Best movies like Isabella
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
On the eve of the transfer of power over Macao to the People’s Republic of China, a police officer finds himself in the throes of a dreadful crisis – both in his career and in his private life. Already thrown off course for having been suspended on a corruption charge, shortly afterwards, he has an encounter that completely changes his life. Hoping to compensate for his failed career, Shing seeks comfort in the arms of a young girl. He has no more than a one-night stand in mind when he approaches this young woman. but when he gently tries to persuade her to go to bed with him, he is more than surprised at her rebuff. For this elf-like creature named Yan confronts him with the most astonishing news conceivable.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Hong Kong
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, captivating, contemplative, gloomy
Best tv shows and movies like Isabella (2006):
Similar in 82%
The Most Distant Course (2007)
Plot Summary:
Tang (Muo) goes on a trip to Taitung to record the sounds of nature, hoping the tape may save his relationship with his girlfriend who is leaving him. What he does not know, is that she has already moved away and another girl, Yun (Kwai), has moved into that apartment. Yun is trapped in a hopeless love triangle, and troubled by all the issues she faces in life. After listening to the tape that Tang sent, she feels as if the kindness of nature is calling her, and travels to Taitung to find the mysterious man who sends her the tape. On the other hand, Tsai (Chia), a psychiatrist struggling in a failed marriage, suddenly realizes that he needs to let things go after helping a patient with extramarital affairs. He leaves everything behind and goes to Taitung to search for his ex-lover. The three young souls, with different purposes, comes to the coast and search for the meaning of their life, a journey considerably longer than any of them has taken before.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 677
Genere: Drama
Country: Taiwan
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, psychological, captivating, touching, gloomy
Similar in 84%
The Absent Season (2004)
Plot Summary:
When love has to compete with artistic inspiration and memories from a sheltering past come to take the artist to imaginary worlds that exist deep in his mind. This is the story of young Adrian, pianist and composer, in love with his sister and having a romantic relationship with her until she thinks it's time to stop. Adrian becomes overwhelmed by the memories of his grandfather and mentor now dead. Then he falls in love with a young neighbour but she is more real in her imagination than in ordinary daily life. Adrian discovers that is just having fantasies and wants to put an end to his life. But his talent comes in the figure on an ancestor to help him and move on to a meaningful life.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 37
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, contemplative, sentimental, captivating, offbeat, serious, realistic, gloomy, sexual
Similar in 90%
Pickpocket (1997)
Plot Summary:
Little pocket thief Wu never got away from the streets like his friends did. He realises that he is alone, as his old buddy doesn't invite him for his wedding. When he falls in love with a hooker he is forced to think about his future. Can he break with his criminal past?.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: China, Hong Kong
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: contemplative, neo noir, independent film, psychological, serious, captivating, realistic, biting, suspense
Similar in 82%
1001 Grams (2014)
Plot Summary:
When Norwegian scientist Marie attends a seminar in Paris on the actual weight of a kilo, it is her own measurement of disappointment, grief and, not least, love, that ends up on the scale. Finally Marie is forced to come to terms with how much a human life truly weighs and which measurements she intends to live by.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway, Germany
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: realistic, contemplative, serious, psychological, captivating, sexy, touching, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Heart of Now (2010)
Plot Summary:
"Heart of Now" concerns a young woman with a profound longing for a sense of family. Amber is devastated after her boyfriend abandons her because she's pregnant. She is whisked across a contrast of urban, natural and emotional landscapes. She confronts the deeper issues at the very heart of her suffering, and finds transcendence in a brief moment at the very heart of now.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 91
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, contemplative, psychological, sentimental, captivating, independent film, sincere, touching, serious, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Beyond Our Ken (2004)
Plot Summary:
A month after Wai Ming broke up with Ken, she finds nude pictures of her on his website. To get back at him, she teams up with his new girlfriend.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 697
Genere: Drama
Country: Hong Kong
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, captivating, suspense, humorous, suspenseful
Similar in 87%
Jealousy (2013)
Plot Summary:
The professional and emotional cross-currents between two romantically entwined theater actors played by the director’s son Louis and Anna Mouglalis.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, intellectual, art house, black and white, gloomy
Similar in 84%
He Loves Me (2011)
Plot Summary:
When Laura begins to suspect her husband is cheating on her, she is devastated by his infidelity, despite having a torrid affair of her own. While she desperately tries to save her marriage, Laura's mysterious past begins to emerge, making her more paranoid, delusional and violent in alarming ways. As her mental state continues to unravel, whoever gets in the way of Laura's myriad of fantasies becomes expendable, revealing the shocking dream world that insulates her from reality.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 436
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, atmospheric, captivating, psychological thriller, serious, realistic
Similar in 76%
The Off Hours (2011)
Plot Summary:
You're awake when everyone else is asleep. You're standing still as traffic is whipping by at 70mph. You see dusk and dawn everyday because they happen on your way to a time clock and then to a bed. Your off hours are spent trying to figure out why you're here, whether you want to stay, and how to leave.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 464
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, realistic, serious, mumblecore, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 78%
Hedda (1975)
Plot Summary:
Henrik Ibsen's enduring drama about a Nordic femme fatale - a neurotic, controlling, strong-willed woman who is nonetheless alluring to the males in her town. She is a solitary woman in a society held together by kinship and class. If she had had more brains she would have thought her way out of it; if she had had more courage she would have bolted long ago with Lovborg, the only true creative force in the vicinity whose manuscript she burns in the stove as if she were aborting their unconceived child.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 361
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: independent film, psychological, clever, serious, realistic, gloomy, period drama
Similar in 78%
Limbo (2010)
Plot Summary:
Sonia arrives in Trinidad with her two children to join her husband Jo who is working as an oil engineer. On the surface she lives a life of luxury in a large houses with servants. The days are uneventful and blend together into an everlasting holiday, where the women nurse their superficial relationships over cocktails poolside – the perfect climate for self-delusion.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 506
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 84%
July Rhapsody (2002)
Plot Summary:
Lam Yiu Kwok, a Hong Kong secondary school teacher is facing a mid-life crisis. While he has only his pride and Chinese poetry to fall back on, his peers are successful businessmen and professionals who flaunt their extravagant lifestyles at reunion dinners. After many years, Lam is still living in a modest apartment with his wife, Man Ching and two teenage sons. However financial stagnancy is not his only problem. An old flame of Man Ching (who was the couple's former schoolteacher) returns to Hong Kong and uncovers old wounds. Man Ching feels obliged to help her ex-lover. Meanwhile, Yiu Kwok faces another dilemma: Choy Lam, a precocious student, has a crush on him and the 'forbidden fruit' looks more and more tempting in the light of his wife's 'infidelity'. Will he succumb to young charms and let history repeat itself?.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Hong Kong
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, sentimental, realistic, gloomy, masterpiece
Similar in 80%
Loveholic (2009)
Plot Summary:
Film examines the matters of labor and love. After losing her job, a single professional woman moves into her friend's flat -- where she develops an attraction to her friend's husband. Meanwhile, the friend finds herself falling for one of her husband's colleagues.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 96
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, captivating
Similar in 85%
Les corps impatients (2003)
Plot Summary:
Paul and Charlotte are in love. Charlotte discovers she has a grave malady and Paul supports her. But Paul is also attracted to Ninon, another girl. Charlotte accepts Paul to have an affair with her, and the three start a difficult and ambiguous relationship.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 613
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: serious, psychological, sincere, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, sexy
Similar in 89%
Gideon's Daughter (2005)
Plot Summary:
Bill Nighy and Miranda Richardson star in a story of grief and celebrity, set in the intense spring and summer of New Labour's election victory and Diana's death. Nighy is a PR guru who has to stop and re-evaluate his world when his daughter threatens to leave his life, perhaps as revenge for his serial infidelities. Richardson plays a mother trying to bury her grief in an unconventional way after the loss of her young son.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating, political, tense, gloomy
Similar in 78%
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 81%
Adrift (2009)
Plot Summary:
Adrift begins with the wedding of Duyen and Hai. Duyen is a beautiful tourist guide and translator who marries Hai, a taxi driver who is two years her junior. Duyen thinks the marriage will make her happy but it turns out more difficult, especially since her childlike husband is uninterested in her efforts of intimacy and the marriage remains unconsummated. Cam, secretly in love with Duyen, is bitter about the marriage. Cam has Duyen deliver a letter to Tho, a handsome lothario and tourist guide who physically hurls himself on Duyen when she visits his home to deliver the letter. After Tho reports back to Cam that Duyen is sexually inexperienced, Cam diabolically persuades Duyen to take a temporary job as a translator on one of Tho’s beach tours, knowing what will happen. Duyen's time at the beach with Tho results in an affair leading to Duyen's sexual awakening but continued uncertainty about herself, marriage, and life.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 320
Genere: Drama
Country: Vietnam, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, psychological, sexy, captivating, sincere, serious, gloomy, sexual
Similar in 77%
The Policeman's Wife (2013)
Plot Summary:
The story of a young couple who live in a small town with their four-year-old daughter. The husband is so caught up in his work as a policeman that he gradually becomes increasingly alienated from his wife and daughter who become ever closer to one another as they discover the new town. It is only a matter of time before the conflicts within the family manifest themselves.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 494
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 175 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sexy, sincere, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Signs & Wonders (2000)
Plot Summary:
Under the influence of signs and premonitions, a man allows himself to veer in and out of a love affair with his colleague.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 692
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Greece
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: clever, serious, emotional, realistic, independent film, psychological, talky, gloomy, biting, suspense
Similar in 78%
Kira's Reason: A Love Story (2001)
Plot Summary:
Kira and Mads try to work out their marriage, after Kira has been two years in a mental institution, but is she really ready for the real world?.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 997
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: serious, psychological, clever, talky, sexy, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 83%
A Quiet Little Marriage (2008)
Plot Summary:
A Quiet Little Marriage is the love story of Dax and Olive, who manage to find harmony even as they juggle family, romance and intimacy, but that all changes the night she asks him for a baby. Writer/director Mo Perkins’ intense and profound, raw feature debut is laced with sly humor, exquisitely rendered characters, and a pitch-perfect emotional honesty.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 361
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, realistic, captivating, sincere, serious, talky, independent film
Similar in 76%
Heaven's Heart (2008)
Plot Summary:
Two couples, old friends, end up in a heated debate over adultery at a dinner party.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 691
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, Denmark
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: psychological, contemplative, realistic, talky, captivating, minimal cast, clever, serious
Similar in 79%
You (2007)
Plot Summary:
Michèle shares her life with Paul, her husband and work colleague. She has a lover, Thomas, a musician with whom she has been having a passionate affair for some time. Attracted by Thomass non-conformity and lust for life, Michèle abandons her husband, her son and her profession to live this frenzy through to its conclusion. A quest for freedom and change that sends Michèle on a turbulent drift, but remains, nevertheless, intimate and personal.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 182
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, psychological, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Silver Tongues (2011)
Plot Summary:
Two lovers travel from town to town playing a dark game of deceit that soon spirals out of control, threatening their very relationship.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 751
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, realistic, captivating, mind bending, serious
Similar in 81%
Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud (1995)
Plot Summary:
Nelly leaves her lazy, unemployed husband to work for retired judge Mr Arnaud, forty years her senior, after he offers to clear her bills for her. While she types his memoirs the two develop a close friendship, but Arnaud becomes jealous when Nelly begins dating his good-looking young publisher.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy, Germany
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, light, atmospheric, sexy
Similar in 75%
Particles of Truth (2003)
Plot Summary:
Life, love, and the fear of failing... Lilli Black, battling her painful memories and the secrets surrounding her dying father, collides into the complicated and obsessive life of Morrison Wiley on the streets of New York City. This peculiar love story exposes Lilli's internal bouts and her nightmarish "bad luck". We weave in and out of eight defective lives and go for a turbulent mental ride where Lilli's reality spirals out of control and we're lead to an unforgettable climax where some fall apart and some piece themselves together.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 587
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 78%
The Quiet Roar (2014)
Plot Summary:
MARIANNE (Evabritt Strandberg) is a 68-year old woman diagnosed with a terminal disease. Left with angst, she seeks therapy at a clinic where she is treated with Psilocybin (LSD) and meditation by a counselor, Eva (Hanna Schygulla). Through this she is transferred to her subconscious, where she meets and confronts her 25-year old self and her former husband.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 221
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, Norway
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: serious, contemplative, psychological, sincere, atmospheric, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 80%
A Butterfly Kiss (2011)
Plot Summary:
Billie and Louis have the good fortune of loving each other passionately and of having a family. But then one day terrible news turns their existence and that of their friends' upside down. Marie, a famous actress who is Billie's friend and confidant, redoubles her determination to give life, while Alice, her nurse, fighting for freedom, maintains that life 'is here and now and in the moment.' A film about love, hope, and the conviction that the force of life, despite the toughest tests, will always gain the upper hand.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 174
Genere: Drama
Country: France, UK
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, psychological, captivating, serious, gloomy
Similar in 83%
All Around Us (2008)
Plot Summary:
Kanao, a courtroom portrait artist, observes crimes, scandals and the decline of Japanese values without passing judgement. As he and his wife endure the tragedy of their first child’s death, hope slowly unfolds and their love story flickers to life once again.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 890
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, touching, psychological, serious, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Stretch (2011)
Plot Summary:
Christophe, a young horse racing jockey from Paris, is filled with hope and ambition. Yet after a race, he tests positive for illegal substances and is subsequently suspended from racing. He decides to move to Macau, in Asia. There his circumstances change very quickly: he wins one race after another, earning himself large amounts of money and success with women. But, his new life also brings him an ever-increasing sense of solitude. Macau has its own unspoken rules that Christophe thinks he can ignore. But events start to gain momentum as the net tightens around him. Motivated by love for an intriguing young Chinese woman, Christophe ends up gambling with his own destiny, but this time on the card tables.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 80
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Thailand, Hong Kong
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, exciting, suspenseful, stylized