Best movies like Giovanna's Father
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Bologna 1938 - Michele Casali (Silvio Orlando) is living a desperate situation: Giovanna (Alba Rohrwacher), his only child, a teenager, has killed out of jealousy his classmate and best friend. Within the middle-class environment in which the crime has ocurred, the story provokes strong emotion and disbelief. Avoiding jail, she is determined to be mentally disturbed and therefore locked up in a psychiatric hospital in Reggio Emilia where she remains until the age of 24 years (1945). During this period of almost total isolation, the only person who takes care of her is the father who moves from Bologna specifically, where he taught art in high school Galvani, to Reggio.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, realistic, sincere, captivating, independent film, serious, entertaining
Best tv shows and movies like Giovanna's Father (2008):
Similar in 77%
Address Unknown (2001)
Plot Summary:
Romances end in blood and the frail hopes of individuals are torn apart in a vile karmic continuity of colonialism, civil war and occupation. After surviving Japanese colonization, Korea became the first war zone of the Cold War. The legacy of war remains today in this divided country. Three forlorn teenagers, Chank-guk, Jihum and Eunok are figures in the landscape of this story, which highlights the global implications of a very Korean reality. None of them is able to escape the withering pull of tragedy. All desperate pleas for love and redemption are returned stamped in red with "Address Unknown".
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: South Korea
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, rough, serious, philosophical, offbeat, disturbing, controversial, art house, emotional
Similar in 85%
The Nanny (1999)
Plot Summary:
Rome, early 20th century: a wealthy psychiatrist, who runs an asylum for women and lacks imagination in his practice, must find a wet nurse for his infant when his wife panics after childbirth. He brings a peasant, Annette, to Rome, forcing her to leave her own baby behind. To the consternation and increasing anger of the wife, the nanny immediately bonds with the couple's infant son - Annette's a natural. Against a backdrop of leftist demonstrations, Annette, who's lover is a teacher jailed for subversion, asks the doctor to teach her to read and write. Her nature and curiosity, the doctor's bland ideas, he and his wife's problems, and the two infants bring the story to a head.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 572
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 90%
A Perfect Day (2008)
Plot Summary:
Antonio and Emma have been separated for years, but he does not accept when Emma dates other men. Indeed Antonio proves obsessive, aggressive and intrusive, and again threatens Emma to hurt the children: little Kevin, shy and introverted, and the adolescent Valentina.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, psychological, suspense, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Prague (2006)
Plot Summary:
Christoffer and Maja's trip to Prague to bring back Chistoffer's deceased father, evolves into the story of a brake-up. With the dead father lurking in the background, secrets gradually emerge threatening to destroy their marriage.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, psychological, captivating, serious, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 78%
Bad Girl (2012)
Plot Summary:
Louise simultaneously discovers that she is pregnant and that her mother is seriously ill. Happiness and guilt, euphoria and sadness, filial love and love, period. She'll need a good nine months to cope with all this.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 182
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, psychological, captivating, sexy, sincere, serious, gloomy
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Everybody's Fine (1990)
Plot Summary:
Matteo Scuro is a retired Sicilian bureaucrat, a widower with five children, all of whom live on the mainland and hold responsible jobs. He decides to surprise each with a visit and finds none as he imagined.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: psychological, philosophical, sentimental, clever, serious, emotional, tragicomedy, realistic, contemplative, road movie
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Second Generation (2003)
Plot Summary:
An explosive two-part drama about love, family and identity - set around the tangled relationships of two Indian families with a deep-rooted, shared history.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 138
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, emotional, realistic, contemplative, thought provoking
Similar in 82%
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 87%
Spring 1941 (2007)
Plot Summary:
After Germany invades Poland and the Nazis order the confinement of all local Jews in the ghetto, medical doctor Artur Planck (Joseph Fiennes) manages to flee with his family, seeking refuge at the farm of Emilia (Kelly Harrison), their former grocer. With the Planck family hiding in her attic, Emilia finds her feelings for the physician growing stronger than she wants, or can control -- despite the dangers of the situation.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 789
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland, Israel
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 88%
At First Sight (1983)
Plot Summary:
In 1942 in occupied France, a Jewish refugee marries a soldier to escape deportation to Germany. Meanwhile a wealthy art student loses her first husband to a stray Resistance bullet; at the Liberation she meets an actor, gets pregnant, and marries him. Lena and Madeleine meet at their children's school in Lyon in 1952 and the intensity of their relationship strains both their marriages to the breaking point.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, queer cinema
Similar in 82%
The Policeman's Wife (2013)
Plot Summary:
The story of a young couple who live in a small town with their four-year-old daughter. The husband is so caught up in his work as a policeman that he gradually becomes increasingly alienated from his wife and daughter who become ever closer to one another as they discover the new town. It is only a matter of time before the conflicts within the family manifest themselves.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 494
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 175 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sexy, sincere, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Blame It on Mum (2009)
Plot Summary:
Mady Celliers, an attractive housewife of 60, he spends his life speaking ill of her two daughters and her husband, a man who shows a strange behavior since has retired. Antoine, the eldest son, company director, is unable to make a success of a business: out of a bankruptcy to get into another, her sister Alice madonnas obsessively paints sad. Annabelle, a nurse in an intensive care unit, tries desperately to save his family pronosticándole the future. When Alice meets by chance Jacques, a lonely police pessimistic explode all family neurosis.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 417
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, touching
Similar in 77%
Constellation (2005)
Plot Summary:
Constellation chronicles the lives and loves of an African-American family in the deep South as they are forced to come to terms with a tumultuous past marked by an unrequited interracial affair. The film explores the way in which the family patriarch must confront his demons amidst the changing racial fabric of society and his own family.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 687
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, psychological, touching, captivating, uplifting, sincere, serious, independent film
Similar in 82%
A Quiet Little Marriage (2008)
Plot Summary:
A Quiet Little Marriage is the love story of Dax and Olive, who manage to find harmony even as they juggle family, romance and intimacy, but that all changes the night she asks him for a baby. Writer/director Mo Perkins’ intense and profound, raw feature debut is laced with sly humor, exquisitely rendered characters, and a pitch-perfect emotional honesty.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 361
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, realistic, captivating, sincere, serious, talky, independent film
Similar in 88%
A Night for Dying Tigers (2010)
Plot Summary:
The night before Jack (Gil Bellows) is slated to begin a five-year prison sentence for murder, his wife, Melanie (Jennifer Beals), and assorted siblings gather for a dinner to bid Jack farewell and good luck on his trip up the river. But the party slides into a bitter fight over the bad behavior of Jack's brothers (John Pyper-Ferguson and Tygh Runyan) and sister Karen (Lauren Lee Smith). Terry Miles directs this dark comic drama.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, emotional, psychological, captivating, serious, gloomy
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Open Window (2006)
Plot Summary:
The engagment between a struggling photographer and an assistant professor is marred by an act of violence.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, serious, realistic, independent film
Similar in 79%
Hidden Love (2007)
Plot Summary:
A psychiatrist tries to help a suicidal woman who despises her grown daughter.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 339
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, sincere, serious, realistic, contemplative, talky, gloomy
Similar in 87%
My Friend & His Wife (2006)
Plot Summary:
Two young men, Ye-joon and Jae-moon, have been close friends since doing military service together. Ye-joon has lately worked his way up to becoming a successful financier, while the unambitious Jae-moon has opted for a much less conspicuous route. He now works as a cook and is enjoying family life with his wife Ji-sook and their new-born son. Ji-sook tolerates her husband’s attachment to his friend, but everything changes after the tragic death of the child, caused by Ye-joon. Ji-sook was in Paris when the tragedy occurred and isn’t aware of the circumstances; she even starts an affair with Ye-joon when her husband is imprisoned after taking the blame for his son’s death. Relationships which were originally crystal-clear begin to grow distinctly cloudy.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 153
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: emotional, serious, realistic, psychological, captivating, touching, gloomy
Similar in 79%
Everyday (2012)
Plot Summary:
This film charts the relationship between a man imprisoned for drug smuggling and his wife and is being shot over the course of five years, a few weeks at a time.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 834
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, independent film, sincere, touching
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The New Year Parade (2008)
Plot Summary:
When Mike and Lisa separate, their children suffer quietly in the middle of the annual Mummer's Parade.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 126
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: sentimental, realistic, psychological, contemplative, captivating, sincere, serious, emotional, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 86%
Things Behind the Sun (2006)
Plot Summary:
Now that Itzhak's father is in a coma, and dying, Itzhak is finally willing to visit him, thus breaking a ten-year silence. During his visits to the hospital, Itzhak, a beaten and reserved man, is frustrated to find himself neglected by his own family: his wife, a long suppressed artist whose life's dream is fulfilled that same week; his twenty-seven-year-old son - a "philosopher" still living at home; and his twenty-five-year-old daughter - a tormented lesbian who has had no contact with her family for a long time. Itzhak doesn't realize, though, that his ten year old daughter, Didush, neglected and almost invisible to her family, is secretly visiting her grandfather whom she has never met previously and sets out to discover the old family secret.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 98
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, realistic, touching, sincere, serious
Similar in 83%
Private (2004)
Plot Summary:
A Palestinian family is trapped inside a house commandeered by Israeli soldiers.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 922
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, suspenseful, disturbing, tense, sincere, thought provoking, bleak, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 86%
Particles of Truth (2003)
Plot Summary:
Life, love, and the fear of failing... Lilli Black, battling her painful memories and the secrets surrounding her dying father, collides into the complicated and obsessive life of Morrison Wiley on the streets of New York City. This peculiar love story exposes Lilli's internal bouts and her nightmarish "bad luck". We weave in and out of eight defective lives and go for a turbulent mental ride where Lilli's reality spirals out of control and we're lead to an unforgettable climax where some fall apart and some piece themselves together.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 587
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 82%
I Travel Alone (2011)
Plot Summary:
Jarle Klepp is a 25-year-old student of literature with a passion for Adorno, Proust and grown-up women - and definitely not Tamagochi's, Lady Di and small kids. The news that he is the father of a seven year old girl - and that she will come visiting next week - enters his life like a nuclear bomb. Jarle Klepp has to become an adult.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, emotional, contemplative, captivating, psychological, sincere, touching, serious
Similar in 84%
All Around Us (2008)
Plot Summary:
Kanao, a courtroom portrait artist, observes crimes, scandals and the decline of Japanese values without passing judgement. As he and his wife endure the tragedy of their first child’s death, hope slowly unfolds and their love story flickers to life once again.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 890
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, touching, psychological, serious, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Invisible Child (1999)
Plot Summary:
A woman with two children believes she has three and her husband and oldest daughter play along with her to keep her balanced (or as close to balanced that a woman with an invisible child can be). However, when the family hires a new nanny, it is all just too much for her and she starts to blab. Written by John Sacksteder.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 824
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, ridiculous
Similar in 79%
Balancing Act (2012)
Plot Summary:
Having cheated on his wife, Giulio, a municipal employee, moves out, but has to find a solution on how to still support his family, and himself.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 823
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, serious, psychological, tense, captivating, sincere, gloomy
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Sisters (2009)
Plot Summary:
Lyon, France in 1970s, Sibylle, Corinne, and Georgette are sisters who share everything, as they live with their Italian mother. Sibylle is the only blonde in the family, except for their father who abandoned them, and she feels isolated. She dreams of meeting her French father one day.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 230
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, captivating, entertaining
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Alpha Male (2006)
Plot Summary:
Drama about a family torn apart after the death of its patriarch. Haunted by their father's death, Jack and Elyssa have a fraught relationship with their remarried mother even now they have come of age.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 345
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: emotional, touching, realistic, contemplative, psychological, sentimental, sincere, serious
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Mommy Is at the Hairdresser's (2008)
Plot Summary:
Summer 1966. It's time to enjoy the summer holiday, total freedom. Teenage Élise discovers that the sudden departure of her mother completely disrupts the family. Her brother Coco seeks solace in the garage, building a super racing car. Her youngest brother Benoît throws himself into his own inner world. The father seems absolutely knocked out by the situation. Élise decides to take control of her family, in an eloquent attempt to save them. With the assistance of flourishing nature around her, she stands on the threshold of an incomparable summer.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 922
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, disturbing, sexy, sincere, captivating, sexual