Best movies like Balloon
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Two families attempt a daredevil plan to escape DDR with a homemade hot air balloon, but it crashes just before the border. The Stasi finds traces of this attempt to escape and immediately starts investigations, while the two families are forced to build a new escape balloon. With each passing day the Stasi is closer on their heels – a nerve-wracking race against time begins.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: Germany, France, USA
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: captivating, suspenseful, tense, suspense
Best tv shows and movies like Balloon (2018):
Similar in 79%
The Wall - The Final Days (2008)
Plot Summary:
The Berlin wall separated families and friends for 28 years. Some accepted it, and some worked hard to make it fall.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 234
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 186 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
The Same Sky (2017)
Plot Summary:
Lars is a "Romeo agent" from East Germany in the 1970s. His task is to go West, first to seduce and then to spy on Western women who worked in government or defense institutions.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Germany
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, suspenseful, political
Similar in 75%
The Man on the Wall (1982)
Plot Summary:
An East German man finds a way to cross the border between East and West Berlin. But when he succeeds in bringing his wife out as well, things are not quite as expected.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 81
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Septembers of Shiraz (2015)
Plot Summary:
In this adaptation of the critically acclaimed debut novel by Iranian American author Dalia Sofer, a secular Jewish family is caught up in the maelstrom of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: suspense, tense, captivating, psychological, retro, period piece
Similar in 81%
Der Turm (2012)
Plot Summary:
Adapted from an award-winning best-selling book by Uwe Tellkamp, 'The Tower' depicts a higher class family’s struggles during crumbling communist rule in 1980’s East Germany. It illustrates the weaknesses and pending downfall of the German communist state through an intimate portrayal of one family's struggles, dreams and decisions. Run-ins with East Germany’s Secret Police reveal the cracks in both the police state and family loyalties.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 601
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, suspense, disturbing
Similar in 77%
The Weissensee Saga (2010)
Plot Summary:
Weissensee is a German television series. The series is set in East Berlin in 1980 and 1987 and follows two families.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, poignant, compassionate, romantic, atmospheric, touching, soap opera
Similar in 84%
Open the Wall (2014)
Plot Summary:
A lighthearted look at the opening of the border crossing of Bornholmer Straße in Berlin from the point of view of the confused border guards.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 858
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: tense, humorous, captivating, light
Similar in 87%
1987: When the Day Comes (2017)
Plot Summary:
In 1987 Korea, under an oppressive military regime, a college student gets killed during a police interrogation involving torture. Government of officials are quick to cover up the death and order the body to be cremated. A prosecutor who is supposed to sign the cremation release, raises questions about a 21-year-old kid dying of a heart attack, and he begins looking into the case for truth. Despite a systematic attempt to silence everyone involved in the case, the truth gets out, causing an eruption of public outrage.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: South Korea
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, sincere, captivating, suspense, disturbing, social, banned
Similar in 90%
The Legend of Rita (2000)
Plot Summary:
Rita Vogt is a radical West German terrorist who abandons the revolution and settles in East Germany with a new identity provided by the East German secret service. She lives in constant fear of having her cover blown, which unavoidably happens after the German re-unification.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: Germany
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: melancholic, captivating, tense, suspenseful, political, stylized, sad, serious, realistic, tragic ending
Similar in 86%
Escape from East Berlin (1962)
Plot Summary:
Director Robert Siodmak's 1962 film, inspired by true events, is about an East Berlin resident who attempts to escape to West Berlin with his family and girlfriend through a secret underground tunnel.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 632
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: West Germany, USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: political
Similar in 85%
Night Crossing (1982)
Plot Summary:
Two men want to escape from East Germany (under Communist rule) but they will only go if they can take their families with them. Based on a true story.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Family, History, Thriller
Country: UK, West Germany, USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: christian film, political, serious, realistic
Similar in 90%
The Silent Revolution (2018)
Plot Summary:
It's 1956. During a visit to a cinema in West Berlin, East German high school pupils Theo and Kurt see disturbing newsreel footage of the uprising in Budapest. Back in Stalinstadt, one of the GDR’s flagship workers’ settlements, they have the idea of holding a minute’s silence in class for the victims of the Hungarian struggle for freedom.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Germany
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, suspenseful, disturbing, captivating, political, social, crying, banned
Similar in 77%
Judgement in Berlin (1988)
Plot Summary:
American judge in Germany must decide if the hijacking of an East German plane into West Berlin was justified.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 871
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany, USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, suspense, sincere, touching, political, independent film
Similar in 80%
Shores of Hope (2012)
Plot Summary:
In this vivid historical drama set in 1980s East Germany, two dockworkers and best friends who dream of escaping the repressive regime are forced to choose their loyalties when the state police promise them safe passage out of the country — if they inform on their co-workers and union leader.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 551
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, captivating, tense
Similar in 76%
Berlin Tunnel 21 (1981)
Plot Summary:
In Berlin in 1961, an American soldier and a German engineer join forces to build a tunnel under the Berlin Wall in order to smuggle out refugees, including the soldier's East German girlfriend.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 342
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 141 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 89%
Two Lives (2012)
Plot Summary:
Europe 1990, the Berlin wall has just crumbled: Katrine, raised in East Germany, but now living in Norway for the last 20 years, is a “war child”; the result of a love relationship between a Norwegian woman and a German occupation soldier during World War II. She enjoys a happy family life with her mother, her husband, daughter and granddaughter. But when a lawyer asks her and her mother to witness in a trial against the Norwegian state on behalf of the war children, she resists. Gradually, a web of concealments and secrets is unveiled, until Katrine is finally stripped of everything, and her loved ones are forced to take a stand: What carries more weight, the life they have lived together, or the lie it is based on?.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Germany, Norway
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: tense, realistic, serious, captivating, psychological, psychological thriller, bleak, suspenseful, tragic
Similar in 79%
Dirty Hearts (2011)
Plot Summary:
In 1945, Japan surrendered to the United States and the Second World War was over. Right? Wrong. For eighty percent of the Japanese community in Brazil, Japan had won the war and defeat was nothing more than American propaganda. The few immigrants that accepted the truth were persecuted. Some were hunted down and assassinated - by their own countrymen - causing the start of a new, private war. Dirty Hearts is a thriller and love story told by the wife of one of the fanatics dedicated to preach Japanese victory. Little by little, she watches her husband, a hard-working immigrant, become an assassin and their love story fade away.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 681
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: Brazil, Japan
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, serious, disturbing, rough, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 83%
7 Days in Entebbe (2018)
Plot Summary:
In 1976, four hijackers take over an Air France airplane with 248 passengers on board and force it to land in Entebbe, Uganda.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Action, Drama, History, Thriller
Country: UK, USA, France, Malta
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: suspense, tense, suspenseful, rough, inspirational, social, action adventure, surprise ending, independent film, tension
Similar in 86%
The Defector (1966)
Plot Summary:
Professor Bower, an American physicist, is effectively blackmailed by a shady CIA agent named Adams to help the CIA obtain secret microfilm from a defecting Russian scientist. The reluctant Bower travels to East Germany undercover as an antiques collector where he encounters Heinzmann, an East German fellow physicist, who is also a secret agent. Heinzmann is aware of Bower's meeting with Adams and his intention to steal the microfilm, however their mutual respect for one another's tactics complicate the proceedings.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 804
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: France, West Germany
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, eurospy, microfilm
Similar in 82%
The Naked Runner (1967)
Plot Summary:
Sam Laker is an American industrialist, working in Britain, who has just been awarded an international award for industrial design. He is planning to travel to East Germany to attend a trade show and show off his invention, taking his 10 year old son with him for a holiday. Meanwhile a British Intelligence officer who served with Laker in the Second World War decides to use the opportunity of Laker's trip and his lack of an intelligence profile to coerce him into carrying out an assassination.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 540
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film, microfilm
Similar in 82%
Deutschland 83 (2015)
Plot Summary:
A gripping coming-of-age story set against the real culture wars and political events of Germany in the 1980s. The drama follows Martin Rauch as the 24 year-old East Germany native is pulled from the world as he knows it and sent to the West as an undercover spy for the Stasi foreign service. Hiding in plain sight in the West German army, he must gather the secrets of NATO military strategy. Everything is new, nothing is quite what it seems and everyone he encounters is harboring secrets, both political and personal.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: Germany
Duration: 42 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, suspense, exciting, captivating, epic, political, action adventure
Similar in 90%
Torn Curtain (1966)
Plot Summary:
During the Cold War, an American scientist appears to defect to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the formula for a resin solution, but the plan goes awry when his fiancee, unaware of his motivation, follows him across the border.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 29000
Genere: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: suspense, tense, suspenseful, stylized, political thriller, enigmatic, psychological, serious, realistic, clever
Similar in 89%
Parkland (2013)
Plot Summary:
November 22nd, 1963 was a day that changed the world forever — when young American President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. This film follows, almost in real time, a handful of individuals forced to make split-second decisions after an event that would change their lives and forever alter the world’s landscape.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, History, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: serious, tense, factual, light, suspense, captivating, emotional, political, social, novela
Similar in 83%
The Tunnel (2001)
Plot Summary:
Inspired by true events, Olympic swimmer Harry Melchior defects from East Germany in the 1960s and hatches a daring plot to help his sister and others flee East Berlin through a 145-yard underground tunnel.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: Germany
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: suspense, suspenseful, tense, political, compassionate, captivating, realistic, touching, costume drama, serious
Similar in 88%
Not Without My Daughter (1991)
Plot Summary:
An American woman, trapped in Islamic Iran by her brutish husband, must find a way to escape with her daughter as well.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: factual, tense, thought provoking, touching, bleak, realistic, sad, retro, suspense, poignant
Similar in 88%
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
Plot Summary:
British agent Alec Leamas refuses to come in from the cold war during the 1960s, choosing to face another mission, which may prove to be his final one.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: political, black and white, suspense, grim, clever, bleak, realistic, talky, political thriller, retro
Similar in 79%
The Lives of Others (2006)
Plot Summary:
A tragic love story set in East Berlin with the backdrop of an undercover Stasi controlled culture. Stasi captain Wieler is ordered to follow author Dreyman and plunges deeper and deeper into his life until he reaches the threshold of doubting the system.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 405000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Germany, France
Duration: 137 min
Plot tags: political thriller, gloomy, tense, political, atmospheric, sincere, suspense, breathtaking, harsh, bleak
Similar in 86%
Bridge of Spies (2015)
Plot Summary:
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union captures U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers after shooting down his U-2 spy plane. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Powers' only hope is New York lawyer James Donovan, recruited by a CIA operative to negotiate his release. Donovan boards a plane to Berlin, hoping to win the young man's freedom through a prisoner exchange. If all goes well, the Russians would get Rudolf Abel, the convicted spy who Donovan defended in court.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 324000
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller, War
Country: USA, India, Germany
Duration: 142 min
Plot tags: suspense, realistic, dramatic, tricky, intense, historical drama, serious, entertaining, period piece, suspenseful
Similar in 75%
JFK (1991)
Plot Summary:
New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison discovers there's more to the Kennedy assassination than the official story.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 167000
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: USA, France
Duration: 189 min
Plot tags: controversial, suspense, political, captivating, disturbing, tense, political thriller, factual, suspenseful, talky
Similar in 80%
All the President's Men (1976)
Plot Summary:
In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of Republican fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party, and eventually into the White House itself.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 124000
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: political thriller, political, cerebral, realistic, serious, suspense, factual, tense, captivating, neo noir