Best movies like The Day the Clown Cried
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A circus clown is imprisoned by the Nazis and goes with Jewish children to their deaths.
IMDB Rating:
IMDB Votes:
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: emotional, controversial, independent film, weird
Best tv shows and movies like The Day the Clown Cried (1972):
Similar in 79%
The Long Island Four (1980)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of four Nazi saboteurs who infiltrated the US in 1942 and were quickly caught and executed, this 80-minute ode to America's irresistibly corruptive allure was the only underground feature by writer-director Anders Grafstrom. A Swedish art director who relocated to NYC, he created this grandiose No-Wave, Super-8 color-epic at the age of 23, only to die in a Mexican car accident a few months after completing the film.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 23
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: avant garde
Similar in 89%
The Last Letter (2002)
Plot Summary:
Locked away in the Jewish ghetto of an occupied Ukrainian town in 1941, a mother revisits her life in a last letter to her son.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 179
Genere: Drama
Country: France, USA
Duration: 61 min
Plot tags: minimal cast
Similar in 81%
Passenger (1963)
Plot Summary:
The last film of Andrzej Munk, who died in a crash during the filming. A German woman on a ship coming back to Europe notices a face of another woman which brings recollections from the past. She tells her husband that she has been an overseer in Auschwitz during the war, but she has actually saved a woman's life. Her vision is shown and then the actual events.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 62 min
Plot tags: experimental, odd
Similar in 85%
Everyone Dies Alone (1976)
Plot Summary:
When they start losing family members and neighbors due to WWII and the Nazi government's policies, a quiet married couple becomes disillusioned and begins spreading leaflets against the government - a crime punishable by death.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 262
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
Miss Rose White (1992)
Plot Summary:
Rose White (Sedgwick) is a modern young career woman in post-World War II New York City who has largely relegated her Jewish heritage to scrapbooks and memories. Born in Poland but fortunate enough to escape the country before the Nazi occupation and the Holocaust wiped out her family, she is stunned to learn her older sister somehow survived the horror and is coming to America. The sisters' reunion is complicated by Lusia's (Amanda Plummer) memories of her struggles to survive and the revelation of past family secrets.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 269
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, crying
Similar in 79%
Jonah Who Lived in the Whale (1993)
Plot Summary:
The story of the Holocaust, seen as Jonah, a young jewish boy living in Amsterdam at the onset of WW II, who with his family is taken by the Nazis to a concentration camp. (Based on the book 'Childhood' by Jona Oberski.).
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 457
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France, Hungary
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
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 84%
I'm Alive and I Love You (1998)
Plot Summary:
Drama - During World War II, a woman aboard a railroad car full of deportees slips French railway worker Julien (Jérôme Deschamps) a note with an address and a simple message: "I am alive, and I love you," and he decides to track down the intended recipients. When he finds the woman's Jewish family, he is inspired to do what he can to protect them from the Nazi atrocities. This compelling drama from director Roger Kahane co-stars Dorian Lambert. - Jérôme Deschamps, Dorian Lambert, Agnès Soral.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 81
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Gruber's Journey (2008)
Plot Summary:
On 22 June 1941, Germany and Romania attack Soviet Russia. Several days later, Curzio Malaparte, the Italian writer who would one day pen the novel « Kaputt », a war correspondent for « Corriere de la Sera », arrives in Iasi, in the north of Moldova, on his way to the front, which is nearby. He is incapacitated by a severe allergy and his only chance of recovery is to find a Jewish doctor, an allergologist who had studied in Florence, called Josef Gruber. All his attempts to find him are unsuccessful. While looking for him, Curzio discovers that in Iasi, several days prior to his arrival, a violent anti-Semitic pogrom took place and that a large number of the Jewish citizens of Iasi were deported by train and that Dr Gruber may be among them. In order to find him, Curzio, aided by Guido Sartori, the Italian consul in Iasi, tries to obtain an official warrant to bring Josef Gruber back. He confronts indifference, rudeness and the desire by the Romanian authorities to hide something.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 200
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary, Romania
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
The Passerby (1982)
Plot Summary:
During an interview, Max Baumstein (Piccoli), respected chairman of a humanitarian organisation, shoots the Paraguayan ambassador dead, in cold blood. Tried for first-degree murder, he explains himself: the ambassador was a former Nazi official, responsible for the extermination of his family.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, West Germany
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: emotional, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, surprise ending
Similar in 77%
The 25th Hour (1967)
Plot Summary:
A Romanian peasant fights to get back to his family after he's imprisoned by the Nazis.The picture is based on real events. It includes Hungary's government in collaboration with the Nazis, the encroachment of Romania by Stalin's troopers, and other happenings.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Italy, Yugoslavia
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Hidden in Silence (1996)
Plot Summary:
Poland 1939, shortly before invasion of the German troops. To save their belongings from the Nazis, the Jewish family Diamant transfers them to their 17-year-old catholic maid Fusia. In return Fusia provides them with food until the ghetto is dissolved, and then hides 13 people in her loft for over two years. However, as the front approaches and two German nurses take quarter in Fusias apartment everything seems to be in vain.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 531
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Miriam (2006)
Plot Summary:
Heart-wrenching story of a woman who takes another's identity to survive the most horrible time of the 20th Century. Miriam is the triumphant story of one woman's survival and success, which takes place in Lithuania over a period of forty years, from the German occupation of World War II through the Soviet era, and is based upon the true story of Miriam Shafer.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 47
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: captivating, suspense, suspenseful, disturbing
Similar in 77%
Valiant Hearts (2021)
Plot Summary:
In August 1942, during the Second World War, Six Jewish children are trying to escape the Nazis. They are hidden by the resistance in the Chambord Castle, where paintings from Le Louvre are being stored as well. The Nazis are looking for paintings from private collections that would be hidden there as well.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 83
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
The Execution (1985)
Plot Summary:
The members of a San Diego Wednesday night womens' mah jongg club are five survivors of a Nazi concentration camp. They recognize the owner of a local restaurant, Walter Grossman, as a doctor from the camp who performed experiments on them as young girls. To their horror they learn that he has already been tried as a war criminal and has served but a few years for his crimes. They decide that they will "execute" him, drawing lots to determine which one will perform the act, without letting the others know who it is.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 183
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: surprise ending
Similar in 88%
The Boys from St. Petri (1991)
Plot Summary:
A group of school-mates form a resistance group in nazi-occupied Denmark.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
Bulgarian Rhapsody (2014)
Plot Summary:
the story of two adolescents, Moni and Zhozho, who meet 17-year-old Zheni in 1943 and with whom both fell in love. The events that follow unfold while Bulgaria has to decide on the deportation of 11 343 Jewish citizens in Macedonia and Thrace.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 437
Genere: Drama
Country: Bulgaria, Israel
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, emotional, suspenseful, serious, realistic
Similar in 78%
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 88%
The Revolt of Job (1983)
Plot Summary:
"The Revolt of Job" tells the story of a childless Jewish couple in WWII-era Hungary who adopt a Hungarian boy. They raise him with their values and traditions. Unfortunately, the Nazis eventually come and round up all Jewish families in the village. The final scene shows the boy watching as his parents are hauled away like cattle.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 683
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, uplifting, touching, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 79%
Adam Resurrected (2008)
Plot Summary:
Before the war, in Berlin, Adam was an entertainer- cabaret impresario, magician, musician-loved by all until he finds himself in a concentration camp, confronted by Commandant Klein. Adam survives the camp by becoming the Klein's "dog", entertaining him while his wife and daughter are sent off to die. "Adam Resurrected" is the story of a man who once was a dog who meets a dog who once was a boy.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany, Israel, USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: touching, bleak, serious, realistic, contemplative, emotional, gloomy, entertaining, period drama
Similar in 80%
The Rose Garden (1989)
Plot Summary:
In Germany, an old man attacks another old man and is arrested. The attacker refuses to speak. A female lawyer is appointed to him. She discovers that the attacker has numbers tattooed on his arm and the attacked man was a German officer.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 447
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, West Germany, Austria
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, psychological, tense, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, contemplative
Similar in 86%
The Pawnbroker (1964)
Plot Summary:
A Jewish pawnbroker, a victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: depressing, emotional, realistic, bleak, heartbreaking, atmospheric, compassionate, psychological, serious, suspenseful
Similar in 87%
Auschwitz (2011)
Plot Summary:
Auschwitz is a hard-hitting war film which shows life as it really was at the death camp.
IMDB Rating: 3.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Canada, Germany
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, thought provoking, bleak, realistic, tense, serious, postmodern, controversial, gloomy
Similar in 87%
The Execution of Private Slovik (1974)
Plot Summary:
The story of Eddie Slovik, who was executed by the Army in 1945, the only American soldier to be executed for desertion since the Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
The Devil's Arithmetic (1999)
Plot Summary:
Hannah Stern, an American-born Jewish adolescent, is uninterested in the culture, faith and customs of her relatives; however, Hannah begins to revaluate her heritage when she has a supernatural experience that transports her back to a Nazi death camp in 1941. There, she meets a young girl named Rivkah, a fellow captive in the camp. As Rivkah and Hannah struggle to survive in the face of daily atrocities, they form an unbreakable bond.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, War
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: emotional, uplifting, serious, realistic, sentimental, touching, period piece, teen, surprise ending
Similar in 86%
Out of the Ashes (2003)
Plot Summary:
The real-life story of Gisella Perl, a Jewish Hungarian doctor imprisoned in the notorious Auschwitz death camp of World War II.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, serious, bleak, captivating, emotional, contemplative, uplifting
Similar in 76%
The Grey Zone (2001)
Plot Summary:
A Nazi doctor, along with the Sonderkomando Jews – who are forced to work in the crematoria of Auschwitz against their fellow-Jews – find themselves in a moral grey zone.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: depressing, bleak, disturbing, factual, emotional, harsh, compassionate, serious, realistic, heartbreaking
Similar in 87%
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 82%
Sophie's Choice (1982)
Plot Summary:
Stingo, a young writer, moves to Brooklyn in 1947 to begin work on his first novel. As he becomes friendly with Sophie and her lover Nathan, he learns that she is a Holocaust survivor. Flashbacks reveal her harrowing story, from pre-war prosperity to Auschwitz. In the present, Sophie and Nathan's relationship increasingly unravels as Stingo grows closer to Sophie and Nathan's fragile mental state becomes ever more apparent.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 52000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: depressing, sad, realistic, heartbreaking, serious, touching, crying, emotional, bleak, disturbing
Similar in 85%
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