Best movies like Birds, Orphans and Fools
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In the aftermath of war, two men and a woman begin acting more like children than adults, leading to tragedy.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 968
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, War
Country: Czechoslovakia, France
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: experimental, psychedelic, slapstick comedy, cult film
Best tv shows and movies like Birds, Orphans and Fools (1969):
Similar in 86%
Celebration in the Botanical Garden (1969)
Plot Summary:
One of the lead characters is Maria, an inn keeper; always a bride but never a wife. She meets the newcomer Pierre, who disturbs the peace of the small village and teaches the locals how to enjoy life. The film is full of fireworks of lovely colours, and a warm feeling. It is like a carousel of humour and human situations that carry us away, from the very first frame to the unexpected ending, making the viewer laugh gaily. Using a mosaic approach to the traditional narrative line, the film director creates a picture of fairly anarchic glee. “Celebration in the Botanical Garden” is a world of fantasy, full of summer fun, good humour and delight. E. Havetta´s debut was inspired by naïve art, French impressionism, and silent slap-stick as well as Western Slovakian folk traditions.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 176
Genere: Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, experimental, expressionism, slapstick comedy
Similar in 76%
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
Similar in 77%
When the Cat Comes (1963)
Plot Summary:
Some people with a strange cat arrive in a small village. The cat wears glasses, and when someone takes them off, she can color people, according to their nature and mood. The grown-ups of the village consider the cat to be dangerous, but the kids just love her….
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Romance
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: cult classic, psychedelic, experimental, psychotronic, allegory, weird, cult film
Similar in 78%
Jungle Freaks (1969)
Plot Summary:
Born a fully grown black man in a village in the Brazilian jungle, Macunaíma later magically transforms into a white man before making an adventure-filled trip to the city of São Paulo. Once there, he becomes something of a dandy, falling in love with Ci, a revolutionary who dies in an accidental bombing. After robbing a ruthless industrialist, Macunaima returns to his village where he finds his newly acquired knowledge and possessions of little use.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Fantasy, Comedy
Country: Brazil
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, black comedy, weird
Similar in 84%
A Wind from Wyoming (1994)
Plot Summary:
Manon, is obsessed with famous writer Chester Celine, who hails from Wyoming. Manon learns Chester is coming to town and becomes a slinky, svelte temptress.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 195
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada, France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: black comedy, slapstick comedy, slapstick
Similar in 85%
The Deserter and the Nomads (1968)
Plot Summary:
An apocalyptic story of three wars in three film tales encompassing the end of the WWI,WWII, as well as a vision of the world destroyed by nuclear weapons. This film was honored at the film festivals in Venice and Sorrento. Immediately after that the copy with Italian subtitles was locked in a safe as evidence of the anti-communist activities of the director, who used real footage of the Soviet invasion.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 280
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Czechoslovakia, Italy
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: apocalyptic, allegory
Similar in 89%
See You in Hell, Friends (1990)
Plot Summary:
As a car full of an assortment of characters rolls down an embankment and bursts into flames, the old driver says "See You in Hell, Friends." The relations between the characters are shown in flashbacks. The pretty Rita and her fiancee Petras meet the old colonel, and come to live in his farmhouse. Rita marries the colonel as well as her fiancee, and has a daughter Christine. The colonel's supposed father shows up, and also makes amorous advances on Rita. They all live blissfully together until two holy women with axes arrive. The women start chopping down trees to build an ark. Rita starts having nightmares and Christine is crucified.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 119
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy, Czechoslovakia
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: absurd, allegory, dark comedy, avant garde
Similar in 78%
The Millennial Bee (1983)
Plot Summary:
Family saga taking place mostly in a small Slovakian village. The film captures the period of thirty years (1887-1917). The first part captures the life of Martin Pichandu in the development of his craft, masonry, in the second part, his son is centre stage living in a period of socio-political crisis, which ultimately resulted in the first World War.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 611
Genere: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: Czechoslovakia, West Germany, Austria
Duration: 162 min
Plot tags: epic
Similar in 81%
Sitting on a Branch, Enjoying Myself (1989)
Plot Summary:
Pepe and Prengel, returning from war, meet Ester and both fall in love with the girl and live together in a deserted house. Fanatic communist, Zelmira, wants to turn their world upside-down.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 508
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia, West Germany
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
Build a House, Plant a Tree (1980)
Plot Summary:
Juvaj Jakubiskoʼs first feature film after a forced nine-year-long break is a story about an unconventional man, Jozef Matúš. He arrives to a small village in eastern Slovakia to settle down and start a family. He is ready to subordinate everything to his goal. It all starts with stealing building material and ends with him disregarding those close to him to a point where his ambitions are turning against him. Build a House, Plant a Tree is a viewer-friendly film with a plot resembling a western, including several attractive action sequences.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 128
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
It's Better to Be Healthy and Wealthy than Poor and Sick (1992)
Plot Summary:
A satiric tragi-comedy about two women and their lover Robert who is an emigrant that keeps coming back. This film shows chaotic post-communist Europe after the fall of totalitarianism. Two opposite characters, women, meet during the Velvet Revolution in November 1989. Intellectual dissident Nona and a Communist secret police boss’ mistress Ester. They meet at an anti-regime demonstration and become friends. They don’t want anything to do with politics, both want to get married and have kids, but also get rich. Crazy plans and risky attempts to realize their shared dreams land them in many sticky situations in the post-revolution chaos. Too much money gets in the way of the power of friendship.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 134
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Fruit of Paradise (1970)
Plot Summary:
The story is an allegory of Adam and Eve, in a modern (made in the '60s) Health Retreat. The action involves our hero wandering the grounds where she becomes obsessed with a mysterious man in red, who may or may not be a killer.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia, Belgium
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: erotic, surreal, avant garde, art house, psychedelic, experimental, allegory, black comedy, slapstick comedy, slapstick
Similar in 83%
The Tree of Guernica (1975)
Plot Summary:
Vandale leading the Republican opposition to the fascist arm of Villa Romero, one of the Republican strongholds during the Spanish Civil War. She has previously met with Goya during the bombing of Guernica and the hope of seeing him again.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 437
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: surreal, controversial, experimental, avant garde
Similar in 75%
Shortcuts (1981)
Plot Summary:
Francin, manager of a small-town brewery, has a charming wife whose abundant blonde locks are an adornment to the town. Maryska looks ethereal but loves meat and beer, while Francin is an ascetic. The strict members of the brewery board of directors come to audit the accounts, but are diverted from concentrating on Francin's detailed reports by Maryska, who has organized a pig-killing feast and is ably assisting the butcher. When she invites the old curmudgeons on the board to enjoy the fresh pork, they are too happy to agree. Francin doesn't know whether he is going to get a permanent contract. To make things worse his brother Pepin - eccentric, noisy and garrulous - turns up on an indefinite visit.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 80%
...and the Fifth Horseman Is Fear (1965)
Plot Summary:
A Jewish doctor helps a political fugitive during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 632
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: experimental, surreal, neo noir, expressionism, freeze frame
Similar in 76%
The Adventures of God (2000)
Plot Summary:
It tells the story of a man and a woman trapped inside what appears to be a dream set in the labyrinthine hallways, mysterious rooms of a large hotel in the 30's, facing the sea.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 158
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Argentina
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: art house, captivating, surreal, absurd, experimental
Similar in 83%
Escape from the 'Liberty' Cinema (1990)
Plot Summary:
The film is set just before Poland's communist regime came to an end, and the central character is a provincial censor (Janusz Gajos), a tired, sloppy, lonely man, whose wife has long since left him. For him, censorship is both an art and a game, but he does not enjoy it. During a screening of a sentimental Polish melodrama called "Daybreak" at the Liberty cinema across the road from the censor's office, the actors start to rebel and refuse to speak their lines. There is anarchy and when the censor is unable to control the situation, senior party officials are called in. Eventually a film critic notes that the situation reminds of "The Purple Rose of Cairo" by Woody Allen and brings a reel of the film to demonstrate. The officials watch the film with amusement until another mix-up occurs: the second projector is turned on accidentally and superimposes "Daybreak" over "Purple Rose".
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Poland
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, psychedelic, intellectual
Similar in 81%
Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
Plot Summary:
A mysteriously linked pair of young women find their daily lives pre-empted by a strange boudoir melodrama that plays itself out in a hallucinatory parallel reality.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: France
Duration: 193 min
Plot tags: surreal, experimental, mind bending, psychedelic, mindfuck, disturbing, art house, cult classic, psychological, atmospheric
Similar in 89%
Pearls of the Deep (1965)
Plot Summary:
A manifesto of sorts for the Czech New Wave, this five-part anthology shows off the breadth of expression and the versatility of the movement’s directors. Based on stories by the legendary writer Bohumil Hrabal, the shorts range from the surreally chilling to the caustically observant to the casually romantic, but all have a cutting, wily view of the world.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 776
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: anthology, avant garde, tragicomedy, fairy tale
Similar in 80%
The Most Beautiful Age (1969)
Plot Summary:
An artist's studio is descended upon by a group of retired men and a young mother who agree to model in the nude for money. Comedy ensues as the students and the local bureaucracy react to the models, all in need of extra money. Several running gags border on slapstick as the officials and the students don't know what to do with the nude models.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 145
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Goto, Island of Love (1969)
Plot Summary:
In an isolated community on a mythical island, a pompous dictator holds public executions and lets criminals fight in the streets.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 928
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, psychedelic, fairy tale, avant garde, crying, mad, cult film
Similar in 81%
A Report on the Party and the Guests (1966)
Plot Summary:
In Jan Němec’s surreal fable, a picnic is rudely transformed into a lesson in political hierarchy when a handful of mysterious authority figures show up. This allegory about oppression and conformity was banned in its home country but became an international success after it premiered at the New York Film Festival.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 71 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, cult classic, mind bending, psychedelic, spiritual, surreal, crying, allegory, weird
Similar in 84%
Bye Bye Monkey (1978)
Plot Summary:
In metahistorical New York city electrotechnician Lafayette deals with a megalomaniac director of a wax museum of ancient Rome, an italian lonely anarchist, a group of feminist actresses - including Angelica who falls in love with him - and a small adopted chimpanzee.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: experimental, neorealism, independent film, atmospheric, offbeat, serious, disturbing, grotesque
Similar in 77%
For Ever Mozart (1996)
Plot Summary:
For Ever Mozart is an episodic film that follows a theater troupe from France attempting to put on a play in Sarajevo. Along their journey they are captured and held in a POW camp, and they call for help from their friends and relations in France. Director Jean-Luc Godard presents stories about this troop to ask how one can make art while slaughters like the one in Bosnia are taking place, and he throws in a strong critique of the European Union. For Ever Mozart is one of Godard's most disjointed and difficult films. Its stories sometimes seem to form a whole and at other times the links among them are unclear. One gets the impression that in each episode Godard attempts to start a film only to come to the conclusion that it is impossible to continue. It features some of the most beautiful shots of tanks in the cinema.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: Switzerland, France
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: experimental, serious, realistic, contemplative, avant garde
Similar in 76%
Leolo (1992)
Plot Summary:
The story of an imaginative boy who pretends he is the child of a sperm-laden Sicilian tomato upon which his mother accidentally fell.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Canada, France
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: surreal, disturbing, art house, humorous, dark comedy, erotic, mind bending, psychedelic, epic, controversial
Similar in 75%
City of Women (1980)
Plot Summary:
A businessman finds himself trapped at a hotel and threatened by women en masse.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags: surreal, satirical, art house, cerebral, atmospheric, mind bending, psychedelic, cult classic, clever, offbeat
Similar in 87%
Fellini Satyricon (1969)
Plot Summary:
A series of disjointed mythical tales set in first century Rome.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychedelic, art house, sexual, cult classic, erotic, philosophical, absurd, disturbing, controversial
Similar in 87%
Weekend (1967)
Plot Summary:
A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: black comedy, road movie, surreal, disturbing, experimental, art house, avant garde, political, absurd, controversial
Similar in 84%
Underground (1995)
Plot Summary:
Black marketeers Marko and Blacky manufacture and sell weapons to the Communist resistance in WWII Belgrade, living the good life along the way. Marko's surreal duplicity propels him up the ranks of the Communist Party, and he eventually abandons Blacky and steals his girlfriend. After a lengthy stay in a below-ground shelter, the couple reemerges during the Yugoslavian Civil War of the 1990s as Marko realizes that the situation is ripe for exploitation.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 61000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, War
Country: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, UK, USA
Duration: 170 min
Plot tags: absurd, black comedy, art house, political, satirical, surreal, visually appealing, mindfuck, epic, philosophical
Similar in 76%
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014)
Plot Summary:
An absurdist, surrealistic and shocking pitch-black comedy, which moves freely from nightmare to fantasy to hilariously deadpan humour as it muses on man’s perpetual inhumanity to man.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Sweden, Germany, Norway, France, Denmark
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: surreal, realistic, talky, lyrical, dark comedy, humorous, philosophical, semi serious, absurd, art house