Best movies like Man of Iron
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In Warsaw in 1980, the Communist Party sends Winkel, a weak, alcoholic TV hack, to Gdansk to dig up dirt on the shipyard strikers, particularly on Maciek Tomczyk, an articulate worker whose father was killed in the December 1970 protests. Posing as sympathetic, Winkel interviews the people surrounding Tomczyk, including his detained wife, Agnieszka.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Poland
Duration: 156 min
Plot tags: political, thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative, crying
Best tv shows and movies like Man of Iron (1981):
Similar in 79%
Death as a Slice of Bread (1994)
Plot Summary:
The violence and high drama of this film is taken directly from recent Polish history. On December 13, 1981 national security forces swoop down on unsuspecting workers of the Wujek mine and arrest a Solidarity leader. Pushed to the limits, the miners call a massive strike, which is specifically forbidden under the martial law. A battle between the heavily armed police and the outnumbered miners ensues, and nine miners are killed.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 249
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Poland
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Mother (1990)
Plot Summary:
The social ferment in late 19th century Russia which led to the 1917 Russian Revolution is movingly portrayed in this lengthy historical drama, which is very faithful to the 1907 novel The Mother by the celebrated Marxist writer Maxim Gorky (1868-1936). In the story, "the mother" (Inna Tchourikova) has no other recourse than to watch her decent, kindly husband turn into an animalistic, drunken brute as a result of working in the inhuman conditions of a steel mill in the town of Sormovo. When he begins to express his suppressed rage by beating her, she is defended by her teenaged son Pavel (depicted Viktor Rakov as an adult, Sacha Chichonok as a boy). After his father's death, Pavel is forced to go to work in the same factory. However, Pavel and his friends begin investigating Marxism and socialist thought, and work to organize their fellow workers.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 186
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Soviet Union, Italy
Duration: 200 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
80 Millions (2011)
Plot Summary:
A movie about the power of thousands, the courage of hundreds and friendship of a few, thanks to whom a change of fate of millions became possible. Poland, lower Silesia, the beginning of a very cold winter 1981. After a series of entrapments by the security service a confrontation between the opposition and the communists seems to be inevitable. Just before the proclamation of martial law a group of young solidarity activists decide to play va banque and organize a rash action to take out 80 million of the union money from one of the Wroclaw’s banks before the account is blocked. Security service officers follow their steps. It’s the beginning of a gripping tournament in which also priests and curb dealers will play their parts. Each side has aces up their sleeve.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 978
Genere: Action, Drama, History
Country: Poland
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, tension, political, suspense
Similar in 76%
Man of Marble (1977)
Plot Summary:
Man of Marble is a Polish film about a student making a film about a bricklayer who was once idolized. She interviews people who knew him and finds old footage that lead to an unfolding mystery that causes her producer to cancel the project.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 165 min
Plot tags: emotional, meditative, compassionate, disturbing, talky, realistic, serious, political, sincere, thought provoking
Similar in 79%
Just Great (1972)
Plot Summary:
Godard examines the structure of movies, relationships and revolutions through the life of a couple in Paris.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: political, surreal, sincere, thought provoking, clever, serious, realistic, witty, contemplative, talky
Similar in 75%
Interrogation (1989)
Plot Summary:
In Stalinist Poland, cabaret singer Tonia decides to spend the evening drinking with a group of friends. The next morning, she awakes to find that, for reasons unknown to her, she has been jailed as a political prisoner. As prison officials interrogate, torture and humiliate her, she fights for survival and to maintain her innocence by refusing to sign a false confession. As her years of imprisonment pass, her relationship with her captors grows more complicated.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Poland
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, realistic, disturbing, controversial, thinking, serious, banned
Similar in 77%
The Molly Maguires (1970)
Plot Summary:
Life is rough in the coal mines of 1876 Pennsylvania. A secret group of Irish emigrant miners, known as the Molly Maguires, fights against the cruelty of the mining company with sabotage and murder. A detective, also an Irish emigrant, is hired to infiltrate the group and report on its members. But on which side do his sympathies lie?.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, tense, suspenseful, rough, captivating, detective, period drama
Similar in 77%
To Kill a Priest (1988)
Plot Summary:
A young priest speaks out against the Communist regime in Poland and is killed for it.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: France, USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, rough, suspenseful, captivating
Similar in 88%
Strike (2006)
Plot Summary:
In poverty, she found strength. In oppression, she found courage. In solidarity, she found a reason to believe again. Acclaimed German actress Katharina Thalbach (THE TIN DRUM, SOPHIES CHOICE) stars in this hard-hitting historical drama set during the rise of Polands Solidarity movement. An illiterate single mother, Agnieszka Kowalska is a Socialist "heroine of labor" for working long hours as a shipyard welder until her superiors deny compensation to the widows of 21 workers killed in an industrial disaster. Risking her job, her life, and the love of her son to defy the bureacracy, Agnieszka inspires the largest labor strike in world history and becomes a national hero. Volker Schlöndorff adapted this "ballad based on historical events" from the biography of Anna Walentynowicz, the free trade activist who mobilized a million Poles for Solidarity and helped hasten the fall of Communism. Filmed entirely on location at Polands Lenin Shipyard, where history was made.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 490
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Poland
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sincere, captivating
Similar in 83%
Dear Comrades! (2020)
Plot Summary:
Novocherkassk, USSR, 1962. Liudmila is a Party executive and devout communist who fought at the front of WWII for Stalin’s ideology. Certain that her contribution will create a communist society, she detests any anti-Soviet sentiment. During a workers’ strike at the local electromotive factory, Liudmila witnesses the demonstration being gunned down on the government’s order, seeking to suppress mass strikes in the USSR. During the bloodbath and the ensuing panic, her daughter disappears, which changes Liudmila’s world view. Despite the blockade of the city, mass arrests, and the authorities’ attempts to cover up the massacre, Liudmila searches for her daughter. We don’t know how the search will end, but realize that her life will never be the same.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Russia
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: psychological, exciting, suspense, realistic, black and white, independent film, art film, banned, beautiful
Similar in 81%
Press (2010)
Plot Summary:
The story of a Kurdish newspaper whose journalists are under the constant threat of being abducted and killed by the state security forces.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 711
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Turkey
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: captivating, realistic, thought provoking, serious, political thriller
Similar in 75%
I Am Cuba (1964)
Plot Summary:
An unabashed exercise in cinema stylistics, I Am Cuba is pro-Castro/anti-Batista rhetoric dressed up in the finest clothes. The film's four dramatic stories take place in the final days of the Batista regime; the first two illustrate the ills that led to the revolution, the third and fourth the call to arms which cut across social and economic lines.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: Cuba, Soviet Union
Duration: 141 min
Plot tags: political, surreal, captivating, experimental, breathtaking, black and white, visual, atmospheric, contemplative, stylized
Similar in 76%
The Organizer (1963)
Plot Summary:
Professor Sinigaglia (Marcello Mastroianni) is the title character in this darkly comedic Italian drama about mistreated factory workers in the city of Turin. Toiling away in appalling conditions in a textile mill, these employees have no one to stand up for them until Sinigaglia puts his academic career on the line by helping them to start a strike. Although the teacher comes under scrutiny by unsympathetic authorities, he maintains his dedication to the workers' cause.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy, France, Yugoslavia
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: political, sincere, thought provoking, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative, odd
Similar in 76%
St. Michael Had a Rooster (1972)
Plot Summary:
Sentenced to life imprisonment for illegal activities, Italian International member Giulio Manieri holds on to his political ideals while struggling against madness in the loneliness of his prison cell.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 849
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 89%
The Promised Land (1975)
Plot Summary:
The Polish film based on the book of the same name by Wladyslaw Reymont. Taking place in the nineteenth century town of Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion shown through the eyes of one Polish town.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 170 min
Plot tags: epic, serious, realistic, biting, crying, suspense
Similar in 85%
Walesa: Man of Hope (2013)
Plot Summary:
How was it possible that a single man influenced contemporary world so significantly? This film is an attempt to capture the phenomenon of a common man’s metamorphosis into a charismatic leader — an attempt to see how a Gdansk shipyard electrician fighting for workers’ rights awakened a hidden desire for freedom in millions of people.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama, History
Country: Poland
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: captivating, realistic, psychological, humorous, tense, uplifting, touching, bleak, serious, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Comrades (1986)
Plot Summary:
The story of "The Tolpuddle Martyrs". A group of 19th century English farm labourers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 917
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK
Duration: 183 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, thought provoking, serious, emotional, realistic, stylized, independent film
Similar in 85%
Hanussen (1988)
Plot Summary:
A man's story parallels Hitler's rise. Austrian Klaus Schneider, wounded in World War I, recovers in the care of Dr. Emil Bettleheim. Bettleheim discovers that Schneider possesses powers of empathy and of clairvoyance, such that could aid suicidal patients. After the war, with one friend as his manager and another as his lover, Schneider changes his name to Eric Jan Hanussen and goes to Berlin, as a hypnotist and clairvoyant performing in halls and theaters. He always speaks the truth, which brings him to the attention of powerful Nazis. He predicts their rise (good propaganda for them) and their violence (not so good). He's in pain and at risk. What is Hanussen's future?.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Hungary, West Germany, Austria
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: spiritual, sad, esoteric, intelligent, tense, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 82%
Made in Dagenham (2010)
Plot Summary:
A dramatization of the 1968 strike at the Ford Dagenham car plant, where female workers walked out in protest against sexual discrimination.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: UK
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: inspirational, touching, factual, emotional, realistic, contemplative, uplifting, semi serious, political, period piece
Similar in 85%
Priest Daens (1992)
Plot Summary:
In the 1890s, Father Adolf Daens goes to Aalst, a textile town where child labor is rife, pay and working conditions are horrible, the poor have no vote, and the Catholic church backs the petite bourgeoisie in oppressing workers. He writes a few columns for the Catholic paper, and soon workers are listening and the powerful are in an uproar. He's expelled from the Catholic party, so he starts the Christian Democrats and is elected to Parliament. After Rome disciplines him, he must choose between two callings, as priest and as champion of workers. In subplots, a courageous young woman falls in love with a socialist and survives a shop foreman's rape; children die; prelates play billiards.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Belgium, France, Netherlands
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: bleak, sincere, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, gloomy, road movie, rough, sexy
Similar in 83%
The Official Story (1985)
Plot Summary:
After the end of the Dirty War, a high school teacher sets out to find out who the mother of her adopted daughter is.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Argentina
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: political, captivating, sincere, suspenseful, disturbing, sad, emotional, realistic, light, epic
Similar in 90%
Boycott (2001)
Plot Summary:
This made-for-TV movie dramatizes the historic boycott of public buses in the 1950s, led by civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, political, talky
Similar in 88%
Bloody Sunday (2002)
Plot Summary:
The dramatised story of the Irish civil rights protest march on January 30 1972 which ended in a massacre by British troops.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 26000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: UK, Ireland, USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: political, bleak, rough, captivating, disturbing, sincere, realistic, controversial, educational, philosophical
Similar in 78%
Some Mother's Son (1996)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of the 1981 hunger strike in a British prison, in which IRA prisoner Bobby Sands led a protest against the treatment of IRA prisoners as criminals rather than as prisoners of war. The film focuses on the mothers of two of the strikers, and their struggle to save the lives of their sons.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Ireland, USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: political, bleak, psychological, sincere, uplifting, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, sexy
Similar in 85%
No (2012)
Plot Summary:
In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the ‘No’ vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, Rene Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and while under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 26000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Chile, France, Mexico, USA
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: political, psychological, sentimental, atmospheric, sincere, captivating, cerebral, realistic, surreal, philosophical
Similar in 87%
Che! (1969)
Plot Summary:
Biography of Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who helped Fidel Castro in his struggle against the corrupt Batista regime, eventually resulting in the overthrow of that government and Castro's taking over of Cuba. The film covers Guevara's life from when he first landed in Cuba in 1956 to his death in an ambush by government troops in the mountains of Bolivia in 1967.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, captivating, realistic, political, factual, philosophical, exciting
Similar in 90%
Endgame (2009)
Plot Summary:
The time is the late '80s, a crucial period in the history of South Africa. President P.W. Botha is hanging on to power by a thread as the African National Congress (ANC) takes up arms against apartheid and the country tumbles toward insurrection. A British mining concern is convinced that their interests would be better served in a stable South Africa and they quietly dispatch Michael Young, their head of public affairs, to open an unofficial dialogue between the bitter rivals. Assembling a reluctant yet brilliant team to pave the way to reconciliation by confronting obstacles that initially seem insurmountable, Young places his trust in ANC leader Thabo Mbeki and Afrikaner philosophy professor Willie Esterhuyse. It is their empathy that will ultimately serve as the catalyst for change by proving more powerful than the terrorist bombs that threaten to disrupt the peaceful dialogue.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK, South Africa
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, serious, captivating, exciting, thought provoking, epic, realistic, political, contemplative
Similar in 86%
1900 (1976)
Plot Summary:
Set in Bertolucci's ancestral region of Emilia, the film chronicles the lives of two men during the political turmoils that took place in Italy in the first half on the 20th century.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 27000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy, France, West Germany
Duration: 317 min
Plot tags: epic, disturbing, controversial, compassionate, thought provoking, serious, realistic, captivating, political, stylized
Similar in 87%
Danton (1983)
Plot Summary:
Danton and Robespierre were close friends and fought together in the French Revolution, but by 1793 Robespierre was France's ruler, determined to wipe out opposition with a series of mass executions that became known as the Reign of Terror. Danton, well known as a spokesman of the people, had been living in relative solitude in the French countryside, but he returned to Paris to challenge Robespierre's violent rule and call for the people to demand their rights. Robespierre, however, could not accept such a challenge, even from a friend and colleague, and he blocked out a plan for the capture and execution of Danton and his allies.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: France, Poland
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags: political, epic, talky, spiritual, anthology, art film, historical drama, historically accurate, serious, captivating
Similar in 76%
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
Plot Summary:
The story of journalist, Edward R Murrow's stand against Senator McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts in the early 1950s.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 101000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: UK, France, Japan, USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: black and white, political, tense, melancholic, factual, period piece, disturbing, dramatic, sincere, clever