Best movies like A Secret
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In 1953, a sensitive French boy finds out from a neighbor that his family's Jewish. François Grimbert becomes a physician, and gradually peels the layers of his buried family history which resulted in his difficult upbringing, raised as Catholic by his "Aryan" appearing parents. His athletic father labored to stamp out stereotypical Jewish characteristics he perceived in his son, to keep the family's many secrets, as most relatives fought in World War II, and later were hauled off to labor and death camps by the Gestapo.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, exciting, captivating, suspenseful, offbeat, gloomy
Best tv shows and movies like A Secret (2007):
Similar in 77%
Madame Rosa (1977)
Plot Summary:
Madame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she's a retired prostitute, Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor, a foster mom to children of other prostitutes. Momo is the oldest and her favorite, an Algerian lad whom she raises as a Muslim. He asks about his parents; she answers evasively. As she ages and takes fewer children, Momo must do more for her; as money is tight, he tries to earn pennies on the street with a puppet. He's a beautiful man-child, and Madame Rosa makes him promise never to sell himself or become a pimp. A film editor, Nadine, befriends him, and his father appears as well. Madame Rosa reaches her last days in fear of hospitals, and Momo must act.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 76%
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962)
Plot Summary:
Karl from Germany and Marcelo from France emigrated to Argentina and became brothers-in-law. Karl soon returned to Germany to serve in the army. Marcelo and his children Julio and Chichi became Argentinean citizens but later returned to Paris. Karl became a general with a son (Heinrich) in the SS and in WWII he got a high job within the occupation administration in France.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, Mexico
Duration: 153 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating, psychological, retro, gay cinema, cult film
Similar in 75%
At First Sight (1983)
Plot Summary:
In 1942 in occupied France, a Jewish refugee marries a soldier to escape deportation to Germany. Meanwhile a wealthy art student loses her first husband to a stray Resistance bullet; at the Liberation she meets an actor, gets pregnant, and marries him. Lena and Madeleine meet at their children's school in Lyon in 1952 and the intensity of their relationship strains both their marriages to the breaking point.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, queer cinema
Similar in 84%
One Day You'll Understand (2008)
Plot Summary:
A man endeavors to collect memories of his grandparents who died in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 367
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Germany, Israel
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, bleak, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Freedom (2009)
Plot Summary:
A Gypsy family travels the French roads during the Second World War, followed by Little Claude, a young boy seeking a new family after his parents "left and never returned". Upon reaching a town where they traditionally stop for a few months and work in vineyards, they learn that a new law forbids them from being nomadic. Theodore, the town's mayor, and Miss Lundi, the schoolteacher, protect and help the Gypsies. Despite this, They are arrested and placed in an internment camp. Theodore manages to rescue them and gives them a piece of property where they must settle. But the Gypsies' deeply ingrained thirst for freedom makes this sedentary lifestyle difficult to bear. After Theodore and Miss Lundi are arrested for resistance, the Gypsies decide they must get back on the move in order to remain free.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, captivating, emotional, realistic, serious, gloomy
Similar in 76%
Pornography (2003)
Plot Summary:
Two intellectuals, a writer and a director, begin to play a mysterious psychological game in a peaceful countryside manor house during the Nazi occupation.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 998
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Poland, France
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, emotional, realistic, bleak, gloomy, biting, erotic, suspense
Similar in 77%
Sarah's Key (2010)
Plot Summary:
On the night of 16 July 1942, ten year old Sarah and her parents are being arrested and transported to the Velodrome d'Hiver in Paris where thousands of other jews are being send to get deported. Sarah however managed to lock her little brother in a closed just before the police entered their appartment.Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist in Paris, gets the assignment to write an article about this raid, a black page in the history of France. She starts digging archives and through Sarah's file discovers a well kept secret about her own in-laws.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: emotional, captivating, disturbing, serious, sexy, social, educational, art film, powerful, realistic
Similar in 84%
Monsieur Batignole (2002)
Plot Summary:
In 1942, in an occupied Paris, the apolitical grocer Edmond Batignole lives with his wife and daughter in a small apartment in the building of his grocery. When his future son-in-law and collaborator of the German Pierre-Jean Lamour calls the Nazis to arrest the Jewish Bernstein family, they move to the confiscated apartment. Some days later, the young Simon Bernstein escapes from the Germans and comes to his former home. When Batignole finds him, he feels sorry for the boy and lodges him, hiding Simon from Pierre-Jean and also from his wife. Later, two cousins of Simon meet him in the cellar of the grocery. When Pierre-Jean finds the children, Batignole decides to travel with the children to Switzerland.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, tense, exciting, captivating
Similar in 81%
Dirty Heroes (1967)
Plot Summary:
Set near the end of World War II in the Netherlands, Dirty Heroes concerns a group of ex-convicts recruited into the U.S. Army to recover Dutch jewels originally stolen by the Nazis as well as confiscated Allied plans.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 256
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy, France, West Germany
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: exciting, grindhouse, macaroni combat, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 85%
Sword of Honour (2001)
Plot Summary:
Guy Crouchback joins the war effort during World War 2, an idealistic quest to join the forces of good in the fight against evil. But his efforts is not rewarded, he never has any chance to join any real fighting, circumstances always prevent it. Instead he finds himself in the middle of an army full of cowards, incompetents and a few outright evil men. They of course reap the fortunes of war, promotions and fame, but never Crouchback. His war is just an endless list of transfers and an hopeless but noble quest for righteousness.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 918
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK
Duration: 208 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating, touching, semi autobiographical, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Unfair Competition (2001)
Plot Summary:
Two linen fabric dealers with their shops close to one another, battle against each other for more and more costumers. Umberto constantly loses clients because of the tough competition brought by Leone, who offers the best prices in the neighborhood. But they leave differences aside when the rise of Fascism places Anti-Semitic politics which rigidly control business like the one conducted by the Jewish Leone, and those new regulations are viewed by Umberto as completely unfair. The long rivalry soon becomes a great friendship.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, bleak, captivating, realistic, disturbing, historical drama
Similar in 87%
Nina's House (2005)
Plot Summary:
Starting in 1944 in the wake of the Liberation and continuing into the '60s, 'houses of hope' were established to lend a semblance of continuity to youngsters orpahaned by the war. Nina's Home takes place between September 1944 and January 1946 in an orphanage housed in a chateau outside Paris. At the outset, the country residence is run by Nina who has a core population of French Jewish children whose parents are probably dead. Food is scarce. News of the Concentration Camps hasn't hit yet, but some months later, a contingent of youths arrive form the liberated camps. The children are a disparate, wild, damaged group and conflicts ensue. Nina's challenge is to help them make their first delicate moves toward the future and in the process restore all of them, including herself, to life.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 237
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: France
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, bleak, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Run Boy Run (2013)
Plot Summary:
Run Boy Run is the true story of Jurek, an eight-year-old boy, who escapes from the Warsaw ghetto, then manages to survive in the woods and working as a farmhand, disguising himself as a Polish orphan. He encounters people who will betray him for a reward, who will beat him up or try to kill him, and he meets those, who will do and risk almost everything to help him. Jurek’s resilience is put to the ultimate test, when an accident cripples him, making it harder to find work. But he struggles on against all odds. Eventually the Russians reach his area and Jurek even finds a family where he could stay. Yet he is betrayed again, and a young man from a Jewish orphanage forcefully tries to bring Jurek back to his people and his faith.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Biography, Drama, War
Country: Germany, France, Poland
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 89%
The Blockhouse (1973)
Plot Summary:
A group of Slave workers, drafted by the Nazis to help construct their coastal defenses in 1944 are trapped in an underground bunker when the Allies land at Normandy on D-Day. They find huge dtores of food but not enough candles. The slow dying of the light parallels their increasing boredom, illness and jealousy during their entrapment. Based on the Novel 'Le Blockhaus' by Jean Paul Clebert.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 632
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 89%
The Round Up (2010)
Plot Summary:
1942. Joseph is eleven. And this June morning, he must go to school, a yellow star sown on his chest. He receives the support of a goods dealer. The mockery of a baker. Between kindness and contempt, Jo, his Jewish friends, their families, learn of life in an occupied Paris, on the Butte Montmartre, where they've taken shelter. At least that's what they think, until that morning on July 16th 1942, when their fragile happiness is toppled over.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: France, Germany, Hungary
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, emotional, disturbing, bleak, serious, realistic, sincere, touching, contemplative
Similar in 89%
The Wall (1982)
Plot Summary:
A dramatic re-enactment of the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish uprising in April 1943 were 650 armed members of the Jewish Fighting Organization of Poland held off a 3,000 strong Nazi force in which only a handful of Jews survived. Tom Conti plays Dolek Berson, a Jewish smuggler who joins the resistance movement and is aided on the Aryan side of the wall by a former teacher named Regina Kowalski played by Rachel Roberts in her final role.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 222
Genere: Action, War, Drama
Country: Poland, USA
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 76%
Winter in Wartime (2008)
Plot Summary:
During World War II in the freezing Netherlands winter of 1944/1945 the western Netherlands are in the grip of a famine. Many people move east to provide for their families. Fourteen year old Michiel can't wait to join the Dutch resistance, to the dismay of his father, who, as mayor, works to prevent escalations in the village.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Netherlands, Belgium
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: tense, exciting, serious, realistic, captivating, sexy, sad, stylized, gloomy, tear jerker
Similar in 88%
The Last Train (2006)
Plot Summary:
A group of people are imprisoned in a rail car bound from Berlin to a concentration camp in 1945.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany, Czech Republic
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: disturbing, bleak, serious, realistic, captivating, entertaining
Similar in 77%
Rosenstrasse (2003)
Plot Summary:
When Ruth's husband dies in New York, in 2000, she imposes strict Jewish mourning, which puzzles her children. A stranger comes to the house - Ruth's cousin - with a picture of Ruth, age 8, in Berlin, with a woman the cousin says helped Ruth escape. Hannah, Ruth's daughter engaged to a gentile, goes to Berlin to find the woman, Lena Fisher, now 90. Posing as a journalist investigating intermarriage, Hannah interviews Lena who tells the story of a week in 1943 when the Jewish husbands of Aryan women were detained in a building on Rosenstrasse. The women gather daily for word of their husbands. The film goes back and forth to tell Ruth and Lena's story. How will it affect Hannah?.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany, Netherlands
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 89%
In the Presence of Mine Enemies (1997)
Plot Summary:
In the Warsau Ghetto of 1943, one man's struggle to keep his family together leads him to the ultimate crisis of faith, and one final chance at redemption. Written by legendary 'Twilight Zone' creator, Rod Sterling.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 352
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Uprising (2001)
Plot Summary:
Jews rise up in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazis in 1943.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 177 min
Plot tags: uplifting, captivating, rough, serious, political, tense, bleak, emotional, realistic, independent film
Similar in 84%
The Island on Bird Street (1997)
Plot Summary:
Alex is an 11-year old boy who, during WWII, hides in the Jewish ghetto from Nazis after all the relatives have been sent to the concentration camp. The movie portrays the ghetto through his eyes.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Denmark, UK, Germany, France
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, serious, realistic, suspense, independent film, period piece
Similar in 90%
The Tin Drum (1979)
Plot Summary:
Oskar is born in Germany in 1924 with an advanced intellect. Repulsed by the hypocrisy of adults and the irresponsibility of society, he refuses to grow older after his third birthday.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 25000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany, France, Poland
Duration: 142 min
Plot tags: surreal, disturbing, controversial, art house, harsh, talky, realistic, clever, epic, serious
Similar in 77%
Army of Crime (2009)
Plot Summary:
This gripping historical drama recounts the story of Armenian-born Missak Manouchian, a woodworker and political activist who led an immigrant laborer division of the Parisian Resistance on 30 operations against the Nazis in 1943. The Nazis branded the group an Army of Crime, an anti-immigrant propaganda stunt that backfired as the team's members became martyrs for the Resistance.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: France
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, disturbing, sincere, suspenseful, gloomy
Similar in 76%
Female Agents (2008)
Plot Summary:
May 1944, a group of French servicewomen and resistance fighters are enlisted into the British Special Operations Executive commando group under the command of Louise Desfontaines and her brother Pierre. Their mission, to rescue a British army geologist caught reconnoitering the beaches at Normandy.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 148 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, tense, suspense, retro, historical drama, bleak, captivating, beautiful
Similar in 85%
A Bag of Marbles (2017)
Plot Summary:
In occupied France, Maurice and Joseph, two young Jewish brothers left to their own devices demonstrate an incredible amount of cleverness, courage, and ingenuity to escape the enemy invasion and to try to reunite their family once again.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, War
Country: France, Canada, Czech Republic
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, disturbing, art film
Similar in 77%
Out of the Ashes (2003)
Plot Summary:
The real-life story of Gisella Perl, a Jewish Hungarian doctor imprisoned in the notorious Auschwitz death camp of World War II.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, serious, bleak, captivating, emotional, contemplative, uplifting
Similar in 90%
The Bunker (1981)
Plot Summary:
Dramatization depicting the events surrounding Adolf Hitler's last weeks in and around his underground bunker in Berlin before and during the battle for the city.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: France, USA
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: bleak, realistic, psychological, serious, captivating, disturbing, suspenseful, rough, suspense, contemplative
Similar in 89%
Jakob the Liar (1999)
Plot Summary:
In 1944 Poland, a Jewish shop keeper named Jakob is summoned to ghetto headquarters after being caught out after curfew. While waiting for the German Kommondant, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements. Returned to the ghetto, the shopkeeper shares his information with a friend and then rumors fly that there is a secret radio within the ghetto.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, France, Germany
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sad, cult classic, sincere, uplifting, humorous, emotional, realistic, gloomy, semi serious, sentimental
Similar in 84%
The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988)
Plot Summary:
During the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, Otto Frank decides to hide his family, who are Jewish, after his daughter Margot is called to appear for transport to a Nazi labour camp. Miep Gies, Otto Frank's office assistant hides them in the attic above the office. The film tells the true story of Gies' struggle to keep the family hidden and safe, as the Nazis turn Amsterdam upside-down. Based upon Gies' memoirs and Anne Frank's famous diary.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 483
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing