Best movies like As I Lay Dying
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Based on the 1930 classic by Faulkner, it is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family's quest to honor her wish to be buried in the nearby town of Jefferson.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, realistic, gothic, southern gothic, teen, visually stunning, bleak, stylized
Best tv shows and movies like As I Lay Dying (2013):
Similar in 83%
The Journey of August King (1995)
Plot Summary:
The Journey of August King is a multi-dimensional drama about a North Carolina farmer in 1815. August King, a widower, is on his way home as he does every year after selling his produce and purchasing the stock and goods he will need to survive the winter. On his journey, he comes upon a run-away slave, a young woman about 19 and August King must decide to violate the law and help this slave to freedom or else leave her to be hunted down and, ultimately, returned to her slave owner.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: independent film, tense, serious, realistic, crying, sexy, touching, brutal, enigmatic, feel good
Similar in 87%
The Shunning (2011)
Plot Summary:
Beautiful Katie Lapp has always felt something missing in her simple Amish existence -- until a mysterious "Englisher" comes to Lancaster County looking for the baby girl she gave up for adoption 19 years ago.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, realistic, serious, captivating, christian film, sad, contemplative, period drama
Similar in 85%
Every Thing Will Be Fine (2015)
Plot Summary:
One day, driving aimlessly around the outskirts of town after a trivial domestic quarrel, a writer named Tomas accidentally hits and kills a child. Will he be able to move on?.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Canada, France, Sweden, Norway
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, psychological, emotional, teen, atmospheric, realistic, contemplative, stylized, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter's End (1999)
Plot Summary:
The third installment of the Sarah trilogy provides a glorious and touching story of a family drawn together by adversity. On a cold winter day a stranger shows up at the farm. He is slow to reveal his identity. When they find out he is Jacobs father, John Witting, thought long ago dead, hard questions about the past are difficult to get answered.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 89%
The Intruder (2004)
Plot Summary:
Louis Trebor, a man nearing 70, lives alone with dogs in the forest near the French-Swiss border. He has heart problems, seeks a transplant, and then goes in search of a son sired years before in Tahiti. Told elliptically, with few words, we see Louis as possibly heartless, ignoring a son who lives nearby who is himself an attentive father to two young children, one named for Louis. He leaves his bed one night - and his lover - to kill an intruder; he dreams, usually of violence. Will his body accept his heart? Will his son accept his offer?.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, surreal, contemplative, mind bending, psychedelic, controversial, art house
Similar in 82%
Maladies (2012)
Plot Summary:
A talented and successful actor retires at a young age due to a perceived mental illness. Now living in a small town with his deranged sister and his best friend, we watch as their Maladies intertwine.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 787
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, emotional, realistic, captivating, tense, rough, serious, independent film
Similar in 81%
Good Time Max (2007)
Plot Summary:
Two genius brothers grow up and grow apart as one becomes a successful surgeon and the other pursues a drug-fueled high life.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, captivating, realistic, gloomy, independent film, inspirational
Similar in 76%
Go Toward the Light (1988)
Plot Summary:
A young couple faces the realities of life with their child who is diagnosed with AIDS.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 572
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Child of God (2013)
Plot Summary:
A dispossessed, violent man's life is a disastrous attempt to exist outside the social order. Successively deprived of parents and homes and with few other ties, Ballard descends to the level of a cave dweller as he falls deeper into crime and degradation.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: disturbing, bleak, psychological, gothic, atmospheric, serious, realistic, neo noir, suspense, controversial
Similar in 88%
Jewel (2001)
Plot Summary:
In the 1940s a 40-year-old woman with five healthy children gives birth to a girl with Down's syndrome.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 387
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, UK, USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 90%
We Were the Mulvaneys (2002)
Plot Summary:
Based on the novel by the same name, We Were the Mulvaneys is a sensitive portrayal of one family's journey as they face conflict, fear, tragedy and ultimately, themselves.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 599
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, touching, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 85%
A Map of the World (1999)
Plot Summary:
School nurse Alice Goodwin lives with her husband and two daughters on a dairy farm in a small Wisconsin community. After an accident on her property involving a friend's child, the town turns against her and Alice finds herself fighting charges of child abuse.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Germany
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: black comedy, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, contemplative, gloomy, crying
Similar in 79%
The Sound and the Fury (2014)
Plot Summary:
A look at the trials and tribulations of The Compson siblings, living in the deep south during the early part of the 20th century.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: serious, touching, realistic, southern gothic, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 75%
The Grief of Others (2015)
Plot Summary:
The Ryries have suffered a loss: the death of a baby just fifty-seven hours after his birth. Without words to express their grief, the parents, John and Ricky, try to return to their previous lives. The couple's children, ten-year-old Biscuit and thirteen-year-old Paul, responding to the unnamed tensions around them, begin to act out in exquisitely idiosyncratic ways. But as the family members scatter into private, isolating grief, an unexpected visitor arrives, and they find themselves growing more alert to the hurt, humor, warmth, and burdens of others—to the grief that is part of every human life but that also carries within it the power to draw us together.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 279
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, disturbing, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 75%
The End of Love (2012)
Plot Summary:
Mark is a struggling actor stuck between the life he once knew and the one waiting for him. When the mother of his two-year-old son suddenly passes away, Mark is forced to confront his shortcomings. Their fates, now intertwined, hang in the balance as Mark grapples with his ability to grow up. When he meets Lydia, a young mother, he is no longer able to live in the comfort of denial.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sad, independent film, gloomy, tragic
Similar in 86%
Safe Passage (1994)
Plot Summary:
A mother with seven sons feels like she's losing control of her life and her family. But personal.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, melancholic, serious, sentimental, talky, independent film, crying, dread, light
Similar in 80%
Fathers and Sons (2005)
Plot Summary:
Intertwined tales of three families who grow up on the same street, focusing on the relationship of fathers and sons. The first section features Anthony and Jenny and traces the father-son bond that develops between Anthony and his newborn son over 30 years. The second story centers on the affairs of an airline pilot who shares a house but not a life with his wife. He crosses paths with an unusual woman and spends an extraordinary night with his son. The final chapter follows the homecoming of Elliot to his estranged family. As his father dies, Elliot meets and falls in love with a woman who sees past his tough-guy exterior.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 406
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, serious, emotional, captivating, offbeat, crying, entertaining
Similar in 85%
Two Gates of Sleep (2010)
Plot Summary:
After preparing for their mother's imminent death, two brothers go on an arduous upriver journey to honor her final request.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 266
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, sincere, atmospheric, serious, realistic, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 82%
The Indian Runner (1991)
Plot Summary:
An intensely sad film about two brothers who cannot overcome their opposite perceptions of life. One brother sees and feels bad in everyone and everything, subsequently he is violent, antisocial and unable to appreciate or enjoy the good things which his brother desperately tries to point out to him.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Japan
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, realistic, rough, serious, independent film, cult classic, tense, captivating, controversial
Similar in 82%
Three Brothers (1981)
Plot Summary:
In a farmhouse in southern Italy, an old woman dies. Her husband summons their sons: from Rome, Raffaele, a judge facing a political case for which he risks assassination; from Naples, the religious and ideological Rocco, a counselor at a correctional institute for boys; from Turin, Nicola, a factory worker involved in labor disputes. Once home, each encounters the past and engages in reveries of what may come: Raffaele imagines his death, Rocco dreams of lifting the youth of Naples out of violence, drugs, and corruption, Nicola pictures embracing his estranged wife. Meanwhile, the old man and his young granddaughter explore the rhythms of the farm and grieve together.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, crying
Similar in 89%
Morning (2010)
Plot Summary:
Five days in the life of an American couple immediately following the accidental death of their child. An every day story of tragedy, loss, acceptance, hope and renewal. 'Morning' follows the divergent paths of Mark (Leland Orser) and Alice Munroe (Jeanne Tripplehorn) as they circle each other in a heart-breaking pas-de-deux of grief before finally coming to grips with their shared loss.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 207
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, independent film, psychological thriller, gloomy, psycho film
Similar in 75%
Bereft (2004)
Plot Summary:
A young Vermont widow is haunted by the memory of her dead husband, while trying to date again.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 409
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, psychological, serious, emotional, independent film, realistic
Similar in 90%
12 and Holding (2005)
Plot Summary:
Three pre-adolescents with virginal and eager-of-signals naivety, hit headlong against monstrous and inhospitable loneliness, in the incandescent fire among the ashes of their own inocence.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, emotional, heartbreaking, sad, sentimental, serious, depressing, harsh, art house
Similar in 75%
Tully (2000)
Plot Summary:
Tully Jr. and Earl live on their father's Nebraska ranch, proud and independent to a fault. While the shy, reclusive Earl spends his free time watching movies, the cockier Tully works his way through a succession of short-term affairs and an off-again, on-again relationship with April, a stripper in town. When their childhood friend Ella returns to town to start a veterinary practice, however, Tully falls for her -- although the townsfolk have their doubts that he could ever commit to one woman.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, touching, serious, independent film, realistic, romantic, social, sincere, thought provoking
Similar in 79%
I'm Losing You (1998)
Plot Summary:
A wealthy businessman Perry Krohn attempts to juggle the needs of his dedicated wife, demanding mistress and grown children while facing his own certain death from lung cancer.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 501
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: realistic, talky, serious, emotional, independent film, clever, gloomy, biting, suspense
Similar in 77%
A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004)
Plot Summary:
A headstrong young woman returns to New Orleans after the death of her estranged mother.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 27000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, sincere, realistic, sentimental, atmospheric, serious, cult classic, sad, romantic
Similar in 89%
The Substance of Fire (1996)
Plot Summary:
Isaac Geldhart is a Holocaust survivor who, overcome by grief at the recent death of his wife, seems determined to run his publishing firm into the ground by printing books that have no hope of financial success. His son Aaron, who also works at the company, grows frustrated with Isaac's emotional decline and attempts to take over the firm. The resulting crisis involves Isaac's other two children, his daughter Sarah and his dying son Martin.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 667
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: melancholic, talky, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, independent film, contemplative, gloomy, sexy
Similar in 89%
Life as a House (2001)
Plot Summary:
When a man is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he takes custody of his misanthropic teenage son, for whom quality time means getting high, engaging in small-time prostitution, and avoiding his father.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 45000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, touching, sincere, sad, inspirational, tear jerker, realistic, feel good, captivating
Similar in 89%
Palo Alto (2013)
Plot Summary:
Palo Alto weaves together three stories of teenage lust, boredom, and self-destruction: shy, sensitive April, torn between an illicit flirtation with her soccer coach and an unrequited crush on sweet stoner Teddy; Emily, who offers sexual favors to any boy to cross her path; and the increasingly dangerous exploits of Teddy and his best friend Fred, whose behavior may or may not be sociopathic.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 31000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: melancholic, atmospheric, serious, teen, realistic, indie film, aesthetic, erotic, mumblecore, artsy
Similar in 77%
Sal (2011)
Plot Summary:
James Franco's Sal chronicles the final hours of the life of actor Sal Mineo, one-time teen idol and star of the blockbuster films Rebel Without a Cause and Exodus.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 510
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy, independent film