Best movies like Morenga
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Based on a novel of the same title by Uwe Timm and set in 1904 in South Africa, this is an uneven tale of war and intrigue between native South Africans, German colonialists, and British colonialists, a war no one really wins. Gottschalk (Jacques Breuer) and Wenstrup (Edwin Noel) are two German veterinarians who have settled in German Southwest Africa to tend to the needs of cattle ranchers. When a rebellion by a local dissident named Morenga (Ken Gampu) is brutally crushed by the Germans, the two vets get involved, at great risk to themselves, and offer help to the native revolutionaries. What follows is a sequence of battles and skirmishes that ultimately lead to Morenga seeking asylum in South Africa, where the ruling Brits are about as trustworthy as their German counterparts. Morenga was nominated for a Golden Bear award at the 1985 Berlin Film Festival.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 25
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like Morenga (1985):
Similar in 79%
Daresalam (2001)
Plot Summary:
In a small Central African village, boyhood friends Djimi and Koni have come of age under a post-colonial government that levies crippling taxes and legally robs local farmers of their meager crops. When impulsive Koni savagely attacks a visiting government official, the resulting massacre forces the two friends on a journey that will transform them from boys into men, from farmers into soldiers and from villagers into revolutionaries. "We fight in one world so we can live in another," declares Koni as the two battle shoulder to shoulder against government troops. But while Koni embraces the politics and carnage of their dangerous new guerilla existence, Djimi longs for the simplicity and grace of the village life they've left behind. As the rebels move closer to victory, the two friends move closer to a clash of their own.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 66
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Burkina Faso, Chad
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
o.k. (1970)
Plot Summary:
A four man US fireteam on patrol seizes a passing young Vietnamnese girl and continue to torture, rape and kill her. Only one soldier refuses to take part in it and reports this incident to his superior, who dismisses it as simple wartime incident. As a consequence for his report, the soldier has to fear for his life. Later, the perpetrators are convicted, although subsequent appeals reduce their sentences significantly. The plot takes place in a Bavarian forest and reenacts a real war crime that happened in the Vietnam war. The soldiers wear US uniforms, have authentic names but speak with a pronounced Bavarian accent - a conscious directing decision known as Brechtian distancing effect.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 202
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: crying, independent film
Similar in 90%
Shadow of the Deceased (2005)
Plot Summary:
The nurse Helga meets Baltic nobleman Arno when he's wounded in the Russo-Finnish war. They have a short but passionate affair before Arno is called back to the front and dies. Helga has a daughter, Dorli, as a result of the affair and they have to struggle to survive after the Red Army wins the war.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 101
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Operation Leopard (1980)
Plot Summary:
In May 1978, the mining town of Kolwezi in Katanga, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo, the former Belgian Congo) is under attack from a group of communist guerillas coming from nearby Angola. The Europeans who work for the Belgian mining company and the Blacks who live in the town are taken as hostages by the invaders, who start a blood bath, shooting Europeans as well as Africans. Many of the Europeans being French, the French decide to organize a counter-attack, and to send a Regiment of Paratroopers from the Foreign Legion. The movie follows the stories of Delbart, a former non-commissioned officer, who was about to go back to France with his African wife and his child, Damrémont, who was Delbart's replacement, Bia, a Zairian doctor, and Annie, an American married to a Belgian engineer as well as Non com Legion officer Federico and the French Ambassador and the Military Attaché.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 389
Genere: Adventure, Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: cult film
Similar in 85%
Cat and Mouse (1967)
Plot Summary:
A film adaptation of the book by the same name written by Günter Grass. Pilenz, the narrator, revisits places of his childhood, going through his memories regarding his relationship to Mahlke, an old "friend" of his.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 133
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany, Poland
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Do Not Mention the Cause of Death (1968)
Plot Summary:
In an atmosphere of WWII, a village dyer wants to help his folks in their sorrow and distress by supplying them with the black paint, but there is not enough black paint for all of them, because death works faster than the dyer. His wife was raped, but the naive dyer believes in "straight" intentions of his godfather - black marketeer, and he gives away free canvas to the people. But in all their pain, people are unable to distinguish good intentions from the evil ones.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 89
Genere: War, Drama
Country: Yugoslavia, West Germany
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: epic
Similar in 79%
Nothing to Report (1973)
Plot Summary:
In 1956, the professional army of France lacks the manpower to keep the peace in Algeria, the colony which the country is determined to hold on to at any price. For this reason, reservists are called up and subject to an intense period of training before being sent to the front. Rémy March, Alain Charpentier and Raymond Dax are three such young men who have no interest in the military escapade and are reluctant conscripts. What they witness in Algeria will appall and transform them. Rape, torture, executions... there is no end to the atrocities in which they become unwilling participants. No wonder the French military are so willing to proclaim that there is nothing to report.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 204
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Italy, Tunisia
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing
Similar in 86%
Adwa (1999)
Plot Summary:
In 1896, Ethiopia, an African nation, largely armed with spears and knives, defeats a well-equipped and organized Italian military bent on colonization.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 71
Genere: Documentary, Drama, War
Country: USA, Germany, Ethiopia
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 89%
The Hot Snow (1972)
Plot Summary:
In November, 1942, near the Volga, Stanlingrad is under siege of Commander Friederich Paulus and his 330,000 men. The Russian high command unleashes an operation to protect the Mishkova River to avoid that about four hundred tanks join Paulus' army. The Soviet artillery soldiers protect their position with their lives in a bloodshed with few survivors.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 577
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Taxi for Tobruk (1961)
Plot Summary:
During World War II, French Commandos join forces with a German officer in order to survive the African desert.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Spain, West Germany
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, realistic, road movie, rough, suspenseful, black and white
Similar in 81%
White Material (2009)
Plot Summary:
Maria is a White farmer who runs a failing coffee plantation in an unnamed African country in the present day. Civil war has broken out and rebel soldiers, many of them child soldiers, are advancing on the area. Rebels on the radio advocate attacks on emblems of colonialism. Maria's workers leave, but she refuses to abandon the plantation, and searches for men to finish harvesting of the coffee.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Cameroon
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: serious, disturbing, rough, emotional, realistic, depressing, controversial, stylized, art house, odd
Similar in 89%
Good Work (1999)
Plot Summary:
Foreign Legion officer, Galoup, recalls his once glorious life, leading troops in the Gulf of Djibouti. His existence there was happy, strict and regimented, but the arrival of a promising young recruit, Sentain, plants the seeds of jealousy in Galoup's mind. He feels compelled to stop him from coming to the attention of the commandant who he admires, but who ignores him. Ultimately, his jealousy leads to the destruction of both Sentain and himself.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: meditative, surreal, harsh, touching, realistic, serious, psychological, atmospheric, contemplative, stylized
Similar in 88%
Coup de grâce (1976)
Plot Summary:
A countess loves her brother's Prussian-officer friend in the 1919 Baltic area.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, West Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: serious, stylized, realistic, bleak, philosophical, depressing, political, sad, art house, black and white
Similar in 86%
Timbuktu (2014)
Plot Summary:
A cattle herder and his family who reside in the dunes of Timbuktu find their quiet lives -- which are typically free of the Jihadists determined to control their faith -- abruptly disturbed. A look at the brief occupation of Timbuktu by militant Islamic rebels.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Mauritania, Qatar
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: disturbing, harsh, compassionate, emotional, intense, social, art house, independent film, intercultural, slow cinema
Similar in 88%
War Witch (2012)
Plot Summary:
Somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, Komona a 14-year-old girl tells her unborn child growing inside her the story of her life since she has been at war. Everything started when she was abducted by the rebel army at the age of 12.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Canada
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: disturbing, touching, serious, bleak, social, sad, depressing, independent film, realistic, crying
Similar in 83%
Camp de Thiaroye (1988)
Plot Summary:
A historical drama based on the Thiaroye transit camp massacre, Camp de Thiaroye dismantles the myth of colonial assimilation to expose ingrained social and cultural mechanisms of racism, exploitation, and privilege. In 1944, the French army massacred several units of West African conscripts recently returned from the battlefields of Europe. What was essentially a demand by African veterans that they be paid the same wages as their French counterparts led to an attack on soldiers who had only recently been fighting the Nazis in Italy and Germany.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 626
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia
Duration: 157 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 89%
Calm at Sea (2011)
Plot Summary:
A teenager joins the resistance in Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 803
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, bleak, captivating, suspenseful, disturbing, complex
Similar in 78%
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
Plot Summary:
In 1920s Ireland young doctor Damien O'Donovan prepares to depart for a new job in a London hospital. As he says his goodbyes at a friend's farm, British Black and Tans arrive, and a young man is killed. Damien joins his brother Teddy in the Irish Republican Army, but political events are soon set in motion that tear the brothers apart.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 53000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Ireland, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: political, bleak, brutal, factual, bloody, captivating, dramatic, period piece, realistic, sexy
Similar in 75%
Attack on Darfur (2009)
Plot Summary:
American journalists in Sudan are confronted with the dilemma of whether to return home to report on the atrocities they have seen, or to stay behind and help some of the victims they have encountered.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Canada, South Africa, Germany
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, captivating, realistic, tense, serious, sad, controversial
Similar in 78%
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 78%
The Biggest Battle (1978)
Plot Summary:
A story of how World War II affected the lives of a German family and an American family, both of whom had sons and fathers fighting in the war.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 570
Genere: War, Drama
Country: Italy, West Germany, Yugoslavia
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: macaroni combat, exciting, rough, bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 78%
Breakthrough (1979)
Plot Summary:
Starting in late May 1944, during the German retreat on the Eastern Front, Captain Stransky (Helmut Griem) orders Sergeant Steiner (Richard Burton) to blow up a railway tunnel to prevent Russian forces from using it. Steiner's platoon fails in its mission by coming up against a Russian tank. Steiner then takes a furlough to Paris just as the Allies launch their invasion of Normandy.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Raid on Rommel (1971)
Plot Summary:
Captain Foster plans on raiding German-occupied Tobruk with hand- picked commandos, but a mixup leaves him with a medical unit led by a Quaker conscientious objector. Despite all odds they succeed with their mission. On the way they pick up and drug the mistress of an Italian general, blow up the entire fuel supply for the Afrika Korps, and swap philatelic gossip with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 81%
The Hill (1965)
Plot Summary:
North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It's not a military objective. It's The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And the troops' tormentors are not the enemy, but their own comrades-at-arms.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: black and white, tense, bleak, retro, noir, thinking, existential, historically accurate, rough, serious
Similar in 79%
Tobruk (1967)
Plot Summary:
In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, Spain
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: spectacular, exciting, tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 87%
Cross of Iron (1977)
Plot Summary:
It is 1943, and the German army, ravaged and demoralised, are hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of all this madness, conflict brews between the aristocratic yet ultimately pusillanimous Captain Stransky and the courageous Corporal Steiner. Stransky is the only man who believes that the Third Reich are still vastly superior to the Russian army; however within his pompous persona lies a quivering coward who longs for the Iron Cross so that he can return to Berlin a hero. Steiner, on the other hand is cynical, defiantly non-conformist and more concerned with the safety of his own men rather than the horde of military decorations offered to him by his superiors. Steiner's lack of respect results in a growing animosity between the two.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 29000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, West Germany
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: political, brutal, cult classic, tense, bleak, realistic, independent film, philosophical, mind bending, psychedelic
Similar in 84%
The Tin Drum (1979)
Plot Summary:
Oskar is born in Germany in 1924 with an advanced intellect. Repulsed by the hypocrisy of adults and the irresponsibility of society, he refuses to grow older after his third birthday.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 25000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany, France, Poland
Duration: 142 min
Plot tags: surreal, disturbing, controversial, art house, harsh, talky, realistic, clever, epic, serious
Similar in 82%
Hatred (2016)
Plot Summary:
Summer of 1939. Zosia is a young Polish girl who is deeply in love with Ukrainian Petro. Their great love will be put to the test when her father decides to marry her to a wealthy widower Skiba. Right after wedding she is left alone because her husband is drafted to the Polish army for the war with Germany. Meanwhile, tensions grow due to Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians living side by side.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: tense, thought provoking, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, art house, historical romance
Similar in 90%
Sometimes in April (2005)
Plot Summary:
Debra Winger, Oris Erhuero and Idris Elba star in this drama framed by the Rwandan genocide.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: France, Rwanda, USA
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, sad, disturbing, inspirational, political, informative, bilingual
Similar in 89%
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)
Plot Summary:
When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 239000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: emotional, touching, sad, heartbreaking, sentimental, tear jerker, serious, crying, thought provoking, gloomy