Best movies like Lemon Tree
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defense minister and his wife move next door; the Secret Service orders the trees removed for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority (useless), Israeli army (dismissive), and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case; this older client attracts him. While the courts deliberate, the Israelis fence her trees and prohibit her from entering the grove. As the trees wither, the defense minister's wife and, separately, an Israeli journalist, look on Salma with sympathy. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Israel, Germany, France
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, sentimental, touching, contemplative, emotional, edutainment, informative, thought provoking, serious
Best tv shows and movies like Lemon Tree (2008):
Similar in 89%
In Syria (2017)
Plot Summary:
A mother attempts to keep her family safe as war rages and a sniper lies in wait outside her home.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Belgium, France, Lebanon
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: suspense, social, atmospheric, heartbreaking, emotional, compassionate, rough, thought provoking, sad, independent film
Similar in 90%
The Syrian Bride (2004)
Plot Summary:
In Majdal Shams, the largest Druze village in Golan Heights on the Israeli-Syrian border, the Druze bride Mona is engaged to get married with Tallel, a television comedian that works in the Revolution Studios in Damascus, Syria. They have never met each other because of the occupation of the area by Israel since 1967; when Mona moves to Syria, she will lose her undefined nationality and will never be allowed to return home. Mona's father Hammed is a political activist pro-Syria that is on probation by the Israeli government. His older son Hatten married a Russian woman eight years ago and was banished from Majdal Shams by the religious leaders and his father. His brother Marwan is a wolf trader that lives in Italy. His sister Amal has two teenager daughters and has the intention to join the university, but her marriage with Amin is in crisis. When the family gathers for Mona's wedding, an insane bureaucracy jeopardizes the ceremony.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France, Germany, Israel
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, sincere, emotional, islamic, uplifting, thought provoking, clever, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 76%
Free Zone (2005)
Plot Summary:
Rebecca, an American who has been living in Jerusalem for a few months now, has just broken off her engagement. She gets into a cab driven by Hanna, an Israeli. But Hanna is on her way to Jordan, to the Free Zone, to pick up a large of sum of money.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Israel, Belgium, France, Spain
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: road movie, serious, thought provoking, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, crying
Similar in 90%
Judith (1966)
Plot Summary:
A Jewish woman is recruited to help track down a German commander who was her former husband.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 451
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, Israel, USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 79%
Jaffa (2009)
Plot Summary:
In the city of Jaffa; a young girl plans to run away with her secret lover, when a tragedy forever changes the course of their lives.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 774
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Israel, France
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, emotional, realistic, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Kippur (2000)
Plot Summary:
The film takes place in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War in which Egypt and Syria launched attacks in Sinai and the Golan Heights. The story is told from the perspective of Israeli soldiers. We are led by Weinraub and his friend Ruso on a day that begins with quiet city streets, but ends with death, destruction and devastation of both body and mind. Various scenes are awash in the surreal, as Weinraub's head hangs out over a rescue helicopter's open door, watching with tranquil desperation as the earth passes beneath, the overpowering whir of the blades creating a hypnotic state. It is not a traditional blood, guts and glory film. There are no men in battle, only the rescue crew trying to pick up the broken pieces.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Israel, France
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: tense, disturbing, rough, serious, realistic, atmospheric, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 78%
David & Fatima (2008)
Plot Summary:
A retelling of Romeo and Juliet in Jerusalem involving a Palestinian woman and an Israeli man.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 231
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Land of Plenty (2004)
Plot Summary:
After living abroad, Lana returns to the United States, and finds that her uncle is a reclusive vagabond with psychic wounds from the Vietnam War.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, Germany, Canada
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, serious, realistic, road movie, multicultural, cult classic, contemplative, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 86%
Chasing Freedom (2004)
Plot Summary:
New York attorney Libby (Juliette Lewis) is a go-getter who won't let anyone stand in the way of her success. But when she accepts a pro bono case involving young Afghan dissident Meena (Layla Alizada), Libby finds her corporate dreams replaced by a growing sense of idealism. Seeking asylum in the United States after years of oppression under the Taliban, Meena desperately wants freedom, and Libby is her only hope. But can Libby deliver?.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 415
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, emotional, disturbing, inspirational, informative, sincere, thought provoking, serious, captivating
Similar in 89%
Salt of This Sea (2008)
Plot Summary:
Born in Brooklyn to Palestinian refugee parents, Soraya (Suheir Hammad) decides to journey to the country of her ancestry when she discovers that her grandfather's savings have been frozen in a Jaffa bank account since his 1948 exile. She soon finds, however, that her simple plan is a complicated undertaking -- and one that takes her farther from her comfort zone (both geographically and emotionally) than she'd imagined in this romantic drama.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Belgium, France, Spain, Switzerland
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, sincere, emotional, realistic, political, sad, islamic, contemplative
Similar in 79%
Inheritance (2012)
Plot Summary:
A Palestinian family living in the north of Galilee gathers to celebrate the wedding of one of their daughters, as war rages between Israel and Lebanon. Internal conflicts explode between the family - secrets are revealed and lies are unmasked. The battles between different family members become as merciless as the outside war once their father falls into a coma and inches toward death.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 148
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Israel
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 76%
The Hidden Half (2001)
Plot Summary:
An official is sent from his home in Tehran to hear the final appeal of a woman sentenced to death, a political prisoner. The official's wife of nearly 20 years, Fereshteh Samimi, writes him a letter to read when he reaches the hotel - the story of her student days during the revolution of 1978. We see the story in flashbacks as he reads: she leaves her province on scholarship, joins a Communist youth group, avoids arrest, and comes under the sway of a suave older man, Roozbeh Javid, a literary-magazine editor. As she tells her husband about the hidden half of her life, Fereshteh asks that he listen to the woman facing execution, a woman and therefore one of Iran's hidden half.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 866
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, serious, captivating, islamic, realistic, contemplative, intellectual
Similar in 85%
Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame (2007)
Plot Summary:
A young girl zealously wants to go to school and learn to read and write. Almost everywhere she is met with hostility or indifference. The only young boy who takes her to his school is thrown out by the teacher, because helping her prevented him from arriving in time. On her way home she and other girls are taken as prisoners by boys playing as Taliban fighters. They tear her school book to pieces and threaten to stone their female captives.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Iran, France, Afghanistan
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, thought provoking, emotional, realistic, gloomy, semi serious
Similar in 80%
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (2014)
Plot Summary:
The trial story of Viviane Amsalem's five year fight to obtain her divorce in front of the only legal authority competent for divorce cases in Israel, the Rabbinical Court.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel, France, Germany
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: serious, sincere, thought provoking, touching, social, art house, detective, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Amreeka (2009)
Plot Summary:
Eager to provide a better future for her son, Fadi (Melkar Muallem), divorcée Muna Farah (Nisreen Faour) leaves her Palestinian homeland and takes up residence in rural Illinois -- just in time to encounter the domestic repercussions of America's disastrous war in Iraq. Now, the duo must reinvent their lives with some help from Muna's sister, Raghda (Hiam Abbass), and brother-in-law, Nabeel (Yussuf Abu-Warda). Cherien Dabis writes and directs.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Kuwait, Jordan
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, sentimental, touching, serious, independent film, captivating, realistic, crying
Similar in 80%
Goodbye (2011)
Plot Summary:
Without her husband and without her lawyer’s licence, which has been withdrawn, Noora is left pregnant and alone in her apartment. Her attempt to leave Iran turns into a fight with male chauvinism. A personal, nerve-wracking and infuriating film by Rasoulof, who was himself convicted for his films in Iran. Goodbye is a sober, frightening portrait of a society that is stooping under the continual control and threats of its religious regime. Noora, a young, pregnant lawyer in Tehran whose husband has been sent to work in the desert because of his critical journalistic activities, continually faces opposition from the regime and decides to leave the country. That turns out to be very difficult. Because Rasoulof was already banned from making films, Goodbye was shot partly in secret in the winter of 2010/2011. The result is a disquieting film that makes impotence and the desire for freedom painfully tangible in all its simplicity.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 814
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, thought provoking, contemplative, islamic, bleak, interesting
Similar in 89%
The Other Son (2012)
Plot Summary:
Two men discover they were accidentally switched at birth.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 77%
The Attack (2012)
Plot Summary:
An Arab surgeon living in Tel Aviv discovers a dark secret about his wife in the aftermath of a suicide bombing.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, War
Country: Lebanon, France, Qatar, Belgium, Egypt
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, realistic, serious, suspenseful, touching, suspense, social, bleak
Similar in 87%
Un Dimanche à Kigali (2006)
Plot Summary:
In April 1994, the middle-aged Canadian journalist Bernard Valcourt is making a documentary in Kigali about AIDS. He secretly falls in love for the Tutsi waitress of his hotel Gentille, who is younger than him, in a period of violent racial conflicts. When the genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda begins, Bernard does not succeed in escaping with Gentille to Canada. When the genocide finishes in July 1994, Bernard returns to the chaotic Kigali seeking out Gentille in the middle of destruction and dead bodies. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 706
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Canada
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, emotional, political, bleak, captivating, realistic, contemplative, touching
Similar in 86%
Omagh (2004)
Plot Summary:
The movie starts at the 1998 bomb attack by the Real IRA at Omagh, Northern Ireland. The attack killed 31 people. Michael Gallagher one of the relatives of the victims starts an examination to bring the people responsible to court.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Ireland, UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, sincere, uplifting, bleak, crying, fake documentary
Similar in 84%
A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (2010)
Plot Summary:
Tai is 17 years old. Naim is 20. She's Israeli. He's Palestinian. She lives in Jerusalem. He lives in Gaza. They were born in a land of scorched earth, where fathers bury their children. They must endure an explosive situation that is not of their choosing at an age where young people are falling in love and taking their place in adult life. A bottle thrown in the sea and a correspondence by email nurture the slender hope that their relationship might give them the strength to confront this harsh reality to grapple with it, and thereby ever so slightly change it. Only 60 miles separate them but how many bombings, check-points, sleepless nights and bloodstained days stand between them?.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Israel, Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, thought provoking, touching, serious, realistic, emotional, contemplative
Similar in 90%
Inch'Allah (2012)
Plot Summary:
A Canadian doctor finds her sympathies sorely tested while working in the conflict ravaged Palestinian territories.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, realistic, serious, emotional, disturbing, psychological, captivating, bleak, gloomy, extraordinary
Similar in 86%
Private (2004)
Plot Summary:
A Palestinian family is trapped inside a house commandeered by Israeli soldiers.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 922
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, suspenseful, disturbing, tense, sincere, thought provoking, bleak, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 89%
Live from Baghdad (2002)
Plot Summary:
A group of CNN reporters wrestle with journalistic ethics and the life-and-death perils of reporting during the Gulf War.A Directors Guild Award-winning movie for director Mick Jackson, starring Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham Carter. In 1990, CNN was a 24-hour news network in search of a 24-hour story. They were about to find it in Baghdad. Veteran CNN producer Robert Wiener and his longtime producing partner Ingrid Formanek find themselves in Iraq on the eve of war. Up against the big three networks, Weiner and his team are rebels with a cause, willing to take risks to get the biggest stories and - unlike their rivals - take them live at a moment's notice. As Baghdad becomes an inevitable US target, one by one the networks pull out of the city until only the crew from CNN remains. With a full-scale war soon to be launched all around them, and CNN ready to broadcast whatever happens 24 hours a day, Wiener and Formanek are about to risk their lives for the story of a lifetime.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: serious, disturbing, sincere, emotional, realistic, cult classic, talky
Similar in 76%
Hidden Children (2004)
Plot Summary:
This is a true story about forty Jewish children on their way to Palestine, who were blocked by the German and Italian occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941. Before finding a haven at Villa Emma in Nonantola in northern Italy, where they arrived on June 17, 1942, the children spent several adventurous months in Slovenia, caught up in the ongoing fight between the partisans and the Italian army. In April 1943, another 33 children, some from the Balkans, others from France, joined the original group. All were orphans who had lost their parents in concentration camps and had subsequently been smuggled out of Germany by Recha Freier, a well-known Zionist. The group ranged in age from six to twenty one and settled in at Villa Emma with their chaperones and teachers, Josef Indig, Marco Schoky and the pianist Boris Jochverdson.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 112
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 200 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, sentimental, emotional, bleak, serious, realistic, road movie
Similar in 76%
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Plot Summary:
In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 83000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 179 min
Plot tags: political, black and white, emotional, suspenseful, disturbing, sincere, tense, realistic, talky, philosophical
Similar in 76%
Miral (2010)
Plot Summary:
A drama centered on an orphaned Palestinian girl growing up in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli war who finds herself drawn into the conflict.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: France, Israel, Italy, India, USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: realistic, sentimental, emotional, stylized, inspirational, breathtaking, serious, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 85%
My Father My Lord (2007)
Plot Summary:
"My Father My Lord" is an intimate and deeply disturbing story of the conflict between a father's love and his deep devotion to religion. A respected Orthodox Rabbi dotes on his only son but his religious strictures leave an emotional gap between the impish child and the stern father. When the father's all-consuming obsession with observing religious ritual inadvertently leads to tragedy, his previously subservient wife rages against both her husband and God. A dramatic retelling of the story of Abraham.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 492
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, emotional, captivating, sad, thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 85%
Rosenstrasse (2003)
Plot Summary:
When Ruth's husband dies in New York, in 2000, she imposes strict Jewish mourning, which puzzles her children. A stranger comes to the house - Ruth's cousin - with a picture of Ruth, age 8, in Berlin, with a woman the cousin says helped Ruth escape. Hannah, Ruth's daughter engaged to a gentile, goes to Berlin to find the woman, Lena Fisher, now 90. Posing as a journalist investigating intermarriage, Hannah interviews Lena who tells the story of a week in 1943 when the Jewish husbands of Aryan women were detained in a building on Rosenstrasse. The women gather daily for word of their husbands. The film goes back and forth to tell Ruth and Lena's story. How will it affect Hannah?.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany, Netherlands
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 82%
Paradise Now (2005)
Plot Summary:
Paradise Now is filmed from the perspective of two Palestinian men who are preparing to perform a suicide attack in Israel. This is the first film to deal with the subject of suicide bombers.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 24000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller, War
Country: Netherlands, Israel, Germany, France
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: disturbing, bleak, thought provoking, controversial, depressing, political, rough, dramatic, intense, realistic