Best movies like Embrace of the Serpent

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Squanto: A Warrior's Tale (1994)

Plot Summary:

Squanto is a high-born Indian warrior from a tribe on the Atlantic coast of North America which devotes its life to hunting and rivalry with a neighboring tribe. Everything changes forever after a ship arrives from England, prospecting the region's commercial potential for the rich Sir George, who uses all his wealth and influence only for ever greater profit. When it returns, several Indians find themselves captives on board, including Squanto. The arrogant Christians consider themselves utterly superior to the 'heathen savages' and treat them as brutally as they do beasts. Squanto fights a bear in a circus, not understanding how men can be so cruel to that creature either, and manages a spectacular escape, but where must he go? He finds shelter and help in a rural monastery, where it takes his protector some effort to prevent the others considering the unknown as diabolical. In time sir George's men come looking for him most brutally.

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Ida (2013)

Plot Summary:

Anna, a young novitiate in 1960s Poland, is on the verge of taking her vows when she discovers a family secret dating back to the years of the German occupation.

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Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Plot Summary:

Fitzcarraldo, a dreamer who plans to bring opera and Enrico Caruso to the South American jungles. With limited funding, he must figure out how to finance the opera house, and ultimately decides to capitalize on South America's rubber production. He discovers a hidden forest of rubber trees that is well protected by rapids, but the only way to get there is via a river on the other side of a small group of mountains. Fitzcarraldo therefore hires natives to pull his steamship over the mountain.

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The Sheltering Sky (1990)

Plot Summary:

An American couple (John Malkovich, Debra Winger) drift toward emptiness in postwar North Africa.

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Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

Plot Summary:

In 1931, three aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff and set off on a trek across the Outback.

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End of the Spear (2005)

Plot Summary:

"End of the Spear" is the story of Mincayani, a Waodani tribesman from the jungles of Ecuador. When five young missionaries, among them Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, are speared to death by the Waodani in 1956, a series of events unfold to change the lives of not only the slain missionaries' families, but also Mincayani and his people.

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Andrei Rublev (1966)

Plot Summary:

An expansive Russian drama, this film focuses on the life of revered religious icon painter Andrei Rublev. Drifting from place to place in a tumultuous era, the peace-seeking monk eventually gains a reputation for his art. But after Rublev witnesses a brutal battle and unintentionally becomes involved, he takes a vow of silence and spends time away from his work. As he begins to ease his troubled soul, he takes steps towards becoming a painter once again.

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1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)

Plot Summary:

1492: Conquest of Paradise depicts Christopher Columbus’ discovery of The New World and his effect on the indigenous people.

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The Straight Story (1999)

Plot Summary:

A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.

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Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

Plot Summary:

A few decades after the destruction of the Inca empire, a Spanish expedition leaves the mountains of Peru and goes down the Amazon river in search of gold and wealth. Soon, they come across great difficulties and Don Aguirre, a ruthless man who cares only about riches, becomes their leader. But will his quest lead them to "the golden city", or to certain destruction?.

Similar in 76%

The Mission (1986)

Plot Summary:

When a Spanish Jesuit goes into the South American wilderness to build a mission in the hope of converting the Indians of the region, a slave hunter is converted and joins his mission. When Spain sells the colony to Portugal, they are forced to defend all they have built against the Portugese aggressors.

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The New World (2005)

Plot Summary:

A drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century.

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Walkabout (1971)

Plot Summary:

Under the pretense of having a picnic, a geologist takes his teenage daughter and 6-year-old son into the Australian outback and attempts to shoot them. When he fails, he turns the gun on himself, and the two city-bred children must contend with harsh wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aborigine boy who shows them how to survive, and in the process underscores the disharmony between nature and modern life.

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Black Robe (1991)

Plot Summary:

In the 17th century a Jesuit priest and a young companion are escorted through the wilderness of Quebec by Algonquin Indians to find a distant mission in the dead of winter. The Jesuit experiences a spiritual journey while his young companion falls in love with the Algonquin chief's beautiful daughter underneath the imposing and magnificent mountains. Dread and death follows them upriver.

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The Emerald Forest (1985)

Plot Summary:

For ten years, engineer Bill Markham has searched tirelessly for his son Tommy who disappeared from the edge of the Brazilian rainforest. Miraculously, he finds the boy living among the reclusive Amazon tribe who adopted him. And that's when Bill's adventure truly begins. For his son is now a grown tribesman who moves skillfully through this beautiful-but-dangerous terrain, fearful only of those who would exploit it. And as Bill attempts to "rescue" him from the savagery of the untamed jungle, Tommy challenges Bill's idea of true civilization and his notions about who needs rescuing.

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The Great Beauty (2013)

Plot Summary:

Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.

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The Fall (2006)

Plot Summary:

In a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm, a fantastic story about 5 mythical heroes. Thanks to his fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur as the tale advances.

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The Holy Mountain (1973)

Plot Summary:

A Mexican master leads a Christ figure and other disciples to a mountain of immortal wise men. The scandal of the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, writer/director Alejandro Jodorowsky's flood of sacrilegious imagery and existential symbolism in The Holy Mountain is a spiritual quest for enlightenment pitting illusion against truth. The Alchemist (Jodorowsky) assembles together a group of people from all walks of life to represent the planets in the solar system. The occult adept's intention is to put his recruits through strange mystical rites and divest them of their worldly baggage before embarking on a trip to Lotus Island. There they ascend the Holy Mountain to displace the immortal gods who secretly rule the universe.

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I Am David (2003)

Plot Summary:

Based on Anne Holm's acclaimed young adult novel North to Freedom, I Am David chronicles the struggles of a 12-year-old boy (Ben Tibber) who manages to flee a Communist concentration camp on his own -- through sheer will and determination. All he has in his possession is a loaf of bread, a letter to deliver to someone in Denmark and a compass to help get him there.

Similar in 88%

Dersu Uzala (1975)

Plot Summary:

A military explorer meets and befriends a Goldi man in Russia’s unmapped forests. A deep and abiding bond evolves between the two men, one civilized in the usual sense, the other at home in the glacial Siberian woods.

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Easy Rider (1969)

Plot Summary:

A cross-country trip to sell drugs puts two hippie bikers on a collision course with small-town prejudices.

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The Lost City of Z (2016)

Plot Summary:

A true-life drama in the 1920s, centering on British explorer Col. Percy Fawcett, who discovered evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilazation in the Amazon and disappeared whilst searching for it.

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Life of Pi (2012)

Plot Summary:

The story of an Indian boy named Pi, a zookeeper's son who finds himself in the company of a hyena, zebra, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger after a shipwreck sets them adrift in the Pacific Ocean.

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Dances with Wolves (1990)

Plot Summary:

Wounded Civil War soldier, John Dunbar tries to commit suicide – and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.

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The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

Plot Summary:

The true story of Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind.

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Jungle (2017)

Plot Summary:

A mysterious guide escorts an enthusiastic adventurer and his friend into the Amazon jungle, but their journey turns into a terrifying ordeal as the darkest elements of human nature and the deadliest threats of the wild force them to fight for survival.

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Dead Man (1995)

Plot Summary:

On the run after murdering a man, accountant William Blake encounters a strange North American man named Nobody who prepares him for his journey into the spiritual world.