Best movies like Last Year at Marienbad

Similar in 84%

Red Desert (1964)

Plot Summary:

Amid the modern wastelands and toxic factories of Italy, wife and mother Giuliana (Monica Vitti) desperately tries to conceal her tenuous grip on reality from those around her, especially her successful yet neglectful husband, Ugo (Carlo Chionetti). Ugo's old pal, Corrado (Richard Harris), shows up in town on a business trip and is more sensitive to Giuliana's anxieties. They begin an affair, but it does little to quell Giuliana's existential fears, and her mental state rapidly deteriorates.

Similar in 75%

Muriel, or The Time of Return (1963)

Plot Summary:

A chamber drama about a widow and her son who live in an antique shop in Boulogne. The widow invites a man whom she loved twenty-two years earlier to visit. Her son is haunted by Muriel, a young woman whose death he may have caused while serving as a soldier in Algeria. As in Resnais' earlier films, memory is deflected, fragmented, enshrined, and imagined.

Similar in 81%

Teorema (1968)

Plot Summary:

A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger (Terence Stamp) arrives, makes love to every family member and then disappears. Each has an epiphany of sorts, but none can figure out who the seductive visitor was or why he came.

Similar in 88%

The Moustache (2005)

Plot Summary:

One day, on a whim, Marc decides to shave off the moustache he's worn all of his adult life. He waits patiently for his wife's reaction, but neither she nor his friends seem to notice. Stranger still, when he finally tells them, they all insist he never had a moustache. Is Marc going mad? Is he the victim of some elaborate conspiracy? Or has something in the world's order gone terribly awry?.

Similar in 82%

Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream That One Calls Human Life (1995)

Plot Summary:

Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?.

Similar in 87%

The Double Life of Veronique (1991)

Plot Summary:

Veronique is a beautiful young French woman who aspires to be a renowned singer; Weronika lives in Poland, has a similar career goal and looks identical to Veronique, though the two are not related. The film follows both women as they contend with the ups and downs of their individual lives, with Veronique embarking on an unusual romance with Alexandre Fabbri, a puppeteer who may be able to help her with her existential issues.

Similar in 89%

Nostalgia (1983)

Plot Summary:

The Russian poet Andrei Gorchakov, accompanied by guide and translator Eugenia, is traveling through Italy researching the life of an 18th-century Russian composer. In an ancient spa town, he meets the lunatic Domenico, who years earlier had imprisoned his own family in his house for seven years to save them from the evils of the world. Seeing some deep truth in Domenico's act, Andrei becomes drawn to him. In a series of dreams, the poet's nostalgia for his homeland and his longing for his wife, his ambivalent feelings for Eugenia and Italy, and his sense of kinship with Domenico become intertwined.

Similar in 81%

Three Colors: Blue (1993)

Plot Summary:

Julie is haunted by her grief after living through a tragic auto wreck that claimed the life of her composer husband and young daughter. Her initial reaction is to withdraw from her relationships, lock herself in her apartment and suppress her pain. But avoiding human interactions on the bustling streets of Paris proves impossible, and she eventually meets up with Olivier, an old friend who harbors a secret love for her, and who could draw her back to reality.

Similar in 80%

Paris, Texas (1984)

Plot Summary:

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.

Similar in 82%

Persona (1966)

Plot Summary:

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer. Alma eventually confesses her secrets to a seemingly sympathetic Elisabeth and finds that her own personality is being submerged into Elisabeth's persona.

Similar in 85%

The Trial (1962)

Plot Summary:

An unassuming office worker is arrested and stands trial, but he is never made aware of his charges.

Similar in 82%

Alphaville (1965)

Plot Summary:

An American private-eye, arrives in Alphaville, a futuristic city on another planet which is ruled by an evil scientist named Von Braun, who has outlawed love and self-expression.

Similar in 80%

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

Plot Summary:

An artist in crisis is haunted by nightmares from the past in Ingmar Bergman's only horror film, which takes place on a windy island. During "the hour of the wolf" - between midnight and dawn - he tells his wife about his most painful memories.

Similar in 89%

3 Women (1977)

Plot Summary:

An awkward young teen working at a spa becomes overly attached to her fellow worker, a lonely outcast. They hang out at a bar owned by a strange pregnant artist and her has-been cowboy husband. Amid emotional crises, the three woman steal and trade one another's personalities.

Similar in 79%

Eight and a Half (1963)

Plot Summary:

With 8 ½ Frederico Fellini leaves a self-portrait where dreams and reality are a mix. With help from a most excellent cast and unique scenery this self reflecting film is one of his master works.

Similar in 87%

Hidden (2005)

Plot Summary:

A married couple is terrorized by a series of videotapes planted on their front porch.

Similar in 78%

Solaris (1972)

Plot Summary:

A psychologist is sent to a space station orbiting a planet called Solaris to investigate the death of a doctor and the mental problems of cosmonauts on the station. He soon discovers that the water on the planet is a type of brain which brings out repressed memories and obsessions.

Similar in 85%

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Plot Summary:

In the early 1900s, Miranda attends a girls boarding school in Australia. One Valentine's Day, the school's typically strict headmistress treats the girls to a picnic field trip to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite rules against it, Miranda and several other girls venture off. It's not until the end of the day that the faculty realizes the girls and one of the teachers have disappeared mysteriously.

Similar in 88%

Innocence (2004)

Plot Summary:

A look inside an offbeat boarding school for young girls.

Similar in 79%

Spider (2002)

Plot Summary:

A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.

Similar in 77%

Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)

Plot Summary:

This story takes place in a small town on the Hungarian Plain. In a provincial town, which is surrounded with nothing else but frost. It is bitterly cold weather — without snow. Even in this bewildered cold hundreds of people are standing around the circus tent, which is put up in the main square, to see — as the outcome of their wait — the chief attraction, the stuffed carcass of a real whale. The people are coming from everywhere. From the neighboring settlings, even from quite far away parts of the country. They are following this clumsy monster as a dumb, faceless, rag-wearing crowd. This strange state of affairs — the appearance of the foreigners, the extreme frost — disturbs the order of the small town. Ambitious personages of the story feel they can take advantage of this situation. The tension growing to the unbearable is brought to explosion by the figure of the Prince, who is pretending facelessness. Even his mere appearance is enough to break loose destructive emotions.

Similar in 81%

Wings of Desire (1987)

Plot Summary:

Wings of Desire is Wim Wender’s artistically beautiful film about the lonely and immortal life of angels during a post-war Berlin. It’s a poetic journey from the perspective of the angels of which one falls in love with a living woman and wants to become a mortal human thus giving up his heavenly life. Filmed in black and white and with a feeling of celebrating life.

Similar in 90%

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Plot Summary:

After a car wreck on the winding Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesic, she and a perky Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality.

Similar in 85%

The Fountain (2006)

Plot Summary:

Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.

Similar in 77%

Donnie Darko (2001)

Plot Summary:

After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a large bunny rabbit that manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.

Similar in 77%

Upstream Color (2013)

Plot Summary:

A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the lifecycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.