Best movies like Jiyan
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
"Jiyan" takes place in Halabja about five years after Saddam's infamous chemical attack in 1988. Diyari (Kurdo Galali) has come from his new homeland, America, to put up a badly needed new orphanage. As construction proceeds, he gradually becomes acquainted with the tragic individual stories of the survivors. Prime among these is orphan girl Jiyan (Pirsheng Berzinji), and her lively young cousin Sherko (Choman Hawrami). Although he seems to fit right into life in this impoverished town, Diyari can hardlyabsorb the catastrophe that hit there, nor can he accept the level of injury that he encounters. When the orphanage is ready, Diyari says his goodbyes, plunging Jiyan back into quiet despair.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 117
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Iraq, USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like Jiyan (2002):
Similar in 84%
A Line in the Sand (2009)
Plot Summary:
Drama - Set in the present-day Iraq war, this tense and gripping drama unfolds as two US Marines find themselves stranded and alone in the desert after their unit is all but destroyed in a routine mission. One of their team is taken hostage in the attack, their Humvee is stolen, their communications are down and their supplies are limited. - Gary Weeks, Rob Botts, Paul J. Alessi.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 84
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Promises (2020)
Plot Summary:
Latchkey kids lose touch when one of them moves away, only to reconnect years later without realizing it, having changed their names to escape their pasts. Once they realize who each other are; they are able heal the wounds of their pasts.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 84
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, realistic, affectionate
Similar in 77%
Occupation in 26 Pictures (1978)
Plot Summary:
Set in Dubrovnik, this drama chronicles a friendship, between three men, that began just before World War II. One of the men is of Italian origin, another is the wealthy heir of a shipping fortune, and the third is the son of a Jewish antique-store owner. Before the war, they are fast friends, enjoying one another's company at carnivals and at a private fencing club. When the war comes, the Italians and Germans move in to create the state of Croatia. The Italian boy becomes a fascist and courts and marries the sister of his rich friend. Soon enough, atrocities are being committed, and anyone suspected of Jewish parentage, or of leftist leanings, is killed. The Jewish boy and the factory owner's son escape the general roundup, take revenge for some of the indignities they and their families have suffered, and join the anti-fascist underground.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Yugoslavia
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: black and white, pre war
Similar in 81%
Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando (2008)
Plot Summary:
Ayça and Hama Ali are together in spirit, but divided by geography. With the outbreak of the Iraq War leaving him stranded, she embarks on an odyssey from Turkey to be reunited with him.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Turkey
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: cinema verite
Similar in 81%
It Doesn't Hurt Me (2006)
Plot Summary:
Three friends are in the entrance of a luxury home in the heart of the city. They are young, full of strength and energy, they have the talent, skill and thirst for life and ... - well, they have all but one. But money.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Russia
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, psychological, sweet, captivating, independent film
Similar in 89%
The Tear of the Cold (2004)
Plot Summary:
During the Iran-Iraq war,a soldier and a Kurdish girl come to a new understanding of the notion of animosity despite their supposedly opposite circumstances.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 458
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Iran
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, islamic
Similar in 78%
Torn Apart (1990)
Plot Summary:
A Jew and an Arab in Israel become romantically involved, much to their family's dismay.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 197
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Israel, USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 78%
Under the Bombs (2007)
Plot Summary:
In the wake of Israel's 2006 bombardment of Lebanon, a determined woman finds her way into the country convincing a taxi driver to take a risky journey around the scarred region in search of her sister and her son.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: France, Lebanon, UK
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, touching, offbeat, islamic, crying
Similar in 82%
Missing Brendan (2003)
Plot Summary:
George takes a trip to Vietnam to find his missing son. George's son Bob and Bob's son Patrick accompany George on the trip. George's son, Brendan, has been Missing in Action since the Vietnam War. Julie, an archeologist, joined the search.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 141
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: emotional, touching, realistic, psychological, captivating, sincere, contemplative
Similar in 87%
A Journal for Jordan (2021)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of First Sergeant Charles Monroe King, a soldier deployed to Iraq begins to keep a journal of love and advice for his infant son. Back at home, senior New York Times editor Dana Canedy revisits the story of her unlikely, life-altering relationship with King and his enduring devotion to her and their child.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: romantic
Similar in 76%
Have Dreams, Will Travel (2007)
Plot Summary:
West Texas, in the 1960's. A tale of two 12-year-olds who embark on an adventure to find new parents in order to escape their unhappy and emotionally unsatisfying family life.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: road movie, touching, serious, realistic, psychological, psychological thriller
Similar in 75%
Swing Shift (1984)
Plot Summary:
In 1941 America Kay and her husband are happy enough until he enlists after Pearl Harbor. Against his wishes, his wife takes a job at the local aircraft plant where she meets Hazel, the singer from across the way the two soon become firm friends and with the other girls become increasingly expert workers. As the war drags on Kay finally dates her trumpet playing foreman and life gets complicated.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, emotional, touching, humorous, semi serious, period piece, realistic, sincere, crying, weeping
Similar in 76%
Marooned in Iraq (2002)
Plot Summary:
During the war between Iran and Iraq, a group of Iranian Kurd musicians set off on an almost impossible mission. They will try to find Hanareh, a singer with a magic voice who crossed the border and may now be in danger in the Iraqi Kurdistan. As in his previous films, this Kurdish director is again focusing on the oppression of his people.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Iran
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, sentimental, realistic, road movie, islamic
Similar in 83%
Missing in America (2005)
Plot Summary:
A haunted Vietnam veteran, living in exile in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, is faced with a life-changing decision after he is visited by a former platoon member and his young Amerasian daughter.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, touching, emotional, captivating, serious, contemplative, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 79%
The Messenger (2009)
Plot Summary:
Will Montgomery (Ben Foster), a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant who has returned home from Iraq, is assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. Montgomery is partnered with Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), to give notice to the families of fallen soldiers. The Sergeant is drawn to Olivia Pitterson (Samantha Morton), to whom he has delivered news of her husband’s death.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 36000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: touching, depressing, sincere, bleak, sad, psychological, realistic, epic, cult classic, powerful
Similar in 82%
Vernie (2004)
Plot Summary:
Drama - Sean, a young thirty-something coffee shop owner, is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He desperately wants to have a baby before he dies, and asks his best friend Kristy to bear his child. - John Riedlinger, Amy Colon, Patrick Coyle.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 46
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, uplifting, emotional, serious, realistic, crying
Similar in 87%
For a Lost Soldier (1992)
Plot Summary:
The story of a romantic relationship between a Canadian soldier and a child set in the Netherlands near the end of WWII. Told in flashback from the present day, the child, now a man, is still seeking his lost soldier.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, realistic, serious, contemplative, crying, queer cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 77%
American Son (2008)
Plot Summary:
The story of a young Marine, fresh from Camp Pendleton, who is forced to confront the complexities of adulthood and a volatile home life during a four-day Thanksgiving leave.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 913
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, contemplative, hispanic, independent film, crying
Similar in 80%
Pavilion of Women (2001)
Plot Summary:
With World War 2 looming, a prominent family in China must confront the contrasting ideas of traditionalism, communism and Western thinking, while dealing with the most important ideal of all: love and its meaning in society.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: China, USA
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: emotional, serious, realistic, tense, crying, intercultural
Similar in 89%
Life in a Year (2020)
Plot Summary:
A 17 year old finds out that his girlfriend is dying, so he sets out to give her an entire life, in the last year she has left.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, sentimental, romantic, clever, inspirational, deep, teen, romantic drama
Similar in 78%
A Touch of Fate (2003)
Plot Summary:
One night in a small town in North Carolina, fate brings together three lives: an entertainment lawyer returning home to his dying mother after years in escape of his past, a woman trying to reclaim her supposed love, and a boy with a penchant for the sixth sense who struggles with the death of his father and overbearing love of his single mother. When the past and future suddenly bind these people together on a journey of need, forgiveness and discovery, they realize they've gained something when they least expected it.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 216
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, independent film
Similar in 85%
Blackboards (2000)
Plot Summary:
Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Iran, Italy, Japan
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, touching, serious, educational, road movie, art house, islamic, offbeat, bleak
Similar in 87%
A Time for Drunken Horses (2000)
Plot Summary:
After their father dies, a family of five are forced to survive on their own in a Kurdish village on the border of Iran and Iraq. Matters are made worse when 12 year old Ayoub, the new head of the family, is told that his handicapped brother, Madi, needs an immediate operation in order to remain alive. This heartbreaking tale shows the lengths to which a family will go in order to survive in the harshest of conditions, where even the horses are fed liquor in order to work.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: realistic, bleak, meditative, emotional, harsh, sincere, rough, serious, inspirational, political
Similar in 80%
Taking Chance (2009)
Plot Summary:
Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, a volunteer military escort accompanies the body of Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps to his hometown in Wyoming.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, emotional, sincere, sentimental, sad, serious, harsh, christian film, motivational
Similar in 77%
Changing Hearts (2002)
Plot Summary:
Based on Daniel Wright's award-winning play "Colored Eggs", is a drama/comedy about life, loss and love among an eccentric group of characters whose lives intersect under less than ideal circumstances.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 500
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sentimental, semi serious, sincere, touching, realistic, romantic, independent film, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 77%
The Yellow Birds (2017)
Plot Summary:
Two young soldiers, Bartle and Murph, navigate the terrors of the Iraq war under the command of the older, troubled Sergeant Sterling. All the while, Bartle is tortured by a promise he made to Murph's mother before their deployment.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: tense, thought provoking, captivating, suspense, realistic, disturbing, sad
Similar in 85%
Turtles Can Fly (2004)
Plot Summary:
Turtles can fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iran border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 21000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Iran, France, Iraq
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: sincere, bleak, emotional, atmospheric, stylized, rough, heartbreaking, political, dramatic, realistic
Similar in 87%
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)
Plot Summary:
Free-spirited writer Juliet Ashton forms a life-changing bond with the delightful and eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when she decides to write about the book club they formed during the occupation of Guernsey in WWII.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 51000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: UK, France, USA
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: touching, romantic, uplifting, sincere, period piece, costume drama, feel good, sweet, historical drama, motivational
Similar in 76%
Fateless (2005)
Plot Summary:
An Hungarian youth comes of age at Buchenwald during World War II. György Köves is 14, the son of a merchant who's sent to a forced labor camp. After his father's departure, György gets a job at a brickyard; his bus is stopped and its Jewish occupants sent to camps. There, György find camaraderie, suffering, cruelty, illness, and death. He hears advice on preserving one's dignity and self-esteem. He discovers hatred. If he does survive and returns to Budapest, what will he find? What is natural; what is it to be a Jew? Sepia, black and white, and color alternate to shade the mood.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Hungary, Germany, UK, Israel, France, USA
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, disturbing, emotional, realistic, gloomy, retro, touching, educational, sad
Similar in 76%
Malena (2000)
Plot Summary:
On the day in 1940 that Italy enters the war, two things happen to the 12-year-old Renato: he gets his first bike, and he gets his first look at Malèna. She is a beautiful, silent outsider who's moved to this Sicilian town to be with her husband, Nico. He promptly goes off to war, leaving her to the lustful eyes of the men and the sharp tongues of the women. During the next few years, as Renato grows toward manhood, he watches Malèna suffer and prove her mettle. He sees her loneliness, then grief when Nico is reported dead, the effects of slander on her relationship with her father, her poverty and search for work, and final humiliations. Will Renato learn courage from Malèna and stand up for her?.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 110000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Italy, USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: erotic, sexy, sexual, melancholic, serious, touching, atmospheric, realistic, romantic, emotional