Best movies like Singing the Blues in Red
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Persona Non Grata in his homeland, protest singer Klaus Drittemann must leave East Berlin, his wife and child and emigrate to West Berlin, where the representatives of an American record company are eagerly waiting for him. They plan to exploit his defection from communism both ideologically and financially. But Klaus, as ill-at-ease in the West as he was in the East, is reluctant to be used as an expendable commodity. Leaving his contract unsigned (or signed in his manner), he leaves for Cambridge to meet his father, a concert player, who -just like him - left East Berlin thirty years ago as Klaus was a little boy. He is accompanied by a young French journalist, Emma, who knows where his father has been living since he disappeared for more than a decade. The young lady is cooperative but might hide things from him.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 562
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK, West Germany, France
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, independent film
Best tv shows and movies like Singing the Blues in Red (1986):
Similar in 78%
Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
Plot Summary:
The second film in Terence Davies's autobiographical series (along with "Trilogy" and "The Long Day Closes") is an impressionistic view of a working-class family in 1940s and 1950s Liverpool, based on Davies's own family. Through a series of exquisite tableaux Davies creates a deeply affecting photo album of a troubled family wrestling with the complexity of love.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK, West Germany
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: anthology, historical drama, independent film, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy, crying, complex, eighties
Similar in 90%
Solo Sunny (1980)
Plot Summary:
Sunny is the singer of band trying to establish itself in the music-scene of East-Berlin. They play regular gigs in small towns, but Sunny feels out of touch with the audience and her life as a whole. She begins a relationship with the amateur saxophonist and studied philosopher Ralph who writes her a very personal song - but his obsession with death and unfaithful lifestyle is not for her. After getting into a quarrel with a band member who harasses her and telling off a show-host she is thrown out of the band. Abandoned, she struggles to regain control over her life.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 808
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: East Germany
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, offbeat, serious, realistic, crying
Similar in 85%
Nutcracker (1982)
Plot Summary:
A Russian ballet dancer defects from the USSR, emigrates to England, and joins a ballet company run by a powerful, wealthy lady (Joan Collins).
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 130
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: independent film, serious, realistic, suspenseful, sexual, sexy
Similar in 80%
The Violin (2005)
Plot Summary:
In an unnamed Latin American country that closely resembles Mexico, the government fights a rural insurgency with torture, assault, rape, and murder. Soldiers descend on a town, cutting off the rebels from their cache of ammunition hidden in a field. A family of grandfather, son, and grandson are among the rebels in the hills. The grandfather, with his violin over his shoulder, tries to pass the checkpoint, ostensibly to tend his corn crop. The commanding officer lets him pass but insists on a daily music lesson.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Mexico
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, captivating, suspenseful, political, black and white, bleak, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 88%
Rude Boy (1980)
Plot Summary:
Rude Boy is a semi-documentary, part character study, part 'rockumentary', featuring a British punk band, The Clash. The script includes the story of a fictional fan juxtposed with actual public events of the day, including political demonstrations and Clash concerts.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, cynical, biting, suspense
Similar in 79%
The Man on the Wall (1982)
Plot Summary:
An East German man finds a way to cross the border between East and West Berlin. But when he succeeds in bringing his wife out as well, things are not quite as expected.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 81
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
The Weissensee Saga (2010)
Plot Summary:
Weissensee is a German television series. The series is set in East Berlin in 1980 and 1987 and follows two families.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, poignant, compassionate, romantic, atmospheric, touching, soap opera
Similar in 84%
Bolero (1981)
Plot Summary:
The film follows four families, with different nationalities (French, German, Russian and American) but with the same passion for music, from the 1930s to the 1960s. The various story lines cross each other time and again in different places and times, with their own theme scores that evolve as time passes. The main event in the film is the Second World War, which throws the stories of the four musical families together and mixes their fates. Although all characters are fictional, many of them are loosely based on historical musical icons (Édith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Herbert von Karajan, Glenn Miller, Rudolf Nureyev, etc.) The Boléro dance sequence at the end brings all the threads together.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: France
Duration: 184 min
Plot tags: non-linear, sentimental, atmospheric, epic, serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, period piece, vintage
Similar in 90%
Blank Generation (1980)
Plot Summary:
Nada, a beautiful French journalist on assignment in New York, records the life and work of an up and coming punk rock star, Billy. Soon she enters into a volatile relationship with him and must decide whether to continue with it, or return to her lover, a fellow journalist trying to track down the elusive Andy Warhol.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 432
Genere: Music, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: independent film, bleak, serious, realistic, cynical
Similar in 76%
Vanished Empire (2008)
Plot Summary:
This story take place in Moscow during the 1970s and unfolds around the love triangle between two young men and a girl who study at the same university. They argue, make up, and face their first disappointments and victories. While busy with personal lives and loves, they miss foreseeing that the country in which they were born and live will soon disappear from the map.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 583
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sentimental, atmospheric, serious, realistic, gloomy, period piece
Similar in 77%
Children in the Crossfire (1984)
Plot Summary:
For the children of Northern Ireland, violence and hatred are a way of life passed from one generation to the next. In "Children in the Crossfire" four children from both sides of the conflict come to America through a special project, and discover each other away from the ravages of their homeland.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 123
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Ireland
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
Similar in 76%
Times Change You (2010)
Plot Summary:
The life story of German gangsta rapper, Bushido.
IMDB Rating: 3.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Music
Country: Germany
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, sad, crying, gloomy
Similar in 83%
When Harvey Met Bob (2010)
Plot Summary:
Bob Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith set up one of the world's greatest ever concerts, Live Aid in 1984 to help ease the Ethiopian Famine.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 298
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, uplifting, serious, psychological, captivating, sentimental
Similar in 75%
Judgement in Berlin (1988)
Plot Summary:
American judge in Germany must decide if the hijacking of an East German plane into West Berlin was justified.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 871
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany, USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, suspense, sincere, touching, political, independent film
Similar in 81%
Red Rose (2014)
Plot Summary:
A politically complacent middle-aged man and a young pro-democracy activist debate about the future of their country while hiding from the police, in this fascinating drama that blends scripted scenes with on-the-ground footage from Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 261
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France, Iran, Greece
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 75%
The Promise (1994)
Plot Summary:
East-Berlin, 1961, shortly after the erection of the Wall. Konrad, Sophie and three of their friends plan a daring escape to Western Germany. The attempt is successful, except for Konrad, who remains behind. From then on, and for the next 28 years, Konrad and Sophie will attempt to meet again, in spite of the Iron Curtain. Konrad, who has become a reputed Astrophysicist, tries to take advantage of scientific congresses outside Eastern Germany to arrange encounters with Sophie. But in a country where the political police, the Stasi, monitors the moves of all suspicious people (such as Konrad's sister Barbara and her husband Harald), preserving one's privacy, ideals and self-respect becomes an exhausting fight, even as the Eastern block begins its long process of disintegration.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 849
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Germany, France, Switzerland
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: realistic, sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, inspirational, romantic, sexy, enigmatic
Similar in 83%
That'll Be the Day (1973)
Plot Summary:
Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park, where he discovers a world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called rock & roll.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: offbeat, sincere, serious, realistic, gloomy, independent film, cult film
Similar in 76%
Tamla Rose (2013)
Plot Summary:
Three teen girls in a Motown band embark on an emotional ride to hell and back.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, feel good
Similar in 79%
You Will Be Mine (2009)
Plot Summary:
Marie leaves home to study the piano at the conservatory in Lyons. Through lack of money, she is obliged to share an apartment with Emma, a friend of the family who has lived alone since the death of her father. The two young women develop a strange fascination for one another, which soon develops into an intense mutual need.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: France
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, sexy, tense, sexual, gay cinema, queer cinema
Similar in 78%
Berlin Is in Germany (2001)
Plot Summary:
When Martin, a former GDR citizen, is released from jail, he lately becomes confronted with the consequences of the German re-unification.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, emotional, realistic, serious
Similar in 75%
Communists (2014)
Plot Summary:
Jean-Marie Straub pushes this musicality of blocks to a paroxysmal extreme, mixing blocks of time (40 years separate the various extracts that are going to be used, and what is to be filmed), blocks of text (Malraux, Fortini, Vittorini, Hölderlin) and blocks of language (French, Italian, German), and from this ruckus emerges the history of the world, yes, History with a capital H, and from the same movement, the political hope of its being overtaken. So this is an adventure film, about the Human adventure, still one that is always, in the end, overtaken by Nature. (Arnaud Dommerc).
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Switzerland
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: experimental, thought provoking, atmospheric, serious, realistic, political
Similar in 79%
Berlin Tunnel 21 (1981)
Plot Summary:
In Berlin in 1961, an American soldier and a German engineer join forces to build a tunnel under the Berlin Wall in order to smuggle out refugees, including the soldier's East German girlfriend.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 342
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 141 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 79%
Lisbon Story (1994)
Plot Summary:
Lisbon Story is Wim Wender’s homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterous postcard of a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Germany, Portugal
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, serious, sentimental, sincere, inspirational, road movie, visual, psychological, contemplative
Similar in 86%
Flame (1975)
Plot Summary:
Light the Rock 'n Roll spark with a Flame in the guise of Dave, Noddy, Jim and Don and their showcase of the rise and demise of rock band Flame. Set in the hardships of North England's seventies working class society and music scene. This build-up from rags to riches is a parody of realism and grit, with double-dealings and harsh unforgiving dog eat dog mentalities, and the golden rule; if you play with matches then you're going to get burnt, in the flames of the music industry.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 653
Genere: Drama, Music, Musical
Country: UK
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: offbeat, independent film, sentimental, serious, captivating, realistic, cult film
Similar in 77%
Madame Sousatzka (1988)
Plot Summary:
The relationship between a demanding piano teacher and her student, an Indian prodigy.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK, Canada
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, multicultural, serious, realistic, light, inspirational, sexy, enigmatic, unusual plot structure
Similar in 88%
Brothers of the Head (2005)
Plot Summary:
In the 1970s a music promoter plucks Siamese twins from obscurity and grooms them into a freakish rock'n'roll act. A dark tale of sex, strangeness and rock music.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: touching, semi serious, humorous, realistic, witty, period piece, clever, offbeat, mockumentary, gothic
Similar in 80%
A Time for Dancing (2002)
Plot Summary:
Their love of dance, and their friendship, is challenged for two high school girls when one is diagnosed with cancer.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 952
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sincere, emotional, sentimental, touching, sad, serious, realistic
Similar in 80%
The Kite (2003)
Plot Summary:
A young 15 year old girl, Lamia, lives in a southern Lebanese village on the border with Israel. She is given in marriage to her cousin on the other side of the border. As Lamia crosses the barbed wire she also passes from childhood into adulthood, as brutal as our countries and the events that are to follow.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 785
Genere: Drama
Country: Lebanon, France
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 89%
Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story (2009)
Plot Summary:
A female talk show host in Cairo, Egypt, stirs up a political controversy when she focuses her on-air discussions on the topic of women's issues.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, realistic, serious, tense, touching, islamic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Fuehrer Ex (2002)
Plot Summary:
Ingo Hasselbach, whose parents were Communist Party members in East Germany during his childhood, has lived at both ends of the political seesaw. The question of how people reach a change of heart is a profound one; Hasselbach describes the external forces that led to his founding Germany's first neo-Nazi political party and the internal ones that led him away from it five years later.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, disturbing, tense, rough, bleak, realistic