Best movies like The Ascent
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Two Soviet partisans leave their starving band to get supplies from a nearby farm. The Germans have reached the farm first, so the pair must go on a journey deep into occupied territory, a voyage that will also take them deep into their souls.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: bleak, depressing, sincere, philosophical, political, sad, contemplative, black and white, existential, patriotic
Best tv shows and movies like The Ascent (1977):
Similar in 86%
Father of a Soldier (1964)
Plot Summary:
During World War II, оld Georgian peasant wine-grower Georgy (Sergo Zakariadze) leaves his Georgian village and goes off to the front line, hoping to find his son. George should see and transfer a lot of things, he becomes a soldier and only in the last days of war finds the son.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: rough, tense, suspenseful, touching, captivating, spiritual, sad, crying, patriotic
Similar in 75%
Front in the Rear of the Enemy (1982)
Plot Summary:
A final episode in the trilogy about the Russian partisan's resistance during WWII. The film is set in 1944, when Russian partisans are making progress in their fighting against the Nazi occupation of Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Lt. Colonel Mlynsky is now in charge of an international clandestine operation. He is the commander of the special group of partisan-fighters. Mlynsky is organizing the Russian, Polish and Czechoslovakian partisans to join forces for an attack behind the enemy lines.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 74
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia
Duration: 161 min
Plot tags: patriotic
Similar in 78%
Trial on the Road (1986)
Plot Summary:
A Russian POW joins the partisan guerrillas and proves his loyalty fighting the Nazis.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: political, black and white
Similar in 90%
Burnt by the Sun 2: Citadel (2011)
Plot Summary:
The final part of Mikhalkov's trilogy about Divisional Commander Kotov finds him returning home during World War II having been betrayed, narrowly escaped execution for treason and nearly reduced to dust in a prison camp. Only to discover that everything has changed and he will have to fight again for his name, for his honor, and for his love.
IMDB Rating: 4.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Russia
Duration: 157 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, stylized, epic, serious, emotional, sincere, rough, touching, suspenseful
Similar in 84%
Pastorale 1943 (1978)
Plot Summary:
In a Dutch village during the German occupation, a small group of badly organized resistance fighters attempt to assassinate a collaborator.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 477
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: suspenseful, psychological, factual, rough, disturbing, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 84%
Freedom (2009)
Plot Summary:
A Gypsy family travels the French roads during the Second World War, followed by Little Claude, a young boy seeking a new family after his parents "left and never returned". Upon reaching a town where they traditionally stop for a few months and work in vineyards, they learn that a new law forbids them from being nomadic. Theodore, the town's mayor, and Miss Lundi, the schoolteacher, protect and help the Gypsies. Despite this, They are arrested and placed in an internment camp. Theodore manages to rescue them and gives them a piece of property where they must settle. But the Gypsies' deeply ingrained thirst for freedom makes this sedentary lifestyle difficult to bear. After Theodore and Miss Lundi are arrested for resistance, the Gypsies decide they must get back on the move in order to remain free.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, captivating, emotional, realistic, serious, gloomy
Similar in 86%
My Way (2011)
Plot Summary:
Jun-shik, who works for Tatsuo’s grandfather’s farm while Korea is colonized by Japan, dreams about participating in the Tokyo Olympics as a marathon runner. Tatsuo also aims to become a marathon runner, so the two become rivals. But the war breaks out and they both are forced to enlist in the army. Tatsuo becomes the head of defense in Jun-shik’s unit and he devises a scheme but fails. Jun-shik and Tatsuo are held captive by the Soviets. They run away but soon are captured by the Germans and forced to separate. In 1944, they meet again on the shores of Normandy.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Action, Drama, War
Country: South Korea
Duration: 137 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, rough, captivating, touching, epic, realistic, odd
Similar in 75%
In the Fog (2012)
Plot Summary:
Western frontiers of the USSR, 1942. The region is under German occupation. A man is wrongly accused of collaboration. Desperate to save his dignity, he faces an impossible moral choice.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Germany, Netherlands, Belarus, Russia, Latvia
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: realistic, bleak, serious, psychological, captivating, sexy, slow cinema, aesthetic, sincere, contemplative
Similar in 86%
Stones for the Rampart (2014)
Plot Summary:
To be defeated and not be - a victory. This is the motto that life is guided by three young friends: Alek, Sophy and Rudy. Scouts, high school graduates high school in Warsaw drifting ambitious plans for the future broken through September 1939. Entering adulthood in a very dramatic times, which puts them a choice - to survive at any cost, or to join the fighting for a free homeland, risking everything. The boys brought up in patriotic homes, shaped by the ideals of scouting, they decide to fight. They become soldiers, and although every scrape with death, they can live a full life.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, suspense, disturbing
Similar in 82%
The Only Way (1970)
Plot Summary:
In April 1940, the armies of Nazi Germany invaded Denmark. The Danish government promised peaceful cooperation on the condition that Denmark s Jews remain free. The Nazi s agreed. In October, 1943, the agreement was broken...This is the true and magnificent saga of Denmark s valorous actions to save Danish Jews from Nazi extermination at peril of death!.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 306
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, Denmark, Panama, UK
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: uplifting, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 88%
In Tranzit (2008)
Plot Summary:
Nazi POWs suspected of heinous acts are locked up in a Soviet women's prison run by vengeful female guards. To weed out the guilty, the innocent must pay. Can supposed enemies turn into great loves? Based on a true post-World War II story, this drama stars Thomas Kretschmann, John Malkovich and Vera Farmiga in a bitter game of cat and mouse and a battle between hate and humanity, mercy and revenge.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: UK, Russia
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, realistic, captivating, period piece, serious, emotional
Similar in 89%
Back Door to Hell (1964)
Plot Summary:
During WWII, a three-man commando team places its trust in the hands of a band of Filipino resistors, as they try to knock out a Japenese communication center.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 907
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Philippines, USA
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, realistic, tense, psychotronic, bleak, suspenseful
Similar in 88%
Attack on Leningrad (2009)
Plot Summary:
When in 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, their troops quickly besieged Leningrad. Foreign journalists are evacuated but one of them, Kate Davies, is presumed dead and misses the plane. Alone in the city she is helped by Nina Tsvetnova a young and idealist police officer and together they will fight for their own survival and the survival of the people in the besieged Leningrad. Written by Marcio Eduardo.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Russia, UK
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Stalingrad (2013)
Plot Summary:
Drama set in 1942, during one of the most important battles of World War II, which stopped the progress of Nazi forces and turned the tide of war in favor of the Allies. The Soviet army mounts a counter-attack on the Nazi forces that occupy half of Stalingrad on the other side of the Volga, but the operation to cross the river is unsuccessful. A few soldiers who managed to get to the other side take refuge in a house on the bank of Volga. Here they find a girl who didn’t escape when the Germans came. While the whole might of the German army descends onto them, the heroes of Stalingrad experience love, loss, joy and the sense of ultimate freedom that can only be felt by those about to die. They defend the house at all costs while the Red Army prepares for another attack.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Action, Drama, War
Country: Russia
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: captivating, realistic, exciting, rough, serious, bleak, epic, historical drama
Similar in 79%
They Fought for Their Country (1975)
Plot Summary:
In July 1942, in the Second World War, the rearguard of the Russian army protects the bridgehead of the Don River against the German army while the retreating Russian troops cross the bridge. While they move back to the Russian territory through the countryside, the soldiers show their companionship, sentiments, fears and heroism to defend their motherland.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 158 min
Plot tags: heroic, tense, sentimental, rough, suspenseful, philosophical, political, suspense
Similar in 82%
The Dawns Here Are Quiet (1972)
Plot Summary:
Based on the eponymous book by Boris Vasilyev, the film is set in Karelia (North-West of Russia, near Finland) in 1941 during WWII. In a beautiful and quiet wilderness far from the front-line there is an anti-aircraft artillery point, where corporal Vaskov is stationed with a group of many young women in training.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 188 min
Plot tags: disturbing, tragic ending, epic, sad, patriotic, serious, realistic, scenic
Similar in 83%
Silence (2011)
Plot Summary:
A drama between people under unconventional circumstances. In the Second World War Finland was the only nation who brought casualties killed-in-action back to be buried at home. These actions were carried out by men and women working in assembly centres near enemy lines. Silence is a story of a group of people in a limbo between life and death, in a mental no-man's- land, where heaven and hell, horror and joy, love and fear touch each other.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 462
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Finland
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, sad, rough, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 86%
At War as at War (1969)
Plot Summary:
To the young lieutenant Maleshkin the war is a minor obstacle, if compared to his personal battle to command his subordinates, while conducting an armored vehicle at the same time he's trying to impress his superior Soviet officers who put him under extreme pressures, one after the other, fighting the German forces occupying Ukraine during World War II. Here's the story of an impressionable man who learns in the hard way that being a leader is more than just using of his commanding voice to get what he wants.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 637
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, captivating, realistic, disturbing, patriotic
Similar in 76%
Ivan's Childhood (1962)
Plot Summary:
Poetic journey through the shards and shadows of one boy’s war-ravaged youth.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 39000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: bleak, atmospheric, disturbing, meditative, art house, black and white, psychological, brutal, serious, cerebral
Similar in 81%
The Army of Shadows (1969)
Plot Summary:
Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura) finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Though Gerbier escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseilles, France, and exacts his revenge on the informant, he must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis in an atmosphere of tension, paranoia and distrust.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 25000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags: noir, visually appealing, art house, bleak, captivating, realistic, stylized, political, visual, sincere
Similar in 81%
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Plot Summary:
In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 83000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 179 min
Plot tags: political, black and white, emotional, suspenseful, disturbing, sincere, tense, realistic, talky, philosophical
Similar in 78%
Come and See (1985)
Plot Summary:
The invasion of a village in Byelorussia by German forces sends young Florya into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha, who accompanies him back to his village. On returning home, Florya finds his family and fellow peasants massacred. His continued survival amidst the brutal debris of war becomes increasingly nightmarish, a battle between despair and hope.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 92000
Genere: Drama, Thriller, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 142 min
Plot tags: bleak, disturbing, thought provoking, rough, political, psychological, atmospheric, depressing, controversial, serious
Similar in 86%
In the Presence of Mine Enemies (1997)
Plot Summary:
In the Warsau Ghetto of 1943, one man's struggle to keep his family together leads him to the ultimate crisis of faith, and one final chance at redemption. Written by legendary 'Twilight Zone' creator, Rod Sterling.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 352
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Uprising (2001)
Plot Summary:
Jews rise up in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazis in 1943.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 177 min
Plot tags: uplifting, captivating, rough, serious, political, tense, bleak, emotional, realistic, independent film
Similar in 84%
The Truce (1997)
Plot Summary:
Although liberated from Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, Levi did not reach Turin until October 19 of that year. After spending some time in a Soviet camp for former concentration camp inmates, he embarked on an arduous journey home in the company of Italian former prisoners of war from the Italian Army in Russia. His long railway journey home to Turin took him on a circuitous route from Poland, through Russia, Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: sincere, historical drama, uplifting, bleak, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 90%
Massacre in Rome (1973)
Plot Summary:
In the Nazi occupied city of Rome, an assault on an SS brigade draws retaliation from the military governship. "Massacre in Rome" is the true story of how this partisan attack led to the mass execution of Italian nationals under the orders of SS-Lieutenant Colonel Kappler.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, contemplative
Similar in 83%
The Shop on Main Street (1965)
Plot Summary:
In a small town in Nazi-occupied Slovakia during World War II, decent but timid carpenter Tono is named "Aryan comptroller" of a button store owned by an old Jewish widow, Rozalie. Since the post comes with a salary and standing in the town's corrupt hierarchy, Tono wrestles with greed and guilt as he and Rozalie gradually befriend each other. When the authorities order all Jews in town to be rounded up, Tono faces a moral dilemma unlike any he's known before.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, emotional, touching, serious, realistic, depressing, social, black comedy, offbeat
Similar in 89%
Jakob the Liar (1999)
Plot Summary:
In 1944 Poland, a Jewish shop keeper named Jakob is summoned to ghetto headquarters after being caught out after curfew. While waiting for the German Kommondant, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements. Returned to the ghetto, the shopkeeper shares his information with a friend and then rumors fly that there is a secret radio within the ghetto.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, France, Germany
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sad, cult classic, sincere, uplifting, humorous, emotional, realistic, gloomy, semi serious, sentimental
Similar in 77%
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)
Plot Summary:
When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 239000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: emotional, touching, sad, heartbreaking, sentimental, tear jerker, serious, crying, thought provoking, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Stalingrad (1993)
Plot Summary:
"Stalingrad" follows the progress of a German Platoon through the brutal fighting of the Battle of Stalingrad. After having half their number wiped out and after being placed under the command of a sadistic Captain, the Lieutenant of the platoon leads his men to desert. The men of the platoon attempt to escape from the city which is now surrounded by the Soviet Army.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 37000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany
Duration: 134 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, suspenseful, gloomy, rough, epic, captivating, factual, talky, political