Best movies like Autumn Sonata

Similar in 84%

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Plot Summary:

Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, we witness the delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden.

Similar in 82%

After the Rehearsal (1984)

Plot Summary:

Rational, exacting, and self-controlled theater director, Henrik Vogler, often stays after rehearsal to think and plan. On this day, Anna comes back, ostensibly looking for a bracelet. She is the lead in his new production of Stindberg's "A Dream Play." She talks of her hatred for her mother, now dead, an alcoholic actress, who was Vogler's star and lover. Vogler falls into a reverie, remembering a day Anna's mother, Rakel, late in life, came after rehearsal to beg him to come to her apartment. He awakes and Anna reveals the reason she has returned: she jolts him into an emotional response, rare for him, and the feelings of a young woman and an older man play out.

Similar in 75%

The Silence (1963)

Plot Summary:

Traveling through an unnamed European country on the brink of war, sickly, intellectual Ester, her sister Anna and Anna's young son, Johan, check into a near-empty hotel. A basic inability to communicate among the three seems only to worsen during their stay. Anna provokes her sister by enjoying a dalliance with a local man, while the boy, left to himself, has a series of enigmatic encounters that heighten the growing air of isolation.

Similar in 89%

Archipelago (2010)

Plot Summary:

Patricia (Kate Fahy) and her two children, young adults Edward (Tom Hiddleston) and Cynthia (Lydia Leonard), arrive for a break at a holiday cottage. As rain and wind lash against the windows, Patricia grows exasperated at the absence of her husband, who remains an unheard voice on the phone. Good-natured Edward struggles to hide his angst at where his life is heading and assumes a fatherly role while becoming weirdly familiar with Rose (Amy Lloyd), the family’s hired cook. Cynthia, meanwhile, looms like a dark cloud and snaps and lashes out for no clear reason.

Similar in 77%

You, the Living (2007)

Plot Summary:

In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman (Jessica Lundberg) remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.

Similar in 90%

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)

Plot Summary:

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer (Joanne Woodward) and her daughters Ruth (Roberta Wallach) and Matilda (Nell Potts) are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

Similar in 88%

The Sacrifice (1986)

Plot Summary:

Alexander, a journalist, philosopher and retired actor, celebrates a birthday with friends and family when it is announced that nuclear war has begun.

Similar in 86%

Tender Mercies (1983)

Plot Summary:

Alchoholic former country singer Mac Sledge makes friends with a young widow and her son. The friendship enables him to find inspiration to resume his career.

Similar in 77%

Saraband (2003)

Plot Summary:

The movie is a sequel to Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage (1973), where we revisit the characters of Johan and Marianne, then a married couple. After their divorce, Johan and Marianne haven't seen each other for 32 years. Marianne is still working, as a divorce lawyer. Johan is quite well off and has retired to a house in the Orsa finnmark district of Sweden. On a whim, Marianne decides to visit him. Johan's son from a previous marriage, Henrik, lives nearby in a cottage with his daughter Karin, a gifted cello player. The relationship between father and son is strained. Plot by Mattias Thuresson.

Similar in 86%

Three Colors: Blue (1993)

Plot Summary:

Julie is haunted by her grief after living through a tragic auto wreck that claimed the life of her composer husband and young daughter. Her initial reaction is to withdraw from her relationships, lock herself in her apartment and suppress her pain. But avoiding human interactions on the bustling streets of Paris proves impossible, and she eventually meets up with Olivier, an old friend who harbors a secret love for her, and who could draw her back to reality.

Similar in 76%

Winter Light (1963)

Plot Summary:

A Swedish pastor fails a loving woman, a suicidal fisherman and God.

Similar in 90%

Don't Come Knocking (2005)

Plot Summary:

Howard Spence has seen better days. Once a big Western movie star, he now drowns his disgust for his selfish and failed life with alcohol, drugs and young women. If he were to die now, nobody would shed a tear over him, that's the sad truth. Until one day Howard learns that he might have a child somewhere out there.

Similar in 80%

Paris, Texas (1984)

Plot Summary:

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.

Similar in 76%

Cries & Whispers (1972)

Plot Summary:

As Agnes slowly dies of cancer, her sisters are so deeply immersed in their own psychic pains that they can't offer her the support she needs. Maria is wracked with guilt at her husband's suicide, caused by his discovery of her extramarital affair. The self-loathing, suicidal Karin seems to regard her sister with revulsion. Only Anna, the deeply religious maid who lost her young child, seems able to offer Agnes solace and empathy.

Similar in 75%

Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

Plot Summary:

Karin hopes to recover from her recent stay at a mental hospital by spending the summer at her family's cottage on a tiny island. Her husband, Martin, cares for her but is frustrated by her physical withdrawal. Her younger bother, Minus, is confused by Karin's vulnerability and his own budding sexuality. Their father, David, cannot overcome his haughty remoteness. Beset by visions, Karin descends further into madness.

Similar in 78%

Vitus (2006)

Plot Summary:

Vitus tells the story of a highly-gifted boy (played by real-life piano prodigy Teo Gheorghiu) whose parents have demanding and ambitious plans for him.

Similar in 82%

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

Plot Summary:

An artist in crisis is haunted by nightmares from the past in Ingmar Bergman's only horror film, which takes place on a windy island. During "the hour of the wolf" - between midnight and dawn - he tells his wife about his most painful memories.

Similar in 86%

The Son's Room (2001)

Plot Summary:

A psychoanalyst and his family go through profound emotional trauma when their son dies in a scuba diving accident.

Similar in 85%

The Celebration (1998)

Plot Summary:

A grandiose party to celebrate a sixtieth birthday unleashes a family drama with all the lies that conceal horrendous secrets. The eldest son, Christian, stages a showdown with the popular pater familias; his provocative, moving after-dinner speech dislodges all the masks, which finally fall completely as the father-son conflict intensifies and the bewildered guests look on.

Similar in 89%

Still Walking (2008)

Plot Summary:

Twelve years after their beloved eldest son, Junpei, drowned while saving a stranger's life, Kyohei and Toshiko welcome their surviving children home for a family reunion. Younger son Ryota still feels that his parents resent that he isn't the one who died; his new wife, Yukari, is awkwardly meeting the rest of the family for the first time. Daughter Chinami strains to fill the uncomfortable pauses with forced cheer.

Similar in 89%

Beyond (2010)

Plot Summary:

A poignant story, told with sincerity and humor, about a young woman´s dramatic childhood and about her grief and the struggle to move on. Noomi Rapace plays the main character in her first feature after the success with the Millennium trilogy and she plays opposite her husband, actor Ola Rapace.Award winning actress Pernilla August makes her directorial debut with her take on the bestselling novel Svinalängorna by Susanna Alakoski.In other main roles we see rising star Tehilla Blad and the Finnish acclaimed actors, Ville Virtanen and Outi Mäenpää.A morning just before Christmas, Leena, 34, receives a phone call from a hospital in her childhood hometown telling her that her mother is dying. This news takes her on a journey to face her mother for the first time in her adult life. Leena has fought all her life to let go of her grief over her lost and dark childhood. She is now forced to deal with her past to be able to move on.

Similar in 88%

Interiors (1978)

Plot Summary:

A look at a dysfunctional family dominated by the controlling madness of its matriarch, Eve. Her reluctant husband and their three daughters make doomed efforts to cope with Eve's demands, while also trying to get on with their own lives. But, all bets are off when an ebullient stranger enters the picture.

Similar in 75%

The Piano Teacher (2001)

Plot Summary:

Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.

Similar in 86%

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)

Plot Summary:

A mother and daughter dispute is resolved by the "Yaya sisterhood" - long time friends of the mother.