Best tv shows like Human Cargo
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Human Cargo is a 2004 Canadian television miniseries. The series won seven Gemini Awards and two Directors Guild of Canada Awards. It premiered on CBC Television on January 4, 2004 and starred Kate Nelligan, Cara Pifko, and Nicholas Campbell. The series was written by Linda Svendsen and Brian McKeown.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 116
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration:
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, epic, bleak
Best tv shows and movies like Human Cargo (2004):
Similar in 87%
It's a Free World... (2007)
Plot Summary:
The film focuses on Angie (Kierston Wareing), a working class woman who, after being fired by the agency that she works for, decides to set up a recruitment agency of her own, running it from her kitchen with her friend Rose (Juliet Ellis). Taking advantage of the desperation of immigrants, Angie is able to build a successful business extremely quickly.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing, thought provoking, epic, political, social, bleak
Similar in 86%
Windfall and Misfortunes (2008)
Plot Summary:
On April 1st, 1986, Jean-Guy Lavigueur, an unemployed blue-collar worker and his family won 7.6 million dollars. At the time, it was the largest amount ever won at Loto-Quebec's 6/49 weekly draws. What should have been the beginning of a fairytale for the family turned rapidly into a nightmare.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 185
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, fairy tale, offbeat
Similar in 90%
The Wild Dogs (2002)
Plot Summary:
Set during the cull of the stray dogs in the city of Bucharest, The Wild Dogs weaves together a week in the lives of several citizens of and visitors to the hauntingly beautiful city. Geordie, a visiting Canadian pornographer, Bogdan, a reluctant city dog-catcher, and Natalie, a lonely Diplomat's wife - each risks losing everything as they become embroiled in the struggles of Bucharest's abandoned children, gypsies, dogs and beggars.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 188
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing, bleak
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 84%
1992 (2015)
Plot Summary:
Set in Rome, Milan and different Italian cities, the TV series offers a thrilling story following six people whose lives are intertwined with the rapidly changing political landscape in the early 1990s, during which Italy was gripped by the Clean Hands investigation into political corruption. Subsequently, this led to the termination of the First Republican Party as well as the termination of several other Italian parties. This controversial period in Italy resulted in the suicide of various political figures.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration:
Plot tags: realistic, serious, atmospheric, psychological, erotic, political, sensual, tense, thought provoking
Similar in 87%
The Melon Route (2006)
Plot Summary:
The journey of a Chinese woman and her fellow countrymen as they travel in search of a better place to live, only to end up struggling for survival in the Balkans.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 507
Genere: Drama
Country: Croatia
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, bleak, serious
Similar in 78%
Crash (2008)
Plot Summary:
Crash is an American television drama series that tells the story of how the lives of how several very diverse Southern Californians intersect.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, medical drama, gloomy, psychological thriller, psycho film
Similar in 77%
The Story of Zheng Yang Gate, Part II (2018)
Plot Summary:
The Story of Zheng Yang Gate.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 9
Genere: Drama
Country: China
Duration: 40 min
Plot tags: psychological, thought provoking, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 88%
The Jury (2002)
Plot Summary:
The Jury is a British television serial broadcast in 2002. The series was the first ever to be allowed to film inside the historic Old Bailey courthouse.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 300 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, captivating, realistic, bleak, tense, talky
Similar in 76%
Pinochet's Last Stand (2006)
Plot Summary:
In 1998 former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet visits Britain for medical treatment. On being tipped off, Amnesty International seize the chance to bring to justice a man they insist is guilty of multiple human rights violations. The newly-elected Labour government is initially amenable, and soon Pinochet is under house arrest (albeit in a detached house in leafy suburbia) and awaiting extradition to Spain. However, Amnesty are up against the complexities of British law, the vacillations of Home Secretary Jack Straw, Pinochet's former ally Margaret Thatcher - and the Senator's own vast reserves of cunning.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 249
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: disturbing, atmospheric, thought provoking, captivating, realistic, sincere, bleak, serious, dark comedy
Similar in 86%
Mad Ship (2013)
Plot Summary:
A Scandinavian immigrant, driven to madness by ruined dreams and the tragic death of his wife, embarks on a quixotic mission to build a homemade ship and sail out of the prairie dust bowl at the height of the Great Depression.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 237
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, touching, period piece
Similar in 76%
The Valley of Tears (2012)
Plot Summary:
Marie, a Canadian editor specialized in testimonies of Genocide survivors, starts to receive anonymous large envelopes with the narrative of Ali, a young Palestinian who grew up in a refugee camp in Lebanon. Intrigued, Marie investigates the origin of these envelopes and finds out who is the anonymous writer. This is how she establishes a connection with Joseph, a Lebanese worker hired to paint the offices. A strange relation develops between these two persons who come from very different worlds. But after a while, Joseph abruptly disappears and Marie, overwhelmed by the mission fallen on her, starts a journey into the past, through a small village in Lebanon, in the heart of a bloodthirsty culture were lies the key of all the enigmas.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 630
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 76%
A Minor Leap Down (2015)
Plot Summary:
Nahal is around thirty and in her fourth month of pregnancy. During a routine check-up she learns that her baby has died and she now faces a curettage abortion in two days’ time. When she tries to address the subject, neither her mother nor her husband give her a chance to speak.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 228
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Tar Angel (2001)
Plot Summary:
Newly-arrived Ahmed tries to integrate his family to the canadian society, while attempting to control his son's life orientation.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 276
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, suspenseful, disturbing, thought provoking, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, road movie
Similar in 80%
The Negro (2002)
Plot Summary:
A black teenager vandalizes a racist lawn ornament.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 519
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, serious, disturbing, thought provoking, realistic
Similar in 79%
The Kitchen Toto (1987)
Plot Summary:
The son of a priest slain by the Mau Mau moves in with a police officer and his wife in 1950 Kenya.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 266
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: independent film, grindhouse, sincere, thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing, biting, suspense
Similar in 84%
Orange Honey (2012)
Plot Summary:
Andalusia in the fifties. Enrique and Carmen just meet and fall deeply in love. Carmen gets him to stay in military service in a court of the city. Enrique, in view of the injustices he witnesses every day, realizes that to change the course of things he has to act. Soon he will be involved in risky actions that endanger their lives and those of their peers.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 351
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain, Portugal
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing
Similar in 80%
Goodbye (2011)
Plot Summary:
Without her husband and without her lawyer’s licence, which has been withdrawn, Noora is left pregnant and alone in her apartment. Her attempt to leave Iran turns into a fight with male chauvinism. A personal, nerve-wracking and infuriating film by Rasoulof, who was himself convicted for his films in Iran. Goodbye is a sober, frightening portrait of a society that is stooping under the continual control and threats of its religious regime. Noora, a young, pregnant lawyer in Tehran whose husband has been sent to work in the desert because of his critical journalistic activities, continually faces opposition from the regime and decides to leave the country. That turns out to be very difficult. Because Rasoulof was already banned from making films, Goodbye was shot partly in secret in the winter of 2010/2011. The result is a disquieting film that makes impotence and the desire for freedom painfully tangible in all its simplicity.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 814
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, thought provoking, contemplative, islamic, bleak, interesting
Similar in 84%
Sub terra (2003)
Plot Summary:
In 1897, in Lota, Chile, in the face of long days, low pay, debts to the company store, unsafe and deadly working conditions, and widespread child labor, men try to establish a miners' association at one of the largest coal mines in the world. They must face Davis, an iron-fisted and murderous supervisor; there's at least one turncoat, willing to inform on their fellow workers; and, there are passions on all sides, including one between Fernando, a leader of the miners, and Virginia, the godchild of the mine's owners. Can the miners win a victory, and at what cost? Baldomero Lillo, a grocery clerk, records it all.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 373
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, Spain
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, captivating, epic, contemplative
Similar in 85%
The Domino Effect (2012)
Plot Summary:
If global economy came to a sudden stop what would be the effect on families worldwide? People in different countries or continents might not seem to be interrelated but there is more than meets the eye and we might be more connected than we sometimes like to think.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 276
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Netherlands
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 78%
Mama Flora's Family (1998)
Plot Summary:
Based on Alex Haley's novel about a black matriarch in the early 20th century, this dramatic miniseries spotlights the struggle for social change. Cicely Tyson stars as Mama Flora, a woman determined to free her children from the bonds of prejudice.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 607
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 175 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, epic, serious, captivating, realistic, black cinema
Similar in 78%
Indian Summers (2015)
Plot Summary:
Epic drama set in the summer of 1932 where India dreams of independence, but the British are clinging to power. Set against the sweeping grandeur of the Himalayas and tea plantations of Northern India, the drama tells the rich and explosive story of the decline of the British Empire and the birth of modern India, from both sides of the experience. At the heart of the story lie the implications and ramifications of the tangled web of passions, rivalries and clashes that define the lives of those brought together in this summer which will change everything.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 52 min
Plot tags: realistic, epic, serious, captivating, period piece, costume drama, atmospheric, historical drama, saga, stylized
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First Monday (2002)
Plot Summary:
A newcomer to the Supreme Court finds himself a pivotal force on an often deadlocked bench, frequently at odds over hot-button cases in this earnest but brief legal drama.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 211
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 83%
The Bridges of Sarajevo (2014)
Plot Summary:
Thirteen European directors explore the theme of Sarajevo; what this city has represented in European history over the past hundred years, and what Sarajevo stands for today in Europe. These eminent filmmakers of different generations and origins offer exceptional singular styles and visions.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 387
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria, Germany
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing, anthology, bleak
Similar in 81%
Afterburn (1992)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story, one woman takes on the U.S. military and General Dynamics; maker of the F-16, thought to be the very best tactical fighter in the world. Air Force Captain Theodore T. Harduvel was one of the best F-16 pilots the U.S. had to offer. After much digging, Janet Harduvel discovers a joint military and General Dynamic cover-up. She proves to be unwavering in her search for the truth to clear his name.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 670
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: captivating, disturbing, thought provoking, serious, suspenseful, realistic
Similar in 86%
Citizen Verdict (2003)
Plot Summary:
Marty Rockman, the notorious producer of the hit reality-TV show "So Sue Me", has a brand new concept: "Citizen Verdict". Each week a real criminal case will be tried before the American people, but this time they're also the jury. If the defendant is voted guilty in a death penalty case, Rockman will televise the execution. When an escalation in violent crime and terrorism hits the state of Florida, Governor Tyler, desperate to be seen as a tough-on-crime Republican leader in the upcoming Presidential race, decides to give Rockman his chance and "Citizen Verdict" goes into production in Tampa. Selected by phone-in vote, the show's first contestant is Ricky Carr -- a man accused of the rape and murder of popular celebrity-chef Dolly Hamilton. The case is a surefire ratings winner. But when an investigation begins, it becomes apparent that Ricky may be innocent of murder.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 491
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: serious, disturbing, thought provoking, bleak, realistic, clever, cynical, biting, suspense
Similar in 75%
Once They Marched Through a Thousand Towns (1981)
Plot Summary:
A dramatization of the controversial trial concerning the right for Neo-Nazis to march in the predominately Jewish community of Skokie.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 409
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: political, sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 81%
Freedom Song (2000)
Plot Summary:
Freedom Song (2000) is a made-for-TV film based on true stories of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi in the 1960s. It tells the story of the struggle of African Americans to register to vote in the fictional town of Quinlan. In the midst of the Freedom Summer, a group of high school students in the small town are eager to make grassroots changes in their own community. The young activists meet resistance not only from white southerners, but from their parents, who have experienced firsthand the violence that can result from speaking out.[1] As high school students band together with the support of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, they make strides in registering African-American voters and gaining awareness for their cause.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 891
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, captivating, emotional, political, tense, serious, realistic
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Mandela and de Klerk (1997)
Plot Summary:
Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine both received Emmy nominations for their performances in this made-for-TV movie. The plot follows Nelson Mandela's 27-year struggle to end apartheid.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 667
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, disturbing, contemplative
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Years and Years (2019)
Plot Summary:
As Britain is rocked by unstable political, economic and technological advances, members of the Lyons family converge on one crucial night in 2019. Over the next 15 years, the twists and turns of their everyday lives are explored as we find out if this ordinary family could change the world.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 32000
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: captivating, political, light, apocalyptic, black comedy, feel good, entertaining, dark comedy, queer cinema