Best movies like Doctor Vlimmen
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A veterinarian lives together with his sister and her son in a small Flemish village. He has to cope with gossip and distrust from the villagers.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 253
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands, Belgium
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy
Best tv shows and movies like Doctor Vlimmen (1977):
Similar in 75%
Paradise Lost (1978)
Plot Summary:
The Mayor of a small Flemish town is determined at all costs to save a unique bird sanctuary from a ruthless businessman who advocates a housing development on the site. The main story, though, centres on a childhood trauma that unites the two men and a dark femme fatale whom one desires and the other attempts to manipulate.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 129
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 86%
The Flaxfield (1983)
Plot Summary:
In a part of Flanders where flax is the main crop, farmer Vermeulen rules his estate like an 'old school' patriarch, stern and authoritarian, nobody else's word is ever taken seriously, just scolded fools, he rather risks being wrong then considering any advice. His marriage is based on a grim understanding: the wife Barbele accepts his heartless manner with everyone, even their studious, smart, healthy, studly son and heir Louis, but his two silly sisters are spoiled with a pointless fancy nunnery boarding school education fit for the upper classes. Farm-life is hard enough, laboring without machines or reliable weather, but this year the stubborn master made it even worse by picking the riskier, badly drained field and sowing later then his neighbors, even when luck turns he'll fetch a lower price for it. Poor practically perfect Louis is granted neither praise, respect nor any pleasure, however hard and well he slaves, obedient like the hired farmhands although well-read. Even.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 222
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, Netherlands
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, eighties
Similar in 80%
The Pianist (1998)
Plot Summary:
Mario Gas directed this music-themed Spanish drama set in Barcelona of the mid-'80s. When famed composer Lluis Doria (Laurent Terzieff) visits a transvestite club, he learns his lifelong friend Albert Rossell (Serge Reggiani) is the house pianist. A flashback takes the tale four decades into the past where the younger Rossell (Pere Ponce) rejoins Teresa (Paulina Galvez) after having spent years in prison for helping anti-Franco anarchists. The story continues into Paris of the '30s, the period when Doria and Rossell first met, sharing a mutual interest in music and Teresa, before civil war sent them in different directions.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 106
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 88%
Oscar and the Lady in Pink (2009)
Plot Summary:
Listening in to a conversation between his doctor and parents, 10-year-old Oscar learns what nobody has the courage to tell him. He only has a few weeks to live. Furious, he refuses to speak to anyone except straight-talking Rose, the lady in pink he meets on the hospital stairs. As Christmas approaches, Rose uses her fantastical experiences as a professional wrestler, her imagination, wit and charm to allow Oscar to live life and love to the full, in the company of his friends Pop Corn, Einstein, Bacon and childhood sweetheart Peggy Blue. Written by American Film Market.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium, Canada
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, uplifting, serious, realistic
Similar in 85%
Oxygen (2010)
Plot Summary:
Two young man share an incurable illness. Is their love for the women in their lives strong enough to conquer their fear of dying?.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, Netherlands
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 81%
The Nest (1980)
Plot Summary:
In a town near Salamanca, an eccentric widower, aged 60, is captivated by an imp, a precocious 13 year old. Alejandro is wealthy and alone, passing time with music, chess, and his shotgun. Gregoria (Goyita) the daughter of a weak-willed policeman and his bullying wife, is a budding naturalist who conspires to meet Alejandro. Even though he knows the village is talking, Alejandro spends time with Goyita, on walks, horseback rides, and dinners. He's enchanted and tells his friend the village priest that he's living for the first time. Goyita makes new demands on Alejandro, and he must decide how to be true to his ethics and to this Platonic yet highly-charged relationship.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 615
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain, Argentina
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 87%
Sheep's Clothing (2013)
Plot Summary:
A group of literature-loving friends bury letters to be opened 10 years later when they will confront the dreams of their youth with what the future has held in store for them.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, sincere, tense, gloomy
Similar in 75%
G.H.B. (2014)
Plot Summary:
A reflection on love and pleasure experienced by three women, set in France, New York, and Shanghai.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 25
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, captivating, psychological, gloomy
Similar in 90%
The Bay of Love and Sorrows (2002)
Plot Summary:
The Bay of Love and Sorrows is a haunting modern tragedy set on the rural shores of New Brunswick's Bay of Miramichi. In late summer 1973, Michael Skid, the son of a well-to-do judge, returns home and rents a dilapidated farm. He begins to spread the gospel of communal ideals, which he has absorbed during his travels in India. His new worldliness and ideas go over well with impoverished siblings Madonna and Silver Brassaurd and the hopelessly naïve Carrie. They go over less well with Tom Donnerel, a young farmer and Carrie's fiancé. Wounded by Tom's derision, Michael befriends ex-convict Everette Hatch, who, recognizing opportunity, exploits Michael's ideas to his advantage. Believing himself capable of understanding people from the other side of the track, Michael fails to recognize that the ex-con is manipulating him and so sets off a catastrophic chain of events in the community.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 212
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating, suspenseful
Similar in 88%
White Mama (1980)
Plot Summary:
A poor, elderly white woman living in a tenement in a black ghetto is befriended by a neighborhood boy, and the two of them form a mutually beneficial relationship: he provides her companionship and protection, and she becomes the mother he never had.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 783
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 78%
The Rebirth (2007)
Plot Summary:
Coincidence and the aftermath of violence. A man's middle-school daughter has been murdered. His wife is already deceased. He tells a counselor he wants to live in anonymity, working with his hands. He moves away and gets a job in a factory. The woman who is the mother of the killer wants to apologize to the father, although she knows it would change nothing. He refuses to meet. She moves back to her hometown. She works in the kitchen at an inn where the man now lives. No one speaks. He eats alone. He reads in his apartment. She walks to her home and has a sandwich. She keeps her eyes lowered. He drives to work. Does either want to connect? What bond can they establish? Written by.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 263
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 83%
The World Made Straight (2015)
Plot Summary:
In a rural Appalachian community haunted by the legacy of a Civil War massacre, a rebellious young man struggles to escape the violence that would bind him to the past.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating, tense, neo noir, suspenseful, independent film, psychotronic
Similar in 78%
Going Home (1993)
Plot Summary:
Johan Ten Berghe joins the Dutch army when the Dutch East Indies unilaterally declare independence as Indonesia. He initiates his naive driver Twan in life in the East, having grown up there as son of colonial official Hendrik, now missing. Their adventures intertwine with Johan's childhood memories, especially concerning his native best friend, Oeroeg, who joined the rebellion, as well as their nanny and later de facto stepmother. Conflicting loyalties become tangible in extreme situations.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 418
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands, Belgium, Indonesia
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, non-linear
Similar in 81%
Cold Light (2004)
Plot Summary:
What could be better than knowing your future? And what could be worse? A love-filled childhood abruptly ends when catastrophe descends. A catastrophe that the child had foreseen yet failed to act upon.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 611
Genere: Drama
Country: Iceland, Norway, UK, Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, atmospheric, serious, offbeat, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 78%
Suspect (2005)
Plot Summary:
Teacher Rob Dekoster is a good man, albeit a bit too frivolous and liberal with funds the local arts center's interim director. His wife Nelle, who sometimes abuses drugs, spoils his ingrate teenage stepdaughter Sandy, who is kind only to her sweet, mentally handicapped brother, Jimmy Vandevyver. After a class on sexual abuse from feminist teacher Lydia De Beule, Sandy pretends Rob abused her. Lydia, Rob's ex, eagerly helps her fabricate 'proof', which a female police commissioner eagerly believes. A frustrated judge (and father) shamelessly ignores the legal benefit of the doubt, even tricks Rob while in jail. Nelle discovers more then one sick truth.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 197
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, realistic, thought provoking
Similar in 77%
Sivas (2014)
Plot Summary:
Establishing a bleak village in Eastern Turkey as its setting, Sivas features the story of Aslan, an eleven-year-old boy, and Sivas, a weathered fighting dog who develop a strong relationship after Aslan finds Sivas wounded in a ditch, left to die.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Turkey
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, touching, captivating, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 87%
The Cruel Embrace (1987)
Plot Summary:
Nicole (Marianne Basler) gives birth to a mentally challenged boy after she is gang-raped by American soldiers at the close of World War II in this grim dramatic tragedy. Young Ludo is hidden in the attic of the family home and continues to yearn for his mother's affection. Nicole enters into a loveless marriage with an older man who agrees to adopt Ludo, but her deteriorating mental health leads her to sloth and alcoholism. Ludo is sent off to an asylum, but escapes and takes up residence on a deserted beach in an old tanker that has run aground. This feature won the grand prize at the 1987 Barcelona Film Festival.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 181
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Offline (2012)
Plot Summary:
A man attempts to reclaim the life that prison took from him but his dark past threatens to ruin everything.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 876
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 81%
She Is Not Crying, She Is Singing (2011)
Plot Summary:
A tale of deliverance. Laura, 27 years old, lives alone in the outskirts of a large town. She learns that her father is in a coma, after a serious car accident. She decides to visit him at the hospital as a last opportunity to settle old scores, perhaps even to get revenge.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 130
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, Luxembourg, France
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sincere, touching, disturbing, gloomy
Similar in 90%
Island (2011)
Plot Summary:
Based on 'Jane Rogers' acclaimed novel, "Island" is a tale of yearning and retribution. Abandoned at birth, Nikki Black has spent most of her life in care sustained only by fairy-stories. Incapable of love, fearful and desperate for revenge, she decides to find her birth mother, confront her, and bitter enough to consider murder. She travels incognito to a remote Hebridean island where Phyllis now lives as a recluse with Calum, her son.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 553
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, psychological, tense, atmospheric, realistic, gloomy, art house
Similar in 81%
Waiting for the Clouds (2004)
Plot Summary:
Ayse/Eleni who is a member of a Greek family in Turkey is forced to immigrate from Trabzon to Mersin in her early ages. However, the events that happen cause her to face her own past.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 960
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, France, Germany, Greece
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: captivating, emotional, realistic, psychological, atmospheric, touching, epic, serious, gloomy, intercultural
Similar in 89%
To Life (2014)
Plot Summary:
Helen, Rose and Lili have survived the Holocaust and have never seen each other since the war has ended. In 1960, they meet again in Berck, France. They learn to enjoy together simple pleasures in life: nice meals, ballads on the beach, playing in the waves.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 238
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sincere, uplifting, captivating, contemplative
Similar in 75%
Time Of My Life (2012)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story, 'Tot altijd' introduces us to a band of friends in the eighties, who spend their days enjoying their youth and turbulent (love) life. Years later, Thomas, a recent medicine graduate and Mario's closest friend, gets stuck between a rock and a hard place when he diagnoses Mario with MS (Multiple Sclerosis). Though not a fatal disease, it slowly consumes the patient's bodily functions and - in some cases - their minds. Mario becomes the leading spokesman for the action group "Waardig Sterven" ("Dignified Death") in support of the Belgian legalisation of euthanasia. Thomas does everything in his power to avoid losing his best friend, but also can't stand the sight of his continued degeneration.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, captivating
Similar in 82%
The Salesman (2011)
Plot Summary:
With an enthralling central performance by Gilbert Sicotte, this masterful debut feature examines the life of the top car salesman in a fading Quebec town as events challenge the 67-year-old’s sense of identity and the meaning of life at the most profound level.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 665
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, emotional, touching, realistic, contemplative, serious
Similar in 75%
The Last Summer (2007)
Plot Summary:
Four good friends, all seventeen-year old, lose their innocence during their last summer together. Flanders 1996. Rik, Tim, Roel and Bart aimlessly wile away the summer days in a small village where nothing exciting ever happens. When Rik becomes fascinated by the mysterious Sandrine, the boy's friendship comes under increasing pressure. Their reckless behaviour lands the boys in a web of intrigue, which they have a hard time escaping from.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 437
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 78%
Like You Know It All (2009)
Plot Summary:
Delightfully comic exploration of the emotional and social geography of an art-house film director.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 836
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, realistic, uplifting, emotional, semi serious, offbeat, humorous
Similar in 85%
Small World (2010)
Plot Summary:
Conrad Lang, a handyman in a rich family - he has been raised like a brother with Thomas, who has the same age -, accidentally puts fire to the big holiday house he keeps. He returns to the town he grew up in, to the family home, where Philippe, Thomas's son, and Simone are getting married. Conrad's frequent memory loss and behavioural problems rapidly reveal a neurological disease (Alzheimer's is suggested by doctor Cohen when he examens Elvira) which leads Elvira, Thomas's stepmother, to install Conrad in a guesthouse on the property, with the help of a nurse. When Conrad looses more and more his landmarks in present and past, memories of his youth come back to surface. They intrigue Simone, since these memories do not entirely fit together with the official family history.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 636
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Germany
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, serious, captivating, suspenseful, gloomy
Similar in 86%
The Outlander (2005)
Plot Summary:
It is the early 20th century. A stranger arrives in the small, rural community and disrupts the lives of its inhabitants. The man, who refuses to give his name, is dubbed The Outlander. A traveller who disdains conventional behaviour and parochialism, The Outlander disturbs the villagers' complacency and scandalizes the community; he also elicits admiration and gains a woman's love. He ultimately leaves in the same manner he had arrived, but not before he has helped the villagers open their eyes to the larger world beyond their village.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 406
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, sentimental, touching, realistic, serious
Similar in 85%
The Locket (2002)
Plot Summary:
A bereaved man takes a job at a health care center, where he befriends an elderly and embittered woman - and as time passes, he becomes obsessed with reuniting her with her long-lost true love.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 671
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, uplifting, touching, feel good, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
Similar in 79%
Frailer (2014)
Plot Summary:
A woman diagnosed with terminal lung cancer gathers her three dearest friends together to make the most of the time she has left.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 104
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands, Norway
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, serious, contemplative, gloomy