Best movies like Sakharov
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Biography of Russian physicist & dissident Andrei Sakharov focuses on his first acts in his civil rights.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 136
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like Sakharov (1984):
Similar in 90%
Gulag Vorkuta (2016)
Plot Summary:
Two dissidents, fall in love in a Marxist USSR Gulag death camp. As their friends die, they commit to the seeming impossible, escape, but both must first answer their deepest moral questions about the meaning of life, sacrifice and freedom.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 61
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Zina (1985)
Plot Summary:
Zina, the daughter of Leon Trotsky by his first wife, is undergoing freudian analysis in Berlin in the 'thirties. Meanwhile Trotsky is in exile in Prinkipo having been driven from power by Stalin. The Nazis rise to power in Germany and Austria and Zina commits suicide.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 124
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 79%
An Englishman Abroad (1983)
Plot Summary:
Actress Coral Browne travels to Moscow, and meets a mysterious Englishman. Turns out he's the notorious spy, Guy Burgess. Based on a true story, with Ms. Browne playing herself.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 608
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 61 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
The Confession (1990)
Plot Summary:
The Confession (1990) survives in Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) in its original camera negative. It remained unfinished due to the death of Sergei Parajanov. The Confession (1990) was his favorite screenplay, which was written in the 1960s and was his film-memory of the childhood, student years, marriage, imprisonment and more as the fantasist Parajanov perceived it. Parajanov gifted the screenplay to Mikhail Vartanov, made a drawing on the cover and wrote: "The Confession will only be made by a director born in 1924 in Tiflis, Georgia." He predicted that he would not finish it.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 79
Genere: Short, Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 9 min
Plot tags: experimental, independent film
Similar in 89%
Gulag Barashevo (2015)
Plot Summary:
Artists, Poets, Writers, Musicians, and Dissidents, Husbands and Wives, in the Marxist USSR GULAG camps of Barashevo and Vorkuta, suffer in and survive their Gulag death camps. It is a ultimately a spiritual struggle.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 58
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 168 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 85%
Good Bye, Southern City (2006)
Plot Summary:
The film takes place in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku at the end of the 1980s. At this time, the Soviet Union was starting to fall apart, and with this came the start of a number of ethnic conflicts. Fariz and his family move into a Baku apartment block from war-torn Nagorno-Karabakh. Fariz's relations with his new neighbors are strained by his accusations that it was people like them who failed to support the Azeris in their conflict with ethnic Armenians. The only one who stands up to him is Alik, who acts as peacemaker between him and the older inhabitants of the building. Alik has no reservations about brandishing his gun in order to keep the peace. One day, the apartment managers want to evict a number of musicians who have been squatting in the basement. Alik gets involved, but soon discovers the situation is more complicated that he first believed.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 71
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia, Azerbaijan
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Lev Tolstoy (1984)
Plot Summary:
The film consists of two parts: “Insomnia” and “Departure”. We shall meet Lev Tolstoy in the final years of his life at Yasnaya Polyana. We shall see him surrounded by his family, friends, acquaintances and absolute strangers who were coming to the great man and artist from all over the world. We shall hear “the voice of his thoughts”. In his sleepless nights, we shall follow his memory of the happy youthful years and the crucial, hard ones. We shall witness Tolstoy’s tragic departure from Yasnaya Polyana and his death at an obscure little station of Astapovo.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 120
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia
Duration: 168 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Testimony (1987)
Plot Summary:
The story of the great Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and his life and career during the rule of Stalin.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 282
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, Music
Country: Netherlands, UK, Denmark, West Germany, Sweden
Duration: 157 min
Plot tags: black and white, independent film
Similar in 84%
Choice of Purpose (1975)
Plot Summary:
A story of the creation of the atomic bomb in America, Germany and the USSR.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 81
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 158 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Haywire (1980)
Plot Summary:
After fleeting marriages to Henry Fonda and William Wyler, Margaret Sullavan found contentment as the wife of producer Leland Hayward (Jason Robards) and as the mother of three. Or so it seemed, until the marriage crumbled, the children rebelled and she was found dead of an overdose at the age of 50.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 150
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 200 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Stevie (1978)
Plot Summary:
Portrayal of British poet/author Stevie Smith and her life with her beloved aunt through direct dialogue with the audience by Stevie, as well as flashbacks, and narration by a friend. The movie mainly focuses on her relationship with her aunt, romantic relationships of the past, and the fame she received late in her life.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 538
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: independent film, uplifting, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, sexual, sexy
Similar in 89%
The Patricia Neal Story (1981)
Plot Summary:
The actress (Glenda Jackson) recovers from a 1966 stroke with help from friends and her husband, author Roald Dahl (Dirk Bogarde).
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 209
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Dovlatov (2018)
Plot Summary:
Dovlatov charts six days in the life of brilliant, ironic writer who saw far beyond the rigid limits of 70s Soviet Russia. Sergei Dovlatov fought to preserve his own talent and decency with poet and writer Joseph Brodsky while watching his artist friends get crushed by the iron-willed state machinery.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Russia, Poland, Serbia
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, melancholic, visually appealing, art house, beautiful
Similar in 78%
Then Barbara Met Alan (2022)
Plot Summary:
The untold disability civil-rights love story of two cabaret performers, Barbara and Alan, who met at a gig, fell in love, and became the driving force behind an unprecedented campaign of direct action that ultimately led to the passing of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 244
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 67 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
You and Me (1971)
Plot Summary:
A neurosurgeon returns back to the USSR from Sweden and has to deal with rejection - both at work and at home.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 431
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
War and Peace: Part II (1965)
Plot Summary:
In the end of 1809, Natasha attends her first ball. Andrei falls in love with her and intends to marry her, but her father demands they wait. The prince travels abroad, and Natasha desperately longs for him. But she then meets Anatol Kuragin and forgets of Andrei. At the last minute, she regrets and abandons her plans to elope with Anatol. Bolkonsky hears of this and declares their betrothal is over. Pierre, trying to calm her down, suddenly announces he loves her.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: historical drama, period drama
Similar in 84%
My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1985)
Plot Summary:
Russian provincial town in the middle of the 1930s Stalin's Great Purge. Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police, does what he has to do. And he does it well.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: slow cinema, spiritual, aesthetic
Similar in 80%
The Lonely Voice of Man (1987)
Plot Summary:
The film is Sokurov's feature film debut and is based on the novel The River Potudan by Andrei Platonov. It's a story about the lives of people in the Russian countryside in the beginning of the 20th century. The film was completed in 1979 as a graduation film, but was banned by the Soviet state and didn't premiere until 1987.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 716
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: poetic, spiritual, contemplative, avant garde
Similar in 84%
The Second Circle (1990)
Plot Summary:
A man tries to come to terms with his father's death and to deal with the mundane details of his burial in a society cut off from spirituality.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 767
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: spiritual, avant garde
Similar in 84%
The Asthenic Syndrome (1989)
Plot Summary:
In the old days it was called hypochrondria, or black melancholia. Now, apparently, it's termed the Asthenic Syndrome. Whatever it is, Nikolai, a teacher of epicly indifferent pupils, has got it, and it's not much fun.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 153 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 75%
War and Peace: Part IV (1967)
Plot Summary:
As Moscow is set ablaze by the retreating Russians, the Rostovs flee their estate, taking wounded soldiers with them, and unbeknownst to them, also Andrei. Pierre, dressed as a peasant, tries to assassinate Napoleon but is taken prisoner. As the French are forced to retreat, he is marched for months with the Grande Armée, until being freed by a raiding party. The French are defeated by Kutuzov in the Battle of Krasnoi. Andrei is recognized and is brought to his estate. He forgives Natasha on his deathbed. She reunites with Pierre and they marry as Moscow is being rebuilt.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: period drama
Similar in 88%
The Criminal Shall Not Escape (1965)
Plot Summary:
Mukhtar comes to live and work at the police kennels through rather unusual circumstances. Together with his handler, Glazychev, Mukhtar helps to solve large and small crimes.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 622
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982)
Plot Summary:
An adaptation of Barbara Gordon's nonfiction account of her addiction to Valium.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 556
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, sincere, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Kalashnikov (2020)
Plot Summary:
Tank commander Kalashnikov is severely injured in battle in 1941. The accident leaves him incapacitated and unable to return to the front. While recovering in the hospital he begins creating the initial sketches of what will become one of the world’s most legendary weapons. A self-taught inventor, Mikhail Kalashnikov, is only 29 when he develops the now iconic assault riffle - the AK-47.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Biography, Drama, War
Country: Russia
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: rough, captivating, disturbing, suspenseful, philosophical, political, informative, heroic
Similar in 86%
Within the Whirlwind (2009)
Plot Summary:
During Stalin's reign of terror, Evgenia Ginzburg, a literature professor, was sent to 10 years hard labor in a gulag in Siberia. Having lost everything, and no longer wishing to live, she meets the camp doctor and begins to come back to life.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Germany, Poland, Belgium
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, suspense, disturbing, historical drama
Similar in 81%
The Romanovs: An Imperial Family (2000)
Plot Summary:
The story of the last year and a half of Tsar Nicholas II and his family from the February Revolution of 1917 to their execution in July 1918.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 352
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Russia
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, captivating
Similar in 85%
Mark Twain and Me (1991)
Plot Summary:
Dorothy Quick, A young girl befriends the famous writer, Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemans during the final years of his life.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 191
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
Act One (1963)
Plot Summary:
Story of the life of writer/playwright Moss Hart.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 281
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, touching, serious, realistic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 83%
Hawking (2004)
Plot Summary:
The story of Professor Stephen Hawking's early years is told for the first time in a major drama for BBC Two.It is 1963, and our young cosmologist celebrates his 21st birthday. At the party is a new friend, Jane Wilde - there is a strong attraction between the two. Jane is intrigued by Stephen's talk of stars and the Universe. But she realises that there is something very wrong when Stephen suddenly finds that he is unable to stand up.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: inspirational, sentimental, emotional, motivational, sexy, touching, intellectual, unusual plot structure, bad ending, entertaining
Similar in 78%
The Butler (2013)
Plot Summary:
A look at the life of Cecil Gaines who served eight presidents as the White House's head butler from 1952 to 1986, and had a unique front-row seat as political and racial history was made.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 119000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, inspirational, political, factual, uplifting, thought provoking, serious, disturbing, historical drama