Best movies like Samson et Dalila
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Plot Summary:
While the rest of the Hebrews bewail their fate, Samson alone trusts in God's promise of liberty. Abimelech, the Philistine satrap of Gaza, enters to mock the Hebrews' God, proclaiming the superiority of Dagon, and the Hebrews are afraid of him. But calls them to show some defiance, so Abimelech attacks Samson with his sword. Samson seizes the sword and strikes him dead. The Hebrews scatter and the High Priest of Dagon appears, cursing the Hebrews. When a messenger reports that the Hebrews are ravaging the harvest, the High Priest forms a plan to use Delilah to overcome Samson's strength. Delilah's beauty is such that Samson can't resist her for long. She begs to know the secret of his supernatural strength, but he refuses, though he says he loves her. Delilah betrays Samson by having some Philistine soldiers seize him and throw him into a prison in Gaza, where his hair is cut off.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 33
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: biblical
Best tv shows and movies like Samson et Dalila (1981):
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Offenbach: Les Contes D'Hoffman (1981)
Plot Summary:
Seeking to exorcise the failure of his current love affair, the poet Hoffmann tells the tales of his three past loves - the doll-like Olympia, the high-class courtesan Giulietta, and the ambitious but delicate Antonia - and recalls how each was thwarted by the evil influence of his rival. In this production by the distinguished film director, John Schlesinger, with spectacular designs by Maria Bjornson and William Dudley, Offenbach's nightmare world is brought to life. The all-star cast is headed by Placido Domingo as Hoffmann: his three loves are Ileana Cotrubas, Anges Baltsa and Luciana Serra and the manifestations of his rival are sung by Geraint Evans, Robert Lloyd, Siegmund Nimsgern and Nicola Ghiuselev. The score, which includes such favourites as the "Barcarolle" and the "Doll's Song", is conducted by Georges Pretre.
IMDB Rating: 8.7
IMDB Votes: 62
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Musical, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 159 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Soul Hustler (1973)
Plot Summary:
Matthew Crowe, a whoring, pot-smoking, wandering singer teams up with a tent-show preacher. The preacher recognizes Mathew's charisma, and together they collect big donations delivering sermons with rocking gospel songs.Soon enough, Matthew lands a record deal, and the older man becomes the manager of Crowe's new act: Matthew, Son of Jesus. They hire a backup group of mustachioed rock musicians, who play in brown monks' robes, in contrast to Matthew's white robe and sandals. Their debut album becomes a huge hit so they go on a concert tour to promote it.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 66
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: surprise ending, psychotronic, independent film
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L'Incoronazione di Poppea (2000)
Plot Summary:
Experience Claudio Monteverdi's three-act opera in the environment it was meant to be seen with this release of a filmed performance captured live during a 2000 production staged at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in France. Mireille Delunsch, Anne Sofie Von Otter, and Sylvie Brunet star, and conductor Marc Minkowski leads the Les Musiciens du Louvre, Grenoble. Klaus Michael Grüber directs for stage.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 14
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 166 min
Plot tags: baroque
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Madama Butterfly (2010)
Plot Summary:
The heroine of this beloved opera finds herself faced with a dreadful choice: life without dignity or death with honor. Hear some of Puccini's most soaring and captivating music in this classic story of colliding hearts and cultures.
IMDB Rating: 8.9
IMDB Votes: 9
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 165 min
Plot tags:
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Stiffelio (2012)
Plot Summary:
Part of Tutto Verdi series - Stiffelio (2012) Parma. 'Stiffelio' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, from an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. The origin of this was the novel “Le pasteur d’hommes”, by Émile Souvestre, which was published in 1838. This was adapted into the French play 'Le pasteur, ou L'évangile et le foyer' by Émile Souvestre and Eugène Bourgeois. That was in turn translated into Italian by Gaetano Vestri as 'Stifellius'; this formed the basis of Piave's libretto.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 9
Genere: Drama, Musical
Country: Germany, Italy
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags:
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Turandot (1983)
Plot Summary:
From the world famous Arena of Verona, an international cast perform one of Puccini's best loved operas. The cruel Princess Turandot, ruler of China, will only wed a prince who can answer correctly her three riddles. Those who fail are executed. Prince Calaf, son of the exiled king of Tartary, falls in love with Turandot as soon as he sets eyes on her, and despite the protestations of his friends and family sets out to pass her test.
IMDB Rating: 9.2
IMDB Votes: 28
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Music
Country: Italy
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags:
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Cavalleria Rusticana (1968)
Plot Summary:
Film of the opera Cavalleria Rusticana conducted by Herbert von Karajan.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 46
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: West Germany, Austria
Duration: 76 min
Plot tags:
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Orpheus (1978)
Plot Summary:
Live performance, part of Monteverdi cycle staged by Oper Zürich with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting the Zürich Opera House Monteverdi Ensemble. Staged and directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Filmed 28 march - 20 April. Sound recorded 1 - 25 December 1977.
IMDB Rating: 8.6
IMDB Votes: 57
Genere: Music, Drama
Country: Switzerland, West Germany
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
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Carmen (2007)
Plot Summary:
Georges Bizet's Carmen, filmed at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, and conducted by Antonio Pappano, tells the tragic story of a soldier who falls for the sultry Carmen and abandons his career and family to be with her.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 54
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 152 min
Plot tags:
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L'Incoronazione di Poppea (1979)
Plot Summary:
Live performance, part of Monteverdi cycle staged by Oper Zürich with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting the Zürich Opera House Monteverdi Ensemble. Staged and directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle.
IMDB Rating: 8.6
IMDB Votes: 51
Genere: Music, Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 164 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Macbeth (1993)
Plot Summary:
Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 31
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK, West Germany, France
Duration: 149 min
Plot tags:
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Notre Dame de Paris - Live Arena di Verona (2002)
Plot Summary:
A musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel "Notre Dame de Paris" which follows the gypsy dancer Esmeralda and the three men who vie for her love: the kind hunchback Quadimodo, the twisted priest Frollo, and the unfaithful soldier Phoebus.
IMDB Rating: 9.0
IMDB Votes: 152
Genere: Musical, Music, Drama, Romance
Country: Italy
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Henry VIII (1991)
Plot Summary:
Henry VIII is an opera in four acts by Camille Saint-Saëns, from a libretto by Léonce Détroyat and Armand Silvestre, based on El cisma en Inglaterra (The schism in England) by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. It was revived in 1991 at the Théatre Impérial de Compiègne in a production by Pierre Jourdan, with Philippe Rouillon as Henry VIII, Michèle Command as Catherine of Aragon and Lucile Vignon as Anne Boleyn. The production was made into this film.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 18
Genere: Drama, History, Music
Country: France
Duration: 200 min
Plot tags:
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The Death of Klinghoffer (2003)
Plot Summary:
An adaptation from the controversial John Adams opera about the true life incident that took place in the mid 80s. The liner "Achille Lauro" is on a 12-day cruise in the Mediterranean. While the ship is docked in Alexandria, a maid discovers that four of the passengers are actually members of the Palestine Liberation Organization traveling incognito. Startled by their discovery, the PLO cadre is forced to act. They take the passengers on board hostage and demand the release of 50 Palestinian activists held in Israeli jails. As Egyptian, American, Italian, and Palestinian authorities bicker over the best way to handle the situation (and who would negotiate with the terrorists), the kidnappers find themselves dealing with rebellion among their captives, and an argument between the four PLO members and Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish-American confined to a wheelchair, eventually escalates into violence.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 144
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
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Un Ballo In Maschera (1991)
Plot Summary:
Verdi's opera performed by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by James Levine. Starring Luciano Pavarotti.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 45
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags:
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Eugene Onegin (2007)
Plot Summary:
The Wiener Philharmoniker mounts, and Andrea Breth stages, this 2007 production of Pyotr Illych Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin, starring Peter Mattei, Joseph Kaiser, Anna Samuil and Renée Morloc. The Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor lends added musical accompaniment, under the baton of Daniel Barenboim.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 16
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Austria, Germany
Duration: 210 min
Plot tags:
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Rodelinda (2005)
Plot Summary:
Live from Munich 2004.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 9
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Germany
Duration: 203 min
Plot tags:
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Roberto Devereux (1997)
Plot Summary:
A lyric tragedy in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti, libretto by Salvatore Cammarano. Roberto Devereux was composed in the summer of 1837, the year, according to biographers, in which Donizetti seems to have suffered most, having lost his third son and his adored wife Virginia Vasselli. The opera made its debut at the San Carlo Theatre in Naples on October 28th in the same year and was a great success. The rehearsals of the original performance were postponed for a month due to censorship of the decapitation scene of the leading actor.
IMDB Rating: 8.9
IMDB Votes: 17
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Italy
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags:
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Il Trovatore (2002)
Plot Summary:
José Cura, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Verónica Villarroel and Yvonne Naef lead the star cast of Verdi's blazingly passionate opera IL TROVATORE, in Elijah Moshinsky's new Royal Opera House production co-produced with Teatro Real Madrid, with sets by the noted film designer Dante Ferretti and costumes by Anne Tilby.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 40
Genere: Music, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags:
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Carmen on Ice (1990)
Plot Summary:
Carmen is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 101
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Germany
Duration: 76 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Rigoletto (2010)
Plot Summary:
Guiseppi Verdi's opera about Rigoletto, the unattractive, hunchbacked jester in the court of the Duke of Mantua. The Duke has noticed a young lady going to church each Sunday and he plans to seduce her. When Count Monterone confronts the Duke for seducing his daughter. Rigoletto ridicules Monterone, the Duke laughs, and Monterone casts an awful curse on both of them.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 74
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Italy, UK, France, Japan, USA, Germany
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Othello (1992)
Plot Summary:
The complete version of Verdi's Otello performed by Placido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Gala Performance in honour of Sir Georg Solti's 80th birthday.. 27 October 1992. BBC 2 Television live relay.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 82
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 147 min
Plot tags:
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Moses and Aaron (1975)
Plot Summary:
MOSES AND AARON finds Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, through their exemplary craft, transforming a familiar Biblical tale into a borderline-surreal cinematic opera of seemingly endless possibility. In expressive, melodic tones, the fraternal pair debate God’s true message and intent for His creations, a conflict that leads their followers — in extravagantly choreographed song and dance — towards chaos and sin. Set almost entirely within a Roman amphitheater whose history lends every precise line-reading and gesture, every startling camera move and cut, a totalizing force, Straub-Huillet’s adaptation of Schoenberg’s unfinished opera opens us to the stimulating worldview of a filmmaking duo whose masterful efforts are finally coming to light.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 498
Genere: Music, Drama
Country: West Germany, Austria, France, Italy
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags:
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Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1967)
Plot Summary:
Katerina Izmailova is a filmization of Dmitry Shostakovich's long-suppressed 1936 opera. Galina Vishnevskaya stars as Katerina, a bored 19th century farm wife. At the behest of her grungy lover, Katerina murders her husband and her father-in-law. She and her new beau are both sent to Siberia, where the lover almost immediately takes up with a younger woman. Banned by Stalin for its bleak portrait of Soviet life, Katerina Izmailova was not given a Russian staging for over 40 years; its Metropolitan Opera debut did not occur until 1994. Dmitri Shostakovich also wrote the screenplay for the screen version of Katerina Izmailova.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 82
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags:
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Solomon & Sheba (1995)
Plot Summary:
In the land of Israel, Solomon (Jimmy Smits) is trying to figure out a way to become the world’s supplier of frankincense. He sends an envoy to the tiny country of Sheba to announce his intentions. The Queen of Sheba, Nikaule (Halle Berry), is outraged by Solomon’s greedy plan.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 240
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: biblical, sexy
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Othello (1986)
Plot Summary:
Having previously staged Verdi's 1887 opera Otello at the Met and La Scala, filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli committed his production to film in 1986. Starring as the fatally jealous Moor of Venice is Placido Domingo, who had also headlined Zeffirelli's 1976 La Scala staging (production on the film was briefly interrupted while Domingo participated in the rescue operations following the Mexico City earthquake). While Katia Ricciarelli as Desdemona and Justino Diaz as Iago perform their own singing, Zeffirelli's Cassio--played by real-life European prince Urbano Barberini--is dubbed by Ezio de Cesare. The director made several cuts in the original libretto and score in order to accommodate the film's two-hour time limit, but these excisions are done with taste and discretion. Because of the excessive violence in the third act--two murders, a suicide, a superficial throat-slashing--Otello was released with a PG rating.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 607
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Netherlands, Italy, USA
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, stylized, serious, captivating, realistic, light, inspirational, sexy, thought provoking, enigmatic
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Carmen (1984)
Plot Summary:
A film version of the famous Bizet opera, where a soldier (Don Jose) falls in love with a beautiful factory worker (Carmen), but she does not reciprocate his feelings.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 152 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, sexual, erotic, light, romantic, atmospheric, sexy
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Rigoletto (1987)
Plot Summary:
Rigoletto is a jester in the court of the Duke of Mantua. He has a hunch-back and he's rather unattractive, but he's good at his job of humiliating the courtiers for the amusement of the Duke. The courtiers, of course, are not amused. The Duke is a ladies man who feels his life would be meaningless if he couldn't chase every skirt he sees. In fact, we learn as the opera begins that he's recently been noticing a young lady every Sunday on her way to church, and he's vowed to have his way with her. What nobody realizes is that the girl is the jester's beloved daughter, Gilda, and that Gilda has seen the Duke every Sunday and is smitten with him. Suddenly Count Monterone appears at court, furious that the Duke has seduced his daughter. Rigoletto ridicules Monterone, the Duke laughs, and Monterone casts an awful curse on both of them. Later, the courtiers discover that Rigoletto is secretly living with Gilda.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 364
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: West Germany
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: freeze frame
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Gospel Road: A Story of Jesus (1973)
Plot Summary:
Johnny Cash appears in and narrates this version of the story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 303
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, captivating, realistic, biblical
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The Light of the World (2003)
Plot Summary:
This 78-minute film takes you on an unforgettable journey, showing the biblical account of the creation of man and the entrance of sin into the world. See why Jesus Christ came to earth and how He dealt with the sin issue once and for all. Follow the Lord's life, from His miraculous birth to His agonizing crucifixion and glorious resurrection. Viewers will suddenly realize the horrible price Christ paid for their sins, and understand why He is the only way to heaven.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 73
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: biblical, christian film