Best movies like The Awakening
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A first film made of the 1949 March deportation of Estonian people to Siberia by Soviet Secret Police NKVD. During couple of days and nights nearly 21 thousand people, mostly women and children, were under top secret taken from their homes to railway stations and locked into animal wagons to take a trip of thousands of kilometers to a far, poor, unfriendly and cold land where they were mostly used as cheap (free) labor. The movie presents the events symbolist, as in the leading roles are recognizable the characters from bible Jesus, Satan and Judas. That makes the film top artistic but unrealistic, very slow and difficult to follow. Though in general not bad produced, the acting is time to time too theatrical and unfortunately we have rather another medium-level artistic film here than a worth-to-watch history film.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 49
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: allegory
Best tv shows and movies like The Awakening (1989):
Similar in 84%
Hidden Blade (2023)
Plot Summary:
Follows the story of underground workers who risked their lives to send intelligence and defend the motherland, set after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor when the Wang Jingwei regime declared war on Britain and the U.S.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: China
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: period drama
Similar in 85%
Encore, Once More Encore! (1992)
Plot Summary:
A drama set at the end of the Forties and the beginning of the Fifties. In a distant garrison town, life proceeds at a measured past. The officers drink and debauch, while the soldiers serve. Meanwhile accidentally unleashed human emotions are suffocated by the atmosphere of cruelty and hypocrisy.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 336
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Russia
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Siberian Exile (2013)
Plot Summary:
An epic tale of Poles, Ukrainians, Jews who are deported to Russia. Their fate is shown from the perspective of a young boy Staszek, who goes to Siberia with his family and neighbors from a small village in the eastern Polish borderlands. Together with his companions he starts hard struggle for survival, where the most fearsome opponent turns out to be terrible, merciless nature... Circumstances force the boy to reevaluate his life and grow up faster. Soon he will have to learn the essential struggle for survival and make decisions that will where rate will be life of his relatives. He will also have to choose between love for the Jewish Zinnia and the Russian Luybka.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 345
Genere: Drama, History, Romance, War
Country: Poland, Russia
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: psychological, rough, thought provoking, touching, suspense
Similar in 86%
Cantata de Chile (1976)
Plot Summary:
The story of the Santa María School massacre of miners in 1907.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 36
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Cuba
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: allegory
Similar in 87%
Trust (1976)
Plot Summary:
Film is based on the facts of history about the declaration of independence of the Republic of Finland from Russia. The Grand Duchy of Finland was an autonomous part of the Russian Empire until 1917, when the Russian revolution caused the fall of the Empire. On December 6, 1917 Finland declared it's independence. The people of Finland sent an omnipotent delegation to meet with Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 231
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Finland, Soviet Union
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Seven Songs from the Tundra (2000)
Plot Summary:
Finland's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2000.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Finland
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Triangle (1967)
Plot Summary:
The movie tells the life story and friendship of five blacksmiths in town of Leninakan during the war and the years preceding it - as told by the son of one of the blacksmiths.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 135
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Not Reconciled (1965)
Plot Summary:
Not Reconciled, the title of the Straubs’ first feature-length film, is engraved on their work like an inscription. It is a story about the continuity and collapse of history, the power of suppression, and the terror of reconciliation; loyalty, treason and revenge. In a brave cinematic game, Heinrich Böll’s story Billiards at Half-Past Nine is split up into cracks, blocks, breaks and sudden turns, as the life story of a German family, covering numerous generations, is propelled forward. Terms such as “interwar period” and “post-war period” are blown up with a single cut, word or click of a billiard ball. Not Reconciled remains one of the most important German film of the past fifty years.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 798
Genere: Drama, History
Country: West Germany
Duration: 55 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Jani gal (2007)
Plot Summary:
An Iraqi Kurdish man is released from jail. He has been arrested by mistake when he went to find a midwife to help his pregnant wife, years ago. As he has been arrested during a demonstration the authorities thought he is one of the opposition group leaders.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 212
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Iraq, Iran
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Newsfront (1978)
Plot Summary:
Surprisingly adventurous saga of an intrepid group of cinematographers and reporters who risk life and limb to capture footage of breaking news for the movie-going public.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 886
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Australia
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, independent film, period piece, period drama
Similar in 79%
Sour Grape (1974)
Plot Summary:
Two years after receiving news of his father’s death in WWII a young boy continues to wait for trains from the front. The boy lives with his crippled uncle rather than with his mother, who has remarried and has another child. Then one day the father returns.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 89
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 76 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Eternal Winter (2018)
Plot Summary:
The true story of an unlikely romance in a Soviet labor camp.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: Hungary
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: beautiful
Similar in 78%
Saturday Fiction (2019)
Plot Summary:
An actress working undercover for the Allies in 1941 Shanghai discovers the Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: China
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, disturbing, independent film
Similar in 78%
Mother (1990)
Plot Summary:
The social ferment in late 19th century Russia which led to the 1917 Russian Revolution is movingly portrayed in this lengthy historical drama, which is very faithful to the 1907 novel The Mother by the celebrated Marxist writer Maxim Gorky (1868-1936). In the story, "the mother" (Inna Tchourikova) has no other recourse than to watch her decent, kindly husband turn into an animalistic, drunken brute as a result of working in the inhuman conditions of a steel mill in the town of Sormovo. When he begins to express his suppressed rage by beating her, she is defended by her teenaged son Pavel (depicted Viktor Rakov as an adult, Sacha Chichonok as a boy). After his father's death, Pavel is forced to go to work in the same factory. However, Pavel and his friends begin investigating Marxism and socialist thought, and work to organize their fellow workers.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 186
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Soviet Union, Italy
Duration: 200 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
Faneflukt (1975)
Plot Summary:
1941, Norway. The young kitchen maid Liv and the German officer Franz meet in the military camp where Liv works. They develop a friendship and decides to flee to Sweden.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 43
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Norway
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
The Magnate (1987)
Plot Summary:
This Polish historical drama film traces the fascinating saga of a wealthy, princely Polish dynasty in years 1900-1935.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 155
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Poland
Duration: 171 min
Plot tags: family saga
Similar in 86%
The Chronicles of Melanie (2016)
Plot Summary:
The 14th of June 1941, Soviet-occupied Latvia: Without warning, the authorities break into the house of Melanie and her husband Aleksandr and force them to leave everything behind. Together with more than 15 000 Latvians, Melanie and her son get deported to Siberia. In her fight against cold, famine and cruelty, she only gains new strength through the letters she writes to Aleksandr, full of hope for a free Latvia and a better tomorrow.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 912
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Latvia, Czech Republic, Finland
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, suspense, disturbing, black and white, period piece
Similar in 82%
General Nil (2009)
Plot Summary:
Generał Nil is a Polish historical film, based on the life of general Emil August Fieldorf, pseudonym "Nil". The film was directed by Ryszard Bugajski and was released in 2009.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 869
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Poland
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, captivating, suspenseful
Similar in 80%
Betrayal (1993)
Plot Summary:
After the war, in Bucharest, a young Romanian poet arrested for having written an article denouncing Stalinist crimes, will save his life by accepting to become a hostage of the regime.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 123
Genere: Drama, History
Country: France, Switzerland, Spain, Romania
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
The Feasts of Valtasar, or The Night with Stalin (1989)
Plot Summary:
A dance troupe from the autonomous region of Abkhazia in western Georgia perform for Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria, Abkhaz leader Nestor Lakoba, and other high-ranking party officials in the Black Sea coastal town of Gagra.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 212
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1985)
Plot Summary:
Russian provincial town in the middle of the 1930s Stalin's Great Purge. Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police, does what he has to do. And he does it well.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: slow cinema, spiritual, aesthetic
Similar in 83%
Wife of a Spy (2020)
Plot Summary:
It’s 1940, and the population of Japan is divided over its entry into World War II. Satoko, the wife of a fabric merchant, is devoted to her husband but is beginning to suspect he’s up to something. Soon she allows herself to be drawn into a game in which she enigmatically conceals her intentions.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, suspense, disturbing
Similar in 79%
In the Crosswind (2014)
Plot Summary:
June 14, 1941, 3 a.m. Over 40000 people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are deported by Soviets to Siberia. Among them is a philosophy student Erna, a happily married mother of a little girl. Separated from her husband Erna and her daughter are dispatched together with other women and children to remote Siberian territories. Despite hunger, fear and brutal humiliation Erna never in next fifteen years loses her sense of freedom and hope of returning to homeland. The story is inspired by real events.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Estonia
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, serious, bleak, black and white, emotional, stylized
Similar in 82%
Hotel Meina (2007)
Plot Summary:
How will the Germans react to the armistice of the 8th of September 1943, due to which Italy betrays them and sides with the allied forces? This is the distressing questions that a group of 16 Italian - Greek Jews evacuated at The Meina Hotel ask themselves.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 124
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy, France, Serbia
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
A City of Sadness (1989)
Plot Summary:
Soon after Japan relinquishes control of Taiwan in 1945, the Lin brothers face hardships from the changing culture. Bar owner Wen-heung (Chen Sown-yung), the eldest brother, falls foul of local gangsters, Wen-sun disappears, and Wen-leung, scarred by his experiences in the war, ends up in an insane asylum. Deaf-mute photographer Wen-ching (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), the youngest brother, decides to make a stand and fight the Kuomintang government from China that is assuming power.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Taiwan
Duration: 157 min
Plot tags: realistic, sad, saga, black and white, slow cinema, aesthetic, tense, rough, serious, captivating
Similar in 90%
The War Between Us (1995)
Plot Summary:
In World War II British Columbia, Canada, a Japanese immigrant family has to endure the racist Canadian policy of being interned and their property confiscated as "enemy aliens". At the same time, a white Canadian family has to deal with their own feelings as they agree to be work as employees in this policy with Japanese being held in their area.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 122
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Canada
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: independent film, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 82%
Beyond Friendship (2006)
Plot Summary:
A tale of friendship between two men, one Jewish and the other Arab, as the state of Israel is being created.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 947
Genere: Drama, History
Country: France, UK, Italy, Greece, Israel, USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, inspirational, sad, informative
Similar in 79%
Reunion (1989)
Plot Summary:
Two young boys from very different backgrounds become friends in 1933 Stuttgart. However, they don't realize how different they are until much later as one is the son of a well-to-do Jewish doctor and the other the son of a German aristocrat. After that summer and the election of Hitler, things change as antisemitism gains fervor. After the core of the film deals with that era, the film flashes to the present and the Jewish man now returns to his boyhood home and seeks his old friend with some surprises.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 557
Genere: Drama, History
Country: France, West Germany, UK
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: independent film, thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 89%
The Sun (2005)
Plot Summary:
The Sun (Russian: Сóлнце, Solntse) is a 2005 Russian biographical film depicting Japanese Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) during the final days of World War II. The film is the third drama in director Aleksandr Sokurov's trilogy, which included Taurus about the Soviet Union's Vladimir Lenin and Moloch about Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Russia, Italy, Switzerland, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, disturbing, serious, captivating, slow cinema, visual, aesthetic, realistic
Similar in 76%
The Final Solution: The Wannsee Conference (1984)
Plot Summary:
A real time recreation of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, in which leading SS and Nazi Party officals gathered to discuss the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Led by SS-General Reinhard Heydrich, the Wannsee Conference was the starting point for the Jewish Holcaust which led to the mass murder of six million people.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Austria, West Germany
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, contemplative, talky