Best movies like Karnak Cafe
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In one of their best roles ever, distinguished actors Nour Al Sherif and Souad Hosni star in this film depicting the unstable social and political life in Egypt during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film revolved around a group of university students whose lives are turned upside down because of their talks about the political instability in Egypt at the time.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 721
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: political, iconic
Best tv shows and movies like Karnak Cafe (1975):
Similar in 89%
The Penal Colony (1970)
Plot Summary:
A foreign journalist arrives on a small Pacific island 200 miles off the coast of South America. Once a leper colony, the island was later transformed into a prison and then, under U.N. mandate, made into an independent republic. Yet despite democratic structures, the inhabitants--who speak a strange dialect composed of Spanish and English--still obey the old prison rules. After sending back detailed accounts of the torture and repression seen everywhere, the journalist realizes that she"s fallen into the trap created for her by the islanders: lacking natural resources, the island"s main export is news. The clearest anticipation of Ruiz"s later European work, The Penal Colony is a powerful document of the tensions and contradictions in Chile in the months before Allende"s electoral victory.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 70
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Occasional Work of a Female Slave (1973)
Plot Summary:
Roswitha runs an illegal abortion clinic in Frankfurt to support her student husband and children. When she is forced to close her practice she delves into political and social activism.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 332
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: disturbing
Similar in 76%
Adrift on the Nile (1971)
Plot Summary:
Set against the backdrop of the 1967 Six-Day War, the movie adaptation of Naguib Mahfouz's novel follows the escapist, drug-fuelled riverboat meetings of a group of frustrated Egyptians from various walks of life.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 750
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: iconic
Similar in 80%
The Second Wife (1967)
Plot Summary:
A story in the Egyptian countryside about an unjust mayor who controls everything in the village with his power.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 935
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Body of Love (1973)
Plot Summary:
An estranged father and son on holiday bond over the beautiful foreign girl they find unconscious on the beach.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 70
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
The House Between the Fields (1980)
Plot Summary:
Fresh out of university, agricultural engineer Voica Teodorescu returns to her native village where she joins a local team of engineers in the planning of a dam and an irrigation mega project.Although Voica is engaged to be married to Ilarie she also is romantically attracted to local engineer Radu. Radu doesn't agree with local boss Vasile Axente's management style and deems Vasile incompetent.Therefore, Radu tries to form an alliance with the village vice-mayor Dumitru Vardaru but when a large sum of money from the public works budget goes missing Radu is investigated by authorities for embezzlement of public funds.His relationship with Voica and the villagers gets sourly tested.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 86
Genere: Drama
Country: Romania
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Noura's Dream (2019)
Plot Summary:
With her abusive husband in jail and a coveted divorce pending, hardworking Noura can almost grasp a happy, new life with lover Lassaad — but when the best-laid plans are upended, Noura must tap her unshakable will to fulfill her dream.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 445
Genere: Drama
Country: Tunisia, Belgium, France, Qatar, Netherlands
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Golden Horseshoes (1989)
Plot Summary:
Youssef Soltane, a 45-year-old Tunisian intellectual, is the product of a generation that lived the era of euphoria and great ideologies in the sixties, and their subsequent failure. He was incarcerated and tortured for his political opinions. Furthermore, his relationship with Zineb, a young, beautiful bourgeois, only brings him more trouble. During one long winter night, Youssef wanders in search of an emotional haven, prey to all the questions that flood his memory.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 46
Genere: Drama
Country: Tunisia, France
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Wife of an Important Man (1987)
Plot Summary:
The story of the rise and fall of an Egyptian police officer, during the regime of President Anwar El Sadat.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
The World of Yesterday (2022)
Plot Summary:
A moral tale and a political thriller: a few days before the term of her mandate, the President must make a major decision concerning the destiny of France.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 339
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Requiem for Dominic (1990)
Plot Summary:
Requiem for Dominic powerfully portrayed the upheaval in that liminal space between revolution and order. This drama is captured partly on film, partly on video adding to the gritty reality of the time, place and events as they were unfolding in Eastern Europe as the "Iron Curtain" collapsed.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 88
Genere: Drama
Country: Austria, Germany, Romania
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
Home Coming (2006)
Plot Summary:
September 1980. Mustafa 'Mehmet Ali Alabora' and his wife, who're both laborers are married for 5 years. The couple has nothing to do with politics and spend their days happily with their 3 year old daughter and their TV, despite the clamor of guns clashing outside every night. One Friday morning, they wake up and hear the voice of Hasan Mutlucan on radio and observe soldiers marching through the streets, the very confirmation of the military coup that has taken place. Arrests begin instantly in workplace and neighborhood. Yet Mustafa, far from being disturbed, assumes that all apprehensions must have rightful reasons. Until the night he's taken into custody, charged with the crimes of a militant code named "Sehmuz".
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Greece
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: art house
Similar in 85%
After Midnight (1981)
Plot Summary:
The Political drama shows the denunciation and persecution of the 19-year-old Sanne in the Nazi state. After she falls in love with her cousin, Sanne is betrayed by her jealous aunt to the Gestapo.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 55
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: political
Similar in 90%
The Flowers of Kirkuk (2010)
Plot Summary:
Cruel politics and intensive love. Najla (N) has just finished her medical studies in Rome. Sherko (S) conceals sick and injured partisans. Mokhtar (M) belongs to the dictator's police. S and M love N, N loves S. When she gets a letter from S that she must forget him, she returns to Kirkuk. As a doctor she can help S. Mokhtar follows her trail and S and N are arrested. S is tortured. N is beaten up and then offered the job as a police doctor, a reward for leading the police to S. She accepts because then she can collect and pass on the names of people murdered or tortured. She will attend many mass murders of women and children. Once she can save them by fabricating that a child has cholera, with greater risk of contamination if she is dead. – When M understands that he cannot win N's love, he smuggles both N and S out of the country. Fully aware of the consequences he distracts the border guards and is shot by them. Max Scharnberg, Stockholm, Sweden.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 202
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Switzerland, Iraq
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: islamic
Similar in 77%
Happy Day (1976)
Plot Summary:
A concentration camp on a barren island is hell for the exiled prisoners. The everyday life of the people who live there consists of interrogations, psychological and physical violence, arbitrary punishments and other torments. One of the prisoners who refuses to yield is subjected to torture. Trying to escape, he falls into the sea. When the Queen visits the island, the prison guards find the runaway and murder him without a second thought, since he is already assumed dead.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 290
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: absurd, allegory
Similar in 87%
Life Is Beautiful (1979)
Plot Summary:
A politically neutral man is arrested and tortured in prerevolutionary Lisbon, and forced to make, and act on, a political commitment. ….
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 185
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union, Italy
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: political
Similar in 76%
Those People of the Nile (1972)
Plot Summary:
The construction of the Aswan dam as seen by those who took part in it: engineers and workers, Egyptians and Soviets. Beginning with the day the waters of the Nile were diverted, Chahine shows how individual concerns sometimes outweigh the myth surrounding a collective undertaking. The first Egyptian-Soviet co-production was shown to its two sponsor governments in 1968, inspiring considerable displeasure. Re-editing was demanded; along with newly shot sequences using actors. Consequently, the film was not shown until 1972.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 101
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt, Soviet Union
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation (2007)
Plot Summary:
Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation is a 2007 epic film on the Namibian independence struggle against South African occupation as seen through the life of Sam Nujoma, the leader of the South-West Africa People's Organisation and the first president of the Republic of Namibia.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 103
Genere: Drama
Country: Namibia
Duration: 161 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Lessons at the End of Spring (1991)
Plot Summary:
A young boy loses his innocence in a pre-perestroika Russian prison during the chaotic last months of the Khrushchev regime.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 153
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Nightmares (1979)
Plot Summary:
Set before the first Wold War in part of Poland under Austrain occupation, the story of a young boy in primary school who later grows up to become a rebellious, poetic-minded teen in the same school when the national movement toward liberation is under way. The story of a country where church amd state work together to suppress the human spirit.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 288
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: intellectual, political
Similar in 85%
The Yacoubian Building (2006)
Plot Summary:
Cairo: a 70-year-old building of once-luxury flats with tenements on the roof. Zika, an aging libertine, feuds with his sister. Pius Haj Azzam takes a second wife, in secret, to satisfy sexual drive within religious bounds. Bothayna, poor and beautiful, supports her family, wanting to do so with dignity intact. Her former fiancé, Taha, the janitor's son, humiliated by the police, turns to fundamentalism. Hatem, a gay editor, seduces and corrupts a young man from the sticks. Two brothers, Copts, one a tailor and one Zika's factotum, connive for property. Allah is on most everyone's lips, and corruption is in their hearts.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt, France
Duration: 165 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, serious, realistic, sad, multicultural, islamic, iconic
Similar in 89%
Consent: The Louise Nicholas Story (2014)
Plot Summary:
Based on the best-selling book 'My Story' this feature length drama goes beyond the headlines to tell an intimate story about secrets and one woman's struggle to have them heard. In 1993 Louise Nicholas made her first shocking accusations about being raped by policemen. Some believed her, many didn't. CONSENT tells the story of the senior policeman who went to great lengths to help her fight her case, the journalist who exposed the truth, and the family at the center of the storm.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 79
Genere: Drama
Country: New Zealand
Duration:
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
One Man's War (1991)
Plot Summary:
Anthony Hopkins plays an English medical doctor living with his family in Paraguay and treating the poor people from the surroundings, who has his life turned upside down when his son was mysteriously murdered in what could have been an attack to him since he's opposed to the military dictatorship of the country. The doctor and his family will take lots of risk while trying to prove that the government was involved in the murder.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 274
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Mexico
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: political drama
Similar in 76%
1921 (2021)
Plot Summary:
Tells the story of a Communist Party's early history during the turbulent era, examining the remarkable Chinese revolutionary leaders' zeal and contrition for the ascension of the Chinese people.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 375
Genere: Drama
Country: China
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 76%
Alexandria... Why? (1979)
Plot Summary:
Set against the panoramic backdrop of war-torn Egypt, director Youssef Chahine tells a highly personal tale of love and determination. Amid the poverty, death and suffering caused by World War II, 18 year-old Yehia, retreats into a private world of fantasy and longing. Obsessed with Hollywood, he dreams of one day studying filmmaking in America, but after falling in love and discovering the lies of European occupation, Yehia profoundly reevaluates his identity and allegiances.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt, Algeria
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: semi autobiographical, psychological, serious, captivating, realistic, crying
Similar in 77%
Communists (2014)
Plot Summary:
Jean-Marie Straub pushes this musicality of blocks to a paroxysmal extreme, mixing blocks of time (40 years separate the various extracts that are going to be used, and what is to be filmed), blocks of text (Malraux, Fortini, Vittorini, Hölderlin) and blocks of language (French, Italian, German), and from this ruckus emerges the history of the world, yes, History with a capital H, and from the same movement, the political hope of its being overtaken. So this is an adventure film, about the Human adventure, still one that is always, in the end, overtaken by Nature. (Arnaud Dommerc).
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Switzerland
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: experimental, thought provoking, atmospheric, serious, realistic, political
Similar in 89%
Almost Brothers (2004)
Plot Summary:
The strange friendship between two men of opposite social classes. Miguel is a senator. His childhood friend Jorge is a major drug-dealer. In the 1970s, they meet in prison: Miguel was there for political reasons, and Jorge, as a common criminal.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 645
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil, Chile, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspense, captivating, entertaining
Similar in 76%
Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story (2009)
Plot Summary:
A female talk show host in Cairo, Egypt, stirs up a political controversy when she focuses her on-air discussions on the topic of women's issues.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, realistic, serious, tense, touching, islamic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Bless You, Prison (2002)
Plot Summary:
Based on Nicole Valery-Grossu's European best seller autobiographic novel "Bless you, prison", the film is a true story, with real events and characters. A young intellectual woman, Nicole is arrested. There follow three months of exhausting interrogation and isolation. Alone in a cell, she undergoes a spiritual experience similar to that of the great mystics.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 543
Genere: Drama
Country: Romania
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: uplifting, thought provoking, disturbing, captivating, bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
Attica (1980)
Plot Summary:
A behind the scenes look of the 1971 prisoners revolt at the Attica prison.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 526
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: political, rough, thought provoking, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, tension, suspense