Best movies like Hours of Light
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
September 1987. In a shootout with police, Juan Jose Garfia makes a triple murder. Sentenced to more than one hundred years, is a rebel prisoner, clever and elusive that it has nothing to lose and nobody to worry about. In 1991, manages to escape from a police van jumping up. Stopped after two months of robberies and shootings, Garfia leads several prison riots, against which the authorities takes as a measure subjecting prisoners to a more contentious special isolation regime. Garfia, the prisoner with the highest IQ, avoiding drugs, which seems immune to punishment, and lives two years without seeing anyone, held in a tiny cell and subjected to continuous harassment. There he meets Marimar, a nurse I can barely speak, but between both of a current of mutual understanding.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 256
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, captivating
Best tv shows and movies like Hours of Light (2004):
Similar in 75%
A Bad Son (1980)
Plot Summary:
Bruno is released from prison. He looks for a job and tries to start a new life. His first stop is at his father's apartment.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 89%
Me Too (2009)
Plot Summary:
Daniel - a recent university graduate with Down's Syndrome - falls in love on his first day at work in the Department of Social Services. Laura is an outsider who spends her nights in the city's crowded clubs and singles' bars, escaping her problems in the arms of total strangers. Yet despite their apparent incompatibility, the two strike up a moving, bittersweet friendship that touches them both and eventually sets them on the road to happiness.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, captivating, realistic, spectacular
Similar in 88%
Silent Voice (2009)
Plot Summary:
An elderly woman wants to meet her son’s murderer. A sixteen-year-old girl who has crossed paths with a young hoodlum needs an adult to accompany her to the prison visiting room. A young medical supplies delivery man is offered a deal to take the place of a gangster inmate so that the latter may escape. Two women, one man, three destinies that come together in the visiting room of a prison….
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 314
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 86%
Caesar Must Die (2012)
Plot Summary:
Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival, Caesar Must Die (Cesare Deve Morire), the scripted documentary shows inmates at a prison in Rome rehearsing for a performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, realistic, talky, sincere, thought provoking, serious, social, educational, social documentary
Similar in 89%
Release (2010)
Plot Summary:
A prison story. Father Jack finds love with a male guard in the prison. Some of the other inmates suspect he's been sentenced for paedophilia.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 638
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, emotional, psychological, captivating, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 76%
Lucky Star (1997)
Plot Summary:
Marina, a woman with a glass eye, has the bad luck to be the victim of an assault witnessed by Rafael, a goodhearted butcher, who rescues her from her attacker, a man named Daniel. Rafael has physical problems of his own, but the two stay together as a couple. A baby not Rafael's, for he lost his testicles in an accident is born. Rafael looks forward to raising the child as his own if Marina will consent.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain, Italy, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: manga, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Within These Walls (2001)
Plot Summary:
Female prisoners train dogs to aid people with disabilities in a program started by a nun (Laura Dern).
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 278
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, uplifting, touching, feel good, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 80%
The Carpenter's Pencil (2003)
Plot Summary:
A story of love and obsession during the Spanish Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: captivating, emotional, sentimental, realistic, serious
Similar in 83%
The Hanged Man (2008)
Plot Summary:
Two lovers break the law and struggle to stay together when carnal obsession causes tempers to flare.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 746
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain, Ireland
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: emotional, serious, realistic, psychological, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 85%
In Your Hands (2004)
Plot Summary:
Anna, a young theology graduate, starts work as a prison chaplain. She becomes especially concerned about one inmate, Kate, regarded as difficult and withdrawn, but whom the other inmates credit with mysterious healing powers.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, bleak, emotional, realistic, gloomy, crying
Similar in 88%
7 Years (2006)
Plot Summary:
A devoted young woman becomes ensnared in a web of sexuality and betrayal in Jean-Pascal Hattu’s consistently unpredictable and finely wrought character study. A vividly realistic psychosexual drama, the film’s sharp emotional honesty heralds a distinct new voice from a promising young director. Hattu soon reveals that Maite’s husband Vincent is in prison for an unspecified crime, and that she has promised to wait for him and attend to his laundry (if not his conjugal needs) during his incarceration. On one of her weekly visits, Maite meets Jean, an oddly inquisitive and boldly flirtatious prison warden, and soon the two commence a joyless affair. Seemingly smitten with Maite, Jean, in a gesture of kindness to his lover, eases up on her husband behind bars; the two become pals and even engage in some homoerotic shower talk. —Robert O’Shaughnessy.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 297
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, realistic, serious, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Love Belongs to Everyone (2006)
Plot Summary:
Shy, gentle half-wit Dennis, whose only obsession is train-spotting, is released early on account of good behavior after a rape sentence. His parents who run a modest barbershop, skeptic André and Rita, desperately try to keep him out of girl trouble, but his victim's sister Barbara starts a hate campaign. After another girl reports abuse, Dennis is jailed and beaten black and blue daily. Barbara's boyfriend, lawyer Thomas Verelst, accepts to help 'pro deo' (no cost) and pleads that Dennis belongs in a mental institution.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 405
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 88%
Breath (2007)
Plot Summary:
A love story involving a convicted prisoner who "slowly falls for a woman who decorates his prison cell".
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: contemplative, atmospheric, realistic, psychological, captivating, art house, mesmerizing, serious, stylized
Similar in 75%
Here Below (2012)
Plot Summary:
The true story of a nun who betrayed a network of Resistance fighters after having a passionate but doomed love affair with a priest during the Second World War.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 118
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 75%
The Gospel of the Flesh (2013)
Plot Summary:
Three lives in search of redemption intersect in the streets of Lima: undercover cop Gamarra’s desperate attempts to save his wife from a terminal illness gets him into trouble; bus driver Felix wants to be accepted into a religious sect after his involvement in a tragic traffic accident; and imperiled soccer club leader Narciso tries to secure his younger brother’s release from prison.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 156
Genere: Drama
Country: Peru
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, rough, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 77%
This Is My Body (2001)
Plot Summary:
Gifted student Antoine goes against his family’s wishes and accepts the lead role in a controversial director’s film. He learns that the role had previously been offered to a young man who committed suicide after an on-set affair – and events conspire to draw Antoine towards the same lover.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 213
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Portugal
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 80%
If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (2010)
Plot Summary:
A teenager prisoner awaits his release when two weeks before that happens he's told that his mother is returned home. Meanwhile, he finds himself in love with a Sociology student, Ana, working in the penitentiary as an intern.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Romania, Sweden, Germany
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: rough, touching, serious, psychological, sincere, emotional, realistic, social, iconic
Similar in 88%
The Wrath of Cain (2010)
Plot Summary:
A former kingpin of the streets, Miles “Cain” Skinner is doing life in prison. He is feared and respected among the inmates. When Cain learns that his sentence will be shortened only by brain cancer, his urgency to change his ways goes into overdrive.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, captivating, crime drama, hood
Similar in 81%
Women of San Quentin (1983)
Plot Summary:
A young female prison guard finds out that her first assignment is to San Quentin, one of the toughest prisons in the country.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 110
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 78%
Weeds (1987)
Plot Summary:
A San Quentin inmate, sentenced to life without paroll, writes a play that catches the interest of a reporter.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 906
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: independent film, rough, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 83%
Richness of Internal Space (2012)
Plot Summary:
Locked up and isolated, constantly exposed and threatened to be killed, for the first time in his life Lazaro understood that he was a free man.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 262
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico, Spain
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: psychological, uplifting, serious, emotional, tense, realistic
Similar in 81%
Blind Flight (2003)
Plot Summary:
The true story of Irishman Brian Keenan and Englishman John McCarthy's extraordinary relationship as hostages of militias in Lebanon during the 1979-91 Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 682
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, serious, captivating, political, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 76%
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
Similar in 84%
The God of Wood (2010)
Plot Summary:
Yao (Madi Diocou) and Moroccan Rachid (Soufiane Ouaarab) arrive illegally in Valencia, Spain, and separate. Yao sells pirated DVDs in the street and wanders disconsolately around the barrio until he glimpses divorcee Maria Luisa (Marisa Paredes) working in her boutique. High-strung and irritable, Maria lives with her gay son, Rober (Nao Albet), who, like many other things in life, is a disappointment to her. Rachid, meanwhile, is doing just fine working as a hairstylist in a beauty salon; Rober is hopelessly in love with him. When Yao starts sleeping in Rober's flat, a confrontation between him and Maria suddenly becomes inevitable, and when it comes, what could have been an embarrassment is actually handled with grace.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 152
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: realistic, emotional, sentimental, psychological, captivating, touching, serious, sexual, sexy
Similar in 81%
Same Same But Different (2009)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of Benjamin Prufer and Sreykeo Solvan. The unexpected and uncertain love story of Sreykeo, a 21 year old bar girl in Phnom Penh and Ben, a young German student traveling to Cambodia on a post graduation summer trip. When Ben returns home to Germany he discovers that Sreyko is sick and he takes on the responsibility to save her. On the way he discovers a world where not everyone is dealt the same cards and where motivations are not always pure.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: sentimental, atmospheric, touching, realistic, sincere, offbeat, serious, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 83%
Personal Belongings (2006)
Plot Summary:
Young Doctor Ana lives alone because she couldn't bear to leave Cuba when her family sailed away on a raft to the US. Ernesto lives in his car with his belongings in a small case, traveling from embassy to embassy trying to fulfill his dream of leaving Cuba. These Star-crossed lovers long to be together, they are pulled apart by different dreams rooted in different countries. In his directorial debut, Alejandro Brugués offers his personal view on the insistently revisited theme in Cuban art and literature - emigration and the laceration that it implies.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 105
Genere: Drama
Country: Cuba
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 84%
Volcano (2011)
Plot Summary:
Hannes is an old man who has grown apart from his children. Recently retired when his wife gets ill he tries to reconcile with them and to atone for his cold demeanor in the past.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iceland, Denmark
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, emotional, psychological, captivating, uplifting, touching, serious
Similar in 87%
The Mulberry Tree (2010)
Plot Summary:
A drama centered on a young man working in Rhode Island's state corrections system and his relationship with a convicted murderer who is dying of AIDS and spending his remaining days on hospital detail.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 71
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, talky, independent film
Similar in 86%
Tangier (2006)
Plot Summary:
In August 1996, bus drivers Marcel Van Loock and Wim Moreels are apprehended by the Moroccan Customs for drug trafficking. Inside their bus, hidden behind a false compartment, they have discovered 700 pounds of hashish. Although the owner of the bus company is arrested as well and makes a full confession clearly indicating that both drivers were unaware of the hidden drugs, the Moroccan judge sentences both men to 5 years in the Moroccan prison of Tangiers. Nothing could have prepared the two men for life inside a Moroccan prison. Without food, clothes or medical care, they must learn how to take care of themselves to survive their stay in prison. Corrupt guards, corrupt lawyers and judges, a consul who doesn't care and frequent beatings are only part of the terrible prison. Meanwhile their families at home are left without any information, any help or any hope - finding out that their own government doesn't care for Belgian people in prisons abroad.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, suspenseful, disturbing, tense, bleak, realistic
Similar in 87%
186 Dollars to Freedom (2012)
Plot Summary:
A young California surfer has to grow up in a hurry when he is thrown into a Peruvian political prison in 1980.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 575
Genere: Action, Drama
Country: Peru, USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: realistic, tense, serious, captivating, suspense, exciting, rough, suspenseful