Best movies like A Petal
Last updated March 2024
Looking for movies like A Petal? Leverage your expertise to direct others toward films and tv series you've already viewed that might likewise intrigue them. Assist in growing the cohort of people bringing up videos between each other. We value your contribution!
Plot Summary:
A young girl is caught up in the 1980 Gwangju massacre, where Korean soldiers killed hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters who opposed the country's takeover by the military the year before. Flashbacks show the girl seeing her mother shot to death in the massacre. The film spurred the Korean public to demand the truth behind the incident, and their government eventually opened previously classified files on the massacre.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 474
Genere: Drama, History
Country: South Korea
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: depressing
Best tv shows and movies like A Petal (1996):
Similar in 87%
Polytechnique (2009)
Plot Summary:
A dramatization of the Montreal Massacre of 1989 where several female engineering students were murdered by an unstable misogynist.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Crime, Drama, History
Country: Canada
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: disturbing, black and white, atmospheric, serious, realistic, depressing, art house, philosophical, suspense, social
Similar in 80%
Paper Star (1989)
Plot Summary:
Anna Kelanen is an ex-model, who just has been released from prison. She thinks back on her life, when she was a rather successful model, and on the things that went wrong.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 239
Genere: Drama
Country: Finland, Sweden
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Imagen latente (1987)
Plot Summary:
Directed by Pablo Perelman.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 63
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
To You, From Me (1994)
Plot Summary:
A failed writer given to plagiarism gets a buzz at the door from a bright young working girl with a highly original approach to life and sex and his life and work is totally thrown off balance.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 104
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Green Fish (1997)
Plot Summary:
Returning home and finding his town drastically changed, a former soldier falls in with gangsters.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: crime drama, exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 86%
Inchon (1981)
Plot Summary:
A noisy and absurd re-telling of the great 1950 invasion of Inchon during the Korean War which was masterminded by General Douglas MacArthur.
IMDB Rating: 2.8
IMDB Votes: 833
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: South Korea, USA
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: historical drama, independent film
Similar in 89%
The Blue Hour (1971)
Plot Summary:
THE BLUE HOUR tells the story of Tanya, a young woman with a mysterious past who finds herself trapped in a sexual hell in Los Angeles. Punctuated by striking visuals and avant-garde editing, THE BLUE HOUR is a lost masterpiece of late period sexploitation.
IMDB Rating: 3.7
IMDB Votes: 109
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: surreal
Similar in 86%
Chronicle of a Boy Alone (1965)
Plot Summary:
The story of a delinquent eleven-year-old orphan in fascist Argentina.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 792
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: neorealism, depressing, crying
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 81%
Walking, Walking (1983)
Plot Summary:
Italian maestro Ermanno Olmi tells the tale of the journey of the Magi in this lyrical odyssey. The film focuses on a wise man who interprets his sighting of a comet streaking through the sky as a spiritual message. Joined by two associates, soldiers, villagers and others, the Magi sets out on a journey that tests his beliefs and strength.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 155
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy
Duration: 171 min
Plot tags: biblical, fairy tale, crying, allegory
Similar in 90%
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 83%
The Conspiracy of Torture (1969)
Plot Summary:
In 1599 Italy, Beatrice Cenci is the teenage daughter of the crazed landowner and nobleman Francesco Cenci whom he keeps his daughter locked up in the dungeon of his castle and sexually abuses her as well. Beatrice then plots with her stepmother, her besotted servant Olimpio, as well as a local bandit, named Catalano, to plan Francesco’s murder.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: slasher, gothic horror, classic horror
Similar in 77%
1987: When the Day Comes (2017)
Plot Summary:
In 1987 Korea, under an oppressive military regime, a college student gets killed during a police interrogation involving torture. Government of officials are quick to cover up the death and order the body to be cremated. A prosecutor who is supposed to sign the cremation release, raises questions about a 21-year-old kid dying of a heart attack, and he begins looking into the case for truth. Despite a systematic attempt to silence everyone involved in the case, the truth gets out, causing an eruption of public outrage.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: South Korea
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, sincere, captivating, suspense, disturbing, social, banned
Similar in 75%
National Theatre Live: King Lear (2011)
Plot Summary:
An ageing monarch. A kingdom divided. A child’s love rejected. As Lear’s world descends into chaos, all that he once believed is brought into question. One of the greatest works in Western literature, King Lear explores the very nature of human existence: love and duty, power and loss, good and evil.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 42
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK
Duration: 156 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Peppermint Candy (1999)
Plot Summary:
In the spring of 1999, a group of old friends gather to celebrate their 20 year reunion. Among the group is Yeong-ho, a cold, unhappy man, whose demeanor puts a damper on the festivities. The seriousness of Yeong-ho"s depression becomes apparent, however, when he climbs a railroad bridge and looks like he might jump. At this crucial moment, memories of seven crucial episodes from Yeong-ho"s past flood his mind.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea, Japan
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: psychological, bleak, serious, existential, realistic, suspense, philosophical, mind bending, psychedelic, depressing
Similar in 79%
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
Plot Summary:
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: China, USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: depressing, emotional, disturbing, erotic, sincere, atmospheric, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Blonde (2022)
Plot Summary:
From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, this reimagined fictional portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 70000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 167 min
Plot tags: exciting, depressing, art house, black and white, cerebral, visual, crying, period piece, erotic drama, psychological
Similar in 79%
The Baby of Mâcon (1993)
Plot Summary:
A town cursed with barren women and famine is saved by a miracle birth to an old, ugly woman: the Mother. Immediately afterwards, the old woman's Daughter (Ormond) claims to have delivered the baby herself in a virgin birth. She imprisons the Mother and begins to exploit the Baby by selling blessings to the desperate townspeople of Mâcon.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Netherlands, France, UK, Germany
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: disturbing, avant garde, surreal, serious, atmospheric, rough, stylized, bleak, controversial, philosophical
Similar in 87%
Despair (1978)
Plot Summary:
Germany in the early 1930s. Against the backdrop of the Nazis' rise, Hermann Hermann, a Russian émigré and chocolate magnate, goes slowly mad. It begins with his seating himself in a chair to observe himself making love to his wife, Lydia, a zaftig empty-headed siren who is also sleeping with her cousin. Hermann is soon given to intemperate outbursts at his workers, other businessmen, and strangers. Then, he meets Felix, an itinerant laborer, whom he delusionally believes looks exactly like himself. Armed with a new life insurance policy, he hatches an elaborate plot in the belief it will free him of all his worries.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: West Germany, France
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: mind bending, psychedelic, neo noir, surreal, avant garde, art house, aesthetic, psychological, serious, realistic
Similar in 75%
Man of Iron (1981)
Plot Summary:
In Warsaw in 1980, the Communist Party sends Winkel, a weak, alcoholic TV hack, to Gdansk to dig up dirt on the shipyard strikers, particularly on Maciek Tomczyk, an articulate worker whose father was killed in the December 1970 protests. Posing as sympathetic, Winkel interviews the people surrounding Tomczyk, including his detained wife, Agnieszka.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Poland
Duration: 156 min
Plot tags: political, thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative, crying
Similar in 84%
The Middle Passage (2000)
Plot Summary:
A realistic look at the horrors of the slave trade, told entirely through the voice of a dead African slave whose spirit haunts the ocean route.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 135
Genere: Drama, History
Country: France, Martinique
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: sentimental, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, experimental
Similar in 79%
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 87%
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 80%
The Kite Runner (2007)
Plot Summary:
After spending years in California, Amir returns to his homeland in Afghanistan to help his old friend Hassan, whose son is in trouble.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 82000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, China, USA
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: emotional, disturbing, inspirational, sincere, psychological, touching, realistic, educational, sad, motivational
Similar in 80%
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974)
Plot Summary:
In February, 1962, as the civil rights movement reaches Bayonne, Louisiana, a New York journalist arrives to interview Jane Pittman, who has just turned 110. She tells him her story dating back to her earliest memories before slavery ended. In between the chapters of her life, the present-day struggles of Blacks in Bayonne, urged on by Jimmy, are dramatized.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: political, epic, sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
Similar in 82%
Song for a Raggy Boy (2003)
Plot Summary:
William Franklin is a teacher who was born in Ireland and moved to the United States only to repatriate in 1939 after his leftist political views cause him to lose his job. Franklin becomes the first non-cleric instructor at St. Jude's, a school for wayward boys run by Brother John, who is a firm believer in strong discipline.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Ireland, Denmark, UK, Spain
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, disturbing, bleak, serious, sincere, depressing, realistic
Similar in 76%
City of Life and Death (2009)
Plot Summary:
City of Life and Death takes place in 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Imperial Japanese Army has just captured the then-capital of the Republic of China, Nanjing. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a period of several weeks wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: China, Hong Kong
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, bleak, black and white, tense, captivating, depressing, breathtaking, political, dark
Similar in 80%
Macbeth (1971)
Plot Summary:
A ruthlessly ambitious Scottish lord siezes the throne with the help of his scheming wife and a trio of witches.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: disturbing, visual, atmospheric, bleak, spiritual, existential, fairy tale, emotional, political thriller, controversial
Similar in 75%
1900 (1976)
Plot Summary:
Set in Bertolucci's ancestral region of Emilia, the film chronicles the lives of two men during the political turmoils that took place in Italy in the first half on the 20th century.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 27000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy, France, West Germany
Duration: 317 min
Plot tags: epic, disturbing, controversial, compassionate, thought provoking, serious, realistic, captivating, political, stylized
Similar in 85%
Caligula (1979)
Plot Summary:
The perversion behind imperial Rome, the epic story of Rome's mad Emporer. All the details of his cruel, bizarre reign are revealed right here: His unholy sexual passion for his sister, his marriage to Rome's most infamous prostitute, his fiendishly inventive means of disposing those who would oppose him, and more.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 38000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy, USA
Duration: 156 min
Plot tags: erotic, sexual, disturbing, controversial, art house, brutal, grindhouse, sensual, atmospheric, rough