns the reasons for his present mental state. The strong supporting cast, including Lea Padovani and Pier Paolo Capponi, bring credence to their roles, but it is De Seta's direction, Perrin's controlled performance, and a relatively subtle score by Ennio Morricone which keep this film from becoming as overwrought as it might have become in other hands.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 223
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: existential
Similar in 83%
Land in Between (1996)
Plot Summary:
SILHOUETTE: Nigerian prostitutes dealing with miscellaneous customers EUGLEN & GERTIAN: Daily recruitment of Albanian immigrants seeking work but without working residency permit. SELF SERVICE: a night with Ahmed, egyptian illegal gas station attender, who has been living in italy for many years.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 208
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: semi documentary, independent film
Similar in 79%
Roman Summer (2000)
Plot Summary:
Former theatre actress comes back to Rome and meets old and new friends.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 323
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Happy Times Will Come Soon (2016)
Plot Summary:
Tommaso and Arturo are on the run in a remote forest. They hunt for food, trying to survive and find their way through the lush nature. It’s quiet, almost peaceful, until the sound of gunshots… Many years later, this forest has a wolf problem. It’s here where Ariane discovers a strange hole in the ground. Could she be the woman referred to in the valley’s legends?.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 157
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
The Good Ground (2018)
Plot Summary:
A young woman with cancer travels to a remote wilderness zone in Northern Italy in search of an alternative cure. What she and her friend, Martino, find is a secluded paradise, but their arrival threatens its fragile existence.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 213
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
Welcome in Vienna (1986)
Plot Summary:
In the conclusion of Axel Corti's trilogy (following God Does Not Believe In Us Anymore and Santa Fe) Freddy, a Viennese Jew who emigrated to New York after Hitler's invasion, and Adler, a left-wing intellectual originally from Berlin, return to Austria in 1944 as soldiers in the U.S. Army. Freddy falls in love with the daughter of a Nazi, and Adler attempts to go over to the Communist Zone. But with the advent of the Cold War and continuing anti-semitism, the idealism of both characters is shattered as they find themselves surrounded by cynicism, opportunism, and universal self-deception. This acclaimed, brilliant work is one of the great films of all time.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 182
Genere: Drama
Country: Austria, West Germany, Switzerland
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: bilingual
Similar in 89%
The Face of Jizo (2004)
Plot Summary:
Based on a play by Hisashi Inoue, it focuses on the sufferings of the survivors of Hiroshima. The film takes place during 4 days in the summer of 1948, as the ghost of her father visits Mitsué (Rié Miyama). He had somehow learned that she has fallen in love, and tries to convince her to start her new life. But Mitsué obstinately refuses his warm and humorous encouragements : « People were killed in my place. I do not have the right to find happiness », she says.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 247
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: minimal cast, retro
Similar in 89%
Sicily! (1999)
Plot Summary:
A man returns to visit his native Sicily after living in New York for a long time. He learns about the Sicilian way of life from stylized conversations with an orange picker, his fellow train passengers, his mother, and a knife-sharpener.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France, Germany
Duration: 66 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Life Is Beautiful (1979)
Plot Summary:
A politically neutral man is arrested and tortured in prerevolutionary Lisbon, and forced to make, and act on, a political commitment. ….
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 185
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union, Italy
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: political
Similar in 86%
Hungarians (1978)
Plot Summary:
A group of landless Hungarian peasants accept work as migrant-laborers on a farm in northern Germany where the wages are good, and the wives and family are allowed to accompany them. Though it is in the midst of World War II, they are relatively well-off. However, they glimpse the treatment accorded to POWs and others who are not so gently treated, and at the conclusion of the year's harvest, they choose to return to Hungary and are quickly swept up in the tides of war. This film is part of a series of films by award-winning, well-respected director Zoltan Fabri who devoted much time and effort chronicling the struggle against fascism.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 353
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Family Portrait (1962)
Plot Summary:
Marcello Mastroianni gives a sensitive, finely judged performance as Enrico, a struggling journalist in the Rome of 1945. He receives a phone call informing him that his younger brother Lorenzo (Jacques Perrin) has died. Enrico recalls their long and difficult relationship; he was brought up by their poor but warm-hearted grandmother (Sylvie), Lorenzo was raised as a gentleman by a wealthy local aristocrat. Reunited in the Florence of the 1930s, Enrico becomes his spoilt brother's keeper, forever haunted by a sense of guilty responsibility towards a man he both hates and loves. Beautifully photographed by Giuseppe Rotunno, this austere, deeply-felt masterwork has been acclaimed as one of Zurlini's greatest achievements.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, serious, realistic, non-linear
Similar in 79%
Hannah (2017)
Plot Summary:
Hannah is the intimate portrait of a woman’s loss of identity as she teeters between denial and reality. Left alone grappling with the consequences of her husband’s imprisonment, Hannah begins to unravel. Through the exploration of her fractured sense of identity and loss of self-control, the film investigates modern day alienation, the struggle to connect, and the dividing lines between individual identity, personal relationships, and societal pressures.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France, Belgium
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: social
Similar in 88%
A Day for Lionhearts (1961)
Plot Summary:
September the 8th 1943, Rome, that crucial day, the armistice, in the town many life change their way. Danilo escapes the fascist enlist, while Michele succeeded to leave his administration moving from Rome. On the way to come back Rome the two meets Gino and all together will try to pass trough the Gothic Line (separating Nazi occupied Italy by Allied liberated Italy). They are intercepted by the Germans and find a temporary refugee in an abandoned cellar full of Italian soldier escaping the Germans. Now also an Italian partisan, Edoardo and Orlando are part of the group. Their goal is to bomb an important bridge. But Edoardo is captured and sentenced to death. The three and Orlando decide to bomb the bridge anyway. They will succeed thanks to the sacrifice of Danilo, and Germans will attribute the commando action to American Parachutists, ignoring the bravery of 4 normal Italian citizens.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 117
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
The Fiances (1963)
Plot Summary:
A young man has a renewed interest in his girlfriend when he takes a job that separates the two.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: contemplative, neorealism, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 76%
Johnny Got His Gun (2008)
Plot Summary:
The story of a young American soldier hit by an artillery shell on the last day of the First World War. The film takes place in the mind of a quadruple amputee who has also lost his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Regaining consciousness, 20 year-old Joe Bonham slowly discovers that while his brain is healthy and able to reason, the rest of his body is irreparably shattered, leaving him forever trapped within the confines of his own imagination. He struggles valiantly to find some way to communicate with the outside world. Tapping his head in Morse code he breaks through and pleads with his caretakers to be put on display as a living example of the cost of war.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 343
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
An Accidental Soldier (2013)
Plot Summary:
An unexpected love story set in WW1 France between a young Australian baker who has deserted the front line, and a grieving French woman, who puts her own life at risk by sheltering him from the authorities.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 437
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: historical drama
Similar in 76%
The Sea and Poison (1986)
Plot Summary:
Downed American fliers in WW II are vivisected by Japanese surgeons in medical experiments.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 309
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: retro
Similar in 82%
Sour Grape (1974)
Plot Summary:
Two years after receiving news of his father’s death in WWII a young boy continues to wait for trains from the front. The boy lives with his crippled uncle rather than with his mother, who has remarried and has another child. Then one day the father returns.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 89
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 76 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
From the Clouds to the Resistance (1979)
Plot Summary:
'Dalla nube alla resistenza (From the Cloud to the Resistance ) (1978), based on two works by Cesare Pavese, falls into the category of History Lessons and Too Early, Too Late as well. It, too, has two parts—a twentieth-century text and a text regarding the myths of antiquity, each set in the appropriate landscape. Pavese's The Moon and the Bonfires looks back on the violent deaths of Italian anti-Fascist resistance fighters; Dialogues with Leucò is a series of dialogues between heroes and gods, connecting myth and history and returning to an ambiguous stage in the creation of distinctions, such as that between animal and human, which are fundamental to grammar and language itself. Such a juxtaposition of political engagement with profoundly contemplative issues such as myth, nature, and meaning points to the characters of Empedocles and Antigone in the Hölderlin films.' (From "Landscapes of resistance. The German Films of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub" by Barton Byg).
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 471
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, West Germany, UK, France
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: experimental
Similar in 76%
Gruber's Journey (2008)
Plot Summary:
On 22 June 1941, Germany and Romania attack Soviet Russia. Several days later, Curzio Malaparte, the Italian writer who would one day pen the novel « Kaputt », a war correspondent for « Corriere de la Sera », arrives in Iasi, in the north of Moldova, on his way to the front, which is nearby. He is incapacitated by a severe allergy and his only chance of recovery is to find a Jewish doctor, an allergologist who had studied in Florence, called Josef Gruber. All his attempts to find him are unsuccessful. While looking for him, Curzio discovers that in Iasi, several days prior to his arrival, a violent anti-Semitic pogrom took place and that a large number of the Jewish citizens of Iasi were deported by train and that Dr Gruber may be among them. In order to find him, Curzio, aided by Guido Sartori, the Italian consul in Iasi, tries to obtain an official warrant to bring Josef Gruber back. He confronts indifference, rudeness and the desire by the Romanian authorities to hide something.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 200
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary, Romania
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Cefalonia (2005)
Plot Summary:
Cefalonia tells the real story about what happened in September 1943 on the Greek island of Kefalonia (Cefalonia in Italian), when the 12,000 men in the Italian 33rd Acqui Infantry Division, following Italy's surrender to the Allied, refused to put themselves under German command and also refused to surrender their weapons. The local German force, supported by Stuka dive-bombers and additional troops, attacked the Italians and after several days of combat the Italians surrendered, having lost 1,300 men. As punishment, the German High Command ordered that all surviving Italians should be executed. Some 5,000 were executed during a week of killings. A handful were rescued by locals and the Greek guerrilla, while the rest were shipped off as prisoners, whereof 3,000 drowned when their ships hit mines. The film "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" is based on a novel about the Italian occupation of Cefalonia, but the massacre was much toned down in the Hollywood version.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 134
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 210 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Hidden in Silence (1996)
Plot Summary:
Poland 1939, shortly before invasion of the German troops. To save their belongings from the Nazis, the Jewish family Diamant transfers them to their 17-year-old catholic maid Fusia. In return Fusia provides them with food until the ghetto is dissolved, and then hides 13 people in her loft for over two years. However, as the front approaches and two German nurses take quarter in Fusias apartment everything seems to be in vain.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 531
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
The Intruder (2017)
Plot Summary:
Naples. Present day. Giovanna, a combative 60-year-old social worker on the frontline of the daily war against pervasive criminality, is confronted, like a modern Antigone, with a moral dilemma that threatens to destroy her work and her life. Giovanna runs an after-school centre that takes care of underprivileged children; a grassroots alternative to the mafia dominance of the city. But one day, young Maria, wife of a ruthless Camorra criminal on the run, and her two children take refuge at the centre, and ask Giovanna for protection.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 432
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Switzerland, France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Il Posto (1961)
Plot Summary:
With his family mired in financial troubles, Domenico moves to Milan, Italy, from his small town to get a job in lieu of furthering his education. A lack of options forces him to take a position as a messenger at a big company, where he hopes to receive a promotion soon. There, Domenico meets Antonietta, a young woman in a similar situation as himself. The two form a tentative relationship, but the soulless nature of their jobs threatens to keep them apart.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: neorealism, spiritual, social, sad, art house, insightful, psychological, sincere, atmospheric, bleak
Similar in 82%
When the Night (2011)
Plot Summary:
After meeting during their vacation, two young people with solitary lives suddenly come into a relationship that could benefit both of them.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 334
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 88%
Greenery Will Bloom Again (2014)
Plot Summary:
World War I, Italian north-eastern front after the 1917 bloody battles on the Altipiano. A group of soldiers face the difficulty of war in a story that unfolds in the space of one night. Events follow one after the other without any kind of pattern: the peaceful mountains suddenly become a place where men die. But every story told in this film is a true story.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 969
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, bleak, serious, realistic, historical drama, contemplative, stylized, gloomy