Best movies like A Time for Defiance
Last updated March 2024
Looking for movies like A Time for Defiance? Leverage your insights to lead others toward tv shows and films you've seen that might interest them as well. Aid in increasing the network of individuals proposing videos to each other. We welcome your participation!
Plot Summary:
After the Spanish Civil War breaks out, the Prado Museum is being evacuated. One of the guards finds a painting by the master, Goya, and takes it to prevent damage to the work of art. In the interim, he meets a young lady with whom he falls in love. Assisted by her and her family members, the soldier attempts to save Goya's masterpiece intact amidst the war and violence.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 358
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Spain
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Best tv shows and movies like A Time for Defiance (1998):
Similar in 88%
Madrid (1987)
Plot Summary:
Hans, a German director, is in Madrid to film a television production about the capital and the Civil War, 50 years after it occurred. Accompanied by Lucía, his editor, and Goyo, his cinematographer, he films shots of the modern city, searching for spaces and people related to its past. At the same time, he views materials related to the past. In this search, Hans questions the point of his project, and disagrees with his producers until he discovers a project that he is passionate about.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 88
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Spain
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: documentary filmmaking
Similar in 77%
Ship of Fools (1965)
Plot Summary:
Passengers on a ship traveling from Mexico to Europe in the 1930s represent society at large in that era. The crew is German, including the ship's Dr. Schumann, who falls in love with one of the passengers, La Condesa. A young American woman, Jenny, is traveling with the man she loves, David. Jenny is fascinated and puzzled by just who some of the other passengers are.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 149 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, emotional, tense, serious, realistic, black and white, talky, intellectual, retro, psychological
Similar in 89%
For a Handful of Kisses (2014)
Plot Summary:
A girl. A boy. A love story. But also about dreams, fears, life, true love, friendship and how we deal with it. And a secret between them.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Spain
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: serious, sentimental, emotional, realistic
Similar in 78%
The Pianist (1998)
Plot Summary:
Mario Gas directed this music-themed Spanish drama set in Barcelona of the mid-'80s. When famed composer Lluis Doria (Laurent Terzieff) visits a transvestite club, he learns his lifelong friend Albert Rossell (Serge Reggiani) is the house pianist. A flashback takes the tale four decades into the past where the younger Rossell (Pere Ponce) rejoins Teresa (Paulina Galvez) after having spent years in prison for helping anti-Franco anarchists. The story continues into Paris of the '30s, the period when Doria and Rossell first met, sharing a mutual interest in music and Teresa, before civil war sent them in different directions.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 106
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 79%
The Voyage (1974)
Plot Summary:
Adriana De Mauro loves Cesar Braggi, but Cesar, honoring his father's dying wish, allows his brother, Antonio, to marry Adriana. As fate wills, Antonio dies in an automobile accident. Adriana's mourning for Antonio ends when Cesar steps in to rekindle her lust of life. Soon, Adriana begins having dizzy spells. Cesar helps her to a specialist, and the diagnosis is not good. She has an incurable disease. For the rest of their time together, Cesar woos Adriana and eventually proposes to her on a gondola. Yet, for some reason or other, Signora De Mauro, Adriana's mother, is not pleased with the relationship and argues bitterly with Cesar.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 664
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Red Angel (1966)
Plot Summary:
In 1939, Sakura Nishi is a young army nurse who is sent to the field hospitals in China during the Sino-Japanese war. She has to assist the surgeon Dr. Okabe with an incredible number of amputations. In the crowded wards, she gives sympathy to some of the soldiers, including sexually servicing one who has lost both arms and has no hope of returning home. She falls in love with Dr. Okabe, and follows him to the front, even though he is impotent from his morphine addiction.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: disturbing, controversial, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 88%
Arch of Triumph (1984)
Plot Summary:
Arch of Triumph is a 1985 British made-for-television film based on the novel Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque, which was previously adapted in 1948 for a film of the same name with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Dr. Ravic (Anthony Hopkins) is an Austrian doctor who helps Jews escape from the Nazis. In 1939, he meets Joan Madou (Lesley-Anne Down), a woman he saves from suicide, and their relationship flourishes until he is arrested as a refugee without documentation and realizes he has some unfinished business with the Nazis. After a prolonged separation, without explanation, the two are finally reunited and struggle to put their relationship back on the right course as mayhem breaks out all around them.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 610
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: UK
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: noir, sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, eighties
Similar in 77%
Civil Love (2012)
Plot Summary:
Rachel is a widow during the Civil War who holds the South responsible for her husband's death. When a wounded enemy soldier takes refuge in her barn, Rachel reluctantly helps him. As she gets to know him more, she realizes she must protect him from the dangerous men pursuing him, and discovers a courage she didn't know she had - the courage to love again.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 187
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, realistic, independent film
Similar in 78%
Housewife, 49 (2005)
Plot Summary:
Downtrodden wife and mother Nella's life takes an unexpected turn for the better after she joins the Women's Voluntary Service office in Barrow-in-Furness during the Second World War. However, her new-found happiness is shattered when her son Cliff leaves to join the troops - provoking a painful confrontation with her husband Will.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 788
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: UK
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, captivating, emotional, serious, realistic
Similar in 85%
Milan (2004)
Plot Summary:
Loving husband Lino is on a mission: His wife, who works as a domestic in Milan, is missing and he's determined to find her. To do so, he enters Italy illegally and takes cover as one of the hundreds of Filipino migrant workers wh make their way to Europe.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 195
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Philippines
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, tagalog, sexual, sexy
Similar in 90%
The Night Watch (2011)
Plot Summary:
Set against the turbulent backdrop of London in the 1940s, this adaptation of Sarah Waters' bestselling novel, The Night Watch, follows four young Londoners inextricably linked by their wartime experiences. In a time when the barriers of sexual morality and social convention have been broken down, Kay, Helen, Viv and Duncan enjoy a freedom never experienced before. Moving back in time through the 1940s into the maelstrom of the Blitz, the lives, loves and losses of these four central characters are unravelled. For them, the post-war victory is bittersweet, for it returns them to the margins of society, from which they hoped they had been liberated. In order to build their future they must each make peace with their past.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: UK
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, stylized, deep, realistic, sexual, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 75%
The Bridge (1999)
Plot Summary:
Actor Gerard Depardieu co-directed this drama about a married woman who falls in love with another man. Mina is a movie buff with a husband, Georges, who's out of work, and a 15-year-old son, Tommy. While Mina works part-time as a domestic for Claire Daboval, the family is terribly short on money, so when Georges is offered construction work on a massive bridge project, he immediately accepts, even though the job site is far enough away that he'll only be able to come home on weekends. One day, while taking in a matinee screening of West Side Story, Mina meets a man named Matthias, an engineer associated with the bridge project. It's love at first sight for the both of them, and while Mina has no desire to hurt Georges, who is a good and decent man, she has found another good and decent man whom she loves even more. Tommy, on the other hand, has to deal with this crisis in his parents' marriage while he's sorting out his own infatuation with Ms. Daboval's daughter, Lisbeth.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 635
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, semi autobiographical
Similar in 85%
The Carpenter's Pencil (2003)
Plot Summary:
A story of love and obsession during the Spanish Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: captivating, emotional, sentimental, realistic, serious
Similar in 86%
Comanche Territory (1997)
Plot Summary:
Spanish TV reporters covering the War in Bosnia. Based on true experience.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 378
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Spain, France, Germany, Argentina
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 83%
David & Fatima (2008)
Plot Summary:
A retelling of Romeo and Juliet in Jerusalem involving a Palestinian woman and an Israeli man.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 231
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Intruder (1993)
Plot Summary:
In childhood and youth, the three were "the inseparables." Luisa married Ángel, then two years later, she left him to marry Ramiro. After ten years, Ángel reappears, back from South America, broke and ill. Luisa is overcome with sentimentality and, over Ramiro's objections, takes Ángel into their house. Ángel is bitter, he and Ramiro have shifted from best friends to enemies. Luisa wants to be in love with both. Ramiro hopes he can wait out Ángel's declining health, and Luisa wants to heal Ángel through force of will. What is Ángel's plan? Observing the roiling emotions are Luisa and Ramiro's precocious young children. Who's in danger here?.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 357
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Spain
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
Similar in 79%
Here Below (2012)
Plot Summary:
The true story of a nun who betrayed a network of Resistance fighters after having a passionate but doomed love affair with a priest during the Second World War.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 118
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 83%
Spring 1941 (2007)
Plot Summary:
After Germany invades Poland and the Nazis order the confinement of all local Jews in the ghetto, medical doctor Artur Planck (Joseph Fiennes) manages to flee with his family, seeking refuge at the farm of Emilia (Kelly Harrison), their former grocer. With the Planck family hiding in her attic, Emilia finds her feelings for the physician growing stronger than she wants, or can control -- despite the dangers of the situation.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 789
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland, Israel
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 86%
Twin Sisters (2002)
Plot Summary:
Twin Sisters is an epic love story based on the Dutch bestseller by Tessa de Loo that has been read by more than 3.5 million readers in Holland and Germany.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Netherlands, Luxembourg
Duration: 137 min
Plot tags: captivating, sentimental, thought provoking, touching, serious, realistic, emotional, contemplative, non-linear, tear jerker
Similar in 90%
Once Upon a Time in Rio (2008)
Plot Summary:
Situated just above the awe-inspiring Ipanema beach in Rio is the Cantagalo slum. Every day, floods of Cantagalo residents make their way down the mountain, only to disappear into their surroundings as part of the invisible working-class that cleans apartments, works in restaurants, and sells food along the scenic, sun-drenched shores. Young Dé (Thiago Martins) is just such a man. Dé lives with his mother Bernadette (Cyria Coentro) in a cramped Cantagalo apartment, selling hot dogs on the beach in order to make the rent. His brother Beto was killed when Dé was just a young boy, and his adopted brother Carlão (Rocco Pitanga) has been jailed for a robbery that he didn't commit. One day, while working on the beach, Dé meets Nina (Vitória Frate). Nina is the only child of a successful lawyer named Evandro (Paulo César Grande), who's none to happy to discover that his daughter is dating a member of the lower class. How.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Brazil
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: emotional, touching, realistic, sentimental, serious, bleak
Similar in 83%
Desire (2002)
Plot Summary:
In 1945 Spain a young man with Nazi contacts fell in love with a left wing family woman.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 311
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Spain, Argentina
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: sentimental, serious, captivating, stylized, realistic
Similar in 81%
November Moon (1985)
Plot Summary:
"November Moon" is a timeless and compelling love story set against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied France. On the brink of war and in the face of escalating anti-Jewish activity, November has fled her native Germany for the relative safety of Paris. There, she meets and falls in love with Ferial, a fiercely patriotic young French woman. Amid a series of life-changing wartime events, they are challenged by their extraordinary circumstances to realize their truest selves and to live - or die - by those choices.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 215
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: West Germany, France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: sincere, rough, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
Similar in 81%
Forever Nevermore (2014)
Plot Summary:
A dramatic novel that presents the submission in a relationship between an Italian settler and a Brazilian woman in 1932. Luiza is a generation of women who were sent to convents to be educated, many of the high cost of permanency option ran out and became nuns ... Luiza was about to be forced to make this decision when it was delivered to marry with Domingos, who she would learn to live and love. For two years she suffer mistreatment and abuse from her husband. Living in a place away virtually inaccessible, she could not call for help. Her solitude was her most frequent company until they receive a visit from an official warning about the Constitutional Revolution, saying the Paulists approached that region to combat invading Minas Gerais, causing a reversal of their.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 29
Genere: Drama, History, Romance, War
Country: Brazil
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, touching, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 80%
Gardens of Stone (1987)
Plot Summary:
A sergeant must deal with his desires to save the lives of young soldiers being sent to Vietnam. Continuously denied the chance to teach the soldiers about his experiences, he settles for trying to help the son of an old army buddy.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: realistic, intense, harsh, bleak, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 87%
A Soldier's Tale (1989)
Plot Summary:
In the days following the D-Day invasion in Normandy, France, a British platoon leader named Saul (Gabriel Byrne) and his corporal (Paul Wyett) reach an isolated farmhouse and encounter a beautiful French girl named Belle (Marianne Basler). Love blooms between Saul and Belle, but the grim realities of war catch up with them when a French Resistance trio claims that Belle is a Nazi collaborator. Judge Reinhold appears briefly as the token Yank.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 263
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: New Zealand
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: realistic, tense, serious, emotional
Similar in 77%
In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)
Plot Summary:
During the Bosnian War, Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, re-encounters Ajla, a Bosnian who's now a captive in his camp he oversees. Their once promising connection has become ambiguous as their motives have changed.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 35000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, touching, erotic, exciting, romantic, sexy, romantic drama, bleak
Similar in 79%
Talk of Angels (1998)
Plot Summary:
This is the story of a young Irish woman who comes to Spain to escape from the pressures she feels about her impending marriage to a political activist in Ireland. But in Spain in the 1930's, taking a job of governess in a wealthy family, she finds the same kinds of political unrest. In fact, it isn't long before she finds herself attracted to a married man who is similarly involved in the struggle against fascism and Franco. This awakens her to her nature that brings her to such men and resolves for her what she must do about the life she left in Ireland.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 893
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sentimental, disturbing, independent film
Similar in 86%
The Sleeping Voice (2011)
Plot Summary:
Pepita travels to Madrid to be near her sister Hortensia who is pregnant and in prison. Hortensia is sentenced to death. The execution will not be carried out until after the baby is delivered. Pepita tries everything to stay the execution, but when unsuccessful she goes to the prison everyday to make sure Hortensia's son goes with her and not into an orphanage.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Spain
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: captivating, serious, emotional, suspenseful, political, intense, bleak, realistic
Similar in 79%
Land and Freedom (1995)
Plot Summary:
The movie narrates the story of David Carr, an unemployed worker and member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. In 1936 he decides to fight for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, an anti-fascist coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists. Similar to George Orwell's experiences documented in Homage to Catalonia, he joins the POUM worker militia and witnesses first hand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by the Stalinists, loyal only to the dictat of Moscow.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: political, philosophical, social, sad, hispanic, informative, thought provoking, serious, captivating, emotional
Similar in 77%
Butterfly (1999)
Plot Summary:
The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho's ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho's personal growth and daily life.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Spain
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, touching, realistic, political, compassionate, melancholic, intense, psychological, sincere