Best movies like The Audience
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Caustic satire on bureaucracy of the Vatican authority and a simple Italian who wants to achieve the audience with the Pope.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 746
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: grotesque
Best tv shows and movies like The Audience (1972):
Similar in 87%
The Immortal Bachelor (1975)
Plot Summary:
Tina is on trial for the murder of her lover, Gino. The violent nature of their relationship, revealed in the trial, seems to make obvious that she accidentally killed him during a fight. The lone female jury member compares her life to Tina's and, believing her to be innocent, sets out on her own to find a missing witness that can prove Tina's innocence.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 426
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
The Lovemakers (1961)
Plot Summary:
The death of a wealthy patriarch in 1885 sets off an interfamily power struggle.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 742
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
The Rook (1994)
Plot Summary:
Martin Donovan plays John Abbott, a church investigator looking into a murder. The world is similar to England in the mid to late 1800s but with odd touches such as primitive computers etc. The sets are similar to Brazil, as is the look of a lot of the movie although much more reserved and somewhat more sinister. The movie revolves around a man, Abbott, who starts supremely self confident but eventually has to deal with his own failings and flaws.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 35
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: neo noir, independent film, detective
Similar in 79%
Land in Between (1996)
Plot Summary:
SILHOUETTE: Nigerian prostitutes dealing with miscellaneous customers EUGLEN & GERTIAN: Daily recruitment of Albanian immigrants seeking work but without working residency permit. SELF SERVICE: a night with Ahmed, egyptian illegal gas station attender, who has been living in italy for many years.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 208
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: semi documentary, independent film
Similar in 88%
The Conjugal Bed (1963)
Plot Summary:
A 40 years old man, Alfonso, finally succeeds to marry a virgin, educate, beautiful and very catholic woman. But soon she, Regina, starts stressing him because she wants to be pregnant. When the stress is at its peak Regina at last gets pregnant. Once the goal is reached the man is put aside and dies.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 782
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: grotesque, italian comedy
Similar in 90%
Time of Indifference (1964)
Plot Summary:
A penniless countess falls in love with a cad, unaware that he is also involved on the side with her beautiful daughter.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 433
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: dread
Similar in 87%
Arrivano i bersaglieri (1980)
Plot Summary:
In the year 1870 Rome, then governed by the Pope, was captured by the Italian General La Marmora's troops. After the armistice, the Italian soldier Alfonso killed a Pope's soldier, the son of Don Prospero. Then he sought refuge in the house of Don Prospero himself. There Costanza and Olimpia, respectively the wife and the daughter of Don Prospero, fall for him. Then Gustavo, who knew that Alfonso had killed Don Prospero's son arrived in the house... Some things are going to happen.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 79
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
The Balcony (1963)
Plot Summary:
Shelley Winters is the madame of a house where customers play out their erotic fantasies, oblivious to a revolution which is sweeping the country. When her old friend, the chief of police (Peter Falk), asks her to impersonate the missing queen in order to reassure the people and halt the revolution, she offers instead three of her customers to play the general, bishop and chief justice, all of whom have died in the revolution.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 673
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: political, sexy, sex comedy, independent film, grotesque, hot
Similar in 75%
The Driver's Seat (1974)
Plot Summary:
A woman flies to Rome on a reckless quest, not for love but for death.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 934
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy, West Germany
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: avant garde, psychological, tense, mind bending, offbeat, serious, realistic, suspenseful, surreal, cult film
Similar in 86%
The Legend of Kaspar Hauser (2012)
Plot Summary:
Arriving on a deserted beach in the Mediterranean sea, in a time and a place unspecified, Kaspar Hauser is forced to confront the evil of a Grand Duchess who feels threatened by the power she exercises over the community.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: surreal, experimental, atmospheric, serious, stylized, captivating, psychedelic, realistic, aesthetic, informative
Similar in 90%
Love Rites (1987)
Plot Summary:
A man meets a prostitute who takes him to a boudoir.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 528
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: France
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: erotic, sensual
Similar in 79%
The Magnificent Cuckold (1964)
Plot Summary:
The Magnificent Cuckold is about a hat tycoon who is ecstatically, if not hungrily, in love with his youthful wife. It is all blissful, that is, until our man, middle-aged and somewhat of a square among his blasé, upper-class friends to whom cuckoldry is a common practice, is seduced by one of them. At this point doubts and suspicions, like conscience, begin to plague him. If he could succumb to extramarital confections, why not his gorgeous mate? Quickly his love for his spouse degenerates beyond obsessive, into the realm of maniacal. He becomes madly concerned that his wife is cheating on him --even though she is not being unfaithful. When he looks at her it becomes obvious to him that she is a very attractive woman. And, all the men around her must be dying to be with her. Gnawed by jealously, he will imagine variations on nabbing her and her lover in flagrante delicto.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 735
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: black and white, sexy, hot
Similar in 80%
The Bishop's Bedroom (1977)
Plot Summary:
Mario, a rich and eccentric war hero befriends Marco, a loner with a sailboat, and takes him home to meet his estranged wife Cleofe and sexually repressed sister in law Matilde. Mario confesses his love for Matilde and so ensues a love triangle.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 994
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sex comedy, gothic, italian comedy
Similar in 90%
We Have a Pope (2011)
Plot Summary:
The newly elected Pope suffers a panic attack just as he is about to greet the faithful who have gathered to see him. His advisors, unable to convince him he is the right man for the job, call on a renowned therapist who also happens to be an atheist. But the Pope's fear of his newfound responsibility is one he must face alone. Winner Best Film at the Italian Golden Globes.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, clever, humorous, witty, tragicomedy, philosophical, sad, buddy comedy, sentimental
Similar in 86%
The New Pope (2020)
Plot Summary:
As Pope Pius XIII hangs between life and death in a coma, charming and sophisticated moderate English aristocrat Sir John Brannox is placed on the papal throne and adopts the name John Paul III. A sequel series to “The Young Pope.”.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France, Spain, USA, UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: stylized, atmospheric, captivating, satirical, philosophical, erotic, feel good, art house, crying, sensual
Similar in 81%
The Apparition (2018)
Plot Summary:
Jacques is a journalist at a large regional newspaper in France. His reputation as an impartial and talented investigator attracts the attention of the Vatican who recruits him for a special task; taking part of a committee to investigate the veracity of a saintly apparition in a small French village – a true canonical investigation.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: France, Belgium, Jordan
Duration: 144 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, thought provoking, captivating, art house
Similar in 88%
The Last Woman (1976)
Plot Summary:
Gerard and his 9-month-old son have been left by his wife for feminist reasons. The custody of his son is being threatened by his next romance.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: erotic, disturbing, controversial
Similar in 85%
The Conspirators (1969)
Plot Summary:
Rome, 1825. Bishop Rivarola (Tognazzi) and colonel Nardoni (Salerno) are in charge to suppress liberal revolution. Shoemaker Cornacchia (Manfredi) got the information that the liberal Filippo Spada (Ekland) is a spy and is going to denounce his revolutionary companions. So Cornacchia decides to report Spada to two "Carbonari" (kind of Freemasons) to kill Spada. The two, Montanari (Hossein) and Targhini (Verley) fail to kill him and decide to escape from Rome. But they are arrested and sentenced to death. Cornacchia will spend his last chance to save them.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 812
Genere: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
In Memory of Me (2007)
Plot Summary:
Investigates the life a young man who has decided to enter a Jesuit monastery in Venice, but is then overcome by agonizing doubts before his ordination.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 451
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 84%
The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968)
Plot Summary:
Metropolitan Archbishop Lakota of L'viv, freed after twenty years in the Soviet Gulag, travels to Rome where circumstances conspire to see him elevated to the Papacy. Inspired by the life story of Ukrainian Catholic Cardinal Josyf Slipyj,.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 162 min
Plot tags: tense, epic, serious, realistic, christian film, retro, spiritual
Similar in 84%
Mafia (1968)
Plot Summary:
A Police Officer faces difficulties when investigating a Mafia murder in a small Sicilian town. A businessman is murdered for refusing to join a Mafia-controlled group and although he suspects the Mafia are involved he can find no witnesses or evidence, only hostile obstruction by the corrupt local authorities who all deny the existence of the Mafia.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: neo noir, suspense, poliziottesco
Similar in 87%
Ash Wednesday (1973)
Plot Summary:
Barbara gets secret plastic surgery in Switzerland in an attempt to save her marriage to Mark, but he doesn't seem interested in meeting her. She checks in to a ski resort to wait for Mark, and begins getting attention from young men. Her daughter tries to warn her that even though she has had the surgery it might be too late for her marriage, but she clings to the hope that Mark will come back once he sees her new look. Meanwhile, she must decide whether or not have an affair with a young man she's met.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 764
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: USA, Italy
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
The Young Pope (2016)
Plot Summary:
Lenny Belardo, the youngest and first American Pope in the history of the Church, must establish his new papacy and navigate the power struggles of the closed, secretive Vatican.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 47000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France, Spain, UK, USA
Duration: 546 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, controversial, surreal, erotic, exciting, funny, absurd, sensual, tragicomedy
Similar in 86%
Sandra (1965)
Plot Summary:
Sandra comes back to Volterra, in Tuscany, the little town where she spent her childhood. She is with her American husband, Andrew. She wishes to pay homage to her father who died in Auschwitz where she was still a little child. In Volterra, Andrew meets for the first time Gianni, Sandra's brother. He soon realizes that Sandra and Gianni have a secret since their childhood. (IMDb).
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: neo noir, psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 83%
The Spider's Stratagem (1970)
Plot Summary:
Athos Magnani, a young researcher, returns to Tara, where his father was killed before his birth, at the request of Draifa. The father, also named Athos Magnani and looking exactly like the son, was killed by a fascist in 1936 -- or so says Draifa (his mistress), the town statue, and everyone in town. As the son untangles the web of lies this story is constructed from, he finds himself ensnared in the same web.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: metafiction, psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, surreal, contemplative, talky, stylized, non-linear
Similar in 82%
Teorema (1968)
Plot Summary:
A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger (Terence Stamp) arrives, makes love to every family member and then disappears. Each has an epiphany of sorts, but none can figure out who the seductive visitor was or why he came.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: surreal, allegory, erotic, disturbing, controversial, art house, mind bending, psychedelic, depressing, experimental
Similar in 82%
Roma (1972)
Plot Summary:
A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: art house, atmospheric, stylized, non-linear, visual, colorful, neorealism, visually appealing, cerebral, surreal
Similar in 78%
The Leopard (1963)
Plot Summary:
As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 28000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 186 min
Plot tags: epic, political, visual, visually appealing, period piece, cerebral, stylized, romantic, retro, philosophical
Similar in 76%
Eight and a Half (1963)
Plot Summary:
With 8 ½ Frederico Fellini leaves a self-portrait where dreams and reality are a mix. With help from a most excellent cast and unique scenery this self reflecting film is one of his master works.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 124000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: art house, psychological, surreal, philosophical, cerebral, stylized, black and white, atmospheric, postmodern, visual
Similar in 89%
Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
Plot Summary:
This story takes place in a small town on the Hungarian Plain. In a provincial town, which is surrounded with nothing else but frost. It is bitterly cold weather — without snow. Even in this bewildered cold hundreds of people are standing around the circus tent, which is put up in the main square, to see — as the outcome of their wait — the chief attraction, the stuffed carcass of a real whale. The people are coming from everywhere. From the neighboring settlings, even from quite far away parts of the country. They are following this clumsy monster as a dumb, faceless, rag-wearing crowd. This strange state of affairs — the appearance of the foreigners, the extreme frost — disturbs the order of the small town. Ambitious personages of the story feel they can take advantage of this situation. The tension growing to the unbearable is brought to explosion by the figure of the Prince, who is pretending facelessness. Even his mere appearance is enough to break loose destructive emotions.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Hungary, Italy, Germany, France
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags: bleak, contemplative, serious, allegory, psychological, slow cinema, tense, atmospheric, suspenseful, futuristic