Best movies like Pearls of the Deep
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A manifesto of sorts for the Czech New Wave, this five-part anthology shows off the breadth of expression and the versatility of the movement’s directors. Based on stories by the legendary writer Bohumil Hrabal, the shorts range from the surreally chilling to the caustically observant to the casually romantic, but all have a cutting, wily view of the world.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 776
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: anthology, avant garde, tragicomedy, fairy tale
Best tv shows and movies like Pearls of the Deep (1965):
Similar in 81%
I, Distressing God (1969)
Plot Summary:
Adolf (Miloš Kopecký), the irresistible seducer of women, is fond of Janicka (Hana Lelitová), a novice opera singer. The girl, however, prefers famous men and Adolf thus does not have a single chance with her. One day in a hospital, he meets a Greek partisan named Apostolek (Pavel Landovský) who impresses him with his spontaneity and ease in solving all problems, especially those with women. Adolf has an idea for a revenge. He makes Apostolek familiar with social manners, dresses him after the latest fashion and introduces him to Janicka as a Greek conductor. Janicka instantly falls in love with the made-up composer and Apostolek does no better.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 118
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: black comedy, dark comedy
Similar in 81%
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972)
Plot Summary:
A couple uses extremely black comedy to survive taking care of a daughter who is nearly completely brain dead. They take turns doing the daughter's voice and stare into the eyes of death and emotional trauma with a humour that hides their pain.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 576
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: mind bending, psychedelic, surreal, independent film, black comedy, dark comedy
Similar in 78%
The Rabbit Case (1980)
Plot Summary:
In an unusual, apolitical approach, director Jaromil Jires has fashioned a standard drama that features an older lawyer with failing health who goes to practice in the countryside. His series of odd court cases reveals more about the human condition than about law. In one of these litigations a wayward nephew has cheated his elderly aunt out of her savings. In court, the nephew insists the money was a gift, but his aunt explains she only gave him the money as a loan. Although the lawyer technically wins the case, everything of value seems lost in the meantime. His services are paid for in rabbits because the aunt has no currency, and in the end, the nephew cons his aunt into parting with her savings anyway. Other cases expose similar types of petty corruption.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 75
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Brak (2002)
Plot Summary:
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IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 159
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: parody, dark comedy
Similar in 85%
The Millennial Bee (1983)
Plot Summary:
Family saga taking place mostly in a small Slovakian village. The film captures the period of thirty years (1887-1917). The first part captures the life of Martin Pichandu in the development of his craft, masonry, in the second part, his son is centre stage living in a period of socio-political crisis, which ultimately resulted in the first World War.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 611
Genere: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: Czechoslovakia, West Germany, Austria
Duration: 162 min
Plot tags: epic
Similar in 90%
The Beggar's Opera (1991)
Plot Summary:
Unlike any other opera, the so-called Beggar's Opera is not just one composition, but a lineage of adapted compositions, beginning with the original hugely successful 1728 political satire written by Englishman John Gay. Composers and writers have penned variations on it ever since. The most famous of these was A Threepenny Opera by Bertholt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Some things these compositions share in common is their setting among the poor and criminal classes, and the roguish character Macheath. This production is based on an adaptation of Gay's original by Vaclav Havel the freedom-fighter, writer and philosopher who became the first (and only) president of the united post-communist country of Czechoslovakia, and it retains many traces of its theatrical origins. Film reviewers were not too tolerant of what they called "slavish adherence" to the noted Czech writer's stage production, but theater, philosophy and history buffs may feel otherwise.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 181
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
A Hoof Here, a Hoof There (1989)
Plot Summary:
Two friends have sex just for fun. One day they make a blood test, just for fun, and they discover that one of them has AIDS, not knowing who.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 231
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
The Cry (1964)
Plot Summary:
While a woman is in the hospital preparing to deliver her child, her husband has all day to reflect upon his wife and their relationship. As he tends to his job as a television repairman, Slavek fondly remembers how he first met Ivana and the days they spent getting to know one another. Slavek also grows increasingly aware of the environment that surrounds him and questions the society his new child will be entering. Loaded with a repeated plea for social change, this is the first feature from Czech writer/director Jaromil Jires.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 218
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: freeze frame, non-linear
Similar in 89%
The Joke (1969)
Plot Summary:
In the 1950s, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend. Fifteen years later, he tries to get his revenge by seducing Helena, the wife of one of his accusers.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: disturbing, experimental, controversial, avant garde, sincere, rough, emotional, realistic, semi serious, non-linear
Similar in 83%
It's Better to Be Healthy and Wealthy than Poor and Sick (1992)
Plot Summary:
A satiric tragi-comedy about two women and their lover Robert who is an emigrant that keeps coming back. This film shows chaotic post-communist Europe after the fall of totalitarianism. Two opposite characters, women, meet during the Velvet Revolution in November 1989. Intellectual dissident Nona and a Communist secret police boss’ mistress Ester. They meet at an anti-regime demonstration and become friends. They don’t want anything to do with politics, both want to get married and have kids, but also get rich. Crazy plans and risky attempts to realize their shared dreams land them in many sticky situations in the post-revolution chaos. Too much money gets in the way of the power of friendship.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 134
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Fruit of Paradise (1970)
Plot Summary:
The story is an allegory of Adam and Eve, in a modern (made in the '60s) Health Retreat. The action involves our hero wandering the grounds where she becomes obsessed with a mysterious man in red, who may or may not be a killer.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia, Belgium
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: erotic, surreal, avant garde, art house, psychedelic, experimental, allegory, black comedy, slapstick comedy, slapstick
Similar in 78%
Tiger Theory (2016)
Plot Summary:
The last drop for Jan's resolution is the voluntary death of his father-in-law, whose strength and patience ran dry. Grandma made decisions about Grandpa's life, old age as well as the funeral. Jan is sure that he and his wife Olga are on the same route. He recalls his past life when he used to have his own will and dreams and he wants to live again with dignity and freedom. He longs to control his own life again. And his solution is escape from the present life. In this movie we watch, in parallel ,the fates of Jan's married daughters Olinka and Alenka and his sons-in-law Erik and Pepík.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 793
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: light, feel good, unusual plot structure, humorous, social, crying, freeze frame, dark comedy
Similar in 76%
Larks on a String (1969)
Plot Summary:
Set in the late 1940s, the film concerns the treatment of suspect "bourgeois elements", a professor, a saxophonist, and a milkman, who are put to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, gloomy, intellectual, black comedy, banned
Similar in 86%
Shortcuts (1981)
Plot Summary:
Francin, manager of a small-town brewery, has a charming wife whose abundant blonde locks are an adornment to the town. Maryska looks ethereal but loves meat and beer, while Francin is an ascetic. The strict members of the brewery board of directors come to audit the accounts, but are diverted from concentrating on Francin's detailed reports by Maryska, who has organized a pig-killing feast and is ably assisting the butcher. When she invites the old curmudgeons on the board to enjoy the fresh pork, they are too happy to agree. Francin doesn't know whether he is going to get a permanent contract. To make things worse his brother Pepin - eccentric, noisy and garrulous - turns up on an indefinite visit.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 90%
Home Care (2015)
Plot Summary:
Dedicated home care nurse Vlasta attends her whimsical patients in Czech wine country and lives for her husband Lada and her daughter, but one day things change and Vlasta is forced to reach outside of her comfort zone. Drama and gentle humor intertwine as Vlasta realizes, for the first time in her life, that she might need some care, too.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 492
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic, Slovakia
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, humorous, captivating, disturbing, talky, crying
Similar in 77%
Mug (2018)
Plot Summary:
Jacek loves heavy metal and his dog. He converts the country lanes outside his door into a racing track and bombs down them in his little car. When he and his girlfriend Dagmara take to the dancefloor, everyone runs for cover. He enjoys his existance as a cool misfit in an otherwise stuffy environment, and keeps his muscles toned working on a building site close to the Polish-German border where the world’s largest statue of Jesus is being constructed. But then his life is thrown badly off course by a terrible accident at work that completely disfigures him. Eagerly followed by the Polish media, Jacek becomes the first person in the country to receive a face transplant. He may be celebrated as a national hero and martyr, but he no longer recognises himself in the mirror. Meanwhile, the statue of Jesus grows taller and taller. Whilst events around Jacek come thick and fast, the film never loses sight of the bigger picture and instead brings things even more into focus.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: tragicomedy, uplifting, ironic, compassionate, social, crying, weird
Similar in 80%
The Loves of a Blonde (1965)
Plot Summary:
Andula, an innocent Czech girl from a factory town, is desperately in search of love. She believes she's found it when she beds Milda, a charming young musician visiting from Prague. Milda, however, is only looking for a casual encounter, and leaves town assuming he'll never see Andula again. But when Andula doesn't hear from him, she packs up and heads to Prague, to the surprise of Milda and his parents.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Comedy, Romance, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: art house, humorous, realistic, witty, cynical, dark comedy, thought provoking, avant garde, weeping, clever
Similar in 82%
Black Peter (1964)
Plot Summary:
Reality movie of a few days in the life of a Czechoslovak teenager when he starts work.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, avant garde, sincere, realistic, contemplative, semi serious, biting, suspense
Similar in 82%
The Most Beautiful Age (1969)
Plot Summary:
An artist's studio is descended upon by a group of retired men and a young mother who agree to model in the nude for money. Comedy ensues as the students and the local bureaucracy react to the models, all in need of extra money. Several running gags border on slapstick as the officials and the students don't know what to do with the nude models.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 145
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Dodgeball (2015)
Plot Summary:
An adaptation of a best-selling novel by Michal Viewegh is a comedy about friendship, fateful loves, beauty and ugliness, alcohol, and the search for human happiness. The plot revolves around three friends - Jeff, Skippy and Tom - whose ups and downs and relationship breakups keep bringing them back to a shared bachelor apartment. Their counterparts in the story are two women - the class beauty Eva, who becomes the object of desire of all three guys in turn, and the ugly Hujerova, whose ironic attitude to herself and life in general gives her the ability to survive in a world that prizes beauty and to find her own path to happiness. - Czech film center.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 141
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic
Duration:
Plot tags: non-linear, humorous, psychological, light, sexy, unusual plot structure, contemplative
Similar in 88%
That Trip We Took with Dad (2016)
Plot Summary:
Romania, 1968. Two very different brothers. Mihai is a secret police informant, Emil is a dedicated dissident. When they have the opportunity to have their ailing father’s eyes operated on in East Germany, the three set out on a moving odyssey.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 641
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Germany, Romania, Hungary, Sweden
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, realistic, entertaining, road movie, freeze frame
Similar in 77%
A Report on the Party and the Guests (1966)
Plot Summary:
In Jan Němec’s surreal fable, a picnic is rudely transformed into a lesson in political hierarchy when a handful of mysterious authority figures show up. This allegory about oppression and conformity was banned in its home country but became an international success after it premiered at the New York Film Festival.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 71 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, cult classic, mind bending, psychedelic, spiritual, surreal, crying, allegory, weird
Similar in 87%
Let's Have a Brainwash (1963)
Plot Summary:
This consists of four short films by different directors. Rosselini's 'Chastity' ('Illibatezza') deals with an attractive air hostess who receives the unwelcome attentions of a middle aged American. Godard's 'New World' ('Il Nuovo Mondo') illustrates a post-apocalypse world the same as the pre-apocalyptic one but for an enigmatic change in attitude in most people, including the central character's girlfriend. In Pasolini's 'Curd Cheese' ('La Ricotta'), a lavish film about the life of Jesus Christ is being made in a poor area. The impoverished people subject themselves to various indignities in the name of moviemaking in order to win a little food. The central character is hoisted up on a cross for filming, and dies there. Finally comes Gregoretti's 'Free Range Chicken' ('Il Pollo Ruspante') in which a family of the materialist culture inadvertantly illustrate the cynical, metallic voiced doctrine of a top sales theorist.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: anthology, offbeat, realistic, surreal, contemplative, semi serious, black comedy, avant garde
Similar in 86%
Barefoot (2017)
Plot Summary:
Story of a small boy is forced to move out of Prague during World War 2 to a small village of Slavonice where he meets the rest of his family. He needs to make new friends and get used to a new life which is immensely different from what this city boy was used to.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 882
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Denmark
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, suspense, suspenseful, light, humorous, melancholic, tragicomedy, crying
Similar in 86%
Cosy Dens (1999)
Plot Summary:
Two families, Sebkovi and Krausovi, are celebrating christmas, but not everyone is in a good mood. Teenage kids think their fathers are totaly stupid, fathers are sure their children are nothing more than rebels, hating anything they say. Written by Antonín.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: cult classic, touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, tragicomedy, inspirational, cult film
Similar in 90%
Closely Watched Trains (1966)
Plot Summary:
In a small town still occupied by the Germans as World War II's tide is turning toward the Allies, apprentice train-watcher Milos is oblivious to the war. Instead, he is obsessed with having his first sexual experience. Despite the favors of train conductor Masa, Milos has no luck. His quest leads him to a female Resistance fighter who, in passing, recruits him to the cause. As Milos finally finds love, danger draws closer.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance, War
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, talky, touching, sincere, realistic, erotic, absurd, dark comedy, thought provoking, avant garde
Similar in 79%
The Firemen's Ball (1967)
Plot Summary:
In Milos Forman's satire on Communism set in a small Czechoslovakian town in the 1960s, the local firemen decide to organize a ball, however the proceedings are dogged by difficulty at every step. They plan to organize a beauty pageant at the ball, yet struggle tremendously to find enough pretty contestants. A lottery is planned for later in the evening, but the guests begin stealing the prizes. Then, inevitably, there is a fire in the town... It seems that whatever can go wrong, does go wrong.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia, Italy
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: black comedy, dark comedy, surreal, cult classic, allegory, humorous, witty, biting, mind bending, thought provoking
Similar in 80%
Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
Plot Summary:
A film poem inspired by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. A story about our need for love, our confusion, greatness and smallness and, most of all, our vulnerability. It is a story with many characters, among them a father and his mistress, his youngest son and his girlfriend. It is a film about big lies, abandonment and the eternal longing for companionship and confirmation.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 20000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, black comedy, philosophical, art house, disturbing, talky, depressing, melancholic, meditative
Similar in 83%
S.O.B. (1981)
Plot Summary:
A movie producer who made a huge flop tries to salvage his career by revamping his film as an erotic production, where its family-friendly star takes her top off.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: funny, clever, humorous, witty, cynical, sex comedy, black comedy, meta, offbeat, tragicomedy
Similar in 86%
The Acid House (1998)
Plot Summary:
THE ACID HOUSE is a surreal triptych adapted by "Trainspotting" author Irvine Welsh from his acclaimed collection of short stories. Combining a vicious sense of humor with hard-talking drama, the film reaches into the hearts and minds of the chemical generation, casting a dark and unholy light into the hidden corners of the human psyche. Directed by Paul McGuigan, the film dramatises three stories from the book: 1- The Granton Star Cause, 2- A Soft Touch & 3- The Acid House.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychedelic, mind bending, dark comedy, disturbing, humorous, absurd, independent film, clever, controversial