Best movies like Manila
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Due to a delayed flight a group of German flight passengers have to wait in the hall of the airport of Manila. The crowd is quite mixed, ranging from an cultivated east German teacher couple up to sleazy sex tourists. As the waiting prolongs, more and more aggressions and long repressed behaviors shed their way to the surface.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 183
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like Manila (2000):
Similar in 89%
I Am You (2019)
Plot Summary:
The story of Masoud, who is trying to emigrate to Europe to make a better life for himself, his mother and his fiancé. After embarking on a difficult and dangerous immigration journey with his best friend, Masoud meets a pregnant doctor and an old man on the way and they band together. Having to flee because of war and terror, Masoud tries to reach his goal with a hopeful but painful journey.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 232
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Turkey
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
The Path (2008)
Plot Summary:
Two young Nicaraguan children, Saslaya and her mute brother Dario, must travel to Costa Rica to find their long-lost mother.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 107
Genere: Drama
Country: Costa Rica
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Closer to Home (1995)
Plot Summary:
Closer to Home weaves a universal, haunting tale of two people inexorably drawn together for vastly different reasons. Dalisay struggles to journey from the Philippine countryside to New York City to marry Dean, a disillusioned ex-merchant marine. She's hoping to buy a cure for her dying sister and, ultimately, a future for her debt-ridden family, while he hopes to escape his disintegrating American family through love and a family of his own. A powerful, controversial film that quietly builds to a shattering collision of aspirations and cultures.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 63
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 90%
Wailing in the Forest (2016)
Plot Summary:
An indigenous family, one of the last forest people of old, copes with the unusual changes in their environment including the imposing lifestyle and customs of the more sociable tribes on the plains.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 18
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: fairy tale, mysterious
Similar in 84%
UPCAT (2008)
Plot Summary:
A of two high school senior students who believes passing the UPCAT will help make their dreams of becoming successful come true.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 21
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration:
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Illusion (2005)
Plot Summary:
Set in Philippine post-American colonialist era, where the American influence was still apparent, Ilusyon tells the story of Miguel, a young man from the countryside, who decides to visit his father, Pablo, a Modernist painter in Manila. Upon his arrival, he discovers that his father has decided to leave for the province but he opted to stay in Manila for a vacation. One day, he meets Stella, a nude model originally scheduled to pose for Miguel's father. Struck by her beauty, Miguel does the unthinkable - he pretends to be his father the painter. Developing a relationship based on a lie, things turn for the worse as Stella begets a strange skin disease that turns off Miguel. Surrounded by strange characters - a talking cow, a talkative mailman and a nosy landlady - Miguel is driven into a frenzy realization about beauty, lust, love and being true to oneself. An ambiguous ending underlines the surreal tone of the film.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 65
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Letters of Solitude (2011)
Plot Summary:
Rashid Ali returns to his Maguindanao hometown after studying and working for more than 25 years in Barcelona, Spain. Idealistic, he dreams of using what he learned in Europe to improve the lives of his people. But nothing has changed since he left. Politicians remain corrupt, poverty is widespread, his people desperate.
IMDB Rating:
IMDB Votes:
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration:
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Bona (1980)
Plot Summary:
A scorned teenager gets revenge on the aging gigolo who took advantage of her while pursuing other women.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 106
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 80%
Thy Womb (2012)
Plot Summary:
A Bajau midwife copes with the irony of her own infertility amid the deprivations of her gypsy community in Tawi-Tawi. A saga of island life stuck between the devil of passion and the deep blue sea of tradition.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 273
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching
Similar in 79%
Ghettokids - Brüder ohne Heimat (2002)
Plot Summary:
Two trouble-causing brothers, who in the second generation after World War II Germany live, are in the center of this German made for TV movie. The movie makes a subject out of their everyday lives and the helpless attempt for them to build a normal life.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 159
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, France
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Si-o-se Pol (2013)
Plot Summary:
Released from prison and terminally ill, Parvis Karimpour is determined to be reunited with his daughter, Nasrin, who fled Iran for Europe many years before. Crossing the Mediterranean only to be unceremoniously dumped on the Spanish coast, Karimpour makes for Madrid in search of his erstwhile only child. Along the way he meets failed Italian pianist Fabrizio and spoilt German dreamer Almut – fellow migrants struggling to make their way in a Europe beset by economic turmoil. The search for Nasrin lends Karimpour’s new friends a sense of purpose, and the unlikely threesome take up her trail.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 86
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: road movie
Similar in 88%
Donsol (2006)
Plot Summary:
About two lonely people who met during the whaleshark watching season in Donsol, Sorsogon.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 39
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Last Day (2012)
Plot Summary:
One morning, residents of a rural village are horrified when the sun rises in the West. According to Islamic belief, this phenomenon signals the Apocalypse. As village folk react differently to the situation, a tragedy strikes when one of the residents is raped and her brother brutally murdered as he tries to avenge her. Steep in superstition, the villagers attribute these to the Devil himself.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes:
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Egoshooter (2004)
Plot Summary:
Jakob is stuck in the transition between his teenage years and adulthood, still uncertain about what to do with his life, constantly hanging around with his friends and some girls, partying hard but not feeling quite alright. His only way to deal with life and cope with things is to film everything and everyone around him, whether being events of small importance or even things that shouldn't be seen by his intrusive camera. What possible consequences this experiment may have in his life and his attitudes?.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 226
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
The Seventies (2002)
Plot Summary:
A middle-class Filipino family struggles to survive in the era of dictatorship.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 581
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: political, tagalog
Similar in 75%
The Last Virgin (2003)
Plot Summary:
A priest visits a small seaside town. Miling a former nun who now teaches catechism on the island thinks that father Emman is the priest she sent for. She believes that a priest would help revive the townspeople's faith in God by putting up bars and girly joints.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 93
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Japan Japan (2007)
Plot Summary:
Fresh out of the Israeli army, gay 19-year-old Imri moves to Tel-Aviv, but he's got a bad case of "yellow fever" and dreams of relocating to Japan. When he's not searching for porn, Imri hangs with his friend, works a low-paying job or sleeps around. The work of first-time feature film director Lior Shamriz, this provocative movie offers clever dialogue and strong performances.
IMDB Rating: 3.7
IMDB Votes: 212
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel, Germany
Duration: 65 min
Plot tags: independent film, yaoi, queer cinema
Similar in 83%
The Human Surge (2016)
Plot Summary:
Buenos Aires. Exe, 25 years old, has just lost his job and is not looking for another one. His neighbors and friends seem as odd to him as they always do. Online, he meets Alf, a boy from Mozambique who is also bored with his job and who is about to follow Archie, another boy who has run away into the jungle. Through the dense vegetation of the forest, Archie tracks ants back to their nest. One of them wanders off course and comes across Canh, a Filipino, sitting on top of a giant heap of earth and who is about to go back to his strange, beautiful home town, where he too has a miserable job.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 370
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, Brazil, Portugal
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: art house, psychological, humorous, experimental, disturbing
Similar in 81%
Nympha (2003)
Plot Summary:
A re-imagination of the Celso Ad Castillo classic, "Nympha" tells the story of an orphan woman named Nympha living in a backward province with a narrow minded aunt who is a religious fanatic.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 35
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
Shattered Glass (2002)
Plot Summary:
Un hombre enfermo de leucemia busca desesperadamente un donador de médula.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 196
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
David im Wunderland (1998)
Plot Summary:
15-year-old David lives with his family and around another hundred Jacobins in a closed community in Germany. The monotonous life of this early Christian community consists of pray.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 54
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
Play Me Something (1989)
Plot Summary:
A collection of seemingly unrelated individuals wait in a small island airport. Their flight is delayed, and each takes a turn to tell the others a story from his or her life. All small island stories of ordinary, uninspiring lives. Until one man, The Stranger, tells his story of a summer romance in Venice.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 106
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
X Quinientos (2016)
Plot Summary:
X Quinientos tells the story of Alex, David and Aurora, three people who live in opposite ends of the American continent, but who are connected due to their incapacity to accept mourning and to their need of changing in order to move on with their lives.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 234
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, Colombia, Mexico
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: psychological, unusual plot structure, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, contemplative
Similar in 75%
Finsterworld (2013)
Plot Summary:
The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: psychological, suspense, tricky, road movie, absurd, scenic, disturbing, controversial, offbeat, serious
Similar in 81%
Burlesque King (1999)
Plot Summary:
Harry leaves Olongapo, the former site of American bases, with his best friend James. They end up in Manila where they soon find work as macho dancers in a gay bar run by Mama Odette. Harry has a troubled past -- his American father used to pimp him and his mother, Betty. When his father accidentally killed his mother, Harry struck out on his own. He made a vow to kill his father.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 200
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: erotic
Similar in 81%
Live Show (2000)
Plot Summary:
Story revolves around the sad plight of the live sex performers Rolly (Paolo Rivero), Gigi (Klaudia Koronel), Rosita (Ana Capri), Sandra (Hazel Espinosa and Vio (Simon Ibarra) and what drives them to do the inexplicable.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 113
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: erotic, sexy
Similar in 75%
First Taste (2008)
Plot Summary:
The title "Binyag" translates to 'loss of innocence,' and this little-known film from the Philippenes shows, very effectively, the process in which one young person loses his own innocence. A boy living a quiet, picturesque life in the Filipino province, spending his days swimming in the sea, is offered a job as a "film star" when a shady "talent scout" visits his small village. He promises the naive Leo that he can "make him a star." Leo, excited at the idea of escaping his seemingly mundane life, accepts the offer, thus beginning his journey to the city of Manila, where he will learn some hard facts about the world he lives in.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 99
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 64 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 80%
Macho Dancer (1988)
Plot Summary:
A former American soldier becomes an exotic dancer and male prostitute in Manila.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 445
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags: erotic, rough, sexy, serious, realistic, disturbing, sexual, independent film, queer cinema
Similar in 86%
Lilet Never Happened (2012)
Plot Summary:
Lilet Never Happened is the rollercoaster story of how a young girl, struggling to survive in the streets of Manila, spirals down into child prostitution. She is a fighter. She is a dreamer. She is a rebel and she thinks she can handle the world with her wits. But she has to face up to reality when she runs out of innocent dreams.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 281
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands, UK, Philippines
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing, bleak, emotional
Similar in 86%
The Architect (2008)
Plot Summary:
Accepting a prize, architect Georg Winter explains that an architect has the good fortune of measuring every completed building against the rightness of his original idea. Soon Georg himself is forced to take stock of the achievements and mistakes he has made in his personal life. An intense drama in which the four members of the family travel to a mountain village to bury Georg's mother. They get stranded in bad weather. This unexpected isolation throws new light on the past and present life of the parents and the two almost-adult children.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 435
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: