Best movies like Wittgenstein
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A dramatization, in modern theatrical style, of the life and thought of the Viennese-born, Cambridge-educated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), whose principal interest was the nature and limits of language. A series of sketches depict the unfolding of his life from boyhood, through the era of the first World War, to his eventual Cambridge professorship and association with Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes. The emphasis in these sketches is on the exposition of the ideas of Wittgenstein, a homosexual, and an intuitive, moody, proud, and perfectionistic thinker generally regarded as a genius.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, Japan
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags: philosophical, thought provoking, serious, captivating, realistic, spiritual, surreal, artsy, cult classic, intelligent
Best tv shows and movies like Wittgenstein (1993):
Similar in 83%
Pandemonium (2000)
Plot Summary:
Set in England during the early 19th century, Pandaemonium evokes late-1960s America in its depiction of the relationship between Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Linus Roach) and William Wordsworth (John Hannah). Instead of going to Vietnam, Wordsworth goes off to fight against the French while Coleridge stays at home and promotes utopianism. After the war, the poets live and work together with Coleridge's wife, Sara (Samantha Morton), and Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy (Emily Woof). At first this communal arrangement works to the advantage of Coleridge--who does some of his best writing while Wordsworth stagnates--until Coleridge becomes addicted to opium. Wordsworth, meanwhile, doesn't find his voice until he abandons his friend. In 20th-century vernacular, Wordsworth is the yuppie, Coleridge the hippie.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 875
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, captivating, costume drama, cult classic, crying, independent film, period drama
Similar in 84%
The Music Lovers (1971)
Plot Summary:
Composer, conductor and teacher Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky struggles against his homosexual tendencies by marrying, but unfortunately he chooses a wonky, nymphomaniac girl whom he cannot satisfy.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: historical drama, psychological, atmospheric, offbeat, serious, realistic, sexual, crying, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 82%
Love and Death on Long Island (1997)
Plot Summary:
Giles De'Ath is a widower who doesn't like anything modern. He goes to movies and falls in love with film star, Ronnie Bostock. He then investigates everything about the movie and Ronnie. After that he travels to Long Island city where Ronnie lives and meets him, pretending that Ronnie is a great actor and that's why Giles admires him.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, Canada, Italy
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: touching, witty, independent film, entertaining, sentimental, feel good, humorous, realistic, semi serious, sexy
Similar in 77%
Salome's Last Dance (1988)
Plot Summary:
Oscar Wilde watches an outrageous staging of his banned play "Salome" at a London brothel, with parts played by prostitutes, Wilde's host, his lover Bosey, and Lady Alice.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: biblical, art house, sex comedy, costume drama, historical drama, independent film, psychological, atmospheric, offbeat, humorous
Similar in 78%
The Garden (1990)
Plot Summary:
A nearly wordless visual narrative intercuts two main stories and a couple of minor ones. A woman, perhaps the Madonna, brings forth her baby to a crowd of intrusive paparazzi; she tries to flee them. Two men who are lovers marry and are arrested by the powers that be. The men are mocked and pilloried, tarred, feathered, and beaten. Loose in this contemporary world of electrical-power transmission lines is also Jesus. The elements, particularly fire and water, content with political power, which is intolerant and murderous.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Germany, Japan
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, art house, disturbing, cult classic, experimental, independent film, clever, offbeat
Similar in 85%
Everybody's Talking About Jamie (2021)
Plot Summary:
Feature film adaptation of the musical about a teenager from Sheffield, England who wants to be a drag queen.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama, Musical
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: lgbt cinema, psychological, emotional, touching, social, anamorphic, realistic, queer cinema, fun
Similar in 85%
Toast (2010)
Plot Summary:
An adaptation of celebrity chef Nigel Slater's bestselling memoir, 'Toast' is the ultimate nostalgic trip through everything edible in 1960's Britain. Nigel's mother was always a poor cook, but her chronic asthma and addiction to all things canned does not help.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sentimental, tragicomedy, sincere, touching, semi serious, period piece, indie film, culinary, art house, cult classic
Similar in 85%
Final Portrait (2017)
Plot Summary:
The story of Swiss painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: intellectual, philosophical, thought provoking, artsy, art house, neurotic
Similar in 87%
Caravaggio (1986)
Plot Summary:
As influential Italian artist Caravaggio dies in exile in 1610, he recalls his short life, from his childhood to his initial artistic failures to his later triumphs as he catches the eye of a sympathetic cardinal to his destructive relationship with a dashing gambler.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, stylized, factual, spiritual, heartbreaking, artsy, art film, postmodern
Similar in 89%
Christopher and His Kind (2011)
Plot Summary:
In 1931 budding author Christopher Isherwood goes to Berlin at the invitation of his friend W. H. Auden for the gay sex that abounds in the city. Whilst working as an English teacher his housemates include bewigged old queen Gerald Hamilton and would-be actress Jean Ross, who sings tunelessly in a seedy cabaret club. They and others he meets get put into his stories. After a fling with sexy rent boy Caspar he falls for street sweeper Heinz, paying medical bills for the boy's sickly mother, to the disapproval of her other son, Nazi Gerhardt. With Fascism rapidly rising Christopher returns to London with Heinz but is unable to prevent his return to Germany when his visa expires. Years later Christopher, now a successful writer, returns to Berlin for a final meeting with Heinz, now married with children.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, sexual, crying, sexy, queer cinema, gay cinema, pre war
Similar in 75%
Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! (2006)
Plot Summary:
Kenneth Williams was the star of the Carry Ons and Round the Horne. Despite his fame, he led a life full of mental torture as he tried to overcome his homosexuality in 1950s Britain. This film follows his life and eventual death based on the many diaries he kept.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, period drama
Similar in 88%
Pasolini (2014)
Plot Summary:
We are with Pasolini during the last hours of his life, as he talks with his beloved family and friends, writes, gives a brutally honest interview, shares a meal with Ninetto Davoli, and cruises for the roughest rough trade in his gun-metal gray Alfa Romeo. Over the course of the action, Pasolini’s life and his art (represented by scenes from his films, his novel-in-progress Petrolio, and his projected film Porno-Teo-Kolossal) are constantly refracted and intermingled to the point where they become one.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: France, Belgium, Italy
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, intellectual, independent film, contemplative
Similar in 75%
An Englishman in New York (2009)
Plot Summary:
Biographical drama based on the last 20 years of Crisp's life. The literary figure and gay iconoclast emigrated to New York in 1981 and lived there until his death. The film observes Crisp in both his public and private lives, from his seemingly cavalier response to the outbreak of AIDS to his tender relationship with his friend Patrick Angus and his own response to growing old.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: sincere, realistic, touching, humorous, witty, semi serious, queer cinema, flamboyance, iconic
Similar in 89%
Philomena (2013)
Plot Summary:
A woman searches for her adult son, who was taken away from her decades ago when she was forced to live in a convent.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 103000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, France, USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, captivating, emotional, realistic, sad, compassionate, cerebral, road movie, intense
Similar in 75%
The Naked Civil Servant (1975)
Plot Summary:
Story of the life of Quentin Crisp, an Englishman who was brave enough to live his life according to his own style even in the hostile days of WW2.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: period piece, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, witty, controversial, queer cinema
Similar in 80%
Enid (2009)
Plot Summary:
Edwardian child Enid Blyton begins to tell stories to her brothers as an escape from their parents' rows before the father deserts the family.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, costume drama, cult classic, period drama, weird
Similar in 79%
Hannah Arendt (2012)
Plot Summary:
Hannah Arendt is a portrait of the genius that shook the world with her discovery of “the banality of evil.” After she attends the Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, Arendt dares to write about the Holocaust in terms no one has ever heard before. Her work instantly provokes a furious scandal, and Arendt stands strong as she is attacked by friends and foes alike. But as the German-Jewish émigré also struggles to suppress her own painful associations with the past, the film exposes her beguiling blend of arrogance and vulnerability — revealing a soul defined and derailed by exile.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Germany, Luxembourg, France, Israel
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: psychological, thought provoking, realistic, philosophical, political, art house, anthropological, serious, captivating, contemplative
Similar in 85%
Howl (2010)
Plot Summary:
It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, surreal, thought provoking, sincere, realistic, intellectual, sexual, art house, stylized, sexy
Similar in 79%
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
Plot Summary:
A fictional account of the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima told in four parts. The first three parts relate events in three of his novels: The temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko's House, and Runaway Horses. The last part depicts the events of 25th November 1970.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA, Japan
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, serious, philosophical, mind bending, psychedelic, spiritual, disturbing, anthology, avant garde
Similar in 75%
Prick Up Your Ears (1987)
Plot Summary:
Stephen Frears directs this biographical drama focusing on controversial British playwright Joe Orton, revealed in flashback after his murder by lover Kenneth Halliwell. Born in 1933 in Leicester, in the English Midlands, John 'Joe' Orton moves to London in 1951, to study at RADA, and enjoys an openly gay relationship with Halliwell in their famous Islington flat in the 1960s. However, when Orton achieves spectacular success with such plays as 'What the Butler Saw' and 'Loot', Halliwell begins to feel alienated and the pair's future looks increasingly uncertain.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: independent film, witty, dark comedy, black comedy, period piece, tense, clever, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Klimt (2006)
Plot Summary:
A portrait of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt whose lavish, sexual paintings came to symbolize the art nouveau style of the late 19th and early 20th century.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Austria, France, Germany, UK
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, stylized, cerebral, visual, visually stunning, serious, captivating, realistic, experimental, contemplative
Similar in 87%
American Splendor (2003)
Plot Summary:
An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 52000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: realistic, stylized, dark comedy, independent film, sincere, semi serious, cult classic, metafiction, clever, cynical
Similar in 81%
Total Eclipse (1995)
Plot Summary:
Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: UK, France, Belgium
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: serious, erotic, costume drama, cult classic, psychological, sexual, thought provoking, lgbt cinema, artsy, historical drama
Similar in 82%
Sylvia (2003)
Plot Summary:
Story of the relationship between the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: depressing, emotional, realistic, psychological, serious, heartbreaking, romantic, neurotic, art house, period piece
Similar in 78%
Gods and Monsters (1998)
Plot Summary:
It's 1957, and Whale's heyday as the director of "Frankenstein," "Bride of Frankenstein" and "The Invisible Man" is long behind him. Retired and a semi-recluse, he lives his days accompanied only by images from his past. When his dour housekeeper, Hannah, hires a handsome young gardener, the flamboyant director and simple yard man develop an unlikely friendship, which will change them forever.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 32000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: enigmatic, melancholic, captivating, sentimental, cult classic, independent film, touching, witty, entertaining, costume drama
Similar in 89%
Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
Plot Summary:
In the 1970s, a foundling lad, Patrick "Kitten" Braden, comes of age by leaving his Irish town for London, in part to look for his mother and in part because his trans-gender nature is beyond the town's understanding.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 24000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Ireland, UK
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: surreal, touching, sentimental, compassionate, sincere, serious, stylized, emotional, dark comedy, indie film
Similar in 80%
Before Night Falls (2000)
Plot Summary:
Spanning several decades, this powerful biopic offers a glimpse into the life of famed Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, an artist who was vilified for his homosexuality in Fidel Castro's Cuba.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 26000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: Mexico, USA
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, bleak, lyrical, serious, emotional, realistic, independent film, sincere, sad, factual
Similar in 82%
Wilde (1997)
Plot Summary:
The story of Oscar Wilde, genius, poet, playwright and the First Modern Man. The self-realisation of his homosexuality caused Wilde enormous torment as he juggled marriage, fatherhood and responsibility with his obsessive love for Lord Alfred Douglas.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: UK, Japan, Germany
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: homoerotic, costume drama, touching, period piece, witty, historical drama, sentimental, sincere, serious, captivating
Similar in 83%
Breaking the Code (1996)
Plot Summary:
A biography of the English mathematician Alan Turing, who was one of the inventors of the digital computer and one of the key figures in the breaking of the Enigma code, used by the Germans to send secret orders to their U-boats in World War II. Turing was also a homosexual in Britain at a time when this was illegal, besides being a security risk.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 668
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 89%
The Imitation Game (2014)
Plot Summary:
Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 811000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Thriller, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: inspirational, captivating, intellectual, clever, serious, motivational, entertaining, thought provoking, factual, visually appealing