Best movies like Speak Like a Child
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Speak Like a Child, the feature film debut of documentary director John Akomfrah, explores the intense friendship that evolves between three troubled teenagers growing up in an isolated children's home on the Northumbrian coast. The desolate beauty of the coastline is captured in stunning panoramas, while strong performances by the young cast help to create a lyrical and poignant drama.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 87
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: independent film, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Best tv shows and movies like Speak Like a Child (1998):
Similar in 83%
Toss-Up (2004)
Plot Summary:
Yazi Tura (Toss Up) is the film of two stories taking place in 1999. Stories of two young men... One is "Ridvan the Devil", a young football player from Central Anatolia, Cappadocia / Goreme, and the "Cevher the Ghost", a young man who is living with his father in Istanbul. Both went to the army together, and fought in the Eastern Anatolia. Both had dreams and expectations for their civil lives back home. After their military service Ridvan goes back to his village with his right leg missing, the leg that he would score goals with, due to a mine explotion. Neither his fiancée nor his friends treat him the way before. What Ridvan has been through during the war actually brings him down with time. In the same mine explosion Cevher also lost his hearing ability of his right ear, but he is going to go through a greater change after he rescues his father from the wreckage of the Marmara Earthquake.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, Greece
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: emotional, serious, realistic, art house, bleak
Similar in 79%
The New World (1995)
Plot Summary:
A young boy who worships all things American comes of age in Orleans, where over 14,000 American GIs were stationed.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 307
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 77%
The Letter (1999)
Plot Summary:
A well-bred, lovely, spiritual, sad young woman marries an attentive physician who loves her. She feels affection but no love. Soon after, without design, she falls in love with Pedro Abrunhosa, a poet and performance artist. He also loves her. She keeps her distance from him, confessing her love to a friend who is a nun and, later, to her husband. Hunger for her love and jealousy consume him; she attends him as he wastes away. With his death, she can marry and express her passion, but what she does and how she explains herself, particularly to her cloistered friend, is at the heart of the film. Glimpses of convent life and of Abrunhosa on stage give contrast and mute comment.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 730
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Portugal, Spain
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 76%
Lotus Eaters (2011)
Plot Summary:
Story follows a group of young Londoners as they struggle to find meaning in their lives while masking their discontent with sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 310
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: serious, atmospheric, realistic, stylized
Similar in 83%
The Miracle (1991)
Plot Summary:
The two teenagers Jimmy and Rose spend their vacation at the small Irish sea-resort Bray. Out of boredom they observe other people and imagine wild stories about them. One day they observe the blonde Renee, and Jimmy is immediately fascinated by her and even follows her home. She, too, seems to like him, but for a mysterious reason keeps him at a distance.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 775
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Ireland
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: serious, touching, realistic, psychological, erotic, independent film
Similar in 78%
Nagima (2013)
Plot Summary:
Ugly, illiterate and an uncommunicative “graduate” of the city orphanage, Nagima is a young woman whose life offers little potential for success or even happiness. Nagima rents a tiny room on the outskirts of the city of Almaty with her fellow orphanage “graduate” the pregnant, and equally isolated, Anya. In the midst of giving birth to her child, tragedy strikes and Anya dies. Never knowing her mother, the newborn girl must be submitted to the orphanage and so Nagima sees the vicious cycle of life in repetitious action and becomes severely depressed at the cruelty of life.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 40
Genere: Drama
Country: Kazakhstan
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, touching, suspenseful, rough, bleak
Similar in 80%
One Love (2011)
Plot Summary:
A summer vacation in the 70s. Lalo and Bruno are teenagers doing nothing on days full of nothing. But on a hot and humid afternoon, and without asking for permission, Lisa arrives smashing more than the letargy of the town. Thirty years later Lisa comes again to interfere in the lives of these two adults.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 311
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Argentina
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: realistic, contemplative, emotional, psychological, captivating, touching, serious
Similar in 89%
Intruder (1993)
Plot Summary:
In childhood and youth, the three were "the inseparables." Luisa married Ángel, then two years later, she left him to marry Ramiro. After ten years, Ángel reappears, back from South America, broke and ill. Luisa is overcome with sentimentality and, over Ramiro's objections, takes Ángel into their house. Ángel is bitter, he and Ramiro have shifted from best friends to enemies. Luisa wants to be in love with both. Ramiro hopes he can wait out Ángel's declining health, and Luisa wants to heal Ángel through force of will. What is Ángel's plan? Observing the roiling emotions are Luisa and Ramiro's precocious young children. Who's in danger here?.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 357
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Spain
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
Similar in 75%
Sebastian (1995)
Plot Summary:
In this thoughtful Scandinavian drama, a teenage boy wrestles with his sexuality and learns that most of his deepest fears were unfounded. Sebastian is almost 17 when he figures out that he is a homosexual. Though he lives with wonderful, stable parents and has a good-hearted sister, he finds himself wracked with turmoil and suddenly withdraws from them all. The more they try to understand why, the more distant Sebastian becomes. Things get worse when he falls in love with the handsome Ulf, who comes from an unstable, tempestuous home. Sebastian realizes he is lucky, but still can't help but become irritated when he brings Ulf home for dinner. His parents are too nice and this quietly infuriates their son. Eventually they leave the two boys alone in the house. Sebastian have great fun doing teenage guy stuff, but then they take a bath together and it is then that Sebastian tries to kiss Ulf.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 595
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway, Sweden
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, sexual, sexy, gay cinema, queer cinema
Similar in 85%
Plans for Tomorrow (2010)
Plot Summary:
Three stories intertwined which occur in a single day. The day Ines discovers she is pregnant, Antonia decides to abandon her family and Marian realizes she is going to die.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 349
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Buddha Mountain (2010)
Plot Summary:
Ding Bo (Chen Po Lin) and his friends Nan Feng (Fan Bingbing) and Fei Zao aka Fatso (Fei Long) are a trio of 20-something outsiders who have no intention of sitting exams and getting into universities. When they need a new home, they answer an ad placed by lonely, retired Chinese opera singer Chang Yue Qin (Sylvia Chang), who is mourning the death of her son, and move into her sprawling Chengdu apartment. Right off the bat, the four clash over lifestyle and values, with the bratty trio seeing fit to steal from her and invade her privacy. However, slowly but surely a bond among them develops and everyone eventually learns something from the next.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 921
Genere: Drama
Country: China
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sexy, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Like You Know It All (2009)
Plot Summary:
Delightfully comic exploration of the emotional and social geography of an art-house film director.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 836
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, realistic, uplifting, emotional, semi serious, offbeat, humorous
Similar in 79%
3 Nights in the Desert (2014)
Plot Summary:
Three former band mates enter a cave after hearing it has the power to give them what they need. As unsettling desires rise to the surface, they all wonder if the cave has real power.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, talky, serious, realistic, minimal cast, independent film
Similar in 90%
My Friend & His Wife (2006)
Plot Summary:
Two young men, Ye-joon and Jae-moon, have been close friends since doing military service together. Ye-joon has lately worked his way up to becoming a successful financier, while the unambitious Jae-moon has opted for a much less conspicuous route. He now works as a cook and is enjoying family life with his wife Ji-sook and their new-born son. Ji-sook tolerates her husband’s attachment to his friend, but everything changes after the tragic death of the child, caused by Ye-joon. Ji-sook was in Paris when the tragedy occurred and isn’t aware of the circumstances; she even starts an affair with Ye-joon when her husband is imprisoned after taking the blame for his son’s death. Relationships which were originally crystal-clear begin to grow distinctly cloudy.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 153
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: emotional, serious, realistic, psychological, captivating, touching, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Between Two Women (2003)
Plot Summary:
Set in Northern England, this powerful tale of suppressed sexuality offers poignant and sharply observant social commentary, interlaced with a tender romance. Vetern actress Barbara Marten tugs at the heart as Ellen Hardy, a working-class mother unhappily married to Geoff and struggling with her feelings for another woman - her 10-year-old son's vivacious teacher, Kathy Thompson.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 727
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: serious, sentimental, touching, emotional, period piece, deep, independent film, realistic, gloomy, sexual
Similar in 85%
2 Friends (1986)
Plot Summary:
Two girls, at 15; Louise, in a prestigious girls' high school, and Kelly, who was admitted but forbidden by her father to attend. This is the end of their friendship, and from here the film progresses in a backwards time line to a final freeze frame of the girls at the peak of their closeness.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 484
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 76 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, surreal, non-linear
Similar in 84%
Ana and the Others (2003)
Plot Summary:
Twenty-something Ana, now living in Buenos Aires, returns to her native city of Paraná. She meets old school mates, old friends, makes new ones, and starts to rethink her life, and perhaps change her future.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 358
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, realistic, offbeat, humorous, semi serious, sexual, sexy
Similar in 90%
In Between Days (2006)
Plot Summary:
A Korean immigrant falls in love with her best friend while navigating her way through the challenges of living in a new country.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 609
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, South Korea, USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, sentimental, contemplative, captivating, depressing, mumblecore, sincere, touching, serious
Similar in 87%
A Trip (2011)
Plot Summary:
Three friends embark on a road trip like in high school, but things have changed - Gregor is going to war mission, Ziva is going to study abroad, while Andrej is still the same. There are secrets left unsaid. Can their friendship survive?.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 905
Genere: Drama
Country: Slovenia
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, road movie, captivating, psychological, atmospheric, touching, serious
Similar in 80%
Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud (1995)
Plot Summary:
Nelly leaves her lazy, unemployed husband to work for retired judge Mr Arnaud, forty years her senior, after he offers to clear her bills for her. While she types his memoirs the two develop a close friendship, but Arnaud becomes jealous when Nelly begins dating his good-looking young publisher.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy, Germany
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, light, atmospheric, sexy
Similar in 89%
Swann (1996)
Plot Summary:
Rose Hindmarsh finds herself at the centre of a controversy when she meets author Sarah Maloney as she investigates the life of Mary Swann, an obscure poet who was brutally murdered in a small town in rural Ontario.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 162
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Canada, UK
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: independent film, sentimental, atmospheric, touching, offbeat, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 84%
The Weekend (1999)
Plot Summary:
Marian and John Kerr are expecting an old friend, Lyle for a weekend visit to their beautiful upstate New York home. Emotions run high since it is the one-year anniversary of the death of John's brother, the handsome and charismatic Tony, who had also been Lyle`s lover. Marian, who is still inconsolable after losing Tony to AIDS, is upset when Lyle brings his new boyfriend, a young artist, Robert. Meanwhile, the situation is just as tense at the Kerr`s neighbors' house, where oft-widowed, free spirit Laura Ponti gets a surprise visit from her resentful, angry daughter, Nina, and her married lover, Thierry. Matters worsen when the battling mother-daughter duo joins the Kerr household for a dinner party, where the pain-riddled diners engage in a messy emotional showdown.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 325
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: independent film, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Frailer (2014)
Plot Summary:
A woman diagnosed with terminal lung cancer gathers her three dearest friends together to make the most of the time she has left.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 104
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands, Norway
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, serious, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 84%
When the Night (2011)
Plot Summary:
After meeting during their vacation, two young people with solitary lives suddenly come into a relationship that could benefit both of them.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 334
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Bereft (2004)
Plot Summary:
A young Vermont widow is haunted by the memory of her dead husband, while trying to date again.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 409
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, psychological, serious, emotional, independent film, realistic
Similar in 83%
All Around Us (2008)
Plot Summary:
Kanao, a courtroom portrait artist, observes crimes, scandals and the decline of Japanese values without passing judgement. As he and his wife endure the tragedy of their first child’s death, hope slowly unfolds and their love story flickers to life once again.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 890
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, touching, psychological, serious, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Just Between Friends (1986)
Plot Summary:
Holly and Sandy strike up an instant friendship; they don't know however that they have more in common than they'd like. When tragedy strikes, their relationship is tested.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: independent film, sentimental, clever, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, talky, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Face (2002)
Plot Summary:
Genie, a Chinese-American teenager, develops feelings for a charming African-American DJ, but her grandmother forbids their romance forcing Genie to choose between family and love.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 350
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, emotional, sentimental, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 76%
Guilty Hearts (2006)
Plot Summary:
Over the course of this drama's six separate stories, a variety of couples struggle with the infidelity, dishonesty and heartbreak that plagues their varied pasts. In overcoming their challenges, these diverse individuals embrace a brighter future.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 818
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 81%
Take Care of My Cat (2001)
Plot Summary:
The fashionable Hye-joo is focused on her career at a brokerage house. She's making a decent living, but her co-workers look down on her. Tae-hee is sick of living under the thumb of her domineering father. She spends her time doing volunteer work for a poet with cerebral palsy. Sullen Ji-young lives in poverty with her grandparents and struggles to find work. The girls, close friends in high school, find themselves drifting apart as their adult lives begin to take shape.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: lyrical, psychological, sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, erotic, atmospheric