Best movies like Fontamara
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Fontamara is a village in the Marsica, forgotten by all but God and its inhabitants are called 'cafoni' (boors). Berardo Viola wants to marry Elvira but only after gaining enough money to buy some land and in order to reach his aim he has the idea of going to a great city. When Maria Grazia is raped by the fascists, Berardo and Antonio decide to leave Fontamara and go to Rome. Here they are swindled by a lawyer and afterwards they are invited by an antifascist to a restaurant where they are arrested by the police because of some subversive papers they had.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 69
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like Fontamara (1980):
Similar in 82%
The Lovemakers (1961)
Plot Summary:
The death of a wealthy patriarch in 1885 sets off an interfamily power struggle.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 742
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
The Shadow of the Day (2022)
Plot Summary:
Italy, after the promulgation of the racial laws (1938). Luciano, a Fascist-abiding restaurateur, nonetheless believes he can still live by his own rules inside his business. However, everything changes when Anna, a girl with a dangerous secret, starts to work at his restaurant.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 287
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
Land in Between (1996)
Plot Summary:
SILHOUETTE: Nigerian prostitutes dealing with miscellaneous customers EUGLEN & GERTIAN: Daily recruitment of Albanian immigrants seeking work but without working residency permit. SELF SERVICE: a night with Ahmed, egyptian illegal gas station attender, who has been living in italy for many years.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 208
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: semi documentary, independent film
Similar in 84%
Struggles in Italy (1971)
Plot Summary:
The film reveals how and why a supposedly revolutionary Italian girl has in fact fallen prey to bourgeois ideology.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 357
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 62 min
Plot tags: experimental
Similar in 82%
Mario and the Magician (1994)
Plot Summary:
The Twenties: The German Fuhrmann family spend their holidays in Italy again. The country is full of mysteries in that time. The Fuhrmann's have to realize the upcoming and growing fascism and their children are fascinated by a magician visiting the town. Soon nothing is as usual. The times are changing.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 184
Genere: Drama
Country: Austria, France, Germany
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Time of Indifference (1964)
Plot Summary:
A penniless countess falls in love with a cad, unaware that he is also involved on the side with her beautiful daughter.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 433
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: dread
Similar in 90%
Segreti segreti (1985)
Plot Summary:
Laura participates in terrorist attack against a magistrate; a member of her commando is shot to death. Such begins the story of women: Maria and Rosa, the mother and sister of the killed terrorist; Gina, the old nanny of Laura; her mother Marta and Renata, her friend; and finally Giuliana, the magistrate before whom the terrorist will reveal her secret. And Laura will be the common thread that links each of the personal stories, determining their destiny, sometimes tragic, and discovering silence and complicity that does not seek.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 102
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Gli Invisibili (1988)
Plot Summary:
At the beginning of the eighties, Sirio, a young worker at the steelworks in Terni with a past in the student struggles, decided to abandon his job as a soldier in an extreme left-wing group.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 28
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
Sicily! (1999)
Plot Summary:
A man returns to visit his native Sicily after living in New York for a long time. He learns about the Sicilian way of life from stylized conversations with an orange picker, his fellow train passengers, his mother, and a knife-sharpener.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France, Germany
Duration: 66 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Life Is Beautiful (1979)
Plot Summary:
A politically neutral man is arrested and tortured in prerevolutionary Lisbon, and forced to make, and act on, a political commitment. ….
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 185
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union, Italy
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: political
Similar in 80%
I Am the Law (1977)
Plot Summary:
The mafia has overrun a section of the country so ruinously that a very stern man (Giuliano Gemma) has been sent by the government to be the governor in that region. He has been given wide-ranging power and authority and is not afraid to use it. Indeed, on occasion he finds it necessary to gun down a fleeing felon himself. As he closes in on the true extent of local corruption, and its connections elsewhere, he is promoted to a higher position in the fascist government so that the local mafia head can replace him as governor.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 607
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Italy
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: poliziottesco, political, historical drama
Similar in 78%
Starlight Hotel (1987)
Plot Summary:
During the Great Depression, Kate (Greer Robson) is a 13-year-old girl living on New Zealand's South Island. When her mother dies and her father is offered a job in Wellington on North Island, Kate is sent to live with an aunt. The girl runs away to find her father, hopping onto a boxcar and befriending a fellow fugitive, Patrick (Peter Phelps), an emotionally battle-scarred WWI veteran fleeing the authorities after injuring a repo man. Pretending to be father and daughter, Patrick and Kate use each other for cover as they make their way across New Zealand, sleeping under the stars and championing the rights of destitute farmers and homeless squatters whose fortunes have been wiped out by economic hardship.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 265
Genere: Drama
Country: New Zealand
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 85%
Family Portrait (1962)
Plot Summary:
Marcello Mastroianni gives a sensitive, finely judged performance as Enrico, a struggling journalist in the Rome of 1945. He receives a phone call informing him that his younger brother Lorenzo (Jacques Perrin) has died. Enrico recalls their long and difficult relationship; he was brought up by their poor but warm-hearted grandmother (Sylvie), Lorenzo was raised as a gentleman by a wealthy local aristocrat. Reunited in the Florence of the 1930s, Enrico becomes his spoilt brother's keeper, forever haunted by a sense of guilty responsibility towards a man he both hates and loves. Beautifully photographed by Giuseppe Rotunno, this austere, deeply-felt masterwork has been acclaimed as one of Zurlini's greatest achievements.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, serious, realistic, non-linear
Similar in 76%
A Day for Lionhearts (1961)
Plot Summary:
September the 8th 1943, Rome, that crucial day, the armistice, in the town many life change their way. Danilo escapes the fascist enlist, while Michele succeeded to leave his administration moving from Rome. On the way to come back Rome the two meets Gino and all together will try to pass trough the Gothic Line (separating Nazi occupied Italy by Allied liberated Italy). They are intercepted by the Germans and find a temporary refugee in an abandoned cellar full of Italian soldier escaping the Germans. Now also an Italian partisan, Edoardo and Orlando are part of the group. Their goal is to bomb an important bridge. But Edoardo is captured and sentenced to death. The three and Orlando decide to bomb the bridge anyway. They will succeed thanks to the sacrifice of Danilo, and Germans will attribute the commando action to American Parachutists, ignoring the bravery of 4 normal Italian citizens.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 117
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
The Whores (1994)
Plot Summary:
The prostitutes of Palermo are pictured in this episodic Italian drama. The film lacks a real unifying thread as it presents scenes from the lives of 7 hookers. Five are women. One is a man, and one is a transvestite. In one episode, an aging ill-mannered Neapolitan, Orlanda, entertains North African visitors in her home. They do not seem to mind her constant barrage of racist comments. One of her clients falls for her and protects her from a client who stalks her. She is surprised. The male prostitute finds himself becoming violent after his client is too attentive. Liucca gets beaten in lieu of a payment. A mother struggles with her profession and homelife. Grimaldi dehumanizes clients.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 158
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: erotic, gay cinema
Similar in 86%
The Divine Nymph (1975)
Plot Summary:
In the decadent Roaring Twenties, a beautiful woman engages in affairs with two men, playing them against each other.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 402
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: avant garde
Similar in 87%
Down the Ancient Stairs (1975)
Plot Summary:
A mental hospital somewhere in Tuscany during the thirties. Far away from fascism, this closed world is rules over by Dr. Bonaccorsi, a passionate benevolent psychiatrist whose dream is to isolate the germ of madness. He is also a very active ladies'man and makes three women benefit from his sexual itch: Francesca the hospital manager's wife, Bianca, his devoted nurse and Carla, a nymphomaniac doctor's wife. His well-ordered universe starts being challenged with the coming of Anna, a trainee psychiatrist, who disapproves of his theory on the origin of madness. Worse, she resists his advances. As Bonaccorsi is more insecure than he looks, what will become of him.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 405
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Nest of Vipers (1978)
Plot Summary:
During the Fascist era in Venice, a young music student has affairs with two beautiful women.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 300
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: erotic
Similar in 88%
City Under Siege (1974)
Plot Summary:
A string of violent jewel robberies force Police Inspector Parrino to get rough with the city’s criminal scum. Things take a turn for the worse when he’s confronted with the murder of an prostitute.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 107
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: poliziottesco
Similar in 86%
Maria Montessori: una vita per i bambini (2007)
Plot Summary:
The story of Maria Montessori the most famous pedagogue of the world. She spent all her life to make her "metodo" (method) accepted in the archaic Italian school system, while the rest of the world immediately understand the importance of her theories. She was the first Italian Doctor, a famous feminist, a scientist. Her private life was hit by having an illegitimate son and by the Fascism that didn't want to accept completely her theories.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 343
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 200 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 90%
From the Clouds to the Resistance (1979)
Plot Summary:
'Dalla nube alla resistenza (From the Cloud to the Resistance ) (1978), based on two works by Cesare Pavese, falls into the category of History Lessons and Too Early, Too Late as well. It, too, has two parts—a twentieth-century text and a text regarding the myths of antiquity, each set in the appropriate landscape. Pavese's The Moon and the Bonfires looks back on the violent deaths of Italian anti-Fascist resistance fighters; Dialogues with Leucò is a series of dialogues between heroes and gods, connecting myth and history and returning to an ambiguous stage in the creation of distinctions, such as that between animal and human, which are fundamental to grammar and language itself. Such a juxtaposition of political engagement with profoundly contemplative issues such as myth, nature, and meaning points to the characters of Empedocles and Antigone in the Hölderlin films.' (From "Landscapes of resistance. The German Films of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub" by Barton Byg).
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 471
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, West Germany, UK, France
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: experimental
Similar in 81%
La grande quercia (1997)
Plot Summary:
In 1943, Vincenzio and Maria take their children to his father's Tuscan farm. Vincenzio commutes to Rome where he's a physician and, in the hospital basement, prints an anti-Fascist paper. His brother is in the Resistance; his father supplies food to a local monastery where 12 fugitives hide. All is seen through the eyes of the oldest child, Paulo, who's about 7 and the only lad at school who doesn't wear a Fascist Youth uniform. For Paulo and his siblings, it's great fun playing with their nonno, finding herbs in the fields, watching a maid's tryst with a soldier, teasing a silent monk. Then the war reaches the farm when Italy surrenders and the Germans exact revenge.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 24
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
A Special Day (1977)
Plot Summary:
The film is set during the late 1930s: the occasion is the first meeting between Mussolini and Hitler. Left alone in her tenement home when her fascist husband runs off to attend the historic event, Sophia Loren strikes up a friendship with her homosexual neighbor Mastroianni. As the day segues into night, Loren and Mastroianni develop a very special relationship that will radically alter both of their outlooks on life.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Canada
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, philosophical, minimal cast, cerebral, poetic, touching, emotional, realistic, talky, semi serious
Similar in 90%
'38 - Vienna Before the Fall (1986)
Plot Summary:
The film presents the political events surrounding the Anschluss in March of 1938 through the lives of Carola Hell, a popular young actress at the prestigious Theater in der Josefstadt, and Martin Hofmann, the Jewish journalist she plans to marry. When we encounter the couple in the lovely springtime weather their future is full of promise. They are determined to stay clear of politics. Yet in the climate of the time, nobody of her prominence or his religion can remain apolitical. Although Martin's journalist friend, Drechsler, calls to inform them that the Nazis plan to take over Austria soon, they concentrate on their work and their private happiness and dismiss the warnings.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 184
Genere: Drama
Country: Austria, West Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Law of Courage (1994)
Plot Summary:
The true story of Rosario Livatino, a young judge in Sicily in the early 1980s, who have been nicknamed 'The Boy Judge' from the President of the Republic. He's strictly incorruptible, working hard and refusing even to shake hands with suspects. He then starts a number of investigations that lead him to touch the mafia power in the area, and then to personal war with the hidden organization.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 131
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
The Time of Indifference (2020)
Plot Summary:
A screen adaptation of the novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia. Rome, our days. Mariagration Ardengo and her children Michele and Carla are left without a livelihood. Mariagration's money-hungry lover Leo develops a plan to take the last property from the family - the attic in which they live. Michele tries to thwart Leo's plans, but when his attempts fail, young Carla takes over.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 323
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 76%
Three Brothers (1981)
Plot Summary:
In a farmhouse in southern Italy, an old woman dies. Her husband summons their sons: from Rome, Raffaele, a judge facing a political case for which he risks assassination; from Naples, the religious and ideological Rocco, a counselor at a correctional institute for boys; from Turin, Nicola, a factory worker involved in labor disputes. Once home, each encounters the past and engages in reveries of what may come: Raffaele imagines his death, Rocco dreams of lifting the youth of Naples out of violence, drugs, and corruption, Nicola pictures embracing his estranged wife. Meanwhile, the old man and his young granddaughter explore the rhythms of the farm and grieve together.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, crying
Similar in 75%
Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979)
Plot Summary:
In the fascist Italy of 1935, a painter trained as a doctor is exiled to a remote region near Eboli. Over time, he learns to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of the peasants, and to overcome his isolation.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, sincere, uplifting, touching, serious, realistic, intellectual, crying, feel good
Similar in 80%
The Conformist (1970)
Plot Summary:
A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 33000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France, West Germany
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: political, art house, breathtaking, visual, neo noir, philosophical, cerebral, psychological, atmospheric, bleak
Similar in 77%
Unfair Competition (2001)
Plot Summary:
Two linen fabric dealers with their shops close to one another, battle against each other for more and more costumers. Umberto constantly loses clients because of the tough competition brought by Leone, who offers the best prices in the neighborhood. But they leave differences aside when the rise of Fascism places Anti-Semitic politics which rigidly control business like the one conducted by the Jewish Leone, and those new regulations are viewed by Umberto as completely unfair. The long rivalry soon becomes a great friendship.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, bleak, captivating, realistic, disturbing, historical drama