Best movies like Stray Dogs
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Two children are orphaned in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 695
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like Stray Dogs (2004):
Similar in 78%
Ballad of a White Cow (2020)
Plot Summary:
Mina's life is turned upside down when she learns that her husband was innocent of the crime for which he was executed, so she starts a silent battle against a cynical system for her own and her daughter's sake.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 79%
The Orphans (1977)
Plot Summary:
A story about a group of Russian boys who have lost their fathers in the World War II.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 415
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Muddy River (1981)
Plot Summary:
Two boys, whose parents ply their trade by the mouth of a muddy river in Osaka, become close friends.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
The Path (2022)
Plot Summary:
Fleeing from the Nazis, two children, a journalist father, and a dog must make their way through the hazardous Pyrenees mountain range.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 230
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Spain
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Wolf and Sheep (2016)
Plot Summary:
In rural Afghanistan, people are storytellers who make up and tell each other tales of mystery and imagination to explain the world in which they live. The shepherd children own the mountains and, although no adults are around, they know the rules; they know that boys and girls are not allowed to be together. The boys practice with their slings to fight wolves. The girls smoke secretly and play at getting married, dreaming of finding a husband soon. They gossip about Sediqa; she’s eleven years old and an outsider. The girls think she is cursed. Qodrat, also eleven years old, becomes the subject of gossip when his mother remarries an old man with two wives. Qodrat roams alone in the most isolated parts of the mountains, where he meets Sediqa and they become friends.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 340
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark, France, Sweden, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Nargess (1992)
Plot Summary:
A sharp-edged look at people who live outside the constraints of Islamic law.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 347
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Glue Sniffer (1999)
Plot Summary:
Oliver flees from abuse of his family and seeks refuge in the violent streets of Caracas, where survival is only possible in an environment of corruption, crime and sniffing glue to escape hunger, like other children in the same situation. Soon, the child becomes part of the clashes between drug gangs and corrupt policemen.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 265
Genere: Drama
Country: Venezuela, Spain
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
A Hero (2021)
Plot Summary:
Rahim is in prison because of a debt he was unable to repay. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. But things don't go as planned. Is he truly a hero?.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 29000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: suspense, thrilling, beautiful, cult film
Similar in 88%
The World of Ludovic (1993)
Plot Summary:
Ludovic, a young boy neglected by his artsy parents, falls in love with Sophie, the daughter of a piano teacher. They meet in secret places in the city. Not long after Sophie's father finds them naked together in her room, Ludovic is sent away to spend time with his grandparents. Sophie runs away from home to join him, and they hide along the seashore and in abandoned buildings. After they are found, their parents try to keep them separate, but they both fall into deep depressions.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 199
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, Netherlands, France
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
The Children's Rebellion (1992)
Plot Summary:
In the 19th century, children -- particularly the children of the poor -- were considered to be an exploitable resource of docile and cheap labor. Anyone who had the effrontery to steal so much as a portion of a loaf of bread for any reason would (at the very least) go to prison, regardless of their age. However, people of conscience were beginning to protest against this situation. The story takes place in a prison for children where conditions are particularly harsh. The warden is a thick-headed martinet who demands complete compliance with the rules, or the children will be brutally dealt with. The assistant warden is a more modern man, and is appalled by the whole institution, but seeks to begin by reforming it. To that end, he has invited a journalist to come and see the conditions that prevail there, in the hopes that she will rouse public opinion against at least this one form of injustice.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 76
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Young Ahmed (2019)
Plot Summary:
A Belgian teenager hatches a plot to kill his teacher after embracing an extremist interpretation of the Quran.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 77%
Boycott (1986)
Plot Summary:
Valeh, a member of a leftist organization, is arrested by the SAVAK and sentenced to death. In prison, he reconsiders his relationships with members of his political cell, and begins to doubt the validity of the ideas for which he is condemned. At the same time, his comrades pressure him to make a sacrifice for their cause, and his beloved wife experiences personal problems and economic hardships.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 378
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Earth and Ashes (2004)
Plot Summary:
Elderly Dastaguir and his newly deaf 5-year-old grandson Yassin hitchhike and walk, but mostly walk, as they make their way to the coal mine where Dastaguir's son Murad works. Dastaguir must tell Murad that the rest of their family were all killed in a recent bomb attack.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 574
Genere: Drama
Country: Afghanistan, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, sincere, thought provoking, touching, bleak, islamic, atmospheric, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame (2007)
Plot Summary:
A young girl zealously wants to go to school and learn to read and write. Almost everywhere she is met with hostility or indifference. The only young boy who takes her to his school is thrown out by the teacher, because helping her prevented him from arriving in time. On her way home she and other girls are taken as prisoners by boys playing as Taliban fighters. They tear her school book to pieces and threaten to stone their female captives.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Iran, France, Afghanistan
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, thought provoking, emotional, realistic, gloomy, semi serious
Similar in 89%
The Day I Became a Woman (2000)
Plot Summary:
A girl reaches the age of nine and is supposed to act as a grown woman according to her family. A girl participates in a bike race against the will of her husband. An elderly woman decides she wants to buy all the things she always wanted but could never get.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: touching, talky, stylized, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, entertaining, allegory
Similar in 87%
Kandahar (2001)
Plot Summary:
After an Afghanistan-born woman who lives in Canada receives a letter from her suicidal sister, she takes a perilous journey through Afghanistan to try to find her.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: sincere, surreal, disturbing, bleak, tense, atmospheric, depressing, lyrical, road movie, talky
Similar in 83%
All the Invisible Children (2005)
Plot Summary:
Seven short films - each one focused on the plight of a different child protagonist.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: anthology, touching, atmospheric, rough, serious, captivating, neorealism, realistic, independent film
Similar in 82%
Day Break (2005)
Plot Summary:
Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, capital punishment is carried out according to Islamic law, which gives the family of the victim ownership of the offender's life. Day Break - based on a compilation of true stories and shot inside Tehran's century-old prison - revolves around the imminent execution of Mansour, a man found guilty of murder. When the family of the victim repeatedly fails to show up on the appointed day, Mansour's execution is postponed again and again. Stuck inside the purgatory of his own mind, he waits as time passes on without him, caught between life and death, retribution and forgiveness.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 327
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, serious, suspenseful, thought provoking, bleak, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, surprise ending
Similar in 86%
Enclave (2015)
Plot Summary:
Nenad, ten years Christian boy from a Serbian enclave, determined to create a proper community burial for his late grandfather, crosses enemy lines and makes friends among the Muslim majority in deeply divided, war-torn Kosovo.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Serbia
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 79%
In This World (2002)
Plot Summary:
Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: bleak, road movie, inspirational, disturbing, sincere, suspenseful, political, realistic, tense, thought provoking
Similar in 75%
Osama (2003)
Plot Summary:
Teenage girl Osama cuts her hair and dresses like a boy to get a job and support her widowed mother and grandmother. When Osama is called by the Taliban to join school and military training she embarks on a terrifying and confusing journey as she tries to keep the Taliban from finding out her true identity.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama
Country: Afghanistan, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, Iran
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing, sincere, bleak, thought provoking, breathtaking, talky, stylized, captivating
Similar in 82%
The Mirror (1997)
Plot Summary:
When a young Iranian's mother doesn't meet her after school, she tries to negotiate the streets of Tehran by herself.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: inspirational, serious, experimental, neorealism
Similar in 82%
The Runner (1984)
Plot Summary:
Amiro is a young boy who has lost his home during the war. He spends his days by working odd jobs, until he realizes that the only way that he can realize his dreams is by enrolling in school. In school, he has conflict with other students. Finally there is a competition to see who can say the whole alphabet in one breath.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Through the Olive Trees (1994)
Plot Summary:
The movie focuses on one of the events in Zendegi Edame Darad (1992), and explores the relationship between the movie director, and the actors. The local actors play a couple who got married right after the earthquake. In reality, the actor is trying to persuade the actress that they should get married.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: contemplative, social, avant garde, art house, independent film, islamic, psychological, mind bending, touching, serious
Similar in 88%
A Time for Drunken Horses (2000)
Plot Summary:
After their father dies, a family of five are forced to survive on their own in a Kurdish village on the border of Iran and Iraq. Matters are made worse when 12 year old Ayoub, the new head of the family, is told that his handicapped brother, Madi, needs an immediate operation in order to remain alive. This heartbreaking tale shows the lengths to which a family will go in order to survive in the harshest of conditions, where even the horses are fed liquor in order to work.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: realistic, bleak, meditative, emotional, harsh, sincere, rough, serious, inspirational, political
Similar in 90%
The Father (1996)
Plot Summary:
Mehrollah is a 14-year-old boy who is forced to find a job to support his family after his father dies. He travels to the southern parts of Iran, looking for work. Upon his return to his hometown, he notices certain changes in his family.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: inspirational, islamic, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Capernaum (2018)
Plot Summary:
Zain, a 12-year-old boy scrambling to survive on the streets of Beirut, sues his parents for having brought him into such an unjust world, where being a refugee with no documents means that your rights can easily be denied.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 101000
Genere: Drama
Country: Lebanon, USA, France, Cyprus, Qatar, UK
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: social, sad, thought provoking, depressing, rough, cynical, inspirational, serious, brutal, bleak
Similar in 90%
The Kite Runner (2007)
Plot Summary:
After spending years in California, Amir returns to his homeland in Afghanistan to help his old friend Hassan, whose son is in trouble.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 82000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, China, USA
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: emotional, disturbing, inspirational, sincere, psychological, touching, realistic, educational, sad, motivational
Similar in 85%
Two-Legged Horse (2008)
Plot Summary:
A wealthy boy hires a poor child to carry him around like a horse.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 622
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: serious, psychological, disturbing, bleak, art house, islamic, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 78%
At Five in the Afternoon (2003)
Plot Summary:
Nogreh is a young Afghani woman living with her father and her sister-in-law, Leylomah, whose husband, Akhtar, is missing. Beyond the issue of Akhtar, Leylomah is most concerned with how to feed her baby. She cannot provide milk for her baby as her own hunger is preventing her from lactating. Nogreh, however, aspires toward a life in a western styled democracy. Although the Taliban are no longer in power in Afghanistan, traditional forces are still active in the country. Nogreh often displays signs of rebellion, such as wearing a pair of white pumps instead of the traditional slipper beneath her burqa. But mostly, Nogreh wants to be educated. Without her father's knowledge, Nogreh is attending a secular girls school. Ultimately, she wants to become President of Afghanistan. With the help of a Pakistani refugee who likes her as a woman, Nogreh tries to understand exactly what forces led to current world leaders being elected, those forces which she wants to emulate.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, sincere, touching, realistic, art house, emotional, masterpiece