Best movies like Present Tense
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Planning to take any job she can get in order to save enough money and leave Turkey for the U.S., Mina is hired at an Istanbul café as a fortune teller who reads the dregs in coffee cups. She discovers she has the ability to offer comfort and insight to the customers who are just as lost in the wilderness as she is.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 555
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like Present Tense (2012):
Similar in 81%
Tres tristes tigres (1968)
Plot Summary:
A rambling portrait of Chilean society.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 371
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sex comedy, experimental, independent film
Similar in 88%
Heads on Fire (1989)
Plot Summary:
Film by Erwin Michelberger.
IMDB Rating:
IMDB Votes:
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
The Sky, the Earth and the Rain (2008)
Plot Summary:
Ana, Verónica, Marta, and Toro are four lonely people who live an unadventurous and quiet existence in southern Chile. They are with each other without the need of using words, trying to save themselves in a stealthy and extreme way. In order not only of getting away of the loneliness that constitutes their innermost core, but also of finding themselves, they reach for each other to get brotherly and sexual love, affection, and a space and time of their own.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 186
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, France, Germany
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: slow cinema
Similar in 82%
Gorgeous (2022)
Plot Summary:
A family migrates to the city after a tragic loss. When they reunite in their hometown 30 years later, buried emotions and painful secrets resurface.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 151 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Red Istanbul (2017)
Plot Summary:
Orhan who lived in London for years and did not come back to Turkey agrees to help Deniz -a famous director- edit his first book. Deniz has been living in a mansion with his family which started to lose its old brightness and power. Orhan finds himself in the middle of Deniz's complicated relationships, mysterious friends and stange family members. This is the first movie of Ferzan Ozpetek which is shot in Turkey after a long time. It is also based on his own book which has the same name with the movie.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Italy
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, psychological, suspense, crying, visually appealing
Similar in 85%
Under the Sky (2016)
Plot Summary:
Nisa opens her eyes under the wreckage right after an earthquake. While she is struggling to survive and find a solution from under the narrow space where she is stuck, she glimpses the sky from a tiny hole above her, which helps her stay alive. In the meantime, Baris is trying to adapt to the endless nature in a parallel storyline under the same sky, and exposes the puzzle of Nisa's story through his video diary.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 61
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Turkey
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
The Bank of Broken Hearts (2017)
Plot Summary:
Based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, set in Istanbul, the tragic story of three heroes chasing an unlikely dream, running towards their sad end in a Shakespearean manner.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 765
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Saf (2018)
Plot Summary:
Turkish director Ali Vatansever weighs the human cost of politically motivated urban renewal in his achingly resonant second feature, about a young couple forced to compromise their ideals and work for the very industry encroaching on their Istanbul neighbourhood, in order to keep up with the rent.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 520
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Germany, Romania
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, suspense, suspenseful, disturbing, political
Similar in 79%
Hadi Be Oglum (2018)
Plot Summary:
Ali, a fisherman, devoted his life to his young son, Efe. Efe was the only son of Ali who was in this life. Efe is different from other children. Efe, who has a communication problem, is not a child who can laugh and play and react to what he hears. As Ali tries to bond with his son, he runs into many barriers in communtion with him, and Ali's greatest wish is to know that his son understands him. The plot evolves around a father who loves his son dearly but going thru many struggles to create communication channels with his who carries the burden of the memories of his father, his mother and the woman he loves, will shape the life of both.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, captivating, realistic
Similar in 76%
Oh, Moon! (1988)
Plot Summary:
A young girl with a vivid imagination exasperates her grandparents when she begins communicating with the ghost of her mother.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: surreal, art house
Similar in 87%
Big Big World (2016)
Plot Summary:
Ali and Zuhal take their first step out of the orphanage into this big world committing a crime. It becomes impossible for them to live amongst people now, and the forest they take shelter in becomes a desert island for them. A boy and a girl that were thrown out of the civilized world would live the entire human story from scratch.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: art house, crying
Similar in 78%
Away from Home (2001)
Plot Summary:
After several years of numbly mourning his parents death, 26 year old Selim takes a chance on the US lottery for passports and wins. He decides to sell the family olive grove to raise enough money to live in Manhattan and to break all roots to Turkey, leaving his girlfriend behind. When Selim's aged grand uncle, Nasuhi returns from Russia after 58 years he asks Selim to visit with him the olive grove of his youth. Before they depart, Nasuhi finds a beaten Russian girl, Olga who was robbed when she tried to sell herself to raise money to continue her own search for her sea faring father.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 283
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Do Not Forget Me Istanbul (2010)
Plot Summary:
Several directors from countries of the region were invited to create stories taking place in and around the beautiful city of Istanbul, in the vein of “Paris, je t’aime” and “New York, I love you”. They come together to remind viewers that Istanbul’s history does not belong only to the people of Turkey.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 381
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Greece
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: anthology
Similar in 83%
The Bride (1973)
Plot Summary:
The struggles of a migrant Anatolian family to adapt to and survive in the very different conditions of urban Istanbul. A young woman moves with her husband and small child to her husband's family in Istanbul. Her son becomes ill and the doctor tells her that he will soon die if he doesn't get an operation. The family refuses to help her because they can't see anything wrong with the boy and all money is needed for a new shop they have just opened. When her son dies she takes a desperate step.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: captivating, touching, sentimental, suspense, art house
Similar in 81%
The Honest One (1984)
Plot Summary:
When an incorruptible government pay clerk, who isn't taken seriously by anyone including his family, get robbed while carrying huge amount of work money, he becomes popular because people believe he faked the robbery and kept the money.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Majority (2010)
Plot Summary:
Mertkan has a simple life in Istanbul: 'working' as an office-boy in his dad's construction company, hanging out with his male friends in malls and discos, cruising with his dad's 4-wheel drive at night. There is no urgency for him to find a meaning to this emptiness. When he meets Gul, a Kurdish girl from Eastern Turkey, putting herself through university by working as a waitress, Mertkan has a chance to change the futility of his life. But his father opposes his connection with 'those people who only want to divide our country' and reminds Mertkan that 'we are all Turkish and we are all Muslims'. Insidiously Mertkan bows to the social values of the 'Majority' when faced with a choice, and becomes the 'proper man' his dad wanted him to be.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 81%
The Market: A Tale of Trade (2008)
Plot Summary:
A Turkish small time black marketeer wants to enter the cell phone business. To get enough money, he promises the local doctor to get medicine for sick children.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Turkey, UK, Kazakhstan
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: touching, semi serious, clever, realistic, witty
Similar in 84%
Koepek (2015)
Plot Summary:
An ordinary day in the megacity of Istanbul: Ten-year-old Cemo sells paper tissues in the streets, Hayat is controlled by her husband and transsexual Ebru sells her body. All three have a secret love and they do everything that satisfies their longing, if only for a moment. An authentic, delicate and unsettling story about love and death and the Turkish society at the beginning of the 21st century.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 296
Genere: Drama
Country: Switzerland, Turkey
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: anthology, psychological, suspense, disturbing, queer cinema
Similar in 88%
I Saw the Sun (2009)
Plot Summary:
In the southeast region of Turkey, the Altun family lives in a small mountainside village plagued by a 25-year war, making their daily life a hellish struggle. As the war continues to intensify, the family is forced to migrate west to the city of Istanbul. While Haydar and Isa Altun decide to stay in Turkey with their young children, Davut Altun and his family migrate north to Norway, enlisting the help of smugglers. They eventually reach their destination and find work in a supermarket, but life as refugees proves relentless. Back in Istanbul, Haydar watches over the family as his wife undergoes an operation due to pregnancy complications. Their son makes friends with a group of transvestites, helping him to understand why he has felt different all of his life. While liberating, his newfound identity is seen as a disgrace to the rest of his family, leading him to flee from the abuse it produces.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, sentimental, captivating, clever, touching, serious, gloomy, crying
Similar in 75%
Love in Another Language (2009)
Plot Summary:
Onur, who has been deaf since birth, works as a librarian. His father had left him and his mother when he was seven, and Onur has always blamed himself for this. Although being able to speak, he has chosen to stay silent because of the pitying looks of the people around him. At his friend Vedat's engagement party, he meets Zeynep, who later finds out about Onur's hearing disability, but is not bothered by it. She is forced by her overbearing father to leave home and gets a job at a call-center. Having to speak on the phone all day to people she doesn't know, Zeynep finds peace with Onur, who she communicates with perfectly without speaking.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: realistic, emotional, psychological, sentimental, captivating, eros, touching, serious
Similar in 85%
Inside (2012)
Plot Summary:
A man's life, thoughts, feelings and his very own darkness... Adapted from Dostoevsky's novel "Notes from Undergroud", Demirkubuz follows Muharrem as he gets himself invited to a party where he is not welcome, just to find himself disgusted.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, serious, contemplative, art house, captivating, existential
Similar in 83%
The Herd (1978)
Plot Summary:
Because of a local blood feud, a peasant family decides to sell its sheep - a most precious commodity - in far away Ankara. During their long train ride, bribes must be paid to petty officials, sheep are stolen or die in the packed, airless wagons, and the sick wife of one of the family's sons becomes deathly ill.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: political, art house
Similar in 75%
The White Angel (2007)
Plot Summary:
Beyaz Melek’ filmi; bir aşkın öyküsüdür.Bu aşk öyküsü, iki insanın birbirine duyduğu aşk değil, bir grup insanın hayata ve birbirlerine duyduğu aşkın ve sevginin hikayesidir.Filmde, doğudan batıya, mekteplisinden köylüsüne, gencinden yaşlısına sevginin her türlü motifi hem duygusal hem de esprili bir dille anlatılır.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, psychological, captivating, sentimental, serious
Similar in 76%
My Only Sunshine (2008)
Plot Summary:
Hayat, her father and bedridden grandfather live in a riverside shack near the dangerously dark but breathtakingly beautiful waters of the Bosphorus. Hayat's father owns a small boat that secures the family's survival through a miscellany of not always lawful ventures. Beyond the motion and romance of the water, Hayat's life is harsh and unrelenting. But Hayat has an instinct for survival. Her capacity for courage, endurance and hope in the face of these trials suggest that there is Life despite the manifold injustices of an unjust world.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, captivating, art house, atmospheric, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Clouds of May (1999)
Plot Summary:
This is a movie within a movie, about a director, Muzaffer, who goes back to his hometown to make a film using a cast of local people (based on the director Ceylan's first feature, Kasaba). While Muzaffer is around, his mother complains about simple health problems, his father is in a legal fight against the government for his land, his cousin leaves his job to help Muzaffer who promises to find him work in Istanbul, and his little cousin Ali tries to carry an egg in his pocket for forty days so that he'll get the watch of his dreams. In the meantime, they form the cast for Muzaffer's movie as well.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: contemplative, slow cinema, aesthetic, atmospheric, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 83%
The Waiting Room (2003)
Plot Summary:
Zeki Demirkubuz plays the lead character Ahmet who wants to make a film about Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment'. He falls into a deep depression, loses interest in the film and life, pushes those who love him away and cannot complete the film.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, suspense, disturbing, art house, slow cinema, aesthetic, independent film
Similar in 79%
Distant (2002)
Plot Summary:
Uzak/Distant chronicles the numbing loneliness, longing, and isolation in the lives of two men who are consumed by their own problems. Istanbul photographer Mahmut reluctantly receives his relative Yusuf, but the mingling of their lives does little to alleviate their detachment.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 22000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sincere, bleak, art house, stylized, lyrical, psychological, touching, slow cinema, atmospheric, contemplative
Similar in 85%
The Town (1997)
Plot Summary:
The story of a family living in a small godforsaken town in Turkey seen through the eyes of children and dealing with the growing complexity when one becomes an adult.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: aesthetic, art house, black and white, slow cinema, independent film
Similar in 79%
Pandora's Box (2008)
Plot Summary:
When an aging matriarch starts showing signs of dementia, her dysfunctional family in Istanbul must navigate a minefield of unresolved issues to care for her.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, France, Germany, Belgium
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, psychological, sincere, atmospheric, captivating, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 88%
Three Monkeys (2008)
Plot Summary:
A family battles against the odds to stay together when small lies grow into an extravagant cover-up. In order to avoid hardship and responsibilities that would otherwise be impossible to endure, the family chooses to ignore the truth, not to see, hear or talk about it. But does playing “Three Monkeys” invalidate the truth of its existence?.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 23000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, France, Italy
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, disturbing, art house, feel good, philosophical, neo noir, contemplative, cerebral, visual