Best movies like Ave María
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In the colonial New Spain Ana is a missionary who decides to support the indigenous people.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 170
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: period piece
Best tv shows and movies like Ave María (1999):
Similar in 87%
The dark night of the soul (1989)
Plot Summary:
Life of San Juan de la Cruz.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 198
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain, France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Everything Else (2016)
Plot Summary:
After 35 years working as a clerk in a government office, Doña Flor has become such a cog, invisible to herself. Cloaked in solitude and routine, she has even suppressed the loss of her daughter who drowned years ago. As her retirement approaches the walls of bureaucracy that have sheltered her from her pain begin to crumble. Doña Flor’s sense of self begins to awaken in parallel with the country beginning to erupt from excessive violence and corruption.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 230
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Act of the Heart (1970)
Plot Summary:
A woman's peculiar religious convictions lead her on a self-destructive path.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 238
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
The Jew (1996)
Plot Summary:
The story of Brazilian Antônio José da Silva, a jewish poet, playwright and lawyer living in the 18th Century Lisbon, who managed to avoid Inquisition by converting himself to Catholicism, after being tortured. But his fierce criticism of Portugal's élite led him to persecution and torture, becoming kind of a scapegoat.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 131
Genere: Drama
Country: Portugal, Brazil
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
For the Very First Time (1991)
Plot Summary:
A teen-aged Catholic girl carries on a secret relationship.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 231
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Agnus Dei (1997)
Plot Summary:
The young girl Johanne is left by her mother at a solemn convent school. The school is a strange world to her, and when she feels unable to comply with the demands of faith she faces a difficult decision.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 98
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
The Monk (1990)
Plot Summary:
In Madrid at the time of the Inquisition, the monk Ambrosio is renowned for his faith and his strength of will, a saint in the eyes of the populace. But when he discovers the beautiful Matilda hidden in his own monastery, all his repressed passions begin to show themselves, and he is soon using the girl, and her powers, in his lust for more innocent prey.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 93
Genere: Drama, Horror
Country: Spain, UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Lourdes (2000)
Plot Summary:
The young, sickly girl Bernadette comes from a poverty-stricken family. When the Virgin Mary appears to her in a cavern near Lourdes, no one takes the girl seriously, even when she digs up a wellspring at the Virgin's instructions The local authorities even try to hush up the entire incident. In vain, however, because when Empress Eugénie requests water from the spring for her sickly son, they are forced to acquiesce. And even the local priest is finally convinced. While taking his tuberculosis-stricken fiancé Claire to a sanatorium, the young doctor Henri Guillaumet meets Bernadette. The water from Lourdes' spring heals Claire's disease overnight, but the scientist in Henri doubts the miracle and wants to expose Bernadette as a liar. It is not until Henri again meets Bernadette, who has in the meantime become a nun and works as a nurse, that he finds a way to balance belief and modern science. And his love for Claire is strengthened as well.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 74
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France, Luxembourg
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Sparrow (1993)
Plot Summary:
Catania, Sicilia 1854. A serious epidemic of cholera is hitting the region. Maria a 16 years old novice leaves her convent and returns her home to avoid contamination. Here she finds a difficult situation, in fact her stepmother and her half-sisters prevent Maria to live the normal life of a teenager. In their minds Maria is the promised "bride of God" and a regular life for her is inappropriate. Nino, her handsome neighbor, falls in love for Maria who isn't indifferent to him. But when Maria comes back to her convent the way to become nun is compelled. Now Maria can understand Sister Agata, and realizes she became mad cause a lost and impossible love like the one between Maria and Nino.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 619
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Japan
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: erotic, sensual
Similar in 78%
Santo Luzbel (1996)
Plot Summary:
A conflict arises between the people of the town and the local priest when they have to decide how to represent certain biblical episode.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 44
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
A Scream from Silence (1979)
Plot Summary:
A director and an editor, both woman, cannot work on a movie presenting the rape of a nurse without reacting on the scenes they're working on, the situation of womanhood in general, and the way the 'Justice' handle those cases of rape.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 193
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
The Witch Hunt (1981)
Plot Summary:
Having gone through many personal struggles, Eli (Lil Terselius) returns to her native village and begins to work on the farm of Ingeborg Eriksdotter (Anita Bjork), eventually tending a plot that once belonged to her family. But Eli has been gone a long time, and the opaque villagers see her as an outsider -- she is suspicious from the start. The year is 1625, and stories of witches conjuring up evil are a part of the daily culture. Eli unwittingly makes matters worse for herself when she is able to cure the sick with herbs, and when she begins an affair with Aslak (Bjoern Skagestad) a farmhand -- clearly she must have cast a spell on him. This all adds up to a witch hunt with a ready-made "witch." Eli, in the end, is officially accused of witchcraft by a devious bailiff, while Ingeborg makes every attempt to save her, and Aslak himself does not survive the stress -- hardly a good omen for the outcome of the trial.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 61
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway, Sweden
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Christmas Lilies of the Field (1979)
Plot Summary:
Sometime after the events in 'Lilies of the Field' (1963) Homer Smith returns to the Church he helped build to find the nuns have taken in a group of homeless children.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 107
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Conflict (1973)
Plot Summary:
In the near future, the Catholic church has joined with other western religions in an ecumenical movement that has washed out much of the original message of the religion. A group of Irish monks have begun saying the mass again in Latin and have begun to have an international following. Martin Sheen is sent from Rome to bring them to task and they must confront what is truly essential in their worship and what is not.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 123
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 76 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
The Suspended Vocation (1978)
Plot Summary:
Divergent factions within the Catholic Church are plagued by internal ideological quarrels.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 166
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: parody, allegory
Similar in 82%
Bad Habits (2007)
Plot Summary:
The first feature film from director Simon Bross, the drama Bad Habits shows how a person's approach to food greatly affects one's life. Jimena Ayala plays a nun named Matilde who believes that eating next to nothing will help God stop the suffering of others. She trains pudgy, young Linda (Elisa Vicedo) for her first communion. Linda's mother is an emaciated exercise addict who frets over her daughter's shape. Linda's father, Gustavo, is a libertine who enjoys food as well as a healthy sex life with a mistress. Gustavo, an architect, must figure out why the pipes of a local school are leaking under the strain of a seemingly ceaseless rainstorm.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: disturbing, serious, realistic, suspenseful, sexy, depressing, witty, biting, fast, suspense
Similar in 80%
The Abduction of Saint Anne (1975)
Plot Summary:
A cynical detective and a Roman Catholic bishop team up to investigate the reported miraculous powers of a 17-year-old girl being held captive in the home of her father, an ailing syndicate kingpin.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 75
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags: detective
Similar in 75%
The Nun and the Devil (1973)
Plot Summary:
It's 1577. The Mother Superior at the convent of Archangel is seriously ill. The determined and calculating Mother Giulia plots to become the next Mother Superior. She receives tough competition from tormented lesbian Sister Chiara and the lusty Sister Carmela.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 519
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: grindhouse
Similar in 77%
The Holy Office (1974)
Plot Summary:
The long arm of the Inquisition, or the "Holy Office," reached at least as far as 16th-century Mexico (known as New Spain at the time). Many Spanish Catholics of Moorish or Jewish origin found it expedient to flee to the New World to escape the suffocating attentions of the Inquisition. In Spain, simply being descended from these suspect peoples is sufficient to guarantee a gruesome death by immolation. In the New World, it took slightly more. This 1974 Mexican film deals with the suffering of one family of conversos who are secretly practicing Judaism and are betrayed to the Inquisition by a family member. Interestingly, a small family clan of such secret Jews was discovered in New Mexico as recently as the late 1980s. They managed to keep their faith a secret for nearly five hundred years.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 350
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: period piece, masterpiece
Similar in 90%
New World (1978)
Plot Summary:
At the end of the 16th century, as the Spanish conquerors strive to subdue the New World, they confront another problem of equal magnitude: the evangelization of the natives, who are people of deep religious beliefs and refuse to understand nor accept Christianity. The Spanish remedy: the Inquisition. The court of the Inquisition takes severe measurements against the heretics and the indians prepare themselves for a general Revolution.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 97
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Mexico
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Karadima Forest (2015)
Plot Summary:
Based on true events, involving powerful Catholic priest Fernando Karadima, who committed crimes of child abuse and pedophile between 1980's-2000's. The struggle of his victims, to be able to reveal the truth and look for justice.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 996
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, Argentina
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, suspense, suspenseful, art house, cult film
Similar in 75%
Perfect Obedience (2014)
Plot Summary:
The fictional Father Ángel de la Cruz is based on Legion of Christ founder Marcial Maciel, whose long history of child abuse was not addressed until 2006 and only publicly acknowledged in 2009. But director Luis Urquiza chooses to structure his film through the largely uncomprehending, wondering eyes of 13-year-old Julián, who travels from the arms of his loving pastoral family into the austere, hallowed halls of the seminary. Singling out the boy as his intimate disciple, installing him in his palatial private quarters and redubbing him “Sacramento Santos,” Father Ángel begins Julian’s instruction into the mysteries of “perfect obedience,” whose cardinal rule is: Never question a superior’s actions.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: suspense, disturbing
Similar in 87%
The Third Miracle (1999)
Plot Summary:
The Vatican sends a priest to verify some miracles, performed by a woman who has been nominated for sainthood.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: biblical, controversial, sincere, thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative, independent film, psychological, sentimental
Similar in 87%
In This House of Brede (1975)
Plot Summary:
A well-to-do London businesswoman gives up her comfortable life, including the man who loves her, to become a cloistered Benedictine nun.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 301
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
The Runner Stumbles (1979)
Plot Summary:
Dick Van Dyke stars as a priest accused of murdering a nun. Directed by Stanley Kramer, this 1979 drama also features Kathleen Quinlan, Maureen Stapleton, Ray Bolger, Beau Bridges and Tammy Grimes.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 348
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
The True Story of the Nun of Monza (1980)
Plot Summary:
Sister Virginia de Leyva becomes the new Mother Superior at the convent of Monza. Said convent turns out to be a veritable hotbed of sinful carnality and depravity. Debauched priest Don Arrigone and lecherous womanizer Giampaolo Osio plot to seduce sister Virginia. But will their wicked and lustful actions continue to go unnoticed?.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 346
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: erotic, sexploitation film
Similar in 85%
The Other Conquest (1998)
Plot Summary:
The film is a drama about the aftermath of the 1520s Spanish Conquest of Mexico told from the perspective of the indigenous Aztec people. It explores the social, religious, and psychological changes brought about by a historical process of colonization that both defined the American continent and is also highly reminiscent of today’s neocolonialism.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Mexico
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, baroque
Similar in 81%
The Letters (2014)
Plot Summary:
Mother Teresa, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is considered one of the greatest humanitarians of modern times. Her selfless commitment changed hearts, lives and inspired millions throughout the world. The Letters, as told through personal letters she wrote over the last 40 years of her life, reveal a troubled and vulnerable women who grew to feel an isolation and an abandonment by God.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: spiritual, atmospheric, thought provoking, serious, christian film
Similar in 78%
Novitiate (2017)
Plot Summary:
In the early 1960s, during the Vatican II era, a young woman training to become a nun struggles with issues of faith, sexuality and the changing church.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, captivating, suspenseful, disturbing, social, sad, controversial, costume drama, queer cinema
Similar in 88%
The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
Plot Summary:
Four women are given into the custody of the Magdalene sisterhood asylum to correct their sinful behavior: Crispina and Rose have given birth to a premarital child, Margaret got raped by her cousin and the orphan Bernadette had been repeatedly caught flirting with the boys. All have to work in a laundry under the strict supervision of the nuns, who break their wills through sadistic punishment.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 28000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Ireland
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: bleak, disturbing, brutal, controversial, harsh, depressing, suspense, factual, compassionate, rough