Best movies like A Friendship in Vienna
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Inge Dournenvald and Lise Mueller are best friends in pre-WW2 Austria, despite the fact that Inge is Jewish and Lise is the daughter of a Nazi sympathizer. When they are forbidden to see each other, they meet secretly. After the Germans invade Austria in 1938, Inge and her family escape to America with the help of Lise.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 161
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like A Friendship in Vienna (1988):
Similar in 75%
Lena: My 100 Children (1987)
Plot Summary:
At the end of World War II Lena Kuchler arrives at a refuge camp in search of her disappeared family members. But at this place she can get no information in her case but only encounters hungry children.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 145
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972)
Plot Summary:
An American soldier manages to endure his captivity in a Vietnamese POW camp by keeping alive the memories of life in his home town. When he is finally released from the camp, and is discharged from the military, he goes back to his town - but he can find no trace whatsoever of it.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 166
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus (1991)
Plot Summary:
While newspaper writer Church struggles with the death of his wife, he receives a "special" assignment. He must answer a little girl's question about whether Santa Claus really exists.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 946
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Perfect Parents (2006)
Plot Summary:
After a violent incident in Lucy's public school, her atheist parents Stuart and Alison decide to find her a safe 'traditional' school. The only one they can afford is St. Mary of the Veil, run by nuns whose 'preference' for Catholic families is de facto exclusivity, given the waiting list. So they pose as devout, and get his murky mate Eddie to find them a priest they can 'bribe' for a parish reference, while Lucy is genuinely converted. It works, but when Stuart overhears a dark secret things take a tragic turn.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 151
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: crying
Similar in 88%
Miracle at Moreaux (1985)
Plot Summary:
Drama - On a December night in 1943, three Jewish children escape from Nazi-occupied France and are given refuge by Sister Gabrielle at a Catholic school in which the gentile students must face their fears about harboring Jews from the Nazis. As the students become acquainted with their Jewish peers, they grow more sympathetic to their situation and eventually go to great lengths -- and take serious risks -- to save the lives of their newfound friends. - Loretta Swit, Geneviève Appleton, Milan Cheylov.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 142
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 58 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Inspection of the Crime Scene 1901 (1980)
Plot Summary:
More documentary in its approach than dramatized history, this is a compelling story about a 1901 children's strike in Wrzesnia near the Polish border with Prussia. Poland was partitioned at this time, and a rigidly patriotic Prussian teacher in Wrzesnia follows the dictates of the Germans in parliament and insists that the children be taught their religion classes in German. When the children refuse to take part in the classes, they are supported by the local priest, but that does not save them from being beaten. They are also kept after school and tormented in other ways as well. Newspapers, parents, and the nation as a whole get involved, transforming a simple children's strike into a national incident.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 56
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Poland
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
Sweet Country (1987)
Plot Summary:
An American couple in Chile is drawn into the turmoil that followed President Salvador Allende's 1973 overthrow.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 226
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Greece, USA
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
The Eternal Road (2017)
Plot Summary:
Based on true events an epic story of one man's struggle for survival. Jussi Ketola, returns to Finland from the great depression struck America only to face growing political unrest. One summer night of 1930, nationalist thugs violently abduct Ketola from his home. Beaten and forced to walk the Eternal Road towards a foreign Soviet Russia, where cruelty seems to know no end, his only dream is to return to his family cost it what it may. Hope dies last.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Finland, Estonia, Sweden
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: psychological, suspense, tense, rough, thought provoking, suspenseful, touching
Similar in 89%
Mother (1990)
Plot Summary:
The social ferment in late 19th century Russia which led to the 1917 Russian Revolution is movingly portrayed in this lengthy historical drama, which is very faithful to the 1907 novel The Mother by the celebrated Marxist writer Maxim Gorky (1868-1936). In the story, "the mother" (Inna Tchourikova) has no other recourse than to watch her decent, kindly husband turn into an animalistic, drunken brute as a result of working in the inhuman conditions of a steel mill in the town of Sormovo. When he begins to express his suppressed rage by beating her, she is defended by her teenaged son Pavel (depicted Viktor Rakov as an adult, Sacha Chichonok as a boy). After his father's death, Pavel is forced to go to work in the same factory. However, Pavel and his friends begin investigating Marxism and socialist thought, and work to organize their fellow workers.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 186
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Soviet Union, Italy
Duration: 200 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
My Best Friend Anne Frank (2021)
Plot Summary:
Based on the real-life friendship between Anne Frank and Hannah Goslar, from Nazi-occupied Amsterdam to their harrowing reunion in a concentration camp.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, entertaining
Similar in 84%
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)
Plot Summary:
A story set in 19th century China and centered on the lifelong friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid cultural norms imposed on women.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: China, USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, captivating, disturbing, stylized
Similar in 85%
3rd Reich Mothers, in the Name of the Master Race (2012)
Plot Summary:
Two beautiful and different girls, Alice and Lisette are 17 years old, when forcibly removed from their Alsatian family to cooperate in the war effort in Germany. After spending six months in a indoctrination camp, they are both sent to a munitions factory where they are tasked to perform inhuman works. An explosion erupts, they are suspected of sabotage and threatened with being sent to a boot camp. Alice and Lisette believe they saved when transferred to a maternity where they continue living the hell of war.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 445
Genere: Drama, History
Country: France
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, suspense, disturbing, political
Similar in 83%
The Silent Revolution (2018)
Plot Summary:
It's 1956. During a visit to a cinema in West Berlin, East German high school pupils Theo and Kurt see disturbing newsreel footage of the uprising in Budapest. Back in Stalinstadt, one of the GDR’s flagship workers’ settlements, they have the idea of holding a minute’s silence in class for the victims of the Hungarian struggle for freedom.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Germany
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, suspenseful, disturbing, captivating, political, social, crying, banned
Similar in 77%
Roots: The Gift (1988)
Plot Summary:
In December 1775, Cletus Moyer is a free black Northerner in colonial America, helping slaves escape captivity. In the days just prior to Christmas, a group of bounty hunters captures Moyer. Because of his capture, dozens of slaves who have already left their plantations are in danger of being captured as well. Moyer implores two slaves from a nearby plantation to take his place: Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka in his mid-twenties who was captured in what is now Gambia, and Fiddler, an elderly man who was born into slavery. Kunta is eager to help (and to escape himself), but Fiddler is unwilling, fearful of the consequences if they are caught.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 627
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: historical drama
Similar in 82%
Pudana: Last of the Line (2010)
Plot Summary:
A little Nenets girl Neko is taken against her will from her home to a boarding school in a remote Russian village. Forced to adapt to a foreign culture and new customs, Neko rebels and decides to flee, hoping to get back to her family and old habits.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 66
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Finland
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Julia (1977)
Plot Summary:
At the behest of an old and dear friend, playwright Lillian Hellman undertakes a dangerous mission to smuggle funds into Nazi Germany.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: factual, atmospheric, captivating, realistic, political, touching, visually stunning, historical drama, serious, contemplative
Similar in 83%
Secret Places (1984)
Plot Summary:
Young girls, soon to be women, sharing everything...except their secret places.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 116
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 88%
The Assisi Underground (1985)
Plot Summary:
This film sheds light on the role of the Catholic Church and the people of Assisi in rescuing Italian Jews from the Nazis in 1943.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 433
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Italy, USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, independent film
Similar in 84%
The Cardinal (1963)
Plot Summary:
A young Catholic priest from Boston confronts bigotry, Naziism, and his own personal conflicts as he rises to the office of cardinal.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: USA
Duration: 175 min
Plot tags: religious drama, epic, sincere, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
Similar in 75%
The Gathering (1977)
Plot Summary:
When Adam Thornton learns that he only has a little time left, he decides that he wants to make peace with his family. Only problem is that most of his family are not exactly fond of him because he walked out on his wife and of his stubborn nature and he hasn't spoken to his youngest son after having an argument with him which he was in the wrong but only realize after his son left and has not been heard from since. But he goes to her to help him find him. But when his doctor says that it won't be good for him to travel, she suggests that they invite them all for Christmas. While most of them come, Adam's attempt at reconciliation won't be easy.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 790
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, vintage
Similar in 76%
Never Forget (1991)
Plot Summary:
Mr. Mermelstein (Leonard Nimoy) and Mrs. Mermelstein (Blythe Danner) a true-life California couple, thrown into the spotlight of judicial history in the 1980s. He is a Hungarian-born Jew, sole-survivor of his family's extermination at Auschwitz, and she is a Southern Baptist from Tennessee. Their four children are good kids, typical Americans, with just enough orneriness to irritate each other, but enough love and class to pull together when it counts. When challenged by a hate group to prove that Jews were actually gassed at Auschwitz, Mel Mermelstein rises to the occasion with the support of his wife and children, in spite of the dangers to himself, his business, and his family. William John Cox (Dabney Coleman) provides legal help (pro bono) as a lawyer, originally a Roman Catholic from Texas.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 300
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: political
Similar in 78%
Two Hearts as One (2014)
Plot Summary:
A look inside the story of two newlyweds who are parted from each other and spend the next half-century of their lives trying to reunite.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Turkey
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, captivating, touching, exciting, epic, serious, stylized, political, non-linear
Similar in 83%
Hotel Meina (2007)
Plot Summary:
How will the Germans react to the armistice of the 8th of September 1943, due to which Italy betrays them and sides with the allied forces? This is the distressing questions that a group of 16 Italian - Greek Jews evacuated at The Meina Hotel ask themselves.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 124
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy, France, Serbia
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
The Official Story (1985)
Plot Summary:
After the end of the Dirty War, a high school teacher sets out to find out who the mother of her adopted daughter is.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Argentina
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: political, captivating, sincere, suspenseful, disturbing, sad, emotional, realistic, light, epic
Similar in 89%
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
Plot Summary:
In late 1930s Ferrara, Italy, the Finzi-Continis are a leading family: wealthy, aristocratic, and urbane; they are also Jewish. Their adult children, Micol and Alberto, gather a diverse circle of friends for tennis and parties at their villa with its lovely grounds, and try to keep the rest of the world at bay. But tensions between them all grow as anti-Semitism rises in Fascist Italy, and even the Finzi-Continis will have to confront the Holocaust.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Italy, West Germany
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: disturbing, compassionate, breathtaking, emotional, talky, sentimental, thought provoking, touching, serious, captivating
Similar in 86%
Carol's Journey (2002)
Plot Summary:
Carol, a 12 year old Spanish-American girl from New York, travels with her mother to Spain in the spring of 1938, at the height of the Civil War. Separated from her beloved father, Carol arrives in her mother's home village and transforms the secretive family environment. Her innocence and rebellious nature drive her at first to reject a world that is at once new and foreign. But she soon journeys into adulthood through a friendship with Maruja, the village teacher, and a young local boy, Tomiche.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Spain, Portugal
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 75%
Some Mother's Son (1996)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of the 1981 hunger strike in a British prison, in which IRA prisoner Bobby Sands led a protest against the treatment of IRA prisoners as criminals rather than as prisoners of war. The film focuses on the mothers of two of the strikers, and their struggle to save the lives of their sons.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Ireland, USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: political, bleak, psychological, sincere, uplifting, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, sexy
Similar in 81%
The Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Plot Summary:
Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His diplomatic status in a Catholic country prevents Colonel Kappler from openly arresting him, but O'Flaherty's activities become so large that the Nazi's decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican. O'Flaherty continues his work in a variety of disguises. Based on a true story. Written by John Vogel.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: USA, UK, Italy
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: realistic, factual, tense, serious, suspenseful, christian film, psychological, captivating, period piece, spiritual
Similar in 77%
Operation: Daybreak (1975)
Plot Summary:
Czechoslovakia, 1942. Three brave Czech patriots risk everything to rid their country of its brutal Nazi leader, SS-General Reinhard Heydrich.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, USA
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 81%
Reunion (1989)
Plot Summary:
Two young boys from very different backgrounds become friends in 1933 Stuttgart. However, they don't realize how different they are until much later as one is the son of a well-to-do Jewish doctor and the other the son of a German aristocrat. After that summer and the election of Hitler, things change as antisemitism gains fervor. After the core of the film deals with that era, the film flashes to the present and the Jewish man now returns to his boyhood home and seeks his old friend with some surprises.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 557
Genere: Drama, History
Country: France, West Germany, UK
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: independent film, thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing