Best movies like The Absent
Last updated March 2024
Looking for movies like The Absent? Leverage your insights to lead others toward tv series and films you've viewed previously that they might like too. Help broaden the cohort of people suggesting videos to each other. We appreciate your engagement!
Plot Summary:
An old man lives alone in a shabby cabin in a remote mountainous area of Mexico. His house is set to be demolished in order to facilitate the redevelopment of the area. He doesn't know how to protect his house. Time goes by and one day a young man shows up on his doorstep. Looking exhausted, he starts his new routine here, cooking and doing laundry just like the old man.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 81
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico, Spain, France
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: minimal cast
Best tv shows and movies like The Absent (2014):
Similar in 81%
Out (2017)
Plot Summary:
OUT is an odyssey about 50 year old family man Agoston wandering through East Europe. After loosing his lifelong job in a power plant of small Slovak village Agoston takes the shady but alluring opportunity to work as a welder in a shipyard in Latvia. The journey in hopes of a new job in reality turns into a accelerating whirlwind of absurd events of short encounters, newly found-and-lost-again friendships subtracting from Agoston all his possessions and everything he once believed to be his whole life. However Agoston doesn't give up his search for income and decides to persuade his dream of catching a big sea fish.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 140
Genere: Drama
Country: Slovakia, France, Hungary, Czech Republic
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: road movie
Similar in 82%
Better Life (2010)
Plot Summary:
Inspired by the drowning of 23 Chinese undocumented cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay (northwest England). Mazu, goddess of the sea, floats over the tragedy.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 72
Genere: Drama
Country: China, UK
Duration: 55 min
Plot tags: unusual plot structure, captivating, contemplative
Similar in 85%
Summer Rain (2015)
Plot Summary:
Agathe and Paul, on holidays with their children. On a bridge, at the edge of a cliff, a forgotten wallet. A thought, and then dizziness.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes:
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 54 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Still Life (2016)
Plot Summary:
There are victims that arrive by night. They intuit, unaware of the danger that awaits them. They may attempt to resist, but a young man leads them to their deaths before dawn. A dog is the only witness of this terrifying world that seems certain never to end.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 122
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: suspense, suspenseful
Similar in 88%
The Shell Collector (2016)
Plot Summary:
The latest discovery by a blind shell collector puts the relationship between man and nature on edge: a rare mollusc that is extremely poisonous, but has a healing and hallucinogenic effect on some people. Can people resist the creature’s temptation, or will they put their lives at risk for a heavenly trip?.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 50
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan, USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Horoscope (1969)
Plot Summary:
A gang of young delinquents from a coastal town terrorize the locals, the tourists that spend the summer holidays there, as well as the young girls. They are especially focused on a pretty girl that sells newspapers, and they make a bet which one will seduce her.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 113
Genere: Drama
Country: Yugoslavia
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: black and white
Similar in 78%
Leave Us Alone (1975)
Plot Summary:
For children it was an exciting adventure. But for adults it became a shocking revelation.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 182
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: erotic, queer cinema
Similar in 79%
Dragonflies (2022)
Plot Summary:
Álex and Cata, two young women who live on the outskirts of the city, a desolate place full of empty stores and ramshackle bars where dreams end up fading, have been preparing their escape all their lives.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 151
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
The Frontier (1991)
Plot Summary:
A Chilean teacher, Ramiro, is sentenced to internal exile in a southern town where tidal waves often appear. He falls for a woman, Maite, whose father asks him to take her away. Although he gets his freedom he doesn't leave and when the water rises, Maite and her father die, and Ramiro flees to the hills.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 501
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, Spain
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Ivin A. (1990)
Plot Summary:
Soldiers of internal troops Ivin A. standing on duty at night, could not shoot escapes bandit and murderer Prince Mishka. The explanatory he wrote that he refused to continue to dispose of another's life.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 44
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
All the Ways of God (2014)
Plot Summary:
A contemporary evocation of Judas Iscariot trying to escape from his own guilt after betraying his best friend. He wanders into a forest and lost in himself, meets a mysterious young man. The young companion will accompany him on this path of repentance and penance and help him deal with his feelings, understand his guilt and cope with he has done. This is the story of the last three days of a repentant.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 147
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: avant garde, experimental, queer cinema
Similar in 87%
Woman of the Ganges (1974)
Plot Summary:
A man returns to the place he once lived a passionate love affair with a woman who is now dead. So powerful are the emotions that seize him that he imagines she is still alive, and begins to live as if this were the case.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 153
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: avant garde
Similar in 76%
Ibiza Blue (2023)
Plot Summary:
August 2020. The lives of three young professionals intersect in the post-pandemic lock-down Ibiza where they will try to overcome their personal tragedies, rediscover themselves and move on.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 83
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Spain
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Five Years (2013)
Plot Summary:
How Murat Kurnaz ended up in Guantanamo Bay is a mysterious story. 5 YEARS investigates the psychological aspect of this endless and unjustified "imprisonment" where Kurnaz had to endure never ending physical and psychological torture.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 720
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
Yanco (1961)
Plot Summary:
The engaging and sentimental tale begins when the little boy (Ricardo Ancona) starts manifesting a greater and greater talent at music and at the same time, a supersensitivity to sounds. His overly astute hearing drives him into the woods and away from the cacophony of the town's hustle and bustle. Once in the woods, he meets a kindly old hermit who teaches him how to play the violin he made. After the old man dies, the violin ends up at a pawn shop, and each night the boy sneaks in to play it in secret. It is this haunting, nightly music that sets the town on edge -- people think an evil spirit is on the loose.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 180
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: spiritual, minimal cast
Similar in 81%
One Day in a Life (2008)
Plot Summary:
One Day in a Life is a 2008 Italian drama film directed by Stefano Tummolini. It entered the "Venice Days" section at the 65th Venice International Film Festival.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 172
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: sincere, captivating, independent film
Similar in 83%
Manderley (1981)
Plot Summary:
This is the story of three homosexuals who decide to spend the summer together at the cottage that the parents of one of them have in Santander. The film shows naturally a series of attitudes then considered shocking and even unnatural.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 21
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Er Moretto - Von Lieben leben (1984)
Plot Summary:
This is the story of a runaway desperate poor 14 years old boy, becoming a prostitute and suffering all kinds of tribulations in Rome in the 80s. And the gay scene is somewhat accurate of those days.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 85
Genere: Drama
Country: Switzerland, West Germany
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
The Inseminator (2014)
Plot Summary:
Boi leads an isolated life on a mountain with his unwed daughter and his mentally disabled son Maize. Feeling death approach, he becomes obsessed with the continuation of the family line and he resolves to find his son a wife. After numerous intense but failed attempts to buy a woman for Maize, the father is driven to increasingly insane acts.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 90
Genere: Drama
Country: Vietnam
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, minimal cast
Similar in 90%
Godland (2022)
Plot Summary:
In the late 19th century, a young Danish priest travels to a remote part of Iceland to build a church and photograph its people. But the deeper he goes into the unforgiving landscape, the more he strays from his purpose, the mission and morality.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark, Iceland, France, Sweden
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Copacabana (2007)
Plot Summary:
.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 64
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
The Illusions (2009)
Plot Summary:
A popular young writer decides to write a novel on an island that was once a Mecca to the Hippie movement of the 1960s. As he tries to recapture a world that no longer exists, the writer meets an enigmatic young woman who agrees to help him in his research. But as he falls in love with this strange girl, he finds her increasingly remote and mysterious, until she finally seems to disappear for good.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 68
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
The Reject (2007)
Plot Summary:
A man whose life is on the verge of collapse looks for new inspiration in this drama from Serbian filmmaker Milos Radivojevic. On was once a reporter, but now makes his living working as a public relations man for a banking firm. On is in his forties and has started to sink into a mid-life depression. On's wife has left him and while he tries to keep in touch with her and his daughter, he feels they're drifting away from him. On often finds himself retreating into a world of daydreams, which becomes all the more common after he loses his job. On struggles to drown in ennui with alcohol, gambling and meaningless sex, but matters only get worse as he learns that his elderly mother's health is failing, and he can no longer keep up with the bills for her medical care. When On discovers some forgotten savings, he sets out on a vacation in hopes of recapturing his muse, with his beautiful and loyal secretary in tow. Film received its American premiere at the 2008 Palm Springs Film Festival.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 123
Genere: Drama
Country: Serbia
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Roula (1995)
Plot Summary:
Troubled Roula finds herself drawn to Leon, an author of children's books who has suffered an enormous emotional and creative blockage ever since his wife died in a motorcycle accident two years before. Leon has only his 12-year-old daughter Tanja to keep him company. As romance blooms between Leon and Roula, his daughter approves. Unfortunately, Roula is carrying heavy emotional baggage stemming from the incest she suffered at the hands of her father.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 159
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: erotic, sexy, sexual
Similar in 81%
A Thief's Daughter (2019)
Plot Summary:
Sara has been alone all her life. She’s 22, has a baby, and wants to form a normal family with her young brother and the father of her child. Her own father, Manuel, decides to come back into their lives after years of absence and his release from prison. Sara knows he’s the main obstacle to her plans and she makes a difficult decision: to distance him from herself and her brother.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, social, crying
Similar in 88%
Sauna on Moon (2011)
Plot Summary:
In Guangdong, the forefront of China's reform and opening-up, the business of a sauna is fairly flat. The boss, Wu, together with his team, pursuits his dream and constructs a entertainment kingdom persistently with their wisdom, effort and positive spirit. Eventually, after a special fashion show, Wu tears for his uneasy success. During the period, some of his employees leave hopelessly, some are imprisoned, some are still longing for a better tomorrow by his side.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 33
Genere: Drama
Country: China
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating, gloomy
Similar in 79%
I Am Happiness on Earth (2014)
Plot Summary:
Emiliano looks at his life with the eyes of a film director, mixing the objective reality with the processes of the artistic creation. The story he is filming flounders with his daily life, until his world is trapped in the lens of his camera. Confused, always alone and in front of a screen, now become a transfigured reality, but at the same time a measurable, controllable and manipulable one, he listens in loop to a song: one of those songs you sing or repeat as a prayer and forcing you to remember, believe and convince yourself.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, erotic, queer cinema
Similar in 76%
Everything Went Fine (2021)
Plot Summary:
When André, 85, has a stroke, Emmanuelle hurries to her father’s bedside. Sick and half-paralyzed in his hospital bed, he asks Emmanuelle to help him end his life. But how can you honor such a request when it’s your own father?.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
Sheep (2013)
Plot Summary:
The life of a small French town is rocked by a bizarre incident.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 137
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, contemplative, stylized, offbeat, realistic, gloomy, freeze frame
Similar in 81%
Santa & Andres (2016)
Plot Summary:
Santa, a peasant woman loyal to the Revolution, is sent to guard Andrés, a gay writer who is under house arrest, considered “ untrustworthy” for his ideas and sexuality by the Cuban authorities. Set in a small village in eastern Cuba during the early 1980s, this poignant political drama depicts an encounter between two deeply thoughtful souls on opposite sides of a profound cultural divide. Both have experienced deep loss, and both know the damaging effects of isolation and oppression. Even so, the cavernous ideological divide separating them — the same one that has separated Cuban friends and kin for over 50 years — has until now seemed insurmountable.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 223
Genere: Drama
Country: Cuba, Colombia, France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, crying, homoerotic