Best movies like The Face of Jizo
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Based on a play by Hisashi Inoue, it focuses on the sufferings of the survivors of Hiroshima. The film takes place during 4 days in the summer of 1948, as the ghost of her father visits Mitsué (Rié Miyama). He had somehow learned that she has fallen in love, and tries to convince her to start her new life. But Mitsué obstinately refuses his warm and humorous encouragements : « People were killed in my place. I do not have the right to find happiness », she says.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 247
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: minimal cast, retro
Best tv shows and movies like The Face of Jizo (2004):
Similar in 87%
Hitler Meets Christ (2007)
Plot Summary:
Hitler Meets Christ premiered at the Cinequest Film Festival in 2007 and went on to play at other festivals internationally. Written as a play by Michael Moriarty entitled "Hitler and Christ meet Death at the Port Authority Bus Station" while living in New York and acting in Law & Order, it was adapted for screen after Moriarty moved to Vancouver Canada. The film was produced by Brendan Keown and Jeremy Dyson of Third Tribe Productions and directed by Brendan Keown.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 130
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Canada
Duration: 76 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, independent film
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Lanterns on Blue Waters (1983)
Plot Summary:
The story of a Japanese man who as a 16-year-old went to Maui to work in the sugar cane fields in order to support his family back in Japan. Now 89 and still living in Hawaii he is visited by his granddaughter who brings him a letter from his disinherited and recently dead son. This brings back memories of his life with his wife and family following the attack on Pearl Harbor, in particular of his son who had gone off to join the war for the Americans.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 8
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: bilingual
Similar in 80%
Australia (1989)
Plot Summary:
Widower Edouard Pierson (Jeremy Irons) fought for Australia in World War Two, but he was born (and married) in Belgium. For the past twelve years, he has been living in Australia with his daughter. His occupation as a wool merchant is in keeping with his family's tradition. He is determined to remain in Australia, and is equally determined to keep his daughter (Danielle Lyttleton) from learning much about her mother, whom she never knew. Nonetheless, when his brother (Tcheky Karyo) calls urgently from Belgium, requesting his help in saving the family's business there, he returns to his hometown of Verviers. In addition to saving the family business, he comes to have second thoughts about returning to Australia after he has a brief affair with a Belgian woman (Fanny Ardant). Meanwhile, his daughter has made contact with her grandmother (Helene Surgere), and is beginning to learn about her mother.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 227
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Switzerland, Belgium
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Eiszeit (1975)
Plot Summary:
Based on a very successful play of the same name by Tankred Dorst, this film tells a story about Norwegian author Knut Hamsun (here played by O.E. Hasse), a Nobel prizewinner for literature who was notorious for having collaborated with the Nazi regime. After the war, rather than hand him over for prosecution, he was sent to a retirement home. A young man, bitter about the war, tracks him down and begins to harass him in various ways. The author handles everything that comes to him with remarkable dignity, which eventually removes some of the taint from his actions.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 57
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany, Norway
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (2015)
Plot Summary:
Nobuko (Sayuri Yoshinaga) works in Nagasaki, Japan as a midwife. Her son died 3 years earlier from the atomic bomb. On August 9, 1948, her son appears in front of her again. Since that time, Koji (Kazunari Ninomiya) appears in front of her and they reminiscence about pleasant times. These happy, but bizarre moments seem eternal.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 483
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Japan
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: sweet, art house
Similar in 81%
The Visit (1964)
Plot Summary:
Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-millionaire for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Carla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Italy, France, West Germany
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: retro, psychological, tense, serious, realistic, biting, suspense
Similar in 78%
The First Day of Freedom (1964)
Plot Summary:
Freed Polish soldiers are trapped in a small town in Germany during the last days of World War II. After a doctor's daughter is raped by a concentration camp worker, the Poles allow her and her father to stay in the house that is their temporary quarters. While waiting to be repatriated, the war-weary group is forced to fight some German soldiers who invade the town. The war brings out conflicting emotions of the Poles who find themselves trapped in the house and once again under fire from the enemy.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 114
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
University of Laughs (2004)
Plot Summary:
In pre-war Japan, a government censor tries to make the writer for a theater troupe alter his comedic script. As they work with and against each other, the script ends up developing in unexpected ways.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
The Hasty Heart (1983)
Plot Summary:
In Burma on the penultimate day of World War II, Cameron Highlander Lachlan 'Lachie' MacLachlan is seriously wounded and transported to a local military hospital. He seems to have recovered from his wounds but appearances can be deceiving. The hospital commander asks nursing Sister Margaret Parker and the five remaining soldiers in her ward to befriend Lachie as he is dying and has only a few weeks to live. Lachie, who is not aware of his prognosis, is a proud man who wants no help from anyone. Slowly however, relationships are formed and Lachie begins to appreciate friendship, something he has never had with anyone.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 60
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
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 88%
Waiting for Godot (2001)
Plot Summary:
Two tramps wait for a man named Godot, but instead meet a pompous man and his stooped-over slave.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Ireland
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, minimal cast, dark comedy, captivating, disturbing, philosophical, existential, cult classic, absurd
Similar in 82%
Harmonium (2016)
Plot Summary:
Toshio hires Yasaka to work in his workshop. But then this old acquaintance, who has just been released from prison, begins to meddle in Toshio’s family life….
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan, France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, suspense, disturbing, crying, detective
Similar in 78%
Liten Ida (1981)
Plot Summary:
Little Ida's mother is working for the Germans during WW2, and she is also having a relationship with a German SS-officer. Ida is experiencing the problems of having a mother who is involved with the enemy, without being old enough to understand what is actually going on.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 135
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway, Sweden
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Hungarians (1978)
Plot Summary:
A group of landless Hungarian peasants accept work as migrant-laborers on a farm in northern Germany where the wages are good, and the wives and family are allowed to accompany them. Though it is in the midst of World War II, they are relatively well-off. However, they glimpse the treatment accorded to POWs and others who are not so gently treated, and at the conclusion of the year's harvest, they choose to return to Hungary and are quickly swept up in the tides of war. This film is part of a series of films by award-winning, well-respected director Zoltan Fabri who devoted much time and effort chronicling the struggle against fascism.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 353
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
The Snow Goose (1971)
Plot Summary:
Based upon Paul Gallico's delicate novel, Patrick Garland's Golden Globe winning The Snow Goose is a stark and hauntingly beautiful drama set amongst the striking scenery of the Essex salt marshes during the early years of WWII. A bearded Richard Harris leads the modest cast with his sensitive portrayal of tormented soul Philip Rhayader, a lonely misshapen man shunned by society but with a great love of life; Harris isnt overly bitter of his treatment and expresses his compassion through his paintings and love of the waterfowl that surround him. Harris is ably supported by the waiflike Jenny Agutter as Frith, who radiates the requisite amount of youthful innocence and naivety, and won a best supporting actress Emmy Award for her performance.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 434
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: tear jerker, period drama, tearjerker
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The Path (2022)
Plot Summary:
Fleeing from the Nazis, two children, a journalist father, and a dog must make their way through the hazardous Pyrenees mountain range.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 230
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Spain
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags:
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Her Love Boils Bathwater (2016)
Plot Summary:
A terminally ill single mother is determined to reconcile her splintered family.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: psychological, sentimental, sincere, captivating, melancholic, disturbing, inspirational, comedy drama, crying, detective
Similar in 85%
The Sea and Poison (1986)
Plot Summary:
Downed American fliers in WW II are vivisected by Japanese surgeons in medical experiments.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 309
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: retro
Similar in 87%
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 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 82%
Cefalonia (2005)
Plot Summary:
Cefalonia tells the real story about what happened in September 1943 on the Greek island of Kefalonia (Cefalonia in Italian), when the 12,000 men in the Italian 33rd Acqui Infantry Division, following Italy's surrender to the Allied, refused to put themselves under German command and also refused to surrender their weapons. The local German force, supported by Stuka dive-bombers and additional troops, attacked the Italians and after several days of combat the Italians surrendered, having lost 1,300 men. As punishment, the German High Command ordered that all surviving Italians should be executed. Some 5,000 were executed during a week of killings. A handful were rescued by locals and the Greek guerrilla, while the rest were shipped off as prisoners, whereof 3,000 drowned when their ships hit mines. The film "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" is based on a novel about the Italian occupation of Cefalonia, but the massacre was much toned down in the Hollywood version.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 134
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 210 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Class of '44 (1973)
Plot Summary:
Sequel to "Summer of '42" reunites Hermie, Oscy and Benjie as they graduate from high school. Benjie departs shortly to war while Hermie and Oscy go on to college and experience fraternity hazings, cheating on exams, sex scandals and other unsavory college activities. Hermie grows apart from his childhood friend Oscy and begins a relationship with Julie that allows him to settle down into maturity.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 571
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
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 82%
Red Dirt Rising (2011)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story, this film shares with us a decade in the lives of Jimmie Lewallen and his wife Carrie as they experience the joys of love and marriage alongside the tragedies of war and poverty (1939-1949).
IMDB Rating: 3.9
IMDB Votes: 380
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
H (1990)
Plot Summary:
A junkie couple board themselves in their apartment while they try to kick their heroin habit.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 167
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: minimal cast, independent film
Similar in 75%
The Dresser (2015)
Plot Summary:
One fateful night in a small English regional theatre during World War II a troupe of touring actors stage a production of Shakespeares King Lear. Bombs are falling, sirens are wailing, the curtain is up in an hour but the actor/manager Sir who is playing Lear is nowhere to be seen. His dresser Norman must scramble to keep the production alive but will Sir turn up in time and if he does will he be able to perform that night? The Dresser is a wickedly funny and deeply moving story of friendship and loyalty as Sir reflects on his lifelong accomplishments and seeks to reconcile his turbulent friendships with those in his employ before the final curtain.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sad, touching
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Love & Pop (1998)
Plot Summary:
Pretty Tokyo teen Hiromi Yoshii (Asumi Miwa) and her girlfriends struggle with rivalries, clothes and boyfriends, just like any other high school clique. But out for kicks and blind to the consequences, the girls of Love & Pop hide a dirty little secret. From phone booths and street corners, in department stores and restaurants, the girls practice enjo-kosai or "compensated dating" -- arranging liaisons with older men drawn to their evident nubile charms and schoolgirl uniform innocence.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: disturbing, offbeat, serious, realistic, witty, sexual, sexy
Similar in 88%
Maborosi (1995)
Plot Summary:
A young woman's husband apparently commits suicide without warning or reason, leaving behind his wife and infant. Yumiko remarries and moves from Osaka to a small fishing village, yet continues to search for meaning in a lonely world.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: art house, atmospheric, contemplative, slow cinema, retro, aesthetic, psychological, serious, realistic, light
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Life and Death on the Shore (2017)
Plot Summary:
Set in 1945 at the end of World War II. Saku arrives on Kakeromajima as the head of navy special forces. He is admired by the children on the island and he is interested in learning the island song as well as drinking with his men. Toe is an elementary school teacher on Kakeromajima and she has feelings for Saku.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 56
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 155 min
Plot tags: captivating
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Kabei: Our Mother (2008)
Plot Summary:
Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to night to maintain the household and bring up her two daughters with the support of Shigeru's sister Hisako and Shigeru's ex-student Yamazaki, but her husband does not return. WWII breaks out and casts dark shadows on the entire country, but Kayo still tries to keep her cheerful determination, and sustain the family with her love. This is an emotional drama of a mother and an eternal message for peace.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, captivating, disturbing