Best movies like Independence
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Early 20th century Philippines. The sounds of war signal the arrival of the Americans. A mother and son flee to the mountains, hoping for a quiet life. One day, the son discovers a wounded woman in the middle of the forest, and decides to bring her home.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 244
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Philippines, Germany, Netherlands
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, suspenseful, surreal, contemplative, slow cinema, aesthetic, gloomy, black and white
Best tv shows and movies like Independence (2009):
Similar in 84%
Chronicle of the End of the World (2012)
Plot Summary:
A retired teacher fears the world is coming to an end when his jobless son is abandoned by his wife after having a baby.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 61
Genere: Drama
Country: Colombia
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, sexy, suspenseful, gloomy, contemplative
Similar in 83%
Stand-by (2000)
Plot Summary:
A woman remains in an airport after her husband announces he wants a divorce, just before they are to board a plane for Argentina. Unwilling to turn to her sister and emotionally traumatized she makes the airport her home, making money by working as a prostitute. She strikes up a friendship with a café worker Marco.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 318
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, offbeat, independent film
Similar in 77%
Maddened by His Absence (2012)
Plot Summary:
After ten years, Jacques comes back to France to handle his father’s succession. He had left France to live in the USA to escape a painful past he shared with Mado, his former wife, who in the meantime built a new life with Stéphane and their 7 year old son, Paul. Upon his return, Jacques and Mado meet again; he asks to meet her son Paul; Mado hesitates, then accepts but hides it from her husband. Soon, Paul and Jacques get close and they start to see each other secretly.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 277
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium, Luxembourg
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 83%
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 80%
Adela (2008)
Plot Summary:
Adela, (Philippines' screen legend Anita Linda) a former radio personality, celebrates her 80th birthday. Alone, and without support, she longs for the family and stability of years gone by. Mundane events take on heightened meaning as Adela gauges her life against those of the sea of humanity. Adela is about the quiet moments in life that can fill us with either joy or sorrow.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 91
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, neorealism
Similar in 76%
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 82%
The Buffalo Boy (2004)
Plot Summary:
Set along the southern coast of Vietnam during the French occupation in the 1940s, water is everywhere, giving life and bringing decay and rot. Kim is 15; his father and step-mother have two buffalo, their lifeline as subsistence rice farmers. During the rainy season, there's no grass and the buffalo are starving. Kim volunteers to take the beasts inland to find food. On this coming-of-age journey, Kim sees men mistreat women, men fight with men, and French taxes rob the poor. He works for Lap, a buffalo herder whose past is entangled with Kim's parents, and he makes friends who will lead him to his place in the world.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 605
Genere: Drama
Country: Vietnam, Belgium, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 77%
Yuki & Nina (2009)
Plot Summary:
When Yuki finds out that her parents are separating and she is moving to Japan with her mother, she and her best friend Nina devise ways to reunite the feuding adults.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 370
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Japan
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, stylized, slow cinema, aesthetic, realistic
Similar in 77%
Father and Son (2003)
Plot Summary:
A small family "a father and a son" lives on the top floor of an old house. The father retired from the military, when he was a student in flight school, he experienced the first and the only love of his life. This girl became his wife and she gave birth to his son. Both of them were twenty years old then. The wife died when she was young. This love remained his secret unique happiness. The son grew up, and he will probably be a military man like his father. The son's features constantly remind the father of his wife. He doesn't separate his son from his still persisting love: this is his unity with his beloved woman. The father cannot imagine his life without his son. The son loves his father devotedly and deeply, a filial feeling intensified by an instinctive moral responsibility that is being tested by life. Their love is almost of mythological virtue and scale. It cannot happen in real life. This is a fairy–tale collision.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Netherlands
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, touching, serious, contemplative, captivating, spiritual, sensual, slow cinema, poetic
Similar in 83%
Among Us (2010)
Plot Summary:
An accident overthrows Ernst and Cecilia's well-ordered life. Chance rules in Ernst's rational world while Cecilia is searching for a deeper meaning in what has happened. As they drift further and further apart a mysterious stranger with exceptional gifts changes their lives in an unexpected way.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 526
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, tense, suspenseful, exciting, captivating, inspirational
Similar in 86%
Domestic Life (2013)
Plot Summary:
Juliette was simply not sure about coming to live in this residential suburb of the greater Paris metropolitan area. All the women here are in their forties, have children to raise, houses to keep and husbands who return home late at night.Today she has an appointment in Paris that is important for her career, but she also has to run errands and pick up the kids from school. During the course of her day, monopolized by petty, everyday tasks, Juliette can feel the noose of domestic obligations and household chores slowly tightening around her neck.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 424
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspense, suspenseful, psychological, captivating, contemplative, biting
Similar in 86%
Bad Girl (2012)
Plot Summary:
Louise simultaneously discovers that she is pregnant and that her mother is seriously ill. Happiness and guilt, euphoria and sadness, filial love and love, period. She'll need a good nine months to cope with all this.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 182
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, psychological, captivating, sexy, sincere, serious, gloomy
Similar in 83%
Dance Town (2010)
Plot Summary:
A North Korean refugee, Jung-Nim, is trying to find a new life in South Korea, with people suspecting that she is a spy.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 83
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, touching, sincere, thought provoking, bleak, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Kamchatka (2002)
Plot Summary:
The movie show us how life was in Argentina for dissident people, in the seventies, under the military government.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, Spain, Italy
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, serious, realistic, political, touching
Similar in 83%
Liverpool (2008)
Plot Summary:
A sailor takes a short leave to visit his hometown and see if his mother is still alive.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, France, Netherlands, Germany, Spain
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, contemplative, psychological, captivating, road movie, dread, slow cinema, aesthetic, sincere
Similar in 88%
The Cruel Embrace (1987)
Plot Summary:
Nicole (Marianne Basler) gives birth to a mentally challenged boy after she is gang-raped by American soldiers at the close of World War II in this grim dramatic tragedy. Young Ludo is hidden in the attic of the family home and continues to yearn for his mother's affection. Nicole enters into a loveless marriage with an older man who agrees to adopt Ludo, but her deteriorating mental health leads her to sloth and alcoholism. Ludo is sent off to an asylum, but escapes and takes up residence on a deserted beach in an old tanker that has run aground. This feature won the grand prize at the 1987 Barcelona Film Festival.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 181
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 88%
Blame It on Mum (2009)
Plot Summary:
Mady Celliers, an attractive housewife of 60, he spends his life speaking ill of her two daughters and her husband, a man who shows a strange behavior since has retired. Antoine, the eldest son, company director, is unable to make a success of a business: out of a bankruptcy to get into another, her sister Alice madonnas obsessively paints sad. Annabelle, a nurse in an intensive care unit, tries desperately to save his family pronosticándole the future. When Alice meets by chance Jacques, a lonely police pessimistic explode all family neurosis.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 417
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, touching
Similar in 77%
Mother and Son (1997)
Plot Summary:
A slow and poignant story of love and patience told via a dying mother nursed by her devoted son. The simple narrative is a thread woven among the deeply spiritual images of the countryside and cottage.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia, Germany
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: contemplative, slow cinema, depressing, aesthetic, psychological, atmospheric, mind bending, touching, serious, emotional
Similar in 86%
Melancholia (2008)
Plot Summary:
A story about victims of summary executions. Three people start a strange therapy to escape their agonies.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 537
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 450 min
Plot tags: bleak, psychological, serious, stylized, atmospheric, slow cinema, psychedelic, aesthetic, experimental, contemplative
Similar in 81%
Siberia, Monamour (2011)
Plot Summary:
Siberia. Late autumn. In taiga, in the deserted village there lives an old man Ivan & his seven-year-old grandson Leshia. A pack of feral dogs devours everything alive in the neighborhood. One of these dogs is Leshia's best friend. Sometimes their relative uncle Yuri brings food to them. Once on his way back from Ivan's village uncle Yuri is attacked by dogs & perishes. Ivan & Leshia stay without supply. Once Leshia witnesses Ivan shooting at 'his' dog & runs away. The old Man finds him in a dry well, but he fails to get him out on his own. Ivan sets out through taiga in search of help. Now the dogs are hunting him... And the boy is waiting for his father.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: touching, gloomy, sentimental, serious, captivating, bleak, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 77%
Let the Wind Blow (2004)
Plot Summary:
A collegian in turbulent Mumbai attempts to improve his lifestyle.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 127
Genere: Drama
Country: India
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, independent film, banned
Similar in 86%
My Friend & His Wife (2006)
Plot Summary:
Two young men, Ye-joon and Jae-moon, have been close friends since doing military service together. Ye-joon has lately worked his way up to becoming a successful financier, while the unambitious Jae-moon has opted for a much less conspicuous route. He now works as a cook and is enjoying family life with his wife Ji-sook and their new-born son. Ji-sook tolerates her husband’s attachment to his friend, but everything changes after the tragic death of the child, caused by Ye-joon. Ji-sook was in Paris when the tragedy occurred and isn’t aware of the circumstances; she even starts an affair with Ye-joon when her husband is imprisoned after taking the blame for his son’s death. Relationships which were originally crystal-clear begin to grow distinctly cloudy.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 153
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: emotional, serious, realistic, psychological, captivating, touching, 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 83%
The Dust of Time (2008)
Plot Summary:
A, an American film director of Greek ancestry, is making a film that tells his story and the story of his parents. It is a tale that unfolds in Italy, Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan, Canada and the USA. The main character is Eleni, who is claimed and claims the absoluteness of love. At the same time the film is a long journey into the vast history and the events of the last fifty years that left their mark on the 20th century. The characters in the film move as though in a dream. The dust of time confuses memories. A searches for them and experiences them in the present.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece, Italy, Germany, Russia, France
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, atmospheric, touching, serious, postmodern, slow cinema, aesthetic, epic, realistic
Similar in 78%
Kabei: Our Mother (2008)
Plot Summary:
Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to night to maintain the household and bring up her two daughters with the support of Shigeru's sister Hisako and Shigeru's ex-student Yamazaki, but her husband does not return. WWII breaks out and casts dark shadows on the entire country, but Kayo still tries to keep her cheerful determination, and sustain the family with her love. This is an emotional drama of a mother and an eternal message for peace.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 82%
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 79%
Majesty (2010)
Plot Summary:
One hour before the State Opening of Parliament, something very unusual happens. The Prime Minister appears and demands an adjustment to the Queen's speech. The speech concerns aid to Africa. Even with all the pressure around the State Opening, Beatrix goes back in time, and remembers her banishment to Canada, the visit to the victims of the Flood disaster and the turbulence suffered by her parents at Palace Soestdijk during the Hofman case.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 362
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, captivating
Similar in 85%
When the Night (2011)
Plot Summary:
After meeting during their vacation, two young people with solitary lives suddenly come into a relationship that could benefit both of them.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 334
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 89%
I Travel Alone (2011)
Plot Summary:
Jarle Klepp is a 25-year-old student of literature with a passion for Adorno, Proust and grown-up women - and definitely not Tamagochi's, Lady Di and small kids. The news that he is the father of a seven year old girl - and that she will come visiting next week - enters his life like a nuclear bomb. Jarle Klepp has to become an adult.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, emotional, contemplative, captivating, psychological, sincere, touching, serious
Similar in 82%
Balancing Act (2012)
Plot Summary:
Having cheated on his wife, Giulio, a municipal employee, moves out, but has to find a solution on how to still support his family, and himself.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 823
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, serious, psychological, tense, captivating, sincere, gloomy