Best movies like Circus Palestina
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Israel's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 89
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: independent film
Best tv shows and movies like Circus Palestina (1998):
Similar in 84%
Cirqo (2013)
Plot Summary:
Two prisoners escape execution by the police and become successful circus clowns in Pinochet's Chile.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 34
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Hanna K. (1983)
Plot Summary:
A female American Israeli lawyer is defending a Palestinian charged by an Israeli court. It's a tough case because of strong political background. Meanwhile she finds out she's pregnant and thinks about abortion.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 925
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel, France
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: political, independent film, political drama
Similar in 87%
Adrift on the Nile (1971)
Plot Summary:
Set against the backdrop of the 1967 Six-Day War, the movie adaptation of Naguib Mahfouz's novel follows the escapist, drug-fuelled riverboat meetings of a group of frustrated Egyptians from various walks of life.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 750
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: iconic
Similar in 87%
Made in Israel (2001)
Plot Summary:
Egon Schultz, the last Nazi criminal, is extradited by Syria to Israel. Hoffman, A wealthy businessman and son of a holocaust survivor, puts out a 2 million dollar contract on his head and a group of people turned Nazi-Hunters make their way through the heavy snows of Ramat Ha'Golan, to catch Schultz and bring him unharmed to the highest mountain, where Hoffman plans to kill "The Nazi Beast".
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 193
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Saturn Returns (2009)
Plot Summary:
Lucy, a privileged North American in contemporary Berlin, living a life of post Punk hedonism, roams the streets with her best friend, Derek. Together they use the city like a playground, a stage, and a never ending party. Into their lives enters Galia, a young Israeli woman carrying the promise of a better, cleaner way of living. A tribute to Punk underground films turns into a melodrama in "Saturn Returns", mirroring Lucy and Galia's modulating states of mind. Our and their look into each other's life and culture, becomes an investigation of empty facades. The film was constructed by both improvised and pre-scripted scenes, as required by the nature of each scene.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 52
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel, Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: avant garde
Similar in 89%
Women (1996)
Plot Summary:
Directed by Moshé Mizrahi.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 33
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Trial on the Street (2009)
Plot Summary:
Just a few hours to his wedding, Amir, a lad from the south of Tehran, receives a call from his closest friend Habib who insist on meeting him to speak about an urgent issue. He rushes to Habib's works place and there listens to Habib's devastating claim that his future wife is not the sexually innocent girl he believed. In a mixture of rage and bafflement, he takes the bride to the wedding place and then departs to reveal the truth about her past. At the same time, a guy named Nekooyi, the owner of a broken company gets stabbed by his friend who seems to have an affair with his wife, Nasim. To get to the airport and leave the country they take a taxi, driven by nobody but the guy sought by Amir.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 998
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: islamic
Similar in 89%
Impetus: A Decision (2017)
Plot Summary:
Impetus: A Decision follows our hero, Jay Fossier, as he returns home to the states after serving his third and final tour in the middle east. He is forced to return due to P.T.S.D. Home is not so sweet when he returns.
IMDB Rating:
IMDB Votes:
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration:
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Mela (1980)
Plot Summary:
Govindan Kutty (Raghu) is a clown who works in the circus. He comes to his village looking for a bride. Sharada (Anjali Naidu) is impressed by his charms and seemingly rich lifestyle and agrees to marry him. When they reach back the circus after getting married, things however change considerably. Govindan is an insignificant figure there and is frequently ignored by everyone else. The frustrated Sharada meets a stuntman Vijayan (Mammootty) and gets close to him much to the discomfort of Govindan.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 79
Genere: Drama
Country: India
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Eyes of a Thief (2014)
Plot Summary:
A father with a dangerous secret searching for his daughter.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 491
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Algeria
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Home Coming (2006)
Plot Summary:
September 1980. Mustafa 'Mehmet Ali Alabora' and his wife, who're both laborers are married for 5 years. The couple has nothing to do with politics and spend their days happily with their 3 year old daughter and their TV, despite the clamor of guns clashing outside every night. One Friday morning, they wake up and hear the voice of Hasan Mutlucan on radio and observe soldiers marching through the streets, the very confirmation of the military coup that has taken place. Arrests begin instantly in workplace and neighborhood. Yet Mustafa, far from being disturbed, assumes that all apprehensions must have rightful reasons. Until the night he's taken into custody, charged with the crimes of a militant code named "Sehmuz".
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Greece
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: art house
Similar in 79%
Farha (2021)
Plot Summary:
Palestine, 1948. After the withdrawal of the British occupiers, tensions rise between Arabs and Jews. Meanwhile, Farha, the smart daughter of the mayor of a small village, unaware of the coming tragedy, dreams of going to study in the big city.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 86000
Genere: Drama
Country: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sweden
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: suspense, period piece
Similar in 89%
Autonomies (2018)
Plot Summary:
In an alternate reality of present day Israel, a Haredi wheeler-dealer named Broide makes his living smuggling minor contraband between the secular “State of Israel” and the ultra-Orthodox “Haredi Autonomy” in Jerusalem. One day he receives a life-changing job offer: kidnap a little girl at the heart of a custody battle between two families - one Haredi and one secular.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 120
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
The Great Wallendas (1978)
Plot Summary:
Made-for-TV movie, tells the true story of the Great Wallendas, a family of circus acrobats famous for their seven-person high wire pyramid act, that one night ended in tragedy.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 112
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Surrogate (2008)
Plot Summary:
Eli is a 32 year old man who has problems with relationships with women. Hagar is a surrogate, an alternative partner for practical, sexual therapy. They meet once a week and practice a relationship and intimacy in laboratory conditions. The fictitious relationship between them exposes them both physically and emotionally and brings to surface repressed fears from the real world. The changes Eli goes through during the therapy, along with the secrets revealed, not only shake his own life, but also the life of his family. Between clinic walls, due to an "artificial" process, Eli learns how to love for the first time.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 168
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 57 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, captivating, suspense, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 80%
Do Not Forget Me Istanbul (2010)
Plot Summary:
Several directors from countries of the region were invited to create stories taking place in and around the beautiful city of Istanbul, in the vein of “Paris, je t’aime” and “New York, I love you”. They come together to remind viewers that Istanbul’s history does not belong only to the people of Turkey.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 381
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Greece
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: anthology
Similar in 77%
Invisible (2011)
Plot Summary:
Two women meet by chance and discover they were both raped by rapist. Individually and together they must confront the past and finally integrate the long repressed trauma into their lives.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 87
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel, Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, suspense, tense, thought provoking, touching
Similar in 90%
The Peddler (1987)
Plot Summary:
The movie consists of three episodes that explore the lives of poor and desperate in Iran. In episode one, a very poor couple with many crippled children abandon their newly born baby in hopes that it will have a better future. In the second episode, a mentally impaired and isolated young man tries to take care of his senile mother who is almost dead. In the third episode, a cowardly and desperate peddler tries to escape from his boss.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 414
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: anthology
Similar in 86%
The Brick and the Mirror (1965)
Plot Summary:
Hashem (Zakariya Hashemi) is a cab driver who finds an infant child in the back seat of his cab one night after he gives a ride to a young woman. Hashem and his girlfriend, Taji (Taji Ahmadi), try to cope with this unwanted child. Hashem insists on getting rid of the child, Taji on keeping him.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 863
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Epilogue (2012)
Plot Summary:
Hayuta and Berl, an elderly couple, find it hard to adjust to today's Israel and to the social changes surrounding them. After years of struggle, the two refuse to let go of their communal dreams, and of their revolutionary plans to build a welfare state in Israel. During a night of painful disillusionment, the two decide to leave their apartment for a last journey.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 198
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 87%
One of Us (1989)
Plot Summary:
A few Palestinian guerilla's break into an Israeli camp in the occupied territories. They kill a few Israeli soldiers before they are killed, apart from one who dies in the camp after being captured alive. The Israeli military dispatch an investigator to the camp to see if there was cold blooded murder (people at the camp had claimed he was shot while trying to escape). It turns out that the investigator dispatched is a friend of the camp commander - the rest of the plot is basically about the position of both of these characters as regards being honest or faithful to ones friends. There is unbearable tension, increased by the fact that they are both very strongly attracted to one of the female soldiers on the camp.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 120
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 80%
The Matchmaker (2010)
Plot Summary:
During the summer of 1968 a teenage boy goes to work for a matchmaker who has survived the Holocaust - both their lives are forever altered.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 859
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: sentimental, stylized, humorous, realistic, semi serious, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Cup Final (1991)
Plot Summary:
An Israeli soldier is taken hostage by a small PLO squad in Lebanon. The soldier planned to go on vacation and to fly to the world final soccer cup, he and his capturers share the love to soccer and toward the (not so happy) end a relationship is made.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 204
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Israel
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 82%
Once We Were Dreamers (1987)
Plot Summary:
Set in the Middle East in 1919, a group of European Jews planning on settling in the Sinai Desert are attacked by Bedouin tribesmen. As they fight for their lives they realize that they are beginning a struggle for a new Jewish nation. This film chronicles the beginning of the modern Jewish struggle for a homeland.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 83
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 78%
You and Me (1971)
Plot Summary:
A neurosurgeon returns back to the USSR from Sweden and has to deal with rejection - both at work and at home.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 431
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
My Australia (2011)
Plot Summary:
City of Lodz in Poland, after the Second World War. Two brothers, Tadek and Andrzej, grow up without a father, and their mother, so busy at work, does not notice when the boys join a rowdy and anti-Semitic organization.Only when during a fight one of the boys gets hurt, she realizes what is going on. Then she decides to leave Poland together with her family and go to... Australia. At the end of the trip it comes out that the goal was not to reach Australia but Israel. Boys become aware of their and their family roots.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 101
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel, Poland
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 79%
Son of Babylon (2009)
Plot Summary:
A willful young boy follows his just as obstinate grandmother in a journey across Iraq, determined to discover the fate of her missing son, Ahmed's father, who never returned from war.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iraq, UK, France, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Egypt
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, touching, captivating, emotional, independent film, islamic, tense, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 79%
Close to Home (2005)
Plot Summary:
Smadar (Smadar Sayar) and Mirit (Naama Schendar), both 18 years old, are assigned to patrol the streets of Jerusalem together as part of their military service. Worlds apart in their personality their initial frosty relationship changes to friendship as they deal with their own emotional issues, the crushes and break-ups in their love lives, as well as the political realities.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 947
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, suspense
Similar in 76%
A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (2010)
Plot Summary:
Tai is 17 years old. Naim is 20. She's Israeli. He's Palestinian. She lives in Jerusalem. He lives in Gaza. They were born in a land of scorched earth, where fathers bury their children. They must endure an explosive situation that is not of their choosing at an age where young people are falling in love and taking their place in adult life. A bottle thrown in the sea and a correspondence by email nurture the slender hope that their relationship might give them the strength to confront this harsh reality to grapple with it, and thereby ever so slightly change it. Only 60 miles separate them but how many bombings, check-points, sleepless nights and bloodstained days stand between them?.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Israel, Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, thought provoking, touching, serious, realistic, emotional, contemplative
Similar in 75%
My Father My Lord (2007)
Plot Summary:
"My Father My Lord" is an intimate and deeply disturbing story of the conflict between a father's love and his deep devotion to religion. A respected Orthodox Rabbi dotes on his only son but his religious strictures leave an emotional gap between the impish child and the stern father. When the father's all-consuming obsession with observing religious ritual inadvertently leads to tragedy, his previously subservient wife rages against both her husband and God. A dramatic retelling of the story of Abraham.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 492
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, emotional, captivating, sad, thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative