Best movies like A Buddha
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Un Buda follows two brothers orphaned as children when their parents were taken by the military during the "Dirty Wars" of the 1970s in Argentina. Tomas is now a drifting and withdrawn young man who experiments with ascetic practices and has an instinctive compassion for others. His older brother Rafael is a university philosophy professor, detached and alone. Their struggles with each other and the world around them in Buenos Aires take a dramatic turn when they find themselves at a rural Zen center.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 805
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Best tv shows and movies like A Buddha (2005):
Similar in 85%
Gate, Gate, Paragate (1996)
Plot Summary:
Vietnam's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1996.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 8
Genere: Drama
Country: Vietnam, Switzerland
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Being in Heaven (2009)
Plot Summary:
In a single moment, life can change forever. Jason Masterman is a young and successful New York stock broker whose career comes to a bitter and humiliating end with the onset of the global financial crisis. Waking one morning to the sound of the receivers knocking on his door, Jason is ordered out of his home immediately, taking only what he can carry with him. Having lost everything, he retreats to the other side of the globe, to his home town of Sydney, where a chance meeting with a mysterious man in a local restaurant will change the way he will live the rest of his life. As if awakened from a dream, Jason returns to New York with a fresh vision for the future and a renewed sense of purpose and direction for his life. But did his fall from grace ever really happen? Being in Heaven is a journey of revelation and awakening that reveals the truth about meaning, freedom and personal happiness. The film exposes the influence our beliefs and experiences have on our lives, and.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 19
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: spiritual, independent film
Similar in 87%
Butterfly Rising (2011)
Plot Summary:
When her brother dies, singer Lilah Belle sets out to escape her grief and embarks on a road trip, but not before coaxing the new-to-town, most scandalous woman in Artesia, Rose Johnson, to go with her. These two broken souls steal a vintage truck and head out on the open road to a fated encounter with the mythical, magical 'Lazarus of the Butterflies'. What occurs with the strange Butterfly Man transforms their destinies and binds the women together - forever.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 25
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: avant garde
Similar in 89%
Yanco (1961)
Plot Summary:
The engaging and sentimental tale begins when the little boy (Ricardo Ancona) starts manifesting a greater and greater talent at music and at the same time, a supersensitivity to sounds. His overly astute hearing drives him into the woods and away from the cacophony of the town's hustle and bustle. Once in the woods, he meets a kindly old hermit who teaches him how to play the violin he made. After the old man dies, the violin ends up at a pawn shop, and each night the boy sneaks in to play it in secret. It is this haunting, nightly music that sets the town on edge -- people think an evil spirit is on the loose.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 180
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: spiritual, minimal cast
Similar in 80%
A Spring for the Thirsty (1965)
Plot Summary:
A parable centering on an old man who lives a secluded life in the desert, alone with only his memories and photographs. His wellspring, once a source of joy and hope for thirsty passersby, is now rarely used. No longer able to find comfort in his memories, he turns all his photographs to face the walls.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 409
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, spiritual
Similar in 85%
Milarepa (1974)
Plot Summary:
Leo, dopo un incidente stradale, è ricoverato in ambulatorio e racconta al professore Bennet, suo medico curante, la storia e le gesta del monaco tibetano Milarepa, con il quale si identifica. La leggenda è narrata in tre capitoli ben distinti: la magia nera, ovvero le pratiche delle fattucchiere ; la magia bianca, ovvero il raggiungimento della perfezione e della saggezza e la trasfigurazione, ovvero il distacco da ogni realtà materiale attraverso la resurrezione. Film difficile, ma di forte impatto mistico, per l'epoca.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 127
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: philosophical
Similar in 82%
The Student (2011)
Plot Summary:
Roque starts University in Buenos Aires but he is not particularly interested in attending classes or working towards a degree. Instead, he dedicates his time to one of the many groups vying for control of the university, motivated less by grand political ideals than by a wish to get close to Paula, an attractive young teacher heavily involved in internal university politics.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Pastorale (1975)
Plot Summary:
In the mountain village comes a group of young musicians in Tbilisi. Here they are going to relax and rehearse. Sad story about the final rupture occurred, the peasants do not sing beautiful old songs, the musicians play music incomprehensible to them ... Far from the idyllic image of rural life.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 543
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 88%
Love and Anger (1969)
Plot Summary:
Five short stories with contemporary settings. In New York, people are indifferent to derelicts sleeping on sidewalks, to a woman's assault in front of an apartment building, and to a couple injured in a car crash. A man, stripped of his identity, dies in bed with actors expressing his agony. A cheerful, innocent young man walking a city street in a time of war pays a price for this innocence. A couple talks about cinema while it watches another couple talk of love and truth on the eve of one character's return to Cuba. Striking students take over a university classroom; an argument follows about revolution or incremental change.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 827
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: anthology, spiritual, art house
Similar in 89%
The Entreaty (1967)
Plot Summary:
Based on the poems “Aluda Ketelauri” and “The Guest and the Host” by the classic of Georgian literature Vazha Pshavela This film opens Tengiz Abuladze’s trilogy (“The Plea”, “The Wishing Tree”, “Repentance”), which discusses the subject of common human values using original national material. The death of heroes, the knights of truth and good, leads the Poet to the conclusion that the evil is invincible. Exhausted by struggle and privations, the Poet lays down his arms. He is visited then by all of his favorite heroes. They put out candles by dipping them into a beer cup – a ritual Khevsuri gesture meaning renunciation. And only after seeing what misfortune and harm the rejection of fighting the evil results in, the Poet takes up arms again.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 869
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: spiritual, crying, avant garde
Similar in 90%
Ashik Kerib (1988)
Plot Summary:
Wandering minstrel Ashik Kerib falls in love with a rich merchant's daughter, but is spurned by her father and forced to roam the world for a thousand and one nights - but not before he's got the daughter to promise not to marry till his return. It's told in typical Paradjanov style, in a series of visually ravishing 'tableaux vivants' overlaid with Turkish and Azerbaijani folksongs.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: spiritual, art house, surreal, fairy tale, atmospheric, serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, allegory
Similar in 85%
The Horse Thief (1986)
Plot Summary:
Devout Buddhists, Norbu and Dolma live with their young son Tashi in a clan in Tibet. Norbu is a highwayman. After Norbu is charged with stealing from the temple, he and his family are banished. Impoverished and marginalized, they can do little when their beloved son becomes ill. Tashi dies of a fever. After a second son is born, Norbu focuses his every action on keeping this child alive, seeking re-admission to the clan for his wife and child, then risking all to save them from isolation and starvation in winter. Images of harsh landscapes, vultures, and prayer wheels carry a virtually wordless narrative.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: China
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: spiritual, poetic
Similar in 87%
This Transient Life (1970)
Plot Summary:
Near a remote Buddhist monastery, a young man falls in love with his sister and gets her pregnant. After a monk finds out, the young man becomes an assistant to a master sculptor, only to proceed to complicate matters with his affairs.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: spiritual, erotic
Similar in 81%
The Last Monk (2006)
Plot Summary:
The Last Monk is the journey of a young newly-married woman from the world of the newly-rich, 30-something IT engineers and corporate managers in New Delhi, to the vast, stark beauty of Ladakh in the Indian Himalayas. It is a journey from the superficial materialism of the new young Indian middle class to the universal mysticism of Buddhism. The otherworldly landscape becomes inseparable from the cosmic power of the physical and mystical universe as she discovers her own spirituality and a sexuality beyond the physical, led and mentored by a young khempo, or lay Buddhist monk vital, verbose, funny, and a fountain of cosmic truths. The Last Monk is part of a growing movement in Indian cinema, approaching the societal and spiritual issues raised by todays rapidly-changing India.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 49
Genere: Drama
Country: India
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Zen Noir (2004)
Plot Summary:
No overview found.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 373
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Mystery
Country: USA
Duration: 71 min
Plot tags: spiritual, inspirational, neo noir, detective, dark comedy
Similar in 80%
Sri Siddhartha Gautama (2013)
Plot Summary:
Sri Siddhartha Gautama is a Sinhala movie released on 24 January, 2013. The movie is directed by Saman Weeraman and featured Anchal Singh and Gagan Malik as lead characters.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 261
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Sri Lanka
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: sinhala, spiritual
Similar in 77%
Enlightenment Guaranteed (1999)
Plot Summary:
Two middle aged German brothers - one New Age and recently divorced, the other uptight and sceptical - travel to a Zen monastery in Japan in search of enlightenment, or perhaps just in search of themselves.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Comedy
Country: Germany
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: touching, spiritual, inspirational, poignant, existential, feel good, humorous, realistic, contemplative, semi serious
Similar in 81%
Golden Kingdom (2015)
Plot Summary:
Story of four young monks left alone in their remote monastery in Myanmar. Shot entirely in newly-opened Myanmar with non-actors, the film bridges spirit, cinema, and traditional Burmese storytelling to open a view onto an unseen world.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 150
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Myanmar
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, tense, atmospheric, contemplative
Similar in 86%
Siddhartha (1972)
Plot Summary:
Siddhartha is the story of a young Brahmin and his search for a meaningful way of life. His journey takes him through periods of harsh asceticism, sensual pleasures, material wealth, self-revulsion and eventually to the oneness and harmony that he had been seeking. The story is based on the best-selling novel by German Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: India, USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: spiritual, philosophical, road movie, dramatic, surreal, existential, independent film, psychological, atmospheric, serious
Similar in 75%
The Shift (2009)
Plot Summary:
From the creators of You Can Heal Your Life: The Movie comes a compelling portrait of three modern lives in need of new direction and new meaning. In his first-ever movie, Wayne Dyer explores the spiritual journey in the second half of life when we long to find the purpose that is our unique contribution to the world. The powerful shift from the ego constructs we are taught early in life by parents and society—which promote an emphasis on achievement and accumulation—are shown in contrast to a life of meaning, focused on serving and giving back. Filmed on coastal California’s spectacular Monterey Peninsula, The Shift captures every person’s mid-life longing for a more purposeful, soul-directed life.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, serious, realistic, spiritual, inspirational, existential, mystical
Similar in 87%
Mandala (1981)
Plot Summary:
The film follows the differing lives of two Buddhist monks in Korea. By following their lives and their interaction throughout the film, Im creates a contemplation of the nature of individualism, religious belief and enlightenment.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 380
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
The Lonely Voice of Man (1987)
Plot Summary:
The film is Sokurov's feature film debut and is based on the novel The River Potudan by Andrei Platonov. It's a story about the lives of people in the Russian countryside in the beginning of the 20th century. The film was completed in 1979 as a graduation film, but was banned by the Soviet state and didn't premiere until 1987.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 716
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: poetic, spiritual, contemplative, avant garde
Similar in 85%
The Asthenic Syndrome (1989)
Plot Summary:
In the old days it was called hypochrondria, or black melancholia. Now, apparently, it's termed the Asthenic Syndrome. Whatever it is, Nikolai, a teacher of epicly indifferent pupils, has got it, and it's not much fun.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 153 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 89%
Emile (2003)
Plot Summary:
In a story weaving the past and present together, Emile seeks redemption from the family he abandoned.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 797
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, UK
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 90%
Hamoun (1990)
Plot Summary:
Hamoon's wife is leaving him. He is also unsuccessfully trying to finish his Ph.D. thesis. He is forced to reexamine his life. In a series of flashbacks and dreams, Hamoon tries to figure out what he did wrong.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: existential, spiritual, islamic, cult classic, psychological, sentimental, sincere, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 81%
Himalaya (1999)
Plot Summary:
As the denizens of a Tibetan village prepare for their arduous annual trek to exchange salt for grain, the community's allegiances are split between aging chieftain Tinle (Thilen Lhondup) and rebellious young Karma (Gurgon Kyap). Tinle tries to maintain his clout and preserve obedience to ancient customs when Karma challenges the old man's power.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Switzerland, UK, Nepal
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: road movie, independent film, atmospheric, spiritual, dramatic, tense, sincere, epic, serious, captivating
Similar in 87%
Travelers and Magicians (2003)
Plot Summary:
A young government official, named Dondup, who is smitten with America (he even has a denim gho) dreams of escaping there while stuck in a beautiful but isolated village. He hopes to connect in the U.S. with a visa out of the country. He misses the one bus out of town to Thimphu, however, and is forced to hitchhike and walk along the Lateral Road to the west, accompanied by an apple seller, a Buddhist monk with his ornate, dragon-headed dramyin, a drunk, a widowed rice paper maker, and his beautiful daughter, Sonam.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: Bhutan
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: road movie, atmospheric, serious, captivating, spiritual, independent film, inspirational, philosophical, poignant, anthropological
Similar in 76%
Little Buddha (1993)
Plot Summary:
Little Buddha is a movie about the life of Siddhartha starring Keanu Reeves and Bridget Fonda and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Liechtenstein, UK
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: unusual plot structure, spiritual, fairy tale, retro, philosophical, existential, cult classic, independent film, sentimental, meditative
Similar in 80%
Zen (2009)
Plot Summary:
In the early 1200s, Dogen brought Chinese Zen philosophy to Japan, and established the Japanese Zen sect of Buddhism. He taught that a person was capable of realizing Buddhahood within himself, by way of Zazen. Zazen is extended hours of sitting and meditating to achieve a state of “Mu” (nothingness, or empty existence).
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: spiritual, psychological, atmospheric, captivating, contemplative, inspirational, independent film, thinking, esoteric
Similar in 87%
Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (1989)
Plot Summary:
Three people live in a remote Buddhist monastery near Mount Chonan: Hyegok, the old master; Yong Nan, a young man who has left his extended family in the city to seek enlightenment - Hyegok calls him Kibong!; and, an orphan lad Haejin, whom Hyegok has brought to the monastery to raise as a monk. The story is mostly Yong Nan's, told in flashbacks: how he came to the monastery, his brief return to the city, his vacillation between the turbulence of the world and his hope to overcome passions and escape the idea of self. We also see Hyegok as a teacher, a protector, and a father figure, and we watch Haejin make his way as a curious and nearly self-sufficient child.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 137 min
Plot tags: spiritual, slow cinema, psychedelic, thinking, aesthetic, psychological, atmospheric, thought provoking, serious, captivating