Best movies like The 13 Roses
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
True story of thirteen totally normal young women that suffered harsh questioning and were put in prison under made up charges of helping the rebellion against Franco back in the 1940s. Despite of their innocence, the thirteen were soon executed without even a trace of evidence of any wrong doing.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Spain, Italy
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: disturbing, thought provoking, touching, emotional, political, social, hispanic, serious, realistic, gloomy
Best tv shows and movies like The 13 Roses (2007):
Similar in 79%
Salem Witch Trials (2002)
Plot Summary:
The film recounts the sobering tale of how 19 innocent lives were taken in a community experiencing paranoid hysteria regarding the suspected - but unproved - presence of the occult in the small New England town.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 941
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 189 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, suspense, detective, historical drama, thought provoking, fairy tale
Similar in 87%
The Endless Trench (2019)
Plot Summary:
Higinio and Rosa have only been married for a few months when the Civil War breaks out, representing a serious threat to his life. Helped by his wife, they decide to use a hole dug into their own home as a provisional hiding place. The fear of potential reprisals and the love they feel for one another will condemn them to an imprisonment that will last for more than 30 years.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Spain, France, Canada
Duration: 147 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, touching, sad, hispanic
Similar in 83%
Difret (2014)
Plot Summary:
Three hours outside of Addis Ababa, a bright 14-year-old girl is on her way home from school when men on horses swoop in and kidnap her. The brave Hirut grabs a rifle and tries to escape, but ends up shooting her would-be husband. In her village the practice of abduction into marriage is common and one of Ethiopia’s oldest traditions. Meaza Ashenafi, an empowered and tenacious young lawyer, arrives from the city to represent Hirut and argue that she acted in self defense. Meaza boldly embarks on a collision course between enforcing civil authority and abiding by customary law, risking the ongoing work of her women’s legal aid practice to save Hirut’s life.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Crime, Drama, History
Country: Ethiopia, USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, touching, serious, emotional, social, political, cult classic, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 89%
The Carpenter's Pencil (2003)
Plot Summary:
A story of love and obsession during the Spanish Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: captivating, emotional, sentimental, realistic, serious
Similar in 81%
Soldiers of Salamina (2003)
Plot Summary:
Professor Lola Sánchez investigates the truth behind the events experienced by Rafael Sánchez Mazas, one of the founders of the Falange Española party, during the Spanish Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, suspenseful, political, art film, realistic
Similar in 89%
While at War (2019)
Plot Summary:
Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Spain, Argentina
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, captivating, disturbing, intellectual
Similar in 80%
Goodbye (2011)
Plot Summary:
Without her husband and without her lawyer’s licence, which has been withdrawn, Noora is left pregnant and alone in her apartment. Her attempt to leave Iran turns into a fight with male chauvinism. A personal, nerve-wracking and infuriating film by Rasoulof, who was himself convicted for his films in Iran. Goodbye is a sober, frightening portrait of a society that is stooping under the continual control and threats of its religious regime. Noora, a young, pregnant lawyer in Tehran whose husband has been sent to work in the desert because of his critical journalistic activities, continually faces opposition from the regime and decides to leave the country. That turns out to be very difficult. Because Rasoulof was already banned from making films, Goodbye was shot partly in secret in the winter of 2010/2011. The result is a disquieting film that makes impotence and the desire for freedom painfully tangible in all its simplicity.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 814
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, thought provoking, contemplative, islamic, bleak, interesting
Similar in 80%
The Blind Sunflowers (2008)
Plot Summary:
Ourense, Spain, 1940. Every time that Elena locks the door, she locks her secrets. Her husband Ricardo spend years hidden in his house with his children (Elenita and Lorenzo), trying to dodge persecution. Salvador, a priest confused after battling in the front, returns to seminary in Ourense.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Spain
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, disturbing, sincere, bleak, captivating, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 79%
Whitewash: The Clarence Brandley Story (2002)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of Clarence Brandley, a black man wrongly accused in 1980 of the murder of a 16-year-old white high school girl named Cheryl Ferguson. Brandley worked at Conroe High School, where Ferguson was visiting as a member of the Belleville High School volleyball team. Three days after her body was discovered, Brandley was arrested as the murderer. Jew Don Boney, a popular activist and Houston city council member, leads the fight to uncover the truth about the Ferguson murder. Mike DeGeurin, a Texas attorney, is brought in to act as the head defense attorney for Brandley, and is joined by a former minister, Jim McCloskey. The lawyers discover that not only is there a complete lack of evidence against Brandley, but the District Attorney, James Keeshan, has been strategizing with the presiding judge. After nine years in prison, three trials and a stay of execution that saved Brandley's life, justice finally prevails as Brandley is granted his freedom.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 165
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: disturbing, emotional, realistic, suspenseful, tense, serious
Similar in 78%
The Inner Circle (1991)
Plot Summary:
The true story of Ivan Sanchin, the KGB officer who was Stalin's private film projectionist from 1939 until the dictator's death. Told from Sanchin's view, the sympathetic but tragically flawed hero maintains unwavering faith in his "Master" despite the arrest of his neighbors and his involvement with their daughter, his wife's affair with the chilling State Security chief Lavrentii Beria and her tragic decline, and the deadly political machinations within the Kremlin he witnesses firsthand. Written by Martin H. Booda.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Crime, Drama, History, Mystery
Country: Italy, Soviet Union, USA
Duration: 137 min
Plot tags: realistic, disturbing, thought provoking, serious, political, bleak, contemplative
Similar in 76%
Salvador (2006)
Plot Summary:
The story of Salvador Puig Antich, one of the last political prisoners to be executed under Franco's Fascist State in 1974.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Spain, UK
Duration: 134 min
Plot tags: rough, suspenseful, disturbing, thought provoking, serious, realistic, political, political thriller, bleak
Similar in 88%
St. Michael Had a Rooster (1972)
Plot Summary:
Sentenced to life imprisonment for illegal activities, Italian International member Giulio Manieri holds on to his political ideals while struggling against madness in the loneliness of his prison cell.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 849
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Hanussen (1988)
Plot Summary:
A man's story parallels Hitler's rise. Austrian Klaus Schneider, wounded in World War I, recovers in the care of Dr. Emil Bettleheim. Bettleheim discovers that Schneider possesses powers of empathy and of clairvoyance, such that could aid suicidal patients. After the war, with one friend as his manager and another as his lover, Schneider changes his name to Eric Jan Hanussen and goes to Berlin, as a hypnotist and clairvoyant performing in halls and theaters. He always speaks the truth, which brings him to the attention of powerful Nazis. He predicts their rise (good propaganda for them) and their violence (not so good). He's in pain and at risk. What is Hanussen's future?.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Hungary, West Germany, Austria
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: spiritual, sad, esoteric, intelligent, tense, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 82%
Zuzu Angel (2006)
Plot Summary:
"Zuzu Angel" covers the last years of the famous Brazilian fashion designer in her doomed quest for justice in the case of her activist son Stuart's arrest, torture, murder and subsequent corpse disposal by the military forces in early 1970s Rio de Janeiro, during the darkest era of Brazilian military regime and media censorship. Not even the fact that she was a widely known public figure saved her from being killed in a car crash in 1976, in one of the regime's favorite elimination techniques (many other similar "car crashes" still have to be re-investigated).
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Brazil
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: disturbing, psychological, serious, suspenseful, thought provoking, captivating, realistic
Similar in 76%
The Sleeping Voice (2011)
Plot Summary:
Pepita travels to Madrid to be near her sister Hortensia who is pregnant and in prison. Hortensia is sentenced to death. The execution will not be carried out until after the baby is delivered. Pepita tries everything to stay the execution, but when unsuccessful she goes to the prison everyday to make sure Hortensia's son goes with her and not into an orphanage.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Spain
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: captivating, serious, emotional, suspenseful, political, intense, bleak, realistic
Similar in 86%
Freedomfighters (1996)
Plot Summary:
At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the nun Maria is forced to flee her convent. She takes refuge in a brothel, until it is liberated by a woman's anarchist group. Maria joins the group and eventually goes to the front. The women's group faces the problems of fighting not only the nationalists, but also factions on the left seeking to impose a more traditional military structure. Written by Brian Rawnsley.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Spain, Italy, Belgium
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: political, social, sad, informative, epic, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 87%
Land and Freedom (1995)
Plot Summary:
The movie narrates the story of David Carr, an unemployed worker and member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. In 1936 he decides to fight for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, an anti-fascist coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists. Similar to George Orwell's experiences documented in Homage to Catalonia, he joins the POUM worker militia and witnesses first hand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by the Stalinists, loyal only to the dictat of Moscow.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: political, philosophical, social, sad, hispanic, informative, thought provoking, serious, captivating, emotional
Similar in 78%
Miral (2010)
Plot Summary:
A drama centered on an orphaned Palestinian girl growing up in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli war who finds herself drawn into the conflict.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: France, Israel, Italy, India, USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: realistic, sentimental, emotional, stylized, inspirational, breathtaking, serious, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 85%
Mandela and de Klerk (1997)
Plot Summary:
Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine both received Emmy nominations for their performances in this made-for-TV movie. The plot follows Nelson Mandela's 27-year struggle to end apartheid.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 667
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, disturbing, contemplative
Similar in 82%
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
Similar in 88%
Rebellion (2011)
Plot Summary:
Dissidents in a French colony attack a police station and take hostages.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Drama, History
Country: France, New Caledonia
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, serious, thought provoking, realistic, political, stylized, gloomy
Similar in 78%
Tangier (2006)
Plot Summary:
In August 1996, bus drivers Marcel Van Loock and Wim Moreels are apprehended by the Moroccan Customs for drug trafficking. Inside their bus, hidden behind a false compartment, they have discovered 700 pounds of hashish. Although the owner of the bus company is arrested as well and makes a full confession clearly indicating that both drivers were unaware of the hidden drugs, the Moroccan judge sentences both men to 5 years in the Moroccan prison of Tangiers. Nothing could have prepared the two men for life inside a Moroccan prison. Without food, clothes or medical care, they must learn how to take care of themselves to survive their stay in prison. Corrupt guards, corrupt lawyers and judges, a consul who doesn't care and frequent beatings are only part of the terrible prison. Meanwhile their families at home are left without any information, any help or any hope - finding out that their own government doesn't care for Belgian people in prisons abroad.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, suspenseful, disturbing, tense, bleak, realistic
Similar in 75%
Black August (2007)
Plot Summary:
The last 14 months of George Jackson's life was an existence under subjective and objective conditions in California's industrial prison complex. George Jackson would spend 11 years in jail (7 of which were in solitary confinement) for a $70 gas station robbery crime in 1960. He was 18 years of age when the sentence of one year-to-life was handed down to him.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 302
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: rough, thought provoking, serious, realistic, political
Similar in 79%
Song for a Raggy Boy (2003)
Plot Summary:
William Franklin is a teacher who was born in Ireland and moved to the United States only to repatriate in 1939 after his leftist political views cause him to lose his job. Franklin becomes the first non-cleric instructor at St. Jude's, a school for wayward boys run by Brother John, who is a firm believer in strong discipline.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Ireland, Denmark, UK, Spain
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, disturbing, bleak, serious, sincere, depressing, realistic
Similar in 89%
Winnie Mandela (2011)
Plot Summary:
A drama that chronicles the life of Winnie Mandela from her childhood through her marriage and her husband's incarceration.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 880
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: South Africa, Canada
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, captivating, realistic, political
Similar in 77%
Endgame (2009)
Plot Summary:
The time is the late '80s, a crucial period in the history of South Africa. President P.W. Botha is hanging on to power by a thread as the African National Congress (ANC) takes up arms against apartheid and the country tumbles toward insurrection. A British mining concern is convinced that their interests would be better served in a stable South Africa and they quietly dispatch Michael Young, their head of public affairs, to open an unofficial dialogue between the bitter rivals. Assembling a reluctant yet brilliant team to pave the way to reconciliation by confronting obstacles that initially seem insurmountable, Young places his trust in ANC leader Thabo Mbeki and Afrikaner philosophy professor Willie Esterhuyse. It is their empathy that will ultimately serve as the catalyst for change by proving more powerful than the terrorist bombs that threaten to disrupt the peaceful dialogue.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK, South Africa
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, serious, captivating, exciting, thought provoking, epic, realistic, political, contemplative
Similar in 81%
The Time That Remains (2009)
Plot Summary:
An examination of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 through to the present day.[Synopsis from the director, courtesy of Cannes Film Festival] : "The Time That Remains" is a semi biographic film, in four historic episodes, about a family--my family--spanning from 1948, until recent times. The film is inspired by my father’s diaries of his personal accounts, starting from when he was a resistant fighter in 1948, and by my mother’s letters to family members who were forced to leave the country since then. Combined with my intimate memories of them and with them, the film attempts to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who remained in their land and were labeled "Israeli-Arabs," living as a minority in their own homeland.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: France, Belgium, Italy, UK, United Arab Emirates, Israel
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: psychological, thought provoking, humorous, touching, realistic, contemplative, offbeat, semi serious, biting, suspense
Similar in 89%
DC 9/11: Time of Crisis (2003)
Plot Summary:
This is the story of the days directly after 9/11, and the president's whereabouts. Scheduled to air shortly before the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks, DC 9/11 takes an inside look at the Bush Administration, beginning with the day of the attacks, and following the President's journey to Ground Zero, culminating with his now famous national address nine days after the attacks.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 942
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, sincere, emotional, realistic, political drama
Similar in 82%
Saviors in the Night (2009)
Plot Summary:
Drama, based on the book "Retter in der Nacht", in which Marga Spiegel tells her memories: In Westfalia of 1943 Marga Spiegel, her husband and her daughter are about to be deported. Yet westfalian farmers help the jewish family, grant Marga and her daughter refuge under false names and hide her husband.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 295
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Germany, France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, emotional, realistic, bleak
Similar in 75%
The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988)
Plot Summary:
During the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, Otto Frank decides to hide his family, who are Jewish, after his daughter Margot is called to appear for transport to a Nazi labour camp. Miep Gies, Otto Frank's office assistant hides them in the attic above the office. The film tells the true story of Gies' struggle to keep the family hidden and safe, as the Nazis turn Amsterdam upside-down. Based upon Gies' memoirs and Anne Frank's famous diary.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 483
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing