Best movies like Happy Day
Last updated March 2024
Looking for movies like Happy Day? Provide your expertise to direct others towards movies and tv series you've watched before that they may also enjoy. Help enlarge the group of people suggesting videos to each other. We welcome your input!
Plot Summary:
A concentration camp on a barren island is hell for the exiled prisoners. The everyday life of the people who live there consists of interrogations, psychological and physical violence, arbitrary punishments and other torments. One of the prisoners who refuses to yield is subjected to torture. Trying to escape, he falls into the sea. When the Queen visits the island, the prison guards find the runaway and murder him without a second thought, since he is already assumed dead.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 290
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: absurd, allegory
Best tv shows and movies like Happy Day (1976):
Similar in 82%
Archipelago (1992)
Plot Summary:
An architect witness the brutal massacre by the police of an anti-government meeting and escapes to a remote archipelago.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 22
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: surprise ending
Similar in 86%
Body of Love (1973)
Plot Summary:
An estranged father and son on holiday bond over the beautiful foreign girl they find unconscious on the beach.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 70
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Golden Horseshoes (1989)
Plot Summary:
Youssef Soltane, a 45-year-old Tunisian intellectual, is the product of a generation that lived the era of euphoria and great ideologies in the sixties, and their subsequent failure. He was incarcerated and tortured for his political opinions. Furthermore, his relationship with Zineb, a young, beautiful bourgeois, only brings him more trouble. During one long winter night, Youssef wanders in search of an emotional haven, prey to all the questions that flood his memory.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 46
Genere: Drama
Country: Tunisia, France
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Lines (2016)
Plot Summary:
Greece nowadays. Seven different stories about seven persons who have already reached their limits and finally fall apart. Despite their seemingly obvious connection they are simultaneously connected through a common desperate action: the last phone call to the psychological support center called "life line". It's their last hope. As no one can really help them, even then, they all remain another part of the contemporary Greek tragedy. Written by Horme Pictures.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 177
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: avant garde
Similar in 84%
From Now On (2007)
Plot Summary:
Dora divides her time between her work as a beautician, her policeman husband António, and her involvement in left-wing politics. A tale of love and how we must learn to cherish it against all odds in the pursuit of happiness.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 82
Genere: Drama
Country: Portugal
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Three Floors (2021)
Plot Summary:
Follows the lives of three families who live in a three-story building in a Roman neighbourhood.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
The Frontier (1991)
Plot Summary:
A Chilean teacher, Ramiro, is sentenced to internal exile in a southern town where tidal waves often appear. He falls for a woman, Maite, whose father asks him to take her away. Although he gets his freedom he doesn't leave and when the water rises, Maite and her father die, and Ramiro flees to the hills.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 501
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, Spain
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
The Hunters (1977)
Plot Summary:
During a hunting party on New Year's Eve 1976, five representatives of the bourgeoisie encounter with their companion the body of a partisan from the Civil War of the late forties. What they are most confused about is the fact that the corpse that lies at their feet is still bleeding….
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece, France, West Germany
Duration: 168 min
Plot tags: slow cinema, aesthetic
Similar in 88%
Stone Years (1985)
Plot Summary:
The true story of a young couple (Babis and Eleni) fighting for love and freedom. An odyssey in and out of prisons during the dark period between the Greek civil war until the end of dictatorship in 1974.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 857
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: Greece
Duration: 142 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Karnak Cafe (1975)
Plot Summary:
In one of their best roles ever, distinguished actors Nour Al Sherif and Souad Hosni star in this film depicting the unstable social and political life in Egypt during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film revolved around a group of university students whose lives are turned upside down because of their talks about the political instability in Egypt at the time.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 721
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: political, iconic
Similar in 88%
Home Coming (2006)
Plot Summary:
September 1980. Mustafa 'Mehmet Ali Alabora' and his wife, who're both laborers are married for 5 years. The couple has nothing to do with politics and spend their days happily with their 3 year old daughter and their TV, despite the clamor of guns clashing outside every night. One Friday morning, they wake up and hear the voice of Hasan Mutlucan on radio and observe soldiers marching through the streets, the very confirmation of the military coup that has taken place. Arrests begin instantly in workplace and neighborhood. Yet Mustafa, far from being disturbed, assumes that all apprehensions must have rightful reasons. Until the night he's taken into custody, charged with the crimes of a militant code named "Sehmuz".
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Greece
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: art house
Similar in 88%
Vasiliki (1997)
Plot Summary:
It is based on a true story, where a young soldier and the wife of a revolutionary guy falls in love while in the background we witness political turmoils of Greece at that time.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 170
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece, Cyprus
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Kimen (1974)
Plot Summary:
On a small green island out in the sea, they live in harmony - until a stranger comes. Like a hurricane this rocks the small society, and a killing lets all hidden forces loose.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 51
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Monday's Child (1967)
Plot Summary:
A married couple uproot their entire family and move to Puerto Rico where the familial tree promptly dies in the face of relentless poverty and depression in this down-beat drama, the directorial debut of Argentine filmmaker Torre-Nilsson.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 97
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: political
Similar in 86%
Partner (1968)
Plot Summary:
In PARTNER, Bernardo Bertolucci conflated his interests in psychoanalysis, nonlinear narrative, and Godard to create a uniquely avant-garde work unlike anything in his ouevre. The film is loosely based on Dostoyevsky's novel THE DOUBLE and concerns an alienated, puckish young man named Jacob (Pierre Clementi) who confronts his own double. Jacob allows his doppelganger to take over his life; the second Jacob commandeers his predecessor's theater class in the hopes of creating living theater--as a violent act of social revolution. The idea of students wreaking havoc was not an unfamiliar one in 1968, and Bertolucci refuses to take Jacob's dangerous intellectual posturing lightly. The second Jacob is a handsome killer, the first a handsome weakling who must find the courage to resist his baser self. Bertolucci matches inspired plot points with arresting images, including visual film references and the bright color schemes that would later become his trademark.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 921
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: independent film, avant garde, art house, weird
Similar in 90%
Broken Dolls (1999)
Plot Summary:
A former European actor Don Martin has retired with his disjointed "family" to his own private island, "The Paradise." After a few years, the entire group has disintegrated into shameless, selfish & dishonest personalities.
IMDB Rating: 3.3
IMDB Votes: 210
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: erotic
Similar in 81%
Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation (2007)
Plot Summary:
Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation is a 2007 epic film on the Namibian independence struggle against South African occupation as seen through the life of Sam Nujoma, the leader of the South-West Africa People's Organisation and the first president of the Republic of Namibia.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 103
Genere: Drama
Country: Namibia
Duration: 161 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Caravan Serai (1986)
Plot Summary:
Set during the Greek civil war. A villager is forced to leave his house and property and go to Thessaloniki with his daughter and son. They find refuge in an old building with hundreds of other people. They live a miserable life as the daughter becomes a whore, and the son has to work.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 77
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Lessons at the End of Spring (1991)
Plot Summary:
A young boy loses his innocence in a pre-perestroika Russian prison during the chaotic last months of the Khrushchev regime.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 153
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Eden and After (1970)
Plot Summary:
A group of French students are drawn into the psychological and sexual games of a mysterious Dutchman. Once they sample his "fear powder" the students experience a series of hallucinations.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Czechoslovakia, Tunisia
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: allegory, disturbing, erotic, psychological thriller, enigmatic, experimental, surreal, controversial, avant garde, weird
Similar in 84%
The Children's Rebellion (1992)
Plot Summary:
In the 19th century, children -- particularly the children of the poor -- were considered to be an exploitable resource of docile and cheap labor. Anyone who had the effrontery to steal so much as a portion of a loaf of bread for any reason would (at the very least) go to prison, regardless of their age. However, people of conscience were beginning to protest against this situation. The story takes place in a prison for children where conditions are particularly harsh. The warden is a thick-headed martinet who demands complete compliance with the rules, or the children will be brutally dealt with. The assistant warden is a more modern man, and is appalled by the whole institution, but seeks to begin by reforming it. To that end, he has invited a journalist to come and see the conditions that prevail there, in the hopes that she will rouse public opinion against at least this one form of injustice.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 76
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
The Blue Hour (1971)
Plot Summary:
THE BLUE HOUR tells the story of Tanya, a young woman with a mysterious past who finds herself trapped in a sexual hell in Los Angeles. Punctuated by striking visuals and avant-garde editing, THE BLUE HOUR is a lost masterpiece of late period sexploitation.
IMDB Rating: 3.7
IMDB Votes: 109
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: surreal
Similar in 77%
Sweet Country (1987)
Plot Summary:
An American couple in Chile is drawn into the turmoil that followed President Salvador Allende's 1973 overthrow.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 226
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Greece, USA
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Cefalonia (2005)
Plot Summary:
Cefalonia tells the real story about what happened in September 1943 on the Greek island of Kefalonia (Cefalonia in Italian), when the 12,000 men in the Italian 33rd Acqui Infantry Division, following Italy's surrender to the Allied, refused to put themselves under German command and also refused to surrender their weapons. The local German force, supported by Stuka dive-bombers and additional troops, attacked the Italians and after several days of combat the Italians surrendered, having lost 1,300 men. As punishment, the German High Command ordered that all surviving Italians should be executed. Some 5,000 were executed during a week of killings. A handful were rescued by locals and the Greek guerrilla, while the rest were shipped off as prisoners, whereof 3,000 drowned when their ships hit mines. The film "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" is based on a novel about the Italian occupation of Cefalonia, but the massacre was much toned down in the Hollywood version.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 134
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 210 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Bayo (1985)
Plot Summary:
Sharon and her ten year old son Bayo live in Tickle Cove on the shores of Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland like generations of their family have before them. Sharon hates her life there. She dreams of moving to Toronto - where her now deceased mother was from - to eke out a better life for her and Bayo. She even leaves her big black packed trunk in the middle of the foyer as a symbolic gesture that that move will soon be happening. She equally hates her fisher father, Phillip Longlan, for subjecting her and her mother to life there. Phillip, who spends most of his time on a commercial fishing boat, only provides Sharon enough money to survive but not to achieve that dream of leaving. Bayo, however, doesn't want to leave, especially leave his grandfather behind. He wants to live and die by the sea, much like his deceased father, who he never knew.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 50
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 87%
Contrainte par corps (1988)
Plot Summary:
A young Frenchwoman Claire, resting with her friend on an island in the Mediterranean Sea, becoms the victim of harassment by the local police commissioner Castes. Accused for disturbing public order, and then in the drug trade, she gets to the women's prison. Vacation turns into a nightmare.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 75
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Alps (2011)
Plot Summary:
A nurse, a paramedic, a gymnast and her coach offer a service for hire wherein they stand in for dead people by appointment, hired by relatives, friends or colleagues of the deceased, to assist with the grieving process.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece, France, Canada, USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: disturbing, psychological, realistic, serious, art house, aesthetic, mind bending, psychedelic, surreal, absurd
Similar in 84%
Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
Plot Summary:
Luis Molina and Valentin Arregui are cell mates in a South American prison. Luis, a homosexual, is found guilty of immoral behaviour and Valentin is a political prisoner. To escape reality Luis invents romantic movies, while Valentin tries to keep his mind on the situation he's in. During the time they spend together, the two men come to understand and respect one another.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil, USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: political, psychological, sincere, touching, captivating, clever, emotional, talky, sexy, erotic
Similar in 82%
Fuehrer Ex (2002)
Plot Summary:
Ingo Hasselbach, whose parents were Communist Party members in East Germany during his childhood, has lived at both ends of the political seesaw. The question of how people reach a change of heart is a profound one; Hasselbach describes the external forces that led to his founding Germany's first neo-Nazi political party and the internal ones that led him away from it five years later.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, disturbing, tense, rough, bleak, realistic
Similar in 80%
Bless You, Prison (2002)
Plot Summary:
Based on Nicole Valery-Grossu's European best seller autobiographic novel "Bless you, prison", the film is a true story, with real events and characters. A young intellectual woman, Nicole is arrested. There follow three months of exhausting interrogation and isolation. Alone in a cell, she undergoes a spiritual experience similar to that of the great mystics.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 543
Genere: Drama
Country: Romania
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: uplifting, thought provoking, disturbing, captivating, bleak, serious, realistic