Best movies like An Unforgettable Summer
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In 1925 Romania, young Marie-Therese Von Debretsy refuses the flirtatious advances of her husband's commanding officer. As a result, the cosmopolitan family is reassigned to a brutally bleak and dangerous outpost on the Bulgarian/Romanian frontier where both their relationship and humanity are severely tested.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Romania, France
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: meditative, light, atmospheric, melancholic, talky, serious, realistic, costume drama, bleak, romantic
Best tv shows and movies like An Unforgettable Summer (1994):
Similar in 81%
Flanders (2006)
Plot Summary:
André Demester secretly and painfully loves Barbe, his childhood friend, accepting from her the little that she gives him. He leaves home to be a soldier in a war in a far off land. Barbarity, camaraderie and fear turn him into a warrior. As the seasons go by, Barbe, alone and wasting away, waits for the soldiers to return. Will Demester’s boundless love for Barbe save him?.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: France
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, slow cinema, exciting, captivating, suspenseful, bleak, disturbing, controversial, contemplative
Similar in 76%
The Brylcreem Boys (1998)
Plot Summary:
In 1941, as part of an effort to remain strictly neutral, the Dublin government made a deal with both Berlin and London whereby any soldier, sailor or pilot captured on Irish soil, whether of German or Allied forces, would be interned for the duration of the war. What the Irish failed to tell was that they would intern everybody in the same camp. It is here that Canadian pilot Miles Keogh and German pilot Rudolph Von Stegenbeck meet after a fight in which both their planes were downed.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 617
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sex comedy, independent film
Similar in 84%
My Brother's War (2005)
Plot Summary:
Civil War drama directed by Whitney Hamilton. Grace Kieler disguises herself as a man and takes her brother's place in the Confederate army in an effort to protect him from the horrors of the war. When she meets young war widow Virginia Klaising (Dana Bennison), the two form a bond that may get complicated once Grace reveals her true identity. My Brother's War is based on Hamilton's novel.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 75
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, atmospheric, captivating, independent film, entertaining
Similar in 83%
Frankie Starlight (1995)
Plot Summary:
The quirky story of a young boy's adventures growing up with his stunningly beautiful mother and the two very different men who love her.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 926
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Ireland, UK, France, USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: talky, serious, psychological, touching, realistic, cult classic, independent film, crying, fairy tale, sentimental
Similar in 79%
Coup de grâce (1976)
Plot Summary:
A countess loves her brother's Prussian-officer friend in the 1919 Baltic area.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, West Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: serious, stylized, realistic, bleak, philosophical, depressing, political, sad, art house, black and white
Similar in 89%
Closely Watched Trains (1966)
Plot Summary:
In a small town still occupied by the Germans as World War II's tide is turning toward the Allies, apprentice train-watcher Milos is oblivious to the war. Instead, he is obsessed with having his first sexual experience. Despite the favors of train conductor Masa, Milos has no luck. His quest leads him to a female Resistance fighter who, in passing, recruits him to the cause. As Milos finally finds love, danger draws closer.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance, War
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, talky, touching, sincere, realistic, erotic, absurd, dark comedy, thought provoking, avant garde
Similar in 87%
25 Fireman's Street (1973)
Plot Summary:
On one hot summer night, the residents of a Hungarian apartment house slated for demolition restlessly revisit their haunted pasts as they face an uncertain future. In a gently turning kaleidoscope of dream imagery, regret-laden nostalgia and painstakingly intimate detail, the looming wrecking ball pales in significance to the accumulated experiences each dreamer revisits. Pre-war prejudice, occupying Nazis and Stalinist deprivations all come and go as each tenant’s backward glance yields moments of aching sensuality, infectious exuberance and catastrophic loss.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 342
Genere: Drama, History, Romance, War
Country: Hungary
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, surreal, contemplative, talky, crying, pre war
Similar in 89%
The Messenger (2009)
Plot Summary:
Will Montgomery (Ben Foster), a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant who has returned home from Iraq, is assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. Montgomery is partnered with Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), to give notice to the families of fallen soldiers. The Sergeant is drawn to Olivia Pitterson (Samantha Morton), to whom he has delivered news of her husband’s death.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 36000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: touching, depressing, sincere, bleak, sad, psychological, realistic, epic, cult classic, powerful
Similar in 80%
Angels and Insects (1995)
Plot Summary:
In Victorian England, wealthy patriarch Sir Harald Alabaster invites an impoverished biologist, William Adamson, into his home. There, William tries to continue his work, but is distracted by Alabaster's seductive daughter, Eugenia. William and Eugenia begin a torrid romance, but as the couple become closer, the young scientist begins to realize that dark, disturbing things are happening behind the closed doors of the Alabaster manor.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: costume drama, erotic, period piece, stylized, thought provoking, offbeat, historical drama, sincere, touching, serious
Similar in 86%
Come See the Paradise (1990)
Plot Summary:
Come See The Paradise is a deeply touching love story set against the backdrop of a dramatic and controversial period in American history, It follows the romance and eventual marriage of Jack McGurn (Dennis Quad), a hot blooded Irish American, and a beautiful Japanese American Lily Dawanura (Tamlyn Tomita), at the outset of World War II. The clash of cultures, at once painful for the two lovers, becomes insurmountable after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. Lily and the Kawamuras are relocated To a bleak, outdoor internment camp in California, Jack is drafted into the Army, powerless to help the woman he loves abandoning all hope of ever winning her family's approval.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: emotional, sincere, thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative, crying, sentimental, romantic, clever
Similar in 76%
Strayed (2003)
Plot Summary:
Fleeing the June 1940 arrival of Hitler's army in Paris, a young war widow and her two children are rescued from dive-bombing German fighters by a cocky, reckless teenager. He finds them refuge in an abandoned house, but despite the fact that the family quickly comes to be depending much on his cunning and survival abilities, their cohabitation proves uneasy.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: France, UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, suspenseful, erotic, road movie, thought provoking, intelligent, romantic drama, tense
Similar in 90%
Tears of April (2008)
Plot Summary:
There is civil war in Finland. Between whites vs reds. A woman soldier of reds is captured by the whites. She is ordered to be executed.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Finland, Germany, Greece
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: epic, realistic, disturbing, bleak, serious, captivating
Similar in 86%
Captain Conan (1996)
Plot Summary:
Bulgaria near the end of World War I: Conan, warrior and wolf, leads a band of 50 ruthless French fighters who love hand-to-hand combat. Their motto: "We forgot to take prisoners, Captain." At war's end, the unit goes to Bucharest, where Conan tries to keep them out of trouble, defends them when they behave as warriors, and finds he's unsuited for peacetime. His friendship with Norbert, a teacher turned lieutenant, is tested when Norbert accepts a job as court-martial prosecutor because he's learned that Conan will be facing charges and he wants to protect his friend. When they are sent to the Russian border to fight Bolsheviks, Conan is back in his element and Norbert is off the hook.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspense
Similar in 75%
A Very Long Engagement (2004)
Plot Summary:
In 1919, Mathilde was 19 years old. Two years earlier, her fiancé Manech left for the front at the Somme. Like millions of others he was "killed on the field of battle." It's written in black and white on the official notice. But Mathilde refuses to believe it. If Manech had died, she would know. She hangs on to her intuition as tightly as she would onto the last thread of hope linking her to her lover. A former sergeant tells her in vain that Manech died in the no man's land of a trench named Bingo Crepescule, in the company of four other men condemned to die for self-inflicted wounds. Her path ahead is full of obstacles but Mathilde is not frightened. Anything is possible to someone who is willing to challenge fate.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 75000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Romance, War
Country: France, USA
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: romantic, touching, atmospheric, epic, colorful, period piece, visually stunning, sentimental, dramatic, visually appealing
Similar in 79%
The Land Girls (1998)
Plot Summary:
During World War II, the organisation "The Women's Land Army" recruited women to work on British farms while the men were off to war. Three such "land girls" of different social backgrounds - quiet Stella, young hairdresser Prue, and Cambridge graduate Ag - become best friends in spite of their different backgrounds.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: UK, France
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: period piece, sentimental, touching, realistic, retro, anamorphic, historical drama, sincere, serious, crying
Similar in 82%
Zelary (2003)
Plot Summary:
A nurse and her surgeon-lover are part of a resistance movement in 1940s Czechoslovakia. When they are discovered, her lover flees and she must find a place to hide. A patient whose life she saved, a man from a remote mountain village where time stopped 150 years ago, agrees to hide her as his wife.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, realistic, sincere, contemplative, epic, mysterious, serious, sentimental, romantic
Similar in 85%
Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1990)
Plot Summary:
True story of Norman Bethune, a medical doctor who fought for justice in China during Mao's rise to power.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 407
Genere: Biography, Drama, Romance, War
Country: Canada, China, France
Duration: 168 min
Plot tags: realistic, thought provoking, serious, epic, exciting, suspense, independent film, tense, sincere, uplifting
Similar in 87%
Circle of Deceit (1981)
Plot Summary:
Georg Laschen leaves his family in West Germany to go work as a war correspondent in Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 948
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany, France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: political, sincere, rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 84%
Harrison's Flowers (2000)
Plot Summary:
Harrison Lloyd is a Pulitzer-winning photojournalist. His wife and family are making it hard for him to keep his mind on his work when he's in a war zone, and he wants to change jobs to something less stressful. But he's got one last assignment, in war-torn Yugoslavia, in 1991, at the height of the fighting. Word comes back that he apparently died in a building collapse, but his wife Sarah (also a journalist for Newsweek) refuses to believe that he's dead and goes looking for him. She's helped immensely by the photo-journalists Eric Kyle and Marc Stevenson that she runs into over there; together, they're determined to make it through the chaotic landscape to Vukovar, which is not only the nexus of the war but where she believes Harrison is located. Meanwhile, Harrison's son Cesar is looking after his father's prized greenhouse, keeping hope, and flowers, alive.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: France
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: disturbing, suspense, bleak, realistic, political, art house, brutal, serious, gloomy, crying
Similar in 75%
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 85%
Good (2008)
Plot Summary:
The rise of national socialism in Germany should not be regarded as a conspiracy of madmen. Millions of "good" people found themselves in a society spiralling into terrible chaos. A film about then, which illuminates the terrors of now.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: UK, Germany
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing, captivating, christian film, retro, political, sad, period piece, romantic drama
Similar in 85%
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
Plot Summary:
When a Greek fisherman leaves to fight with the Greek army during WWII, his fiancee falls in love with the local Italian commander. The film is based on a novel about an Italian soldier's experiences during the Italian occupation of the Greek island of Cephalonia (Kefalonia), but Hollywood made it into a pure love story by removing much of the "unpleasant" stuff.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 36000
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance, War
Country: UK, France, USA
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: sentimental, romantic, intense, melancholic, serious, realistic, epic, educational, cult classic, romantic drama
Similar in 90%
The Officers' Ward (2001)
Plot Summary:
The first days of WWI. Adrien, a young and handsome lieutenant, is wounded by a piece of shrapnel. He will spend the entire wartime at the Val-de-Grâce Hospital, in Paris. Five long years, and his life will change forever.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: France
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, serious, psychological, realistic, disturbing, romantic, contemplative, period drama
Similar in 86%
Company K (2004)
Plot Summary:
Based on the popular World War I novel by author William March, director Robert Clem's COMPANY K follows a veteran of the first great conflict as he finishes a book about his wartime experiences and reflects on how a man's true character is revealed through his actions on the battlefield. From the German soldier who visits him in dreams to the camaraderie that is forged by fighting together and the true gravity of laying down your life for a greater cause, World War I veteran Joe Delaney will attempt to exorcise his demons through writing while struggling to readjust to small-town life following the trauma of war.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 339
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: psychological, epic, serious, captivating, disturbing, bleak, emotional, realistic
Similar in 75%
Suite Française (2014)
Plot Summary:
France, 1940. In the first days of occupation, beautiful Lucile Angellier is trapped in a stifled existence with her controlling mother-in-law as they both await news of her husband: a prisoner of war. Parisian refugees start to pour into their small town, soon followed by a regiment of German soldiers who take up residence in the villagers' own homes. Lucile initially tries to ignore Bruno von Falk, the handsome and refined German officer staying with them. But soon, a powerful love draws them together and leads them into the tragedy of war.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 28000
Genere: Drama, Romance, Thriller, War
Country: UK, France, Canada, Belgium, USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, romantic, period piece, serious, captivating, suspense, costume drama, factual, sentimental
Similar in 81%
Red Cherry (1995)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story, this horrifying tale follows two orphaned friends as they struggle to survive during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 745
Genere: Drama, War
Country: China
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: touching, bleak, serious, mesmerizing, saga, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Fateless (2005)
Plot Summary:
An Hungarian youth comes of age at Buchenwald during World War II. György Köves is 14, the son of a merchant who's sent to a forced labor camp. After his father's departure, György gets a job at a brickyard; his bus is stopped and its Jewish occupants sent to camps. There, György find camaraderie, suffering, cruelty, illness, and death. He hears advice on preserving one's dignity and self-esteem. He discovers hatred. If he does survive and returns to Budapest, what will he find? What is natural; what is it to be a Jew? Sepia, black and white, and color alternate to shade the mood.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Hungary, Germany, UK, Israel, France, USA
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, disturbing, emotional, realistic, gloomy, retro, touching, educational, sad
Similar in 88%
Angry Harvest (1985)
Plot Summary:
In the winter of 1942-43, a Jewish family leaps from a train going through Silesia. They are separated in the woods, and Leon, a local peasant who's now a farmer of some wealth, discovers the woman, Rosa, and hides her in his cellar. Leon's a middle-aged Catholic bachelor, tormented by his sexual drive. He doesn't tell Rosa he's seen signs her husband is alive, and he begs her to love him. Rosa offers herself to Leon if he'll help a local Jew in hiding who needs money. Leon pays, and love between Rosa and him does develop, but then Leon's peasant subservience and his limited empathy lead to tragedy. At the war's end, a ray of sunshine comes from an unexpected place.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 852
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: West Germany
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: political, insightful, psychological, tense, sincere, serious, realistic, suspenseful, crying, eighties
Similar in 82%
The Aftermath (2019)
Plot Summary:
In the aftermath of World War II, a British colonel and his wife are assigned to live in Hamburg during the post-war reconstruction, but tensions arise with the German widower who lives with them.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 23000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Germany, UK
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: melancholic, realistic, philosophical, serious, psychological, sentimental, sincere, romantic, disturbing, feel good
Similar in 88%
The Quiet American (2002)
Plot Summary:
A stylish political thriller where love and war collide in Southeast Asia. Set in early 1950s Vietnam, a young American becomes entangled in a dangerous love triangle when he falls for the beautiful mistress of a British journalist. As war is waged around them, these three only sink deeper into a world of drugs, passion, and betrayal where nothing is as it seems.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 29000
Genere: Drama, Romance, Thriller, War
Country: UK, Germany, USA, Vietnam, Australia, France, Canada, New Zealand
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: realistic, political, atmospheric, talky, intense, thought provoking, serious, period piece, political thriller, sincere