Best movies like Hands Over the City
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Rod Steiger is ferocious as a scheming land developer in Francesco Rosi’s Hands over the City, a blistering work of social realism and the winner of the 1963 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion. This expose of the politically driven real-estate speculation that has devastated Naples’s civilian landscape moves breathlessly from a cataclysmic building collapse to the backroom negotiations of civic leaders vying for power in a city council election, laying bare the inner workings of corruption with passion and outrage.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: realistic, tense, suspenseful, clever, serious, political, neo noir, political thriller, art film, poliziottesco
Best tv shows and movies like Hands Over the City (1963):
Similar in 86%
The Big Dream (2009)
Plot Summary:
Italian Revolution, 1968. Police officer, Nicolas, wants to become an actor. He goes out in plain clothes and meets Laura who is among students against the government, Vietnam War and who seek sexual freedom. One day, his identity gets exposed and she leaves him.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 908
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, tense, suspense, touching, contemplative, hot
Similar in 89%
Man of Marble (1977)
Plot Summary:
Man of Marble is a Polish film about a student making a film about a bricklayer who was once idolized. She interviews people who knew him and finds old footage that lead to an unfolding mystery that causes her producer to cancel the project.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 165 min
Plot tags: emotional, meditative, compassionate, disturbing, talky, realistic, serious, political, sincere, thought provoking
Similar in 77%
The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968)
Plot Summary:
Metropolitan Archbishop Lakota of L'viv, freed after twenty years in the Soviet Gulag, travels to Rome where circumstances conspire to see him elevated to the Papacy. Inspired by the life story of Ukrainian Catholic Cardinal Josyf Slipyj,.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 162 min
Plot tags: tense, epic, serious, realistic, christian film, retro, spiritual
Similar in 75%
Comedy of Power (2006)
Plot Summary:
A magistrate investigates a corporate executive.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Germany
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, captivating, realistic
Similar in 76%
Ants in the Mouth (2005)
Plot Summary:
After languishing in a Barcelona prison for nearly a decade, a busted bank robber attempts to find the girl who made off with the cash in this suspenseful tale of revenge and betrayal starring Adriana Gil and Eduard Fernández. Ex-con Martin Losada is out of prison and on the hunt. When he and his band of anti-Franco bank robbers were busted after a botched heist ten years ago, the only member of their team never caught by police was his long-gone ex-girlfriend Julia. Now, on the eve of the 1958 revolution, the recently released ex-con sets his sights on Havana in a determined bid to find Julia, and stake his claim on his rightful share of the take.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 271
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain, Cuba
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, suspense, neo noir, noir
Similar in 77%
The Galíndez File (2003)
Plot Summary:
On March 12, 1956, Basque Nationalist Jesús de Galíndez Suarez disappears from his apartment in New York, never heard from again. He had been working with the FBI and was about to publish a book critical of Dominican strongman, Trujillo. In 1988, a graduate student, Muriel Colber, wants to make Galíndez the subject of her dissertation. She's in Spain doing research; finding little, she goes to Santo Domingo. At every turn, the CIA, in the person of agent Robards, tries to thwart her; and, at each turn, as she considers abandoning the project, someone offers new information, often contradictory. She wants the truth behind the Galíndez mystery; will she find it?.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 558
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain, UK, Italy, Portugal, Cuba, France
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: tense, thought provoking, captivating, suspenseful, mind bending, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
1992 (2015)
Plot Summary:
Set in Rome, Milan and different Italian cities, the TV series offers a thrilling story following six people whose lives are intertwined with the rapidly changing political landscape in the early 1990s, during which Italy was gripped by the Clean Hands investigation into political corruption. Subsequently, this led to the termination of the First Republican Party as well as the termination of several other Italian parties. This controversial period in Italy resulted in the suicide of various political figures.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration:
Plot tags: realistic, serious, atmospheric, psychological, erotic, political, sensual, tense, thought provoking
Similar in 78%
Our Country (2006)
Plot Summary:
Set in Milan, where people's lives are invisibly lead by money in its different shapes: too much, too little, stolen, earned, visible and even impalpable. The money flows from one story to the next, from one person to the other, becoming the engine of the film.Everything moves around two antagonist characters: Ugo and Rita. Ugo is a banker involved in a not really clean business. Rita, the Finance Police officer, is a strong and obstinate woman in charge of capturing Ugo. Other characters wander around them, with their weaknesses and fragility, their goodness, their evil and their contradictions. Characters meet, clash, love and hate each other, their lust for money becomes intense feelings.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 440
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, rough, bleak, realistic
Similar in 75%
Just Great (1972)
Plot Summary:
Godard examines the structure of movies, relationships and revolutions through the life of a couple in Paris.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: political, surreal, sincere, thought provoking, clever, serious, realistic, witty, contemplative, talky
Similar in 84%
The Jewel (2011)
Plot Summary:
Amanzio Rastelli appointed several of his relations to managerial positions in his firm. They decided to think internationally and now business is heavily in debt. Luckily for the Rastellis, Bolta the accountant uses all the tricks of his art to cook the books, but catastrophe awaits.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: serious, thought provoking, realistic, tense, clever, factual
Similar in 82%
Choose Connor (2007)
Plot Summary:
Fifteen-year-old Owen Norris is at the top of his graduating middle-school class, and wants to know how the world works. He has no friends, spends almost all of his time studying, and has an almost nonexistent relationship with his white-collar parents, whom he sees for ten minutes a day. But his boring suburban life changes when he meets Congressman Lawrence Connor and his young nephew Caleb. Connor is immediately taken with Owen’s intelligence and wit, and Caleb is immediately taken with Owen. As Caleb and Owen become close friends, Connor offers Owen a chance to learn how the world of politics really works by acting as his “youth campaign spokesman” for the upcoming Senate primaries. What starts as a fun way to make some extra summer cash takes a dark turn as Owen learns the frightening truth about the deranged secret world of politics in which he is now involved.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 327
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: clever, touching, serious, realistic, biting, independent film, suspense
Similar in 81%
Communists (2014)
Plot Summary:
Jean-Marie Straub pushes this musicality of blocks to a paroxysmal extreme, mixing blocks of time (40 years separate the various extracts that are going to be used, and what is to be filmed), blocks of text (Malraux, Fortini, Vittorini, Hölderlin) and blocks of language (French, Italian, German), and from this ruckus emerges the history of the world, yes, History with a capital H, and from the same movement, the political hope of its being overtaken. So this is an adventure film, about the Human adventure, still one that is always, in the end, overtaken by Nature. (Arnaud Dommerc).
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Switzerland
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: experimental, thought provoking, atmospheric, serious, realistic, political
Similar in 80%
Il Divo (2008)
Plot Summary:
The narration spans the period since the seventh election of Andreotti as Prime Minister of Italy in 1992, until the trial in which he was accused of collusion with the Mafia.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: political, disturbing, enigmatic, serious, suspenseful, philosophical, cerebral, controversial, realistic, intense
Similar in 80%
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 80%
Afterburn (1992)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story, one woman takes on the U.S. military and General Dynamics; maker of the F-16, thought to be the very best tactical fighter in the world. Air Force Captain Theodore T. Harduvel was one of the best F-16 pilots the U.S. had to offer. After much digging, Janet Harduvel discovers a joint military and General Dynamic cover-up. She proves to be unwavering in her search for the truth to clear his name.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 670
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: captivating, disturbing, thought provoking, serious, suspenseful, realistic
Similar in 88%
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 76%
Good Morning, Night (2003)
Plot Summary:
The 1978 kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, president of the most important political party in Italy at the time, Democrazia Cristiana, as seen from the perspective of one of his assailants -- a conflicted young woman in the ranks of the Red Brigade.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, disturbing, bleak, realistic, suspenseful, political, sincere, controversial, crying
Similar in 78%
Interview with the Assassin (2002)
Plot Summary:
Out of work TV cameraman Ron Kobelski is approached by his formerly reclusive neighbor Walter Ohlinger. Ohlinger claims that he was the mysterious "second gunman" that shot and killed President Kennedy. Ohlinger has kept quiet all these years, but has decided to tell his story now that he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Kobelski is skeptical of his neighbor's story, after his investigations provide ambiguous answers. His attitude changes, however, after he receives threatening messages on his answering machine, and spots shadowy figures in his backyard. Is Ohlinger telling the truth? Or is there a bigger conspiracy at work?.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: political, tense, realistic, suspenseful, mockumentary, suspense, philosophical, cerebral, serious, thought provoking
Similar in 87%
The F Word (2005)
Plot Summary:
A frustrated radio DJ takes to the streets of Manhattan during the Republican National Convention after the FCC has slapped his station with $1 million in indecency fines, and popular radio personality Joe Pace (Josh Hamilton) isn't going down without a fight. As the streets fill with restless republicans, angry protestors, and other colorful characters, Joe arms himself with a wireless microphone and a portable transmitter in order to get the opinions of the average person on the street.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 484
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, political
Similar in 78%
Salvatore Giuliano (1962)
Plot Summary:
In 1950, 28-year-old outlaw Salvatore Giuliano is found gunned down in a Sicilian courtyard. Little is as it seems. The film moves back and forth between the late 1940s, when Giuliano and other reprobates were recruited by separatist politicians to do their fighting, and the days leading up to and following Giuliano's death.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama, History, Mystery
Country: Italy
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: political, neorealism, poliziottesco, neo noir, detective, historical drama, sincere, rough, serious, captivating
Similar in 86%
Knife Fight (2012)
Plot Summary:
A political strategist juggling three clients questions whether or not to take the high road as the ugly side of his work begins to haunt him.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: realistic, witty, cynical, semi serious, talky, independent film, biting, suspense
Similar in 83%
Tycoon (2002)
Plot Summary:
During the Gorbachev years, Platon Makovski and his four buddies are university students who jump on the private capitalism movement. Fast-forward 20 years, Platon finds himself the richest man in Russia, having sacrificed his friends to get to the top. But with this cynical rise, comes a brutal fall.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Russia, France, Germany
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: serious, cynical, realistic, suspenseful, political thriller, suspense, biting, clever
Similar in 90%
True Colors (1991)
Plot Summary:
Two law school friends find themselves at odds when one becomes a Justice Department lawyer and the other goes into politics.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: political, talky, intense, realistic, serious, captivating, clever, tense, sincere, crime drama
Similar in 82%
Coalition (2015)
Plot Summary:
Political drama about the rise of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats during the 2010 election. After the election failed to produce an outright winner, Clegg was catapulted into an unaccustomed position of influence and was the recipient of political courtship from both Labour's Gordon Brown and David Cameron of the Conservative Party.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 271
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 74 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, atmospheric, psychological, political, tense, sincere, thought provoking, clever, realistic
Similar in 85%
The Best Man (1964)
Plot Summary:
The other party is in disarray. Five men vie for the party nomination for president. No one has a majority as the first ballot closes and the front-runners begin to decide how badly they want the job.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, cynical, political, rough, clever, witty, contemplative, biting, suspense
Similar in 75%
Blame it on Fidel (2006)
Plot Summary:
A 9-year-old girl weathers big changes in her household as her parents become radical political activists in 1970-71 Paris.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, political, epic, historical drama, sincere, crying
Similar in 88%
The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)
Plot Summary:
Respected liberal Senator Joe Tynan is asked to to lead the opposition to a Supreme Court appointment. It means losing an old friend and fudging principles to make the necessary deals, as well as further straining his already part-time family life. But it could be a big boost to his career, so he takes it on. Helping him prepare the case is pretty southern researcher Karen Traynor, and their developing relationship further complicates and compromises his life.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: realistic, clever, serious, suspenseful, political, cynical, gloomy, biting, suspense
Similar in 83%
The Candidate (1972)
Plot Summary:
Bill McKay is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. He has no hope of winning, so he is willing to tweak the establishment.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: political, witty, realistic, cynical, thought provoking, clever, talky, biting, entertaining, funny
Similar in 81%
The Contender (2000)
Plot Summary:
Political thriller about Laine Hanson's nomination and confirmation as Vice President. An allegation that she was involved in a sexual orgy at the age of 19 is leaked to the press. As pressure mounts on Laine, she's torn between fighting back or sticking to her principles and refusing to comment on the allegations.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 25000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA, Germany, UK
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: political, clever, thought provoking, serious, sincere, suspense, realistic, talky, dark, independent film
Similar in 78%
Power (1986)
Plot Summary:
Pete St. John is a powerful and successful political consultant, with clients spread around the country. When his long-time friend and client Ohio senator Sam Hastings decides to quit politics, he is rapidly drafted to help with the campaign of the man destined to succeed him, unknown and mysterious businessman Jerome Cade.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, clever, cynical, political, retro, talky