Best movies like I Was at Home, But...
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
After a 13-year-old student disappears without a trace for a week and suddenly reappears, his mother and teachers are confronted with existential questions that change their whole view of life.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Serbia
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, melancholic, atmospheric
Best tv shows and movies like I Was at Home, But... (2019):
Similar in 89%
The Misplaced World (2015)
Plot Summary:
By chance Paul Kromberger discovers on the internet a photograph of the US opera diva Caterina Fabiani who is the spitting image of Evelyn, his dead wife. His unease and growing sense of alarm are transferred to his daughter, Sophie. Filled with curiosity, she leaves Germany and journeys across the Atlantic to make contact with this stranger.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 206
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 88%
Going Away (2013)
Plot Summary:
Two unlikely friends — a supply teacher and a lonely young boy suspended between two estranged parents — embark on a weekend motorcycle voyage full of surprises and unforeseen consequences in this surprisingly tough, unsentimental drama.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 920
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: realistic, tense, touching, serious, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 87%
The Towrope (2012)
Plot Summary:
In this poetic, richly allegorical debut by Colombian director William Vega, a teenage girl flees to a rundown inn after being driven from her home in the Andean highlands by civil war, as the violence engulfing the country creeps ever closer to her remote refuge. (TIFF).
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 767
Genere: Drama
Country: Colombia, France, Mexico
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, rough, serious, realistic, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Amu (2005)
Plot Summary:
Amu is the story of Kaju, a twenty-one-year-old Indian American woman who returns to India to visit her family and discover the place where she was born. The film takes a dark turn as Kaju stumbles against secrets and lies from her past. A horrifying genocide that took place twenty years ago turns out to hold the key to her mysterious origins.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 954
Genere: Drama
Country: India, USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: disturbing, serious, realistic, touching, banned
Similar in 83%
Ladygrey (2015)
Plot Summary:
Estelle fights to maintain her sense of self while sleeping with Angus for money.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 163
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium, South Africa
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, captivating, bleak
Similar in 81%
Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams (2006)
Plot Summary:
A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Austria, Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, realistic, psychological, serious, emotional, islamic, captivating, social, masterpiece
Similar in 87%
The Prize (2011)
Plot Summary:
Ceci, a seven year old girl, has to keep a huge secret, but she doesn't completely understand what is the secret about. The life of her family depends on her silence. But what exactly must she keep silent about? Ceci and her mom live hidden from military repression in Argentina. Ceci asks herself: what must she say? What should she really believe and do in order to deserve the love of her mother and others?.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 429
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico, France, Poland, Germany
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, captivating, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 85%
Andres Doesn't Want to Take a Nap (2009)
Plot Summary:
Drama starring Norma Aleandro, Conrado Valenzuela, Fabio Aste.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 87
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, disturbing, bleak, realistic
Similar in 90%
West (2013)
Plot Summary:
East Germany. Summer, late 70's. Three years after her boyfriend Wassilij's apparent death, Nelly Senff decides to escape from behind the Berlin wall with her son Alexej, leaving her traumatic memories and past behind. Pretending to marry a West German, she crosses the border to start a new life in the West. But soon her past starts to haunt her as the Allied Secret Service begin to question Wassilij's mysterious disappearance. Is he still alive? Was he a spy? Plagued by her past and fraught with paranoia, Nelly is forced to choose between discovering the truth about her former lover and her hopes for a better tomorrow.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, touching, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Singing Women (2013)
Plot Summary:
An island off the coast of Turkey is about to be evacuated due to a possible earthquake but its inhabitants have been stricken with a mysterious illness, consigning them to an uncertain fate.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 740
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Germany, France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, surreal, suspense, offbeat, biting
Similar in 79%
Lara (2019)
Plot Summary:
It is Lara's sixtieth birthday and it is surely no coincidence that her son Viktor is giving the most important piano concert of his career – since it was her who mapped out and forced Victor's musical career in the first place. Yet the day does not go as expected and Lara has to discover that Viktor is using the concert to finally free himself from her grip.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Germany
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, melancholic, depressing, visual, wistful
Similar in 86%
Hide Your Smiling Faces (2013)
Plot Summary:
Tommy and his older brother Eric live in the midst of vast remote forests. The death of their friend pushes them close to the edge. Eric doesn’t know how to channel his energy. All at once, nature’s vastness feels stifling.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: rough, touching, bleak, serious, gothic, mumblecore, visually stunning, atmospheric, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 88%
Don't Be Afraid (2011)
Plot Summary:
Silvia is a young girl marked by a dark childhood. When she is barely twenty-five, she decides to start over and to face the people, feelings and emotions that keep her bound to the past. In her fight against adversity and against herself, she will learn to control her fears and become an adult, responsible for her own actions.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 864
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, thought provoking, realistic, captivating, melancholic, sad, sincere, touching, serious, disturbing
Similar in 79%
The Porcelain Horse (2012)
Plot Summary:
Paco Chavez's life is careless and charming. It's a life of illicit drugs and a forbidden love affair he carries with Lucia, his former high school sweetheart, now married to another man. One night, Paco and his younger brother Luis, enter their parent's home to steal a porcelain horse to pawn in order to score more drugs. Their father catches them and a fight ensues. The consequences of that fight will haunt both brothers forever.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 261
Genere: Drama
Country: Ecuador
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, suspenseful, bleak
Similar in 86%
Watchtower (2012)
Plot Summary:
Haunted by his dark past, a man takes a job as a fire warden in a remote tower in the wilderness, and is inexorably drawn towards a young woman with a terrible secret of her own. (TIFF).
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, France, Germany
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, psychological, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Future Lasts Forever (2011)
Plot Summary:
A woman struggles with love and personal loss against the backdrop of a land torn by civil war in this drama from filmmaker Ozcan Alper. Sumru (Gaye Gursel) is a Turkish woman who studies ethnic music at a college in Istanbul and frequently makes field recordings of artists who practice rare and unusual forms. Sumru is struggling with loneliness after the disappearance of her Kurdish boyfriend, and for her latest project, she sets out on a lengthy road trip recording the stories of Kurdish women who have survived the murder of their Turkish husbands or lovers, hoping she might track down her man in her travels. After making her first stop in the city of Diyarbaki, Sumru meets Ahmet, who makes a living selling black market goods and shares her love of music and history. The two become fast friends, and as Ahmet joins Sumru on her travels, their relationship grows deeper, though she also becomes more aware of the tragedy that has gripped her country and the consequences of the civil war.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, France, Turkey
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, emotional, realistic, contemplative, captivating, art house, sincere, bleak, serious, gloomy
Similar in 90%
A Stone's Throw (2006)
Plot Summary:
Olivia lives in a small town in Nova Scotia, Canada along with her son, Thomas, a daughter, Sarah, and has been separated from her French-speaking husband, Jean Marc. She has an estranged brother named Jack Walker who she has not seen for many years, as he refused to return her phone calls, and neglected to attend their father's funeral in Montana, U.S.A.. Due to opening of Cynaco and MacNeil Mining Company, the town expects to have about new 125 new jobs. One day she gets a surprise visit from Jack, both brother and sister update each other, and Jack also gets to meet Thomas and Sarah, as well as Olivia's attractive South Asian neighbor, Lia, a single mother. He soon starts an affair with her, and even moves in her house.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 88
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, touching, contemplative
Similar in 76%
When Day Breaks (2012)
Plot Summary:
The story of a retired music professor, Misha Brankov, who under unusual circumstances discovers his true origins. At the place where once stood a Nazi concentration camp for Jews during World War II, a metal box filled with documents is found. It was buried by an inmate Isaac Weiss in the year 1941. The professor finds out that his real parents, the Weiss's, gave him away to their friends, the Brankovs, just before they were taken into the camp. Inside the box there is an unfinished musical score, called "When day breaks", composed by the inmate Isaac Weiss. Searching for the truth about himself and his origins, Misha discovers the little-known truth about Judenlager Semlin camp, one of the worst Nazi execution sites in the heart of contemporary Belgrade. At the same time, the professor's obsession is to complete the composition, started by his father, and to perform it on the site of the former camp... which he, after many vicissitudes, finally succeeds.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 860
Genere: Drama
Country: Serbia, France, Croatia
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 84%
Harmony Lessons (2013)
Plot Summary:
During a medical examination, 13-year-old Aslan is humiliated in front of a load of his fellow pupils. The incident unleashes his latent personality disorder. Plagued by self-doubt, he strives for cleanliness and perfection and is obsessed with trying to control everything around him. His compulsion draws Aslan, who lives with his grandmother in a village in Kazakhstan, into increasingly difficult situations. He abhors the way most of his fellow pupils are held in the sway of a criminal scheme, in which Bolat, one of Aslan’s tormentors, is also involved. Bolat blackmails the younger children into paying him protection money; he has nothing but contempt for ostracised Aslan.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 994
Genere: Drama
Country: Kazakhstan, Germany, France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, serious, disturbing, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Clandestine Childhood (2011)
Plot Summary:
Juan lives in clandestinity. Just like his mum, his dad and his adored uncle Beto, outside his home he has another name. At school, Juan is known as Ernesto. And he meets María, who only has one name. Based on true facts, set in the Argentina of 1979, this film is one about love.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, Spain, Brazil
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: serious, atmospheric, realistic
Similar in 83%
Hidden Diary (2009)
Plot Summary:
In the 1950s, Louise left her husband when their children were still little. She was never heard from again. Her daughter Martine stayed in the small seaside town, where she became a doctor. Martine's daughter, Audrey, a thirty-year-old independent woman, returns to visit her parents. By chance, she finds a notebook that belonged to her grandmother, a diary that may at last explain her departure. Will it reveal the things left unsaid, that have altered the relationships within the heart of the family ever since? In it, will Audrey find answers to the questions that she is asking herself about her own future?.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 549
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Canada
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 88%
Loveless (2017)
Plot Summary:
Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, they are impatient to start again, to turn the page – even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha. Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 35000
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia, France, Germany, Belgium
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: melancholic, bleak, psychological, heartbreaking, suspense, rough, art house, depressing, inspirational, erotic
Similar in 78%
Low Tide (2012)
Plot Summary:
A 12 year old boy and his single mother live separate lives. The boy spends his days alone while his mother works and goes out with her friends. The boy’s solitude is both a source of freedom and a cause for grief. His explorations slowly bring to light the dark contrast between the rules of society and the laws of nature. And before long, the delicate balance of his inner world becomes shattered by unforeseen events.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 661
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Belgium, USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, serious, psychological, sincere, rough, bleak, independent film
Similar in 88%
The Quispe Girls (2013)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story occurred in 1974, this is the tale of sisters Justa, Lucia, and Luciana Quispe, sheperds in the Chilean altiplano who lead a solitary life. A visitor brings news about a law that might change their way of living. This event forces the women to question their existence and relentlessly brings them to a tragic end.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 111
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, France, Argentina
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, bleak
Similar in 84%
Redland (2009)
Plot Summary:
As a family struggles to survive in rural isolation during the Great Depression, their daughter's secret affair begins a journey into the unknown.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 100
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, rough, serious, disturbing, mystic, tense, bleak, realistic, independent film, epic
Similar in 86%
Nobody's Home (2013)
Plot Summary:
The story of four people who cannot manage to become a family again after a loss and who destroy themselves with each passing day.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: psychological, rough, depressing, bleak, serious, emotional, sad, realistic, surreal, disturbing
Similar in 90%
One Day You'll Understand (2008)
Plot Summary:
A man endeavors to collect memories of his grandparents who died in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 367
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Germany, Israel
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, bleak, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 76%
Forgiveness (2006)
Plot Summary:
On April 9, 1948, a Jewish militia entered the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin and killed over 100 villagers. Soon after, a mental hospital was built on the ruins. The first patients to be committed were Holocaust survivors. A legend says that to this day, the survivors have been communicating with the ghosts of the village. Forgiveness tells the story of David Adler, a 20-year old American-Israeli who decides to move back to Israel, only to find himself committed to a mental institution that sits on the ruins of a Palestinian village called Deir Yassin. Flashbacks and flashforwards reveal the events that led up to his hospitalization.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 103
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Israel
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: psychological, rough, uplifting, emotional, bleak, sincere, offbeat, serious, contemplative
Similar in 77%
Mommy (2014)
Plot Summary:
A peculiar neighbor offers hope to a recent widow who is struggling to raise a teenager who is unpredictable and, sometimes, violent.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 61000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags: melancholic, touching, depressing, emotional, psychological, independent film, atmospheric, surreal, sincere, sad
Similar in 82%
Jack (2014)
Plot Summary:
Although he is only ten years old, Jack is responsible for himself and his little brother Manuel and this fills him with pride. Their single mother works during the day and often goes out at night. There’s no father in sight. One day, Manuel burns himself with boiling hot water while bathing and Jack is blamed for the incident. It's reason enough for social services to put him in a home where he is dreadfully homesick. He soon gets into trouble and bolts, heading for home. He arrives back, only to find his mother is once again absent. Jack and Manuel roam the city in search of her. They sleep in parks and in an underground car park, run away from the police and encounter adults, some of whom help and others who are indifferent.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, touching, captivating, serious, social, gloomy