Best movies like Life on a String
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Two blind men pursue ephemeral and unlikely hopes. One is an aged master, a wandering troubador venerated as a saint, in physical decline, waiting to break his 1,000th banjo string, an event his own master promised years before would bring him sight. The other is his apprentice, Shidou, who longs for a woman's love and is enchanted with the radiant and spirited Lanxiu. The two men are encamped outside Lanxiu's village, the saint using his energy and voice to bring peace between warring factions. Does sight await the saint when the 1000th string breaks? Can Shidou's strength of character overcome provincial prejudice to win the hand of Lanxiu and a place in the village?.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 698
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance, War
Country: China, Germany, UK
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: road movie, spiritual, art film, atmospheric, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, crying, fable
Best tv shows and movies like Life on a String (1991):
Similar in 81%
Be with Me (2005)
Plot Summary:
"Be with me" consists of three stories of love vs. solitude: 1)An aging, lonesome shopkeeper doesn't believe in life any more since his wife died. But he is saved from desperation by reading an autobiographical book and meeting its author, a deaf and blind lady of his own age. 2) Fatty, a security guard in his fifties, lives for two things: good food and love for a pretty executive living in his block of flats. But, if it is easy to satisfy his first need winning the heart of the distant belle is a horse of another color. 3) Two teenage schoolgirls get to know each other on the Internet. Soon they fall in love.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Singapore
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, realistic, semi serious, anthology, crying, independent film, humorous, contemplative
Similar in 83%
Brother of Sleep (1995)
Plot Summary:
Schlafes Bruder tells the story a few exceptionally talented individuals who grew up in a remote mountain town in the Alps. The film, based on an internationally successful novel by Robert Schneider of the same name, depicts the slow withering of their unique skills.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: Germany
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: psychological, melancholic, disturbing, enigmatic, sexual, sentimental, aesthetic, tense, atmospheric, serious
Similar in 87%
Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker (1994)
Plot Summary:
A woman inherits her father's fireworks factory, as he had no son. The business does well and everything works in an orderly fashion until one day, an itinerant painter is hired to decorate the doors and vases at the factory. The woman, forbidden to marry and thereby involve outsiders in the factory ownership, finds herself drawn to the headstrong painter. When they fall in love, the situation throws her entire life into disarray.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 505
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: China, Hong Kong
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, romantic, sexy, thought provoking, clever, intellectual, enigmatic, depressing, emotional
Similar in 82%
Tears in the Rain (1988)
Plot Summary:
When Casey Cantrell's mother died, her last wish was that her daughter would give a letter to Lord Richard Bredon, living in the UK. When Casey arrives in London, Lord Bredon denies ever having known her mother. Casey meets Lord Bredon's son Michael and both fall in love. When Lord Bredon realizes this new relationship he gets really angry, assuming Casey wants to blackmail his family somehow, and begins to investigate her background. The plot heightens dramatically when it appears that an event from the past might part the lovers.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 670
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: UK
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 82%
Springtime in a Small Town (2002)
Plot Summary:
In a mansion decimated during World War II, a frustrated, bored housewife, Yuwen, is torn between caring for her ailing husband and her longing for a former sweetheart, a doctor who has come to treat her husband.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: China, Hong Kong, France, Netherlands
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: sentimental, thought provoking, serious, emotional, realistic, stylized, touching, contemplative, gloomy, crying
Similar in 80%
The Razor's Edge (1984)
Plot Summary:
He had everything and wanted nothing. He learned that he had nothing and wanted everything. He saved the world and then it shattered. The path to enlightenment is as sharp and narrow as a razor's edge.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: philosophical, touching, spiritual, epic, psychological, tense, thought provoking, clever, serious, realistic
Similar in 86%
The Scent of Green Papaya (1993)
Plot Summary:
A little girl, Mui, went to a house as a new servant. The mother still mourns the death of her daughter, who would have been Mui's age. In her mind she treated Mui as her daughter. 10 years later Mui (now a young woman) was sent to another family, a young pianist and his wife. The musician falls in love with the peasant, he taught her literacy and they eventually married. A movie about a girl's life.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: France, Vietnam
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: erotic, inspirational, retro, independent film, poetic, aesthetic, sincere, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 75%
The Drummer (2007)
Plot Summary:
When Sid insults a powerful triad boss, his father sends him to Taiwan for safety. Bored and restless, he discovers a community of Zen drummers high in the hills, and joins up - a decision inspired by a pretty face that soon becomes a challenge.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 911
Genere: Crime, Drama, Music, Romance
Country: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Germany
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: psychological, sentimental, realistic, contemplative, atmospheric, captivating, sincere, uplifting, serious, stylized
Similar in 87%
The Wind Journeys (2009)
Plot Summary:
Ignacio Carrillo (Marciano Martínez) is a vallenato singer from Majagual, Sucre, who decides, after his wife's sudden death, to stop playing and return his accordion, which is said to be cursed, to his master. He is joined by Fermín Morales (Yull Núñez), a teenage boy who admires Ignacio and wishes to become a juglar like him. Carrillo reluctantly accepts, given his loneliness. On Ash Wednesday 1968, Carrillo, Morales and their donkey start a journey throughout several towns in the Caribbean region in Northern Colombia, until Taroa (a small caserío in Uribia jurisdiction), in La Guajira desert, where Carrillo's maestro supposedly lives. During their journey, Carrillo participates in the first version of the Vallenato Legend Festival in Valledupar.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Colombia, Germany, Argentina, Netherlands
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, sincere, serious, road movie
Similar in 87%
A Song from the Heart (1999)
Plot Summary:
This poignant love story stars Amy Grant as a beautiful, blind concert cellist who falls for a famous, self-centered pianist but doesn't realize that true love is right before her eyes.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 352
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: touching, feel good, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
Similar in 85%
Frankie Starlight (1995)
Plot Summary:
The quirky story of a young boy's adventures growing up with his stunningly beautiful mother and the two very different men who love her.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 926
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Ireland, UK, France, USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: talky, serious, psychological, touching, realistic, cult classic, independent film, crying, fairy tale, sentimental
Similar in 86%
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 78%
Bandage (2010)
Plot Summary:
Set in Japan in the early 1990s, there's one rising band called LANDS, that is starting to find success amidst a flood of other bands. Asako and Miharu are two Tokyo high school students. When Miharu gives Asako her favorite indie rock band; a LANDS CD, she becomes an overnight fan and sets her heart on the talented guitarist Yukiya. LANDS was formed among friends, but as the band begins to climb the ladder towards major stardom, they get in touch with the dark side of the music industry, discord surfaces, inevitable frictions emerge, and unrequited love strains their friendship, threatening to pull their bonds apart.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 467
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: Japan
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, serious, emotional, romantic, independent film
Similar in 88%
One Love (2003)
Plot Summary:
Kassa a free-wheelin rasta man, falls for a straight laced gospel singer Serena, when they both meet as they enter a music contest. Serena's father the pastor forbids her to see him and wants her to marry one of his church members. Meanwhile the record boss organizing the contest, tries to get Kassa's band to sign to his label on his terms not theirs. By using heavy tactics, he pushes the band to fight back.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 436
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: Jamaica, Norway, UK
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, captivating, emotional, realistic, touching, serious, stylized
Similar in 87%
A Heart of Stone (1992)
Plot Summary:
Beautiful violin virtuoso Camille has two obsessions: the music of Ravel, and a friend of her husband's who crafts violins. But his heart seems to be as cold as her playing is passionate.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: psychological, heartbreaking, sincere, thought provoking, touching, anthology, art house, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 85%
Lovers of the Arctic Circle (1998)
Plot Summary:
Otto and Ana are kids when they meet each other. Their names are palindromes. They meet by chance, people are related by chance. A story of circular lives, with circular names, and a circular place (Círculo polar) where the day never ends in the midnight sun. There are things that never end, and Love is one of them.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 20000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Romance
Country: Spain, France
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: heartbreaking, philosophical, melancholic, art house, cerebral, sentimental, clever, touching, non-linear, erotic
Similar in 76%
The Accompanist (1992)
Plot Summary:
In Nazi-occupied Paris, a young accompanist named Sophie Vasseur gets a job with famed singer Irene Brice. As Irene's husband Charles, a businessman collaborating with the Nazis, wrestles with his conscience, Sophie becomes obsessed with Irene, taking on the role of maid as well as accompanist, living life vicariously through Irene's triumphs and affairs.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 982
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance, War
Country: France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, serious, realistic, crying
Similar in 82%
Yellow Earth (1984)
Plot Summary:
Yellow earth focuses on the story of a Communist soldier who is sent to the countryside to collect folk songs for the Communist Revolution. There he stays with a peasant family and learns that the happy songs he was sent to collect do not exist; the songs he finds are about hardship and suffering. He returns to the Army, but promises to come back for the young girl, Cuiqiao, who has been spellbound by his talk of the freedom women have under Communist rule and who wants to join the Communist Army.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History, Music, Romance
Country: China
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: political, sentimental, atmospheric, thought provoking, serious, realistic, stylized, gloomy, independent film, interesting
Similar in 77%
The White Countess (2005)
Plot Summary:
The last movie from the team of Ismail Merchant, James Ivory, and Kazuo Ishiguro. Set in 1930s Shanghai, "The White Countess" is both Sofia (Natasha Richardson), a fallen member of the Russian aristocracy, and a nightclub created by a blind American diplomat named Jackson (Ralph Fiennes), who asks Sofia to be the centerpiece of the world he wants to create.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance, War
Country: UK, Germany, China, USA
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: romantic, sentimental, emotional, atmospheric, period piece, costume drama, touching, lyrical, romantic drama, sincere
Similar in 78%
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 78%
Preacher's Kid (2010)
Plot Summary:
Small-town girl Angie King leaves the church and her home to pursue a dream of singing stardom. Luckett plays Angie, the daughter of a stern but loving bishop, whose attraction to the hunky star (Tank) of a traveling gospel show takes her on the road…and into romance, heartbreak and the realization that happiness may lie in the home she left behind.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 865
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, christian film, independent film
Similar in 77%
Listen to Your Heart (2010)
Plot Summary:
Danny Foster doesn't have much: an apartment as small as his paychecks, no family, and a struggling music career. Yet for him, "every day is a great day to be alive," an attitude he gained from his mother's unwavering optimism during her losing battle with cancer. It's love at first sight when Danny meets Ariana, a wealthy girl from Greenwich, CT who tragically cannot hear the music she inspires him to write. Ariana, hearing impaired since childhood, is torn between hanging onto the shelter her controlling mother provides and fighting for a love that, if given the chance, might just change her life.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, romantic, heartbreaking, emotional, sad, cute, indie film
Similar in 85%
Onegin (1999)
Plot Summary:
In the opulent St. Petersburg of the Empire period, Eugene Onegin is a jaded but dashing aristocrat - a man often lacking in empathy, who suffers from restlessness, melancholy and, finally, regret. Through his best friend Lensky, Onegin is introduced to the young Tatiana. A passionate and virtuous girl, she soon falls hopelessly under the spell of the aloof newcomer and professes her love for him.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, period piece, romantic, costume drama, romantic drama, realistic, art house, historical romance, contemplative, clever
Similar in 75%
Zelary (2003)
Plot Summary:
A nurse and her surgeon-lover are part of a resistance movement in 1940s Czechoslovakia. When they are discovered, her lover flees and she must find a place to hide. A patient whose life she saved, a man from a remote mountain village where time stopped 150 years ago, agrees to hide her as his wife.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, realistic, sincere, contemplative, epic, mysterious, serious, sentimental, romantic
Similar in 81%
Under the Hawthorn Tree (2010)
Plot Summary:
The daughter of a right-winger, schoolgirl Jing Qiu (Zhou Dong-Yu) is sent to the countryside for reeducation, and tasked to help write a textbook. There she meets Lao San (Shawn Dou), a young soldier with a bright future ahead. Despite the class divide and parental disapproval, romance blooms against turbulent times.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: China
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, sincere, realistic, romantic, serious, emotional
Similar in 79%
Nobody's Daughter Haewon (2013)
Plot Summary:
Haewon, a college student, wants to end her secret affair with her professor, Seongjun. Feeling depressed after bidding farewell to her mother who is set to immigrate to Canada the next day, Haewon seeks out Seongjun again after a long time. That day, they run into her classmates at a restaurant and their relationship gets revealed. Haewon gets more agitated and Seongjun makes an extreme suggestion to run away together… Haewon dreams often. Her dreams will be compared to her waking life, but none can be denied as being a part of her life.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: South Korea
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, touching, serious, psychological, sexy, sincere, thought provoking, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Together (2002)
Plot Summary:
When a violin prodigy Xiaochun and his father head to Beijing seeking fame and fortune, they soon discover a fierce world of cutthroat ambition. But when Xiaochun is "adopted" by a famous music tutor, success finally seems within reach - until a shocking discovery begins to unravel his entire world, and the boy must make the most difficult choice of his life. Can he achieve the fame his father had always hoped for without losing the extraordinary passion that sets him apart?.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: China, South Korea
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, emotional, stylized, uplifting, atmospheric, sincere, depressing, sad, feel good
Similar in 90%
Talk of Angels (1998)
Plot Summary:
This is the story of a young Irish woman who comes to Spain to escape from the pressures she feels about her impending marriage to a political activist in Ireland. But in Spain in the 1930's, taking a job of governess in a wealthy family, she finds the same kinds of political unrest. In fact, it isn't long before she finds herself attracted to a married man who is similarly involved in the struggle against fascism and Franco. This awakens her to her nature that brings her to such men and resolves for her what she must do about the life she left in Ireland.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 893
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sentimental, disturbing, independent film
Similar in 90%
Farewell My Concubine (1992)
Plot Summary:
Abandoned by his prostitute mother in 1920, Douzi was raised by a theater troupe. There he meets Shitou and over the following years the two develop an act entitled, "Farewell My Concubine," that brings them fame and fortune. When Shitou marries Juxian, Doutzi becomes jealous, the beginnings of the acting duo's explosive breakup and tragic fall take root.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 32000
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: China, Hong Kong
Duration: 171 min
Plot tags: visual, epic, visually stunning, atmospheric, emotional, realistic, stylized, depressing, controversial, retro
Similar in 78%
The Sea Is Watching (2002)
Plot Summary:
Based on Akira Kurosawa's final unproduced script, this Edo-period drama takes place almost entirely inside an ocean-village brothel. O-Shin is a young brothel worker who one night helps a young samurai escape from his pursuers. Against the warnings of her fellow workers, particularly Kikuno and the brothel's owner, O-Shin falls in love with the samurai.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Romance, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: sentimental, serious, realistic, touching, captivating, contemplative, gloomy, jidai geki