Best movies like Daughters of the Dust
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Languid look at the Gullah culture of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia where African folk-ways were maintained well into the 20th Century and was one of the last bastion of these mores in America.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: USA, Germany
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: independent film, gothic, mysterious, mystic, southern gothic, aesthetic, sentimental, atmospheric, uplifting, touching
Best tv shows and movies like Daughters of the Dust (1991):
Similar in 86%
Golden Door (2006)
Plot Summary:
The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, sincere, serious, captivating, colorful, realistic, gloomy, weird, period drama
Similar in 77%
Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1992)
Plot Summary:
Chantel Mitchell (Ariyan Johnson), a hip, articulate, black high-school girl in Brooklyn, is determined not to become "just another girl on the IRT" (the IRT is one of NYC's subway lines). She dreams of medical school, a family, and an escape from the generational poverty and street-corner life her friends seem to have accepted as their lot. But personal and sexual challenges confront Chantel on her way to fulfilling these dreams.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: independent film, sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, surprise ending, hood, black cinema
Similar in 80%
Night Catches Us (2010)
Plot Summary:
After growing up during the tumultuous 1960s, ex-Black Panther Marcus returns to his home in Philadelphia in 1976 and reconnects with Pat, the widow of a Panther leader. Marcus befriends Pat's young daughter and attempts to conquer his demons. Interfering with Marcus's good intentions are the neighborhood's continuing racial and social conflicts, as well as old enemies and friends -- both with scores to settle.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, serious, emotional, realistic, political, gloomy, independent film, black cinema
Similar in 83%
Claudine (1974)
Plot Summary:
Diahann Carroll was nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe award for her gripping portrayal as the indomitable Claudine in this heartwarming comedy. While struggling to support herself and her six children in Harlem by working as a maid for a wealthy family, Claudine (Carroll) meets a charming garbage man, Roop (James Earl Jones). But although Roop is smitten with the lovely single mother, his own life trials make him slow to respond to her invitation to a lifetime of love. The touching story of Claudine will inspire smiles and tears in viewers of all ages.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: black comedy, grim, sincere, uplifting, touching, serious, realistic, independent film, black cinema
Similar in 75%
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
Plot Summary:
Cheryl, a young black lesbian, works a day job in a video store while trying to make a film about a black actress from the 1930s known for playing the stereotypical "mammy" roles relegated to black actresses during that period. This was the first feature film directed by a black lesbian.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: independent film, clever, offbeat, humorous, realistic, semi serious, queer cinema, masterpiece, black cinema, fake documentary
Similar in 78%
Killer of Sheep (1978)
Plot Summary:
Stan works in drudgery at a slaughterhouse. His personal life is drab. Dissatisfaction and ennui keep him unresponsive to the needs of his adoring wife, and he must struggle against influences which would dishonor and endanger him and his family.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: independent film, sincere, realistic, serious, emotional, black and white, political, social, contemplative, art house
Similar in 85%
Finding Home (2003)
Plot Summary:
Inheriting her grandmother's remote island Inn causes Amanda to re-evaluate her life and decisions.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 594
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, independent film, gloomy, crying
Similar in 84%
Hester Street (1975)
Plot Summary:
Steven Keats plays a Russian emigre who prides himself on the way he's molded himself into a real Yankee in the USA, though the world he lives in, New York's Lower East Side in the late 19th century, is almost exclusively populated by other Jewish immigrants. When his wife (Carol Kane) finally arrives in the New World, however, she has a lot of assimilating to do. This causes the tension which drives the movie along, though it maintains a fairly light atmosphere most of the time.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: black and white, romantic, historically accurate, aesthetic, independent film, sentimental, touching, serious, captivating, emotional
Similar in 90%
Feast of All Saints (2001)
Plot Summary:
Set in nineteenth-century New Orleans, the story depicts the gens de couleur libre, or the Free People of Colour, a dazzling yet damned class caught between the world of white privilege and black oppression.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 820
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 213 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, touching, emotional, serious, realistic
Similar in 89%
Mississippi Masala (1991)
Plot Summary:
An Indian family is expelled from Uganda when Idi Amin takes power. They move to Mississippi and time passes. The Indian daughter falls in love with a black man, and the respective families have to come to terms with it.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: romantic, light, talky, realistic, touching, serious, sexy, emotional, sex comedy, multicultural
Similar in 88%
Jungle Fever (1991)
Plot Summary:
A successful and married black man contemplates having an affair with a white girl from work. He's quite rightly worried that the racial difference would make an already taboo relationship even worse.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: sexy, serious, emotional, realistic, controversial, hood, sentimental, captivating, scary, touching
Similar in 84%
Martin Eden (2019)
Plot Summary:
The tale of an individualist proletarian in a time marked by the rise of mass political movements. In early 20th-century Italy, illiterate sailor Martin Eden seeks fame as a writer while torn between the love of a bourgeois girl and allegiance to his social class.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy, France, Germany
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, social, sentimental, sweet, realistic, philosophical, political, sad, cerebral
Similar in 77%
Beloved Sisters (2014)
Plot Summary:
A love triangle forms between post-Enlightenment writer Friedrich Schiller and two sisters -- one who became his wife, and the other, his biographer.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: Germany, Austria, Switzerland
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: romantic, emotional, realistic, touching, serious, captivating, sexy, period piece, costume drama, gloomy
Similar in 79%
Shadow Magic (2000)
Plot Summary:
Beijing, 1902: an enterprising young portrait photographer named Liu Jinglun, keen on new technology, befriends a newly-arrived Englishman who's brought projector, camera, and Lumière-brothers' shorts to open the Shadow Magic theater. Liu's work with Wallace brings him conflict with tradition and his father's authority, complicated by his falling in love with Ling, daughter of Lord Tan, star of Beijing's traditional opera. Liu sees movies as his chance to become wealthy and worthy of Ling. When the Shadow Magic pair are invited to show the films to the Empress Dowager, things look good. But, is disaster in the script? And, can movies preserve tradition even as they bring change?.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 795
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: China, Germany, Taiwan, USA
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, emotional, fairy tale, funny, light, romantic, feel good, unusual plot structure
Similar in 81%
The Josephine Baker Story (1991)
Plot Summary:
Biography of the African-American who became a major performer in the Paris cabarets of the 1920's and 1930's. The film follows her life beginning as a struggling performer in 1917 St. Louis, her frustrations leading to her move to France, and follows to her death in 1975. Written by John Sacksteder.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, Music, Romance
Country: USA, UK, Hungary
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: captivating, realistic, emotional, serious, entertaining, crying, uplifting, black cinema
Similar in 75%
Mandingo (1975)
Plot Summary:
A slave owner in the 1840s trains one of his slaves to be a bare-knuckle fighter.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: realistic, sexy, serious, suspense, suspenseful, controversial, grindhouse, sexual, southern gothic, biting
Similar in 81%
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974)
Plot Summary:
In February, 1962, as the civil rights movement reaches Bayonne, Louisiana, a New York journalist arrives to interview Jane Pittman, who has just turned 110. She tells him her story dating back to her earliest memories before slavery ended. In between the chapters of her life, the present-day struggles of Blacks in Bayonne, urged on by Jimmy, are dramatized.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: political, epic, sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
Similar in 76%
Eve's Bayou (1997)
Plot Summary:
The story is set in 1962 Louisiana. The big Batiste family is headed by charming doctor Louis. Though he is married to beautiful Roz, he has a weakness for attractive women patients. One day Louis is flirting with married and sexy Metty Mereaux, not knowing that he is observed by his youngest idealistic daughter Eve, who is there by accident. Eve can not forget the incident which is traumatic for her naiveté, and shares a secret with older sister Cisely. Lies start to roll.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: cult classic, independent film, southern gothic, gothic, mysterious, family saga, hood, visual, spooky, atmospheric
Similar in 80%
The Long Walk Home (1990)
Plot Summary:
Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott lead by Martin Luther King.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: inspirational, independent film, touching, realistic, political, gothic, sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, serious
Similar in 79%
Once Upon a Time... When We Were Colored (1995)
Plot Summary:
This film relates the story of a tightly connected Afro-American community informally called Colored Town where the inhabitants live and depend on each other in a world where racist oppression is everywhere, as told by a boy called Cliff who spent his childhood there. Despite this, we see the life of the community in all its joys and sorrows, of those that live there while others decide to leave for a better life north. For those remaining, things come to a serious situation when one prominent businessman is being muscled out by a white competitor using racist intimidation. In response, the community must make the decision of whether to submit meekly like they always have, or finally fight for their rights.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 558
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: sentimental, uplifting, realistic, independent film, compassionate, political, serious, contemplative, road movie, touching
Similar in 76%
Nothing But a Man (1964)
Plot Summary:
A proud black man and his school-teacher wife face discriminatory challenges in 1960s America.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: independent film, political, social, black and white, aesthetic, sincere, thought provoking, clever, touching, serious
Similar in 87%
Poetic Justice (1993)
Plot Summary:
In this film, we see the world through the eyes of main character Justice, a young African-American poet. A mail carrier invites a few friends along for a long overnight delivery run.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: road movie, hood, touching, realistic, sentimental, sincere, serious, emotional, compassionate, erotic
Similar in 89%
Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005)
Plot Summary:
A drama set in the 1920s, where free-spirited Janie Crawford's search for happiness leads her through several different marriages, challenging the morals of her small town. Based on the novel by Zora Neale Hurston.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: touching, sincere, uplifting, serious, realistic, gothic, breathtaking, heartbreaking, black cinema
Similar in 79%
The Secret Life of Bees (2008)
Plot Summary:
Set in South Carolina in 1964, this is the tale of Lily Owens a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 28000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, sentimental, emotional, sweet, inspirational, crying, psychological, captivating, intense
Similar in 76%
A United Kingdom (2016)
Plot Summary:
The inspiring true story of Seretse Khama, the King of Bechuanaland (modern Botswana), and Ruth Williams, the London office worker he married in 1948 in the face of fierce opposition from their families and the British and South African governments. Seretse and Ruth defied family, Apartheid and empire - their love triumphed over every obstacle flung in their path and in so doing they transformed their nation and inspired the world.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, Romance
Country: UK, USA, France, Czech Republic
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: disturbing, romantic drama, sincere, thought provoking, captivating, motivational, inspirational, romantic, sweet, political
Similar in 81%
12 Years a Slave (2013)
Plot Summary:
In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 731000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 134 min
Plot tags: motivational, heartbreaking, disturbing, harsh, bleak, atmospheric, emotional, factual, brutal, rough
Similar in 86%
The Choice (2016)
Plot Summary:
Travis and Gabby first meet as neighbors in a small coastal town and wind up in a relationship that is tested by life's most defining events.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 45000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: romantic, touching, emotional, sweet, scenic, sentimental, serious, realistic, tear jerker, romantic comedy
Similar in 87%
The Help (2011)
Plot Summary:
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 484000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, India
Duration: 146 min
Plot tags: touching, inspirational, thought provoking, uplifting, emotional, feel good, captivating, period piece, sad, sentimental
Similar in 76%
The Joy Luck Club (1993)
Plot Summary:
Through a series of flashbacks, four young chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China, explore their past. This search will help them understand their difficult mother/daughter relationship.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, sincere, captivating, thought provoking, emotional, sad, retro, depressing, spiritual
Similar in 78%
The Color Purple (1985)
Plot Summary:
An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing "Mister" Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa. Based on the novel by Alice Walker.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 94000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 154 min
Plot tags: sentimental, uplifting, touching, inspirational, sad, sincere, emotional, compassionate, period piece, heartbreaking