Best movies like The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A small-town eccentric opens a café in her decaying home.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 854
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: southern gothic, independent film, clever, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, talky, crying
Best tv shows and movies like The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1991):
Similar in 82%
Great Moments in Aviation (1994)
Plot Summary:
The film follows Gabriel Angel (Rakie Ayola), a young Caribbean aviator who falls in love with the forger Duncan Stewart (Jonathan Pryce) on her journey to England. Stewart is pursued by his nemesis Rex Goodyear (John Hurt), and the group are supported by Dr Angela Bead (Vanessa Redgrave) and Miss Gwendolyn Quim (Dorothy Tutin), retired missionaries who become lovers during the voyage.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 368
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: humorous, serious, realistic
Similar in 80%
The Mystic Masseur (2001)
Plot Summary:
Circa 1940 in Trinidad, still a British Colony, lives Ganesh Ramseyor, of East Indian origin, along with his wife, Leela. He longs to reach out to people, especially to Hindus, in order to promote the Hindu Faith, and be known as a writer. He does get considerable success, so much so that he becomes famous as a miracle worker, having cured a man of sharing intimacy with his bicycle; prevented a man from believing that he can fly; and convincing a young woman to end her fast. His fame spreads all over the island and thousands throng to seek his blessings, which he does dole out quite benevolently, without charging any fees from the poor and the needy. He then decides to spread his wings by challenging the local politician Pandit Narayan Chandrashekhar alias Cyrus T., and takes over The Hindu Organization, thence opening his way to a seat in the prestigious Member of the Legislative Assembly.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 474
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, India, Trinidad and Tobago, USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: meditative, talky, touching, serious, realistic, crying, mystic, weeping, fairy tale, light
Similar in 84%
Wetherby (1985)
Plot Summary:
The mysterious death of an enigmatic young man newly arrived in the suburb of Wetherby releases the long-repressed, dark passions of some of its residents.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: independent film, psychological, mind bending, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Sleepwalk with Me (2012)
Plot Summary:
A burgeoning stand-up comedian struggles with the stress of a stalled career, a stale relationship, and the wild spurts of severe sleepwalking he is desperate to ignore.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: funny, humorous, talky, surreal, semi serious, realistic, sexy, emotional, entertaining, intense
Similar in 80%
The Moderns (1988)
Plot Summary:
Nick Hart is a struggling American artist who lives amongst the expatriate community in 1920s Paris. He spends most of his time drinking and socializing in local café's and pestering gallery owner Libby Valentin to sell his paintings. He becomes involved in a plot by wealthy art patroness Nathalie de Ville to forge three paintings. This leads to several run-ins with American rubber magnate Bertram Stone, who happens to be married to Hart's ex-wife Rachel.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: clever, humorous, surreal, expressionism, realistic, semi serious, independent film, light, romantic, philosophical
Similar in 89%
Bleak Moments (1971)
Plot Summary:
Moments from the uncompromisingly bleak existence of a secretary, her retarded sister, aloof and uneasy teacher boyfriend, bizzare neighbour and irritating workmate.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: independent film, cult classic, sentimental, sincere, clever, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, talky
Similar in 87%
The Quarry (1998)
Plot Summary:
This thriller investigates the mysterious assassination of a gay pastor in rural South Africa. Without witnesses or explanations, the crime appears to the police and others as a jigsaw puzzle without enough pieces. The police then suspect and arrest people based on the usual prejudices, black and coloured people who plant marijuana in this case. Meanwhile, the true assassin not only goes his way unpunished from the very beginning, but becomes one of the rural town's most respected citizens. The sheriff at one point does begin having certain suspicions, and from there on the bulk of the plot is played out. The location is a very arid part of South Africa, so with so much desert rock, there are bound to be quarries. Some may reveal important secrets.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Belgium, France, Netherlands, Spain
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: independent film, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, gloomy, suspense, crying
Similar in 86%
Peep World (2010)
Plot Summary:
On the day of their Father's 70th birthday party, four siblings come to terms with the publication of a novel written by the youngest sibling, that exposes the family's most intimate secrets.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, talky, cynical, semi serious, funny, sad, independent film, crying
Similar in 82%
Possession (2002)
Plot Summary:
Maud Bailey, a brilliant English academic, is researching the life and work of poet Christabel La Motte. Roland Michell is an American scholar in London to study Randolph Henry Ash, now best-known for a collection of poems dedicated to his wife. When Maud and Roland discover a cache of love letters that appear to be from Ash to La Motte, they follow a trail of clues across England, echoing the journey of the couple over a century earlier.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: romantic, clever, period piece, sentimental, serious, realistic, heartbreaking, sweet, slasher, romantic drama
Similar in 77%
Don't Tell (2005)
Plot Summary:
Sabina has a regular life. She is satisfied with her job and her love for Franco. Lately nightmares start disturbing her, and almost in the same time she discovers to be pregnant. Step by step she remembers her childhood spent within a severe middle-class family. But a big secret is hidden within her heart. Sabina wants to contact again her brother, a University teacher in the US, to try to understand what is happened in their past. What is the secret? She is determined to bring clarity and serenity in her life. She finally manages to free herself from her "beast in the heart".
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy, UK, France, Spain
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, emotional, sincere, touching, realistic, gloomy, crying
Similar in 76%
Cape of Good Hope (2004)
Plot Summary:
Mark Bamford's thought-provoking comedy explores the ever-present friction between class, race and faith in modern-day South Africa, tracing the intersection of multiple lives. A Drama revolving around 3 women's lives and how they are intertwined.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 292
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: South Africa, USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, realistic, semi serious, humorous, contemplative, crying
Similar in 86%
These Foolish Things (2006)
Plot Summary:
As war looms on the horizon, a hopeful ingenue (Zoe Tapper) finds herself caught between the warring affections of a playwright (David Leon) and a director (Andrew Lincoln) in 1930s London. Director Julia Taylor-Stanley's heartwarming ensemble piece features zesty performances by Anjelica Huston as an eccentric investor, Mark Umbers as a vain matinee idol, and Terence Stamp as a tart butler. And don't miss the immortal Lauren Bacall in a small role.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 568
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, captivating, emotional, serious, realistic, crying
Similar in 78%
Cookie's Fortune (1999)
Plot Summary:
Conflict arises in the small town of Holly Springs when an old woman's death causes a variety of reactions among family and friends.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: humorous, witty, independent film, southern gothic, hilarious, touching, feel good, realistic, semi serious, surprise ending
Similar in 81%
Winter Passing (2005)
Plot Summary:
Actress Reese Holden has been offered a small fortune by a book editor if she can secure for publication the love letters that her father, a reclusive novelist, wrote to her mother, who has since passed away. Returning to Michigan, Reese finds that an ex-grad student and a would-be musician have moved in with her father, who cares more about his new friends than he does about his own health and well-being.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, serious, realistic, heartbreaking, cult classic, psychological, clever, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Gilles' Wife (2004)
Plot Summary:
Gilles' wife, Elise, who smiles when she thinks of him, cooks and scrubs and cheerfully makes love to him, suspects during her third pregnancy that he is having an affair with her coquettish younger sister, Victorine. Elise suffers, usually in silence. She listens to her husband rave; she asks her priest; she breaks picture frames; she weeps. She decides on a strategy to keep him. Will she succeed?.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 887
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Italy, Switzerland
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, crying, sexy
Similar in 82%
Margot at the Wedding (2007)
Plot Summary:
Margot and her son Claude decide to visit her sister Pauline after she announces that she is getting married to less-than-impressive Malcolm. In short order, the storm the sisters create leaves behind a mess of thrashed relationships and exposed family secrets.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 22000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: talky, depressing, melancholic, stylized, humorous, tragicomedy, semi serious, cult classic, biting, deep
Similar in 83%
Pieces of April (2003)
Plot Summary:
Quirky and rebellious April Burns lives with her boyfriend in a low-rent New York City apartment miles away from her emotionally distant family. But when she discovers that her mother has a fatal form of breast cancer, she invites the clan to her place for Thanksgiving. While her father struggles to drive her family into the city, April -- an inexperienced cook -- runs into kitchen trouble and must ask a neighbor for help.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 22000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: realistic, emotional, intense, sentimental, touching, humorous, talky, entertaining, social, multicultural
Similar in 82%
The Grass Harp (1995)
Plot Summary:
Based on the novel by Truman Capote, this often-witty coming-of-age drama looks at a young man growing up with an unusual family in the Deep South in the 1940s.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, offbeat, feel good, humorous, realistic, semi serious, independent film, southern gothic
Similar in 77%
Heartburn (1986)
Plot Summary:
Rachel is a food writer at a New York magazine who meets Washington columnist Mark at a wedding and ends up falling in love with him despite her reservations about marriage. They buy a house, have a daughter, and Rachel thinks they are living happily ever after until she discovers that Mark is having an affair while she is waddling around with a second pregnancy.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: melancholic, lyrical, sentimental, humorous, realistic, semi serious, talky, emotional, sex comedy, cult classic
Similar in 88%
Junebug (2005)
Plot Summary:
On the way to meet with an independent artist in the South, newlywed art dealer Madeleine is convinced by her husband, George, that they should stop to meet his family in North Carolina. Madeleine's affluent lifestyle clashes with the family, but she befriends George's wide-eyed and pregnant sister-in-law, Ashley, who is nearing her due date. Through the family, Madeleine gains greater insight into George's character.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 23000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: humorous, independent film, emotional, sentimental, semi serious, realistic, comedy drama, romantic, depressing, romantic comedy
Similar in 75%
1, 2, 3, Freeze (1993)
Plot Summary:
A provocative, seemingly absurd patchwork movie which sends a worthwhile message about hope against all odds, love, children and human understanding. Schoolgirl Victorine has an insane mother and an alcoholic father who can never find his way home in their maze of slum apartment blocks. Aggressive, sexually threatening boys of all ages are everywhere, and while the teacher eventually relents to a gang of adolescent rapists, Victorine gives herself to a rowdy gang of older layabouts, eventually winning the heart of burglar Paul.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 891
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: sexy, bleak, humorous, serious, realistic, experimental, surreal, disturbing, controversial, stylized
Similar in 75%
Catfish in Black Bean Sauce (1999)
Plot Summary:
An African American couple (Winfield and Alice) adopt two orphans from a Vietnamese refugee camp. After twenty-two years, the children are reunited with their birth mother, bringing deeply submerged resentments and misconceptions to the surface and forcing the characters to reexamine their identity and relationships in both comical and poignant situations.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 515
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: independent film, touching, emotional, black comedy, sentimental, serious, realistic, crying, funny, romantic
Similar in 78%
Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)
Plot Summary:
A Japanese-American fisherman may have killed his neighbor Carl at sea. In the 1950s, race figures in the trial. So does reporter Ishmael.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, meditative, breathtaking, serious, captivating, realistic, scenic, romantic, political
Similar in 82%
Winter's Bone (2010)
Plot Summary:
17 year-old Ree Dolly sets out to track down her father, who put their house up for his bail bond and then disappeared. If she fails, Ree and her family will be turned out into the Ozark woods. Challenging her outlaw kin's code of silence and risking her life, Ree hacks through the lies, evasions and threats offered up by her relatives and begins to piece together the truth.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 148000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: depressing, atmospheric, harsh, bleak, disturbing, tense, gloomy, serious, neo noir, independent film
Similar in 89%
A Month by the Lake (1995)
Plot Summary:
For 16 years Miss Bentley has been spending April at an elegant hillside villa on Lake Como. This year, 1937, her London society artist father has recently died and the only other English-speaking guests are brash Americans. Then Major Wilshaw arrives. He suggests they meet for cocktails and Miss Bentley stands him up -- not even thinking about it -- as she helps the new nanny of an Italian family settle in. Miss Beaumont, a tall, young American who has dropped out of finishing school in Switzerland, is bored and finds some amusement in flirting with the major, whose libido is awakened for the first time since before the great war. And Miss Bentley now finds more about the major to admire than his ears.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sexy, romantic, touching, witty, sentimental, feel good, humorous, realistic, semi serious, crying
Similar in 85%
Georgia Rule (2007)
Plot Summary:
Georgia Rule follows a rebellious, uncontrollable teenager who is hauled off by her dysfunctional mother to spend the summer with her grandmother. Her journey will lead all three women to revelations of buried family secrets and an understanding that - regardless what happens - the ties that bind can never be broken.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 26000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: teen, melancholic, stylized, sincere, sentimental, realistic, serious, uplifting, feel good, crying
Similar in 82%
Reach the Rock (1998)
Plot Summary:
A small town troublemaker (Alessandro Nivola), directionless and alienated, ends up spending a night in a jail cell, where he and the police chief (William Sadler) engage in a battle of wills and wit.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 900
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious, suspense, tense, independent film, biting
Similar in 83%
Up and Down (2004)
Plot Summary:
Milan and Goran are two criminals who smuggle illegal immigrants. One night after they complete a smuggle, they discover that one of the immigrants has left a baby behind. Milan and Goran decide to sell the baby to Lubos and Eman, who are responsible for running an illegal baby adoption center. Lubos and Eman make attempts to sell the baby to Miluska and Frantisek, a barren couple.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: psychological, clever, touching, humorous, realistic, contemplative, semi serious, cult classic, crying
Similar in 89%
Duane Hopwood (2005)
Plot Summary:
A down-on-his-luck divorced father struggles to get his life and family back together before it's too late.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: emotional, humorous, realistic, captivating, psychological, clever, touching, gloomy, semi serious, independent film
Similar in 83%
Crimes of the Heart (1986)
Plot Summary:
Three sisters with quite different personalities and lives reunite when the youngest of them, Babe, has just shot her husband. The oldest sister, Lenny, takes care of their grandfather and is turning into an old maid, while Meg, who tries to make it in Hollywood as a singer/actress, has had a wild life filled with many men. Their reunion causes much joy, but also many tensions.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, talky, humorous, dark comedy, emotional, melancholic, black comedy, sentimental, realistic, semi serious