Best movies like Anchoress
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Enter the medieval world of Christine Carpenter, a visionary girl who is to become an Anchoress (walled-in recluse) so that she can "live in the Virgin's house forever." Based on actual letters that were written about such an Anchoress in 1325, the film follows Christine as she awakens to her own sensuality and explores her own female, earth-based spirituality.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 435
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, UK
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: black and white, psychological, sexy, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy
Best tv shows and movies like Anchoress (1993):
Similar in 77%
From What Is Before (2014)
Plot Summary:
The Philippines, 1972. Mysterious things are happening in a remote barrio. Wails are heard from the forest, cows are hacked to death, a man is found bleeding to death at the crossroad and houses are burned. Ferdinand E. Marcos announces Proclamation No. 1081 putting the entire country under Martial Law.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 820
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 338 min
Plot tags: bleak, atmospheric, serious, realistic, stylized, captivating, intense, independent film, black and white, visual
Similar in 80%
The Towrope (2012)
Plot Summary:
In this poetic, richly allegorical debut by Colombian director William Vega, a teenage girl flees to a rundown inn after being driven from her home in the Andean highlands by civil war, as the violence engulfing the country creeps ever closer to her remote refuge. (TIFF).
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 767
Genere: Drama
Country: Colombia, France, Mexico
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, rough, serious, realistic, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 83%
Better Things (2008)
Plot Summary:
Gails agoraphobia keeps her inside where she escapes into romance novels. She shares a house with her Nan, recently back from the hospital. Gradually, they both try to reach out to each other to break their isolation. Rob plunges further into his addiction as a way of numbing his heartbreak over the death of his girlfriend. In his stupor, he dreams of embracing her again. Mr & Mrs Gladwin are going through a shift in their 60 year relationship. Years of resentment and unspoken truths have built a barrier between them that Mrs Gladwin, in her abiding love, tries to erode in little gestures.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 740
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, bleak, contemplative
Similar in 77%
Freefall (2009)
Plot Summary:
Freefall is the first drama to tackle the extraordinary financial crisis Britons are living through. Helmed by multiple BAFTA-winning director Dominic Savage, the film takes a startling and provocative look at the events that caused people's lives to spiral out of control. With pace, edge and real emotional punch, it gives a unique insight into how the country came so perilously close to the edge.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 434
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sincere, thought provoking, touching, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Gates to Paradise (1968)
Plot Summary:
Directed by Polish auteur Andrzej Wajda, the obscure gem unfolds as a sort of 13th century Road Trip, with youthful hormones and selfish impatience trumping nearly all of the (supposedly) pious preoccupations of their handsome leader Jacques (blonde heartthrob John Fordyce, constantly and comically running his fingers through his Beatlesque moptop).
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 228
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Yugoslavia
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Walker Payne (2006)
Plot Summary:
A small-town father is forced to make difficult, heartbreaking decisions in order to save his two daughters.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 473
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 77%
When Harvey Met Bob (2010)
Plot Summary:
Bob Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith set up one of the world's greatest ever concerts, Live Aid in 1984 to help ease the Ethiopian Famine.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 298
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, uplifting, serious, psychological, captivating, sentimental
Similar in 82%
Kristin Lavransdotter (1995)
Plot Summary:
Kristin Lavransdatter is a 1995 Norwegian film directed by Liv Ullman, featuring Elisabeth Matheson, Bjørn Skagestad, Jørgen Langhelle, Lena Endre and Sverre Anker Ousdal, based on Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. It was the Norwegian entry to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1996.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway, Germany, Sweden
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, captivating, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 76%
Beatrice (1987)
Plot Summary:
Somewhere in France during the Middle Ages. Béatrice is impatient to see her father return from English captivity. She doesn't expect however that the father whom she loves from distance will be the most hateful person who will submit her and her family to abuse and humiliation.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 762
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, period drama
Similar in 87%
Three Suns (2004)
Plot Summary:
The plague hits medieval Sweden.
IMDB Rating: 2.8
IMDB Votes: 875
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, realistic, captivating
Similar in 82%
Looks and Smiles (1981)
Plot Summary:
Thatcherism and the Irish troubles provide the backdrop for this study of Mick, a well-meaning youth in Sheffield, who has, unlike Dickens' Pip, no expectations. Mick lives with his parents, works on his motorbike, looks for work, and every two weeks gets his check from the dole. There are no jobs. His best mate Alan joins the army to fix tanks and is sent to Belfast to quell Catholics. At a disco, Mick meets Karen, who works at a shoe shop and lives with her recently-separated mom. Karen misses her dad. She offers Mick emotional stability and a route to adulthood; Alan pitches the army. Does Mick have a future?.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 482
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: independent film, black and white, psychological, serious, realistic, gloomy, biting, suspense
Similar in 81%
The Wild Dogs (2002)
Plot Summary:
Set during the cull of the stray dogs in the city of Bucharest, The Wild Dogs weaves together a week in the lives of several citizens of and visitors to the hauntingly beautiful city. Geordie, a visiting Canadian pornographer, Bogdan, a reluctant city dog-catcher, and Natalie, a lonely Diplomat's wife - each risks losing everything as they become embroiled in the struggles of Bucharest's abandoned children, gypsies, dogs and beggars.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 188
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing, bleak
Similar in 79%
Junkhearts (2011)
Plot Summary:
Frank is an ex-soldier, haunted by a violent past. He lives alone, drowning his nightmares with alcohol. Christine - smart and successful... on the surface, tackles life as a single working mother by immersing herself in drugs, parties and sex. Lynette, a young rough sleeper watches Christine stumble out of a club whilst she sits in the cold waiting for loose change to fall on her lap; her luck seems to change when she meets Frank who despite his misgivings, offers her a place to stay.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 787
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, atmospheric, captivating, rough, serious, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Into Temptation (2009)
Plot Summary:
A call girl goes to a priest to confess a sin she hasn't committed yet: she plans to kill herself on her next birthday. Then she disappears and he goes looking for her, enlisting the help of an ad hoc congregation of troubled souls along the way. A story about forgiveness.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 882
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, captivating, psychological, serious, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 81%
Soldier of God (2005)
Plot Summary:
“Soldier of God” A film by W. D. Hogan From The New York Times Director W. D. Hogan‘s sweeping period epic “Soldier of God” unfurls in the Middle East of the late Twelfth Century. As the story opens, the Knights Templar, a religious order originally assigned to protect Christian pilgrims, has disintegrated from chivalric order and justice into dissolute chaos, as its individual factions bloodthirstily vie with one another for power and control.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 523
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, exciting, epic, realistic
Similar in 87%
Holly (2006)
Plot Summary:
Shot on location in Cambodia, including many scenes in actual brothels in the notorious red light district of Phnom Penh, HOLLY is a captivating, touching and emotional experience. Patrick, an American card shark and dealer of stolen artifacts, has been 'comfortably numb' in Cambodia for years, when he encounters Holly, a 12-year-old Vietnamese girl, in the K11 red light village. The girl has been sold by her impoverished family and smuggled across the border to work as a prostitute.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 913
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, France, Israel, Cambodia
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: disturbing, emotional, psychological, touching, bleak, sincere, sad, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 80%
Cold Light (2004)
Plot Summary:
What could be better than knowing your future? And what could be worse? A love-filled childhood abruptly ends when catastrophe descends. A catastrophe that the child had foreseen yet failed to act upon.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 611
Genere: Drama
Country: Iceland, Norway, UK, Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, atmospheric, serious, offbeat, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Look Back in Anger (1989)
Plot Summary:
Look Back in Anger is a love triangle involving the brilliant-but-disaffected young Jimmy Porter (Branagh), his upper-middle-class, impassive wife Alison Porter (Thompson), and her aristocratic best friend Helena Charles (Redmond). Cliff (Horan), an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 370
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, sincere, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, gloomy
Similar in 90%
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 85%
Last Winter (2011)
Plot Summary:
A young farmer in Central France tries to sustain his spiritual connection to the land amid the crushing pressures of modern agriculture in this brooding drama.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 187
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Bo (2010)
Plot Summary:
Fifteen year old Deborah meets Jennifer who steers her into a career as an escort. Under the alias Bo she begins a new life that she cannot handle and starts a downward spiral that only she can end.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, rough, captivating, realistic, erotic, sad, bleak
Similar in 77%
Island (2011)
Plot Summary:
Based on 'Jane Rogers' acclaimed novel, "Island" is a tale of yearning and retribution. Abandoned at birth, Nikki Black has spent most of her life in care sustained only by fairy-stories. Incapable of love, fearful and desperate for revenge, she decides to find her birth mother, confront her, and bitter enough to consider murder. She travels incognito to a remote Hebridean island where Phyllis now lives as a recluse with Calum, her son.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 553
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, psychological, tense, atmospheric, realistic, gloomy, art house
Similar in 77%
The Errand of Angels (2008)
Plot Summary:
Sister Rachel Taylor of Boise, Idaho is an eager young missionary of the LDS Church who has been sent on an 18-month long mission to Austria. Rachel finds herself having a hard time adjusting to her new cultural surroundings in the foreign country. Due to differences in opinion, she is also unable to get along with the companion missionary that was assigned to her by the church.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 293
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: realistic, contemplative, psychological, captivating, emotional, christian film, touching, serious
Similar in 85%
Rust (2010)
Plot Summary:
In the midst of a midlife crisis of faith, a man finds hope where he least expects it – his hometown. James Moore (Golden Globe nominee Corbin Bernsen) is a former pastor who returns home to discover a family new to the area has been killed in a mysterious fire, and his childhood friend is implicated in the murder. Convinced of his friend’s innocence, James sets out on a mission to find the truth… and in the process, rediscovers his own lost faith. An uplifting drama about faith, family, and the powerful ties that bind a community together.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 501
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: realistic, contemplative, psychological, captivating, sentimental, serious
Similar in 82%
Everyday (2012)
Plot Summary:
This film charts the relationship between a man imprisoned for drug smuggling and his wife and is being shot over the course of five years, a few weeks at a time.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 834
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, independent film, sincere, touching
Similar in 87%
The Domino Effect (2012)
Plot Summary:
If global economy came to a sudden stop what would be the effect on families worldwide? People in different countries or continents might not seem to be interrelated but there is more than meets the eye and we might be more connected than we sometimes like to think.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 276
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Netherlands
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Jew-Boy Levi (1999)
Plot Summary:
Benjamin Levi (Bruno Cathomas) is a Bavarian cattle dealer traveling to pre-World War II Germany on his annual trip to a remote farming village. Levi hopes to do some business and, more importantly, win the hand of the lovely Lisbeth (Caroline Ebner). But Nazi propaganda has gripped the small community and poisoned it forever. Now, Levi and Lisbeth are targets of hate in this provocative and shocking drama.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 199
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Switzerland, Austria
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, touching, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, biting, suspense
Similar in 85%
Black Plague (2002)
Plot Summary:
Paranoia sets in as the Black Death strikes European villagers in the 14th century.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 945
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: sentimental, serious, captivating, stylized, period piece, costume drama
Similar in 82%
The Headsman (2005)
Plot Summary:
Central Europe, early 16th century: two childhood friends, Martin & Georg, find themselves on rival sides of a religious war with both of them struggling to do the right thing.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Hungary, Germany
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: exciting, epic, serious, suspenseful, realistic, baroque
Similar in 84%
Crusaders (2001)
Plot Summary:
Towards the end of the eleventh century, Pope Urban II announces a crusade against the Saracens, who have occupied the holy city of Jerusalem. Three young friends Richard, Peter and Andrew set off to join the crusading army.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 585
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: Italy, Germany
Duration: 194 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, epic