Best movies like Golden Door
Last updated March 2024
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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
Best tv shows and movies like Golden Door (2006):
Similar in 89%
The Tree (2010)
Plot Summary:
The O'Neills lived happily in their house in the Australian countryside. That was until one day fate struck blindly, taking the life of Peter, the father, leaving his grief-stricken wife Dawn alone with their four children. Among them, eight-year-old Simone denies this reality. She is persuaded that her father still lives in the giant fig tree growing near their house and speaks to her through its leaves. But the tree becomes more and more invasive and threatens the house. It must be felled. Of course, Simone won't allow it.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France, Australia, Germany, Italy, USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, touching, emotional, romantic, stylized, romantic drama, sincere, serious, gloomy
Similar in 88%
Night Sun (1990)
Plot Summary:
Based on Leo Tolstoy's novel, Father Sergius, Night Sun stars Julian Sands as Sergio, a nobleman in 18th-century Italy who is expected to marry a duchess, Nastassja Kinski. Upon learning that she was previously the King's mistress, Sergio turns his back on society and becomes a monk. While at the hermitage he tries to resist all sexual temptations before him and soon becomes known as a miracle worker. Eventually he succumbs to a young seductress and knowing he is undeserving of the adulation, leaves the hermitage to travel around as a homeless beggar.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 868
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy, France, Germany
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: romantic, neorealism, sincere, atmospheric, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, crying, baroque
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Similar in 87%
Terraferma (2011)
Plot Summary:
A Sicilian family deals with the arrival of a group of immigrants on their island.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, tense, sincere, touching
Similar in 87%
Fidelio, Alice's Odyssey (2014)
Plot Summary:
Alice is a sailor. While her partner Félix waits for her on land, she sets off as second mechanic on the Fidelio, an old freighter. On board, she discovers not only that her predecessor has just died, but also that the skipper is none other than the first great love of her life. Alice finds a notebook in her cabin, apparently that of the former mechanic, and on reading its contents – accounts of mechanical problems, sexual conquests and lovelorn emotions – finds, oddly, that they mirror her own concerns. As they make stops at various ports, dealing with life aboard alongside an all-male crew and the swell and pitch of her romantic feelings, the young woman tries to stay on course.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 880
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: captivating, touching, realistic, emotional, psychological, erotic, serious
Similar in 78%
Brides (2004)
Plot Summary:
A young female character, Nikki Douka, from Samothraki, is sailing to the U.S. to fulfill a marriage contract and save her family honor. Her skills as a seamstress keep her busily sewing throughout the voyage to alter wedding dresses for the third-class voyagers. But along the way, she meets a young American photographer who is returning from the Middle East where he was snapping shots of the war in Smyrna, 1922. Her honesty, pride, and beauty attract the attention of the American who falls in love with her. Tribulations abound during the voyage, following the dramas of several unfortunate young women upon whom nasty characters preyed, as Nikki struggles with her feelings for the photographer.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Greece, USA, France
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, depressing, sexy, romantic, road movie, sexual, romantic drama, period drama
Similar in 85%
The Voyage (1974)
Plot Summary:
Adriana De Mauro loves Cesar Braggi, but Cesar, honoring his father's dying wish, allows his brother, Antonio, to marry Adriana. As fate wills, Antonio dies in an automobile accident. Adriana's mourning for Antonio ends when Cesar steps in to rekindle her lust of life. Soon, Adriana begins having dizzy spells. Cesar helps her to a specialist, and the diagnosis is not good. She has an incurable disease. For the rest of their time together, Cesar woos Adriana and eventually proposes to her on a gondola. Yet, for some reason or other, Signora De Mauro, Adriana's mother, is not pleased with the relationship and argues bitterly with Cesar.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 664
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 78%
Savannah (2013)
Plot Summary:
Savannah is the true story of Ward Allen, a romantic and bombastic character who rejects his plantation heritage for the freedom of life on a river. Ward navigates the change of early 20th century America on the wrong side of the law and society, his long-time friend, a freed slave named Christmas Moultrie, at his side. Master of Shakespeare, and the shotgun that provides Savannah's markets with fowl, Ward fights for his rights as a hunter. His charisma and eloquent rhetoric win the heart of a society woman who defies her father to marry him. An elderly Moultrie tells the story of life on the river with his friend to a little boy, who passes the legendary Ward Allen down to the next generation.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Family, History, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, realistic, serious, stylized, crying
Similar in 83%
Belizaire the Cajun (1986)
Plot Summary:
In 19th-century Louisiana's Cajun country, Belizaire (Armand Assante) is the informal spokesman for his citizens, who don't see eye to eye with local racists who wish to eradicate all Cajuns. Complicating matters is the fact that Belizaire's former flame (Gail Youngs) is now married to his biggest rival (Will Patton), an affluent landowner's son. Before he knows it, Belizaire is caught up in a web of murder, lies and prejudice.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 502
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: independent film, political, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, light, inspirational, road movie
Similar in 81%
Home from Home: Chronicle of a Vision (2013)
Plot Summary:
Follow-up to the TV trilogy "Heimat", this time for cinemas, set again in the fictional village Schabbach in the Hunsrück region of Rhineland-Palatinate.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Germany, France
Duration: 231 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, epic, serious, contemplative, stylized, family saga, saga, sentimental, bleak
Similar in 87%
Passion of Love (1981)
Plot Summary:
In the 1860's, Giorgio (Giraudeau), a young Italian soldier is sent to a remote post, far away from his lover, Clara (Antonelli). He is lodged in the house of the colonel (Girotti). He becames friends with the colonel and the local doctor (Trintignant). Among the inhabitants of the house, there is a strange young woman - Fosca (d'Obici) who is both unattractive and mad. However, she has a passion that Giorgio will have to cope with.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 998
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: novela, offbeat, serious, realistic, witty, sexual, gothic, crying, sexy, period drama
Similar in 84%
The Star Maker (1995)
Plot Summary:
The adventures and deceptions of a photographer who travels through the small villages of Sicily pretending that he is working for the big film studios in Rome.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, uplifting, serious, atmospheric, touching, captivating, realistic, anamorphic, erotic
Similar in 84%
The City of Your Final Destination (2009)
Plot Summary:
28-year-old Kansas University doctoral student Omar Razaghi wins a grant to write a biography of Latin American writer Jules Gund. Omar must get through to three people who were close to Gund--his brother, widow, and younger mistress--so he can get authorization to write the biography. Written by Marisa_Gabriella, edited by Krystal Frauendienst.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, serious, rough, tense, thought provoking, contemplative, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 84%
The Emigrants (1971)
Plot Summary:
In the middle of the 19th century, Kristina and Karl-Oskar live in a small rural village in Smaaland (southern Sweden). They get married and try to make a living on a small spot of land. However, the small size of their land, the infertile soil, and some bad harvests makes it tough. One of their children even starve to death. Thus, they decide to emigrate to the U.S. They meet a group of farmers with their families planing the emigration under the leadership of a banned priest. They sell everything and embark for the U.S. The journey on the sailing ship is long and tedious. Some of the emigrants will never reach the New World.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Sweden
Duration: 191 min
Plot tags: epic, inspirational, romantic, sentimental, sincere, atmospheric, rough, uplifting, touching, serious
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Similar in 88%
Shun Li and the Poet (2011)
Plot Summary:
A study of the friendship between a Chinese woman and a fisherman who came to Italy from Yugoslavia many years ago, who live in a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: serious, atmospheric, touching, emotional, realistic, light, gloomy
Similar in 77%
The Great Journey (2004)
Plot Summary:
Reda, summoned to accompany his father on a pilgrimage to Mecca, complies reluctantly - as he preparing for his baccalaureat and, even more important, has a secret love relationship. The trip across Europe in a broken-down car is also the departure of his father: upon arrival in Mecca, both Reda and his father are not the characters they were at the start of the movie. Avoiding the hackneyed theme of the return to the homeland, the film uses the departure to renew a connection between two generation.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France, Morocco, Bulgaria
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: road movie, sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, inspirational, contemplative, crying
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Similar in 76%
Madame Bovary (1991)
Plot Summary:
Bored with the limited and tedious nature of provincial life in 19th-century France, the fierce and sensual Emma Bovary finds herself in calamitous debt and purses scandalous sexual liaisons with absolute abandon. However, when her volatile lifestyle catches up to her, the lives of everyone around her are endangered.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: realistic, melancholic, sexy, costume drama, intense, romantic, erotic, spiritual, art house, romantic drama
Similar in 85%
A Better Life (2011)
Plot Summary:
A gardener in East L.A. struggles to keep his son away from gangs and immigration agents while traveling across town to perform landscaping work for the city's wealthy landowners.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, realistic, sincere, thought provoking, inspirational, hood, independent film, romantic, captivating
Similar in 81%
Respiro (2002)
Plot Summary:
Grazia is a free-spirited mother-of-three married to shy fisherman Pietro and living on the idyllic but isolated island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea. She shows signs of manic depressive behavior — one moment she's laughing wildly and swimming half-naked in the sea, while the next she's curled in a ball on her bed. Out of her earshot, the adult members of her extended family vaguely discuss sending her to a facility of some sort in Northern Italy.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sincere, talky, thought provoking, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, atmospheric, art house, erotic
Similar in 86%
Sweet Land (2005)
Plot Summary:
Set in 1920, Inge travels from Germany to rural Minnesota in order to meet the man destined to be her husband.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: touching, melancholic, stylized, sweet, sincere, independent film, sentimental, realistic, lyrical, offbeat
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Similar in 80%
Darker Than Midnight (2014)
Plot Summary:
Davide is different from the other teenagers. Something makes him look like a girl. Davide is fourteen when he runs away from home. His intuition leads him to choose Villa Bellini, a park in Catania, as a refuge. The park is a world in itself, a world of the marginalized, to which the rest of the city turns a blind eye. But one day the past catches up and Davide has to face the most difficult choice, this time alone.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 355
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, realistic, queer cinema
Similar in 79%
Partition (2007)
Plot Summary:
Determined to leave the ravages of war behind, 38 year old Gian Singh resigns from the British Indian Army to a quiet life. His world is soon thrown in turmoil, when he suddenly finds himself responsible for the life of a 17 year old girl, traumatized by the events that separated her from her family.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA, UK, Canada, South Africa, India, Pakistan
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, inspirational, political, informative, atmospheric, epic
Similar in 86%
The Weeping Meadow (2004)
Plot Summary:
This is the first film of Theo Angelopoulos' trilogy. The story starts in 1919 with some greek refugees from Odessa arriving somewhere near Thessaloniki. Among these people are two small kids, Alexis and Eleni. Eleni is an orphan and she is also taken care by Alexis' family. The refugees build a small village somewhere near a river and we watch as the kids grow up and fall in love. But difficult times of dictatorship and war are coming.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: Greece, France, Italy, Germany
Duration: 170 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, captivating, philosophical, breathtaking, contemplative, art house, slow cinema, poetic
Similar in 88%
The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)
Plot Summary:
The life inside a farm in Italy at the beginning of the century. Many poor country families live there, and the owner pays them by their productivity. One of the families has a very clever child. They decide to send him to school instead of make him help them, although this represents a great sacrifice. The boy has to wake up very early and walk several miles to get to the school. One day the boy's shoes break when returning home, but they do not have money to buy other. What can they do?.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy
Duration: 186 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, realistic, touching, serious, contemplative, spiritual, family saga, saga, slow cinema, period drama
Similar in 84%
The Widow of Saint-Pierre (2000)
Plot Summary:
In 1850, on the isolated French island of Saint-Pierre, a murder shocks the natives. Two fishermen are arrested. One of them, Louis Ollivier, dies in custody. The other, Neel Auguste, is sentenced to death by the guillotine. The island is so small that it has neither a guillotine nor an executioner. While those are sent for Auguste is placed under the supervision of army Captain.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: France, Canada
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: emotional, compassionate, atmospheric, sincere, touching, intense, bleak, serious, realistic, contemplative
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Similar in 80%
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
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Similar in 84%
The Immigrant (2013)
Plot Summary:
In 1921 New York. an immigrant woman is tricked into a life of burlesque and vaudeville until a dazzling magician tries to save her and reunite her with her sister who is being held in the confines of Ellis Island.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 33000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, harsh, emotional, suspenseful, serious, captivating, period piece, costume drama, stylized, romantic
Similar in 77%
East/West (1999)
Plot Summary:
June 1946: Stalin invites Russian emigres to return to the motherland. It's a trap: when a ship-load from France arrives in Odessa, only a physician and his family are spared execution or prison. He and his French wife (her passport ripped up) are sent to Kiev. She wants to return to France immediately; he knows that they are captives and must watch every step.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, History, Romance
Country: Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, France, Spain
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: touching, heartbreaking, realistic, harsh, sentimental, suspenseful, emotional, sincere, serious, gloomy
Similar in 83%
Jane Eyre (1996)
Plot Summary:
Jane Eyre is an orphan cast out as a young girl by her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and sent to be raised in a harsh charity school for girls. There she learns to be come a teacher and eventually seeks employment outside the school. Her advertisement is answered by the housekeeper of Thornfield Hall, Mrs. Fairfax.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France, Italy, UK, USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: romantic, costume drama, melancholic, period piece, emotional, intense, realistic, gothic, serious, romantic drama
Similar in 83%
Brooklyn (2015)
Plot Summary:
In 1950s Ireland and New York, young Ellis Lacey has to choose between two men and two countries.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 148000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK, Canada, Ireland
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, romantic, sweet, realistic, emotional, period piece, heartbreaking, light, semi serious
Similar in 78%
Colossal Youth (2006)
Plot Summary:
After the Portuguese government demolishes his slum and relocates him to a housing project on the outskirts of Lisbon, 75-year-old Cape Verde immigrant Ventura wanders between his new and old homes, reconnecting with people from his past.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Portugal, France, Switzerland
Duration: 156 min
Plot tags: contemplative, sincere, thought provoking, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, slow cinema, bleak