Best movies like Private
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A Palestinian family is trapped inside a house commandeered by Israeli soldiers.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 922
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, suspenseful, disturbing, tense, sincere, thought provoking, bleak, realistic, contemplative
Best tv shows and movies like Private (2004):
Similar in 81%
Cup Final (1991)
Plot Summary:
An Israeli soldier is taken hostage by a small PLO squad in Lebanon. The soldier planned to go on vacation and to fly to the world final soccer cup, he and his capturers share the love to soccer and toward the (not so happy) end a relationship is made.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 204
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Israel
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 89%
Warriors (2002)
Plot Summary:
A tense drama that revolves around a platoon of Spanish soldiers, following the innocent young men as they step from the training field into a hell for which nothing could have prepared them.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, War
Country: Spain
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, tense, captivating, hispanic, bleak
Similar in 90%
Valley of the Wolves: Iraq (2006)
Plot Summary:
The movie opens with a fictionalized depiction of a real-life incident: the arrest on July 4, 2003 of 11 Turkish special forces soldiers and 13 civilians by U.S. forces of the 173rd Airborne commanded by Colonel William C. Mayville in the northern Iraqi Kurdish town of Sulaymaniyah. The Turkish soldiers suppose that this is an ordinary visit from their NATO allies. But this time is different.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Action, Drama, War
Country: Turkey
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, suspenseful, exciting, realistic, political
Similar in 88%
Judith (1966)
Plot Summary:
A Jewish woman is recruited to help track down a German commander who was her former husband.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 451
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, Israel, USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 76%
The Veteran (2006)
Plot Summary:
Sidney J. Furie's The Veteran is a respectable straight-to-DVD movie that was headed for the "pleasant surprise" category before self-destructing with a terrible, out-of-the-blue ending.
IMDB Rating: 3.9
IMDB Votes: 655
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, rough, realistic, suspenseful, bleak, cult film
Similar in 77%
Kippur (2000)
Plot Summary:
The film takes place in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War in which Egypt and Syria launched attacks in Sinai and the Golan Heights. The story is told from the perspective of Israeli soldiers. We are led by Weinraub and his friend Ruso on a day that begins with quiet city streets, but ends with death, destruction and devastation of both body and mind. Various scenes are awash in the surreal, as Weinraub's head hangs out over a rescue helicopter's open door, watching with tranquil desperation as the earth passes beneath, the overpowering whir of the blades creating a hypnotic state. It is not a traditional blood, guts and glory film. There are no men in battle, only the rescue crew trying to pick up the broken pieces.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Israel, France
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: tense, disturbing, rough, serious, realistic, atmospheric, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 78%
The Patrol (2013)
Plot Summary:
Afghanistan, 2006, Helmand Province becomes one of the most dangerous places on Earth as the British Army is deployed into the Taliban heartland. The Operation, Herrick, became synonymous with the struggle as British troops fought a losing battle against this unseen enemy.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Action, Drama, War
Country: UK, Morocco
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, realistic, disturbing, bleak, serious, captivating, suspenseful, masterpiece
Similar in 75%
The Zookeeper (2001)
Plot Summary:
Jonah Ludovic (Sam Neill) is a custodian at a small municipal zoo. After a night of heavy shelling Ludovic arrives at his job to find the staff abandoning the zoo. He joins a skeleton crew that includes an elderly guard and a veterinarian (Om Puri). Their purpose: to keep the animals alive until help arrives from an international zoological mission.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Denmark, UK, Czech Republic, Netherlands
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, atmospheric, rough, suspenseful, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, biting
Similar in 86%
Giovanna's Father (2008)
Plot Summary:
Bologna 1938 - Michele Casali (Silvio Orlando) is living a desperate situation: Giovanna (Alba Rohrwacher), his only child, a teenager, has killed out of jealousy his classmate and best friend. Within the middle-class environment in which the crime has ocurred, the story provokes strong emotion and disbelief. Avoiding jail, she is determined to be mentally disturbed and therefore locked up in a psychiatric hospital in Reggio Emilia where she remains until the age of 24 years (1945). During this period of almost total isolation, the only person who takes care of her is the father who moves from Bologna specifically, where he taught art in high school Galvani, to Reggio.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, realistic, sincere, captivating, independent film, serious, entertaining
Similar in 76%
Brothers (2004)
Plot Summary:
A Danish officer, Michael (Thomsen), is sent away to the International Security Assistance Force operation in Afghanistan for three months. His first mission there is to find a young radar technician who had been separated from his squad some days earlier. While on the search, his helicopter is shot down and he is taken as a prisoner of war, but is reported dead to the family.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Denmark, UK, Sweden, Norway
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: emotional, tense, disturbing, serious, melancholic, psychological, realistic, captivating, sincere, touching
Similar in 75%
The Other Son (2012)
Plot Summary:
Two men discover they were accidentally switched at birth.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 90%
Lemon Tree (2008)
Plot Summary:
Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defense minister and his wife move next door; the Secret Service orders the trees removed for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority (useless), Israeli army (dismissive), and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case; this older client attracts him. While the courts deliberate, the Israelis fence her trees and prohibit her from entering the grove. As the trees wither, the defense minister's wife and, separately, an Israeli journalist, look on Salma with sympathy. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Israel, Germany, France
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, sentimental, touching, contemplative, emotional, edutainment, informative, thought provoking, serious
Similar in 81%
Lebanon: The Soldier's Journey (2009)
Plot Summary:
June, 1982 - The First Lebanon War. A lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search a hostile town - a simple mission that turns into a nightmare. The four members of a tank crew find themselves in a violent situation that they cannot contain. Motivated by fear and the basic instinct of survival, they desperately try not to lose themselves in the chaos of war.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Israel, France, Germany, UK
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, suspenseful, disturbing, sincere, touching, depressing, educational, powerful, twisted
Similar in 84%
The Situation (2006)
Plot Summary:
The first U.S.-made film drama set during the Iraq war, THE SITUATION chronicles the tragic death of an Iraqi teenager at the hands of U.S. soldiers. The incident sets off an "investigation," a cover-up, and complications involving Iraqi mayor Sheikh Tahsin (Saïd Amadis), who has a complex relationship with the Americans.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 885
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, rough, realistic, extraordinary
Similar in 85%
Close to Home (2005)
Plot Summary:
Smadar (Smadar Sayar) and Mirit (Naama Schendar), both 18 years old, are assigned to patrol the streets of Jerusalem together as part of their military service. Worlds apart in their personality their initial frosty relationship changes to friendship as they deal with their own emotional issues, the crushes and break-ups in their love lives, as well as the political realities.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 947
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, suspense
Similar in 76%
A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (2010)
Plot Summary:
Tai is 17 years old. Naim is 20. She's Israeli. He's Palestinian. She lives in Jerusalem. He lives in Gaza. They were born in a land of scorched earth, where fathers bury their children. They must endure an explosive situation that is not of their choosing at an age where young people are falling in love and taking their place in adult life. A bottle thrown in the sea and a correspondence by email nurture the slender hope that their relationship might give them the strength to confront this harsh reality to grapple with it, and thereby ever so slightly change it. Only 60 miles separate them but how many bombings, check-points, sleepless nights and bloodstained days stand between them?.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Israel, Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, thought provoking, touching, serious, realistic, emotional, contemplative
Similar in 84%
The Kite (2003)
Plot Summary:
A young 15 year old girl, Lamia, lives in a southern Lebanese village on the border with Israel. She is given in marriage to her cousin on the other side of the border. As Lamia crosses the barbed wire she also passes from childhood into adulthood, as brutal as our countries and the events that are to follow.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 785
Genere: Drama
Country: Lebanon, France
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 80%
Inch'Allah (2012)
Plot Summary:
A Canadian doctor finds her sympathies sorely tested while working in the conflict ravaged Palestinian territories.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, realistic, serious, emotional, disturbing, psychological, captivating, bleak, gloomy, extraordinary
Similar in 89%
The Hamburg Cell (2004)
Plot Summary:
Ziad Jarrah, a young Lebonese man from a good family goes to Germany to attend college and starts dating a Turkish girl named Aysel. Although not very religious and accustomed to Western ways, Ziad becomes "brothers" with some fundamentalist Muslims and is slowly drawn into becoming "a Good Muslim". Mohamed Atta and others instill Ziad with a hatred of Jews and "Infidels", which leads to a desire for Jihad and martyrdom. He moves to Hamburg to study aeronautical engineering, attends an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, and deceives his girlfriend and family about his involvement. He eventually attends flight school in Florida with Atta and others, waiting for and preparing for "the big wedding" (the 9/11 attack). Meanwhile, US government and law enforcement officials fail to act despite believing that a major terrorist attack is imminent, and despite noticing a number of suspicious persons involved in flight training. Written by TimeNTide.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 829
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, bleak, serious, disturbing, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 87%
Kedma (2002)
Plot Summary:
In May 1948, shortly before the creation of the State of Israel, hundreds of immigrants from across Europe arrive in Palestine--only to risk arrest by British troops.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 781
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: France, Israel, Italy
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing, sad, tense, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 79%
Live from Baghdad (2002)
Plot Summary:
A group of CNN reporters wrestle with journalistic ethics and the life-and-death perils of reporting during the Gulf War.A Directors Guild Award-winning movie for director Mick Jackson, starring Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham Carter. In 1990, CNN was a 24-hour news network in search of a 24-hour story. They were about to find it in Baghdad. Veteran CNN producer Robert Wiener and his longtime producing partner Ingrid Formanek find themselves in Iraq on the eve of war. Up against the big three networks, Weiner and his team are rebels with a cause, willing to take risks to get the biggest stories and - unlike their rivals - take them live at a moment's notice. As Baghdad becomes an inevitable US target, one by one the networks pull out of the city until only the crew from CNN remains. With a full-scale war soon to be launched all around them, and CNN ready to broadcast whatever happens 24 hours a day, Wiener and Formanek are about to risk their lives for the story of a lifetime.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: serious, disturbing, sincere, emotional, realistic, cult classic, talky
Similar in 86%
A Little Pond (2009)
Plot Summary:
The Korean war does not start well for the US. They are being routed by the North Koreans and In July 1950, the early stage of the Korean War, at the Jugok Village in the middle of the Korean Peninsula, Chang-yee and his friends grow excited over the amateur singing contest knowing nothing about what is going on around them. At the time, the US Army keeps losing and are pushed back to the village, evacuating all villagers to head south. The villagers took refuge like going on a picnic believing that the US Army is protecting them, they just follow their orders moving south bound.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 286
Genere: Drama, War
Country: South Korea
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, bleak, captivating
Similar in 86%
The Hanoi Hilton (1987)
Plot Summary:
Lionel Chetwynd's film documents the horrific struggles that faced American POWs held in the North Vietnamese prison Hoa Lo -- more infamously known as the Hanoi Hilton -- between 1964 and 1975. Williamson (Michael Moriarty) leads a group of American servicemen who are prisoners at the detention camp. He assumes command after Cathcart (Lawrence Pressman) is dragged off to be tortured.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: political, grindhouse, independent film, rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 90%
The Only Way (1970)
Plot Summary:
In April 1940, the armies of Nazi Germany invaded Denmark. The Danish government promised peaceful cooperation on the condition that Denmark s Jews remain free. The Nazi s agreed. In October, 1943, the agreement was broken...This is the true and magnificent saga of Denmark s valorous actions to save Danish Jews from Nazi extermination at peril of death!.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 306
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, Denmark, Panama, UK
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: uplifting, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 85%
The Iron Triangle (1989)
Plot Summary:
Based on the diary of an unknown Viet Cong soldier, this film provides a sympathetic look at a Viet Cong soldier who protected a captured American soldier whom he believed did not kill him when the American had the opportunity. Written by John Sacksteder.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 532
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: rough, realistic, suspenseful, exciting, serious, independent film, bleak, captivating, cult film
Similar in 88%
Battle for Haditha (2007)
Plot Summary:
An investigation of the massacre of 24 men, women and children in Haditha, Iraq allegedly shot by 4 U.S. Marines in retaliation for the death of a U.S. Marine killed by a roadside bomb. The movie follows the story of the Marines of Kilo Company, an Iraqi family, and the insurgents who plant the roadside bomb.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: UK
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: tense, disturbing, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, captivating, sexy, touching
Similar in 89%
Fires on the Plain (2014)
Plot Summary:
In the final days of World War II, occupying Japanese forces in the Philippines face resistance from the local population and the American offensive. The dwindling Japanese soldiers attempt to survive through the horrors of war.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 831
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, atmospheric, realistic, captivating, rough, bleak, serious, gloomy, cult film
Similar in 76%
Paradise Now (2005)
Plot Summary:
Paradise Now is filmed from the perspective of two Palestinian men who are preparing to perform a suicide attack in Israel. This is the first film to deal with the subject of suicide bombers.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 24000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller, War
Country: Netherlands, Israel, Germany, France
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: disturbing, bleak, thought provoking, controversial, depressing, political, rough, dramatic, intense, realistic
Similar in 75%
Beyond Friendship (2006)
Plot Summary:
A tale of friendship between two men, one Jewish and the other Arab, as the state of Israel is being created.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 947
Genere: Drama, History
Country: France, UK, Italy, Greece, Israel, USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, inspirational, sad, informative
Similar in 85%
Texas '46 (2002)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story its the untold story of Italian World War II POW"S in Jan 1946. Luca Zingaretti stars as one of over 50,000 Italian Prisoners of War detained at POW camps in the U.S. Roy Schneider stars as Colonel Gartner, the Commander of the camp. Things take a turn for the worse when Manin is brought back from his most recent escape by a patrol force, only to realize that the camp has been evacuated while he was gone. Gartner is forced to keep Manin at the camp until another patrol force can come pick him up. However, no one ever comes. The phone lines get cut, and the two men realize they are completely isolated from the outside world. It is up to each man now to escape the camp.An untold and rarely known fact of US held Italian POW"S.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 235
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: USA, Italy
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: rough, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, exciting, bleak, serious, captivating