Best movies like The Holy Innocents
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Somewhere in the spanish country, in the 60s. Paco and his wife Régula are very poor. They work as tenant farmers for a very wealthy landowner. They have 3 children. One is backward. The others can not got to school because the master "needs" their work. When Regula's brother is fired from where he has worked for 61 years, he settles down at their little place... An attack against the archaism of the spanish country of the 60s.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: social, manga, captivating, realistic
Best tv shows and movies like The Holy Innocents (1984):
Similar in 86%
The Garden of Delights (1970)
Plot Summary:
The greedy relatives of an amnesic and paralytic 45 years old millionaire try him to recover his memory by any means.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 716
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: offbeat, humorous, realistic, surreal, witty, cynical, semi serious, biting, allegory, suspense
Similar in 82%
Aunt Tula (1964)
Plot Summary:
Ramiro, a bank clerk and father of two young children, has been left, after his wife's death, in the care of Tula, his sister-in-law. From the novel by Miguel de Unamuno, Miguel Picazo (" Dark dreams of August ") premieres as director with this portrait of one of those small provincial cities where nothing ever happens.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 611
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, bleak, serious, realistic, biting, suspense
Similar in 85%
The Patriarch (2016)
Plot Summary:
It is the 1960s. Two Maori families, the Mahanas and the Poatas, make a living shearing sheep on the east coast of New Zealand. The two clans, who are bitter enemies, face each other as rivals at the annual sheep shearing competitions. Simeon is a 14-year-old scion of the Mahana clan. A courageous schoolboy, he rebels against his authoritarian grandfather Tamihana and his traditional ways of thinking and begins to unravel the reasons for the long-standing feud between the two families. Before long, the hierarchies and established structures of the community are in disarray because Tamihana, who is as stubborn as he is proud, is not prepared to acquiesce and pursue new paths.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 998
Genere: Drama
Country: New Zealand
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 79%
Alcarràs (2022)
Plot Summary:
For as long as they can remember, the Solé family has spent every summer picking the peaches in their orchard in Alcarràs, a small village in Catalonia. But this year’s crop may well be their last, as they face eviction. The new plans for the land, which include cutting down the peach trees and installing solar panels, cause a rift in this large, tight-knit family. For the first time, they face an uncertain future and risk losing more than their orchard.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain, Italy
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, social, independent film, semi autobiographical
Similar in 77%
The Grandfather (1998)
Plot Summary:
After his son dies, an elderly man comes back to Spain from the US and hopes to find out which of his granddaughters is true, and which one is bastard.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 151 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, dark comedy, feel good, sexy, thought provoking, enigmatic, breathtaking, unusual plot structure
Similar in 84%
Fiction (2006)
Plot Summary:
Alex, a shy and introverted, is a film director trying to finish writing his latest script. Decided to leave a few days of his wife and children to go to the Pyrenees and find there the peace and inspiration. In the town where he is met Monica, a violinist who is on vacation at a friend's house. Love grows between them and will face feelings that have to control and hide. Feelings that may never expressed.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 466
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, atmospheric, captivating, humorous, serious
Similar in 89%
The Pianist (1998)
Plot Summary:
Mario Gas directed this music-themed Spanish drama set in Barcelona of the mid-'80s. When famed composer Lluis Doria (Laurent Terzieff) visits a transvestite club, he learns his lifelong friend Albert Rossell (Serge Reggiani) is the house pianist. A flashback takes the tale four decades into the past where the younger Rossell (Pere Ponce) rejoins Teresa (Paulina Galvez) after having spent years in prison for helping anti-Franco anarchists. The story continues into Paris of the '30s, the period when Doria and Rossell first met, sharing a mutual interest in music and Teresa, before civil war sent them in different directions.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 106
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 83%
My Friend Victoria (2014)
Plot Summary:
Aged eight, Victoria spends a night in the home of a wealthy white family; years later, she encounters them again and her life is changed forever.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 347
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 84%
Kristin Lavransdotter (1995)
Plot Summary:
Kristin Lavransdatter is a 1995 Norwegian film directed by Liv Ullman, featuring Elisabeth Matheson, Bjørn Skagestad, Jørgen Langhelle, Lena Endre and Sverre Anker Ousdal, based on Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. It was the Norwegian entry to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1996.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway, Germany, Sweden
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, captivating, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 88%
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 81%
The Wind's Fierce (1970)
Plot Summary:
This western is set in Valencia, Spain at the end of the 19th century, and stars Terence Hill as a close-mouthed gunslinger. The bad guy is the local landlord and aristocrat (Fernando Rey), who horribly abuses the laborers in his community. Written by Ørnås.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 760
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: Italy, Spain
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: spaghetti western, euro western, rough, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 75%
The Carpenter's Pencil (2003)
Plot Summary:
A story of love and obsession during the Spanish Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: captivating, emotional, sentimental, realistic, serious
Similar in 86%
Soldiers of Salamina (2003)
Plot Summary:
Professor Lola Sánchez investigates the truth behind the events experienced by Rafael Sánchez Mazas, one of the founders of the Falange Española party, during the Spanish Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, suspenseful, political, art film, realistic
Similar in 82%
The Beehive (1982)
Plot Summary:
As in the novel of the same title from Camilo Jose Cela, "La Colmena" is a sad composition with the stories of many people in the Madrid of 1942, just the postwar of the spanish civil war. The main theme of the film is the contrast between the poets, surviving close to misery under the Franco's regime, and the winners of the war, the emerging class of the people that makes easy money with illegal business.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, captivating, realistic, gloomy, picaresque
Similar in 88%
The Proud Ones (1980)
Plot Summary:
In early twentieth-century Brittany, two peasants marry, have a son, and live in traditional Breton ways: three generations under one roof, a division of labor between the sexes, elders' stories at night, politics and religion during their little free time. Times are hard: la Chienne du Monde drives some to suicide; Ankou (death) is close at hand. Pierre is born into this republican family, his lyric childhood interrupted by the outbreak of war and his father's conscription. He learns his catechism and, as a child of a Reds, also reveres school. His grandfather and father often put him on their shoulders, giving him a ride on the horse of pride.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 294
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, saga, contemplative
Similar in 88%
The Black Velvet Gown (1991)
Plot Summary:
In the 1830's in northern England, Riah Millican, a widow with three children, takes a job as housekeeper to a reclusive former teacher, Percival Miller. Miller makes Riah the gift of a black velvet gown, and even educates her children. But when Riah discovers the reason behind Miller's gifts, she vows to leave his house, but Miller has a hold on her, even after his death, when he leaves his house to her on the condition that she never marry. Riah's daughter, Biddy, grows up and becomes a laundress in a large house where her education keeps her from fitting in and makes her a target. But it also catches the eye of a son of the house, and with Miller's legacies, Biddy may yet find her way to happiness.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 647
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: serious, costume drama, historical drama, realistic, period drama
Similar in 75%
Barren Lives (1963)
Plot Summary:
'Vidas secas' tells in vivid images the almost documentary like story of a drover and his family in the northern interior states of Brazil during the drought. A family in the search of a new hope and destiny.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 90%
The Feast of the Goat (2005)
Plot Summary:
Urania Cabral returns to Santo Domingo, after several years, and remembers her and her family's relationship to Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator, as well as the events surrounding his assassination.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 881
Genere: Drama
Country: Dominican Republic, Spain, UK
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, rough, epic, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, social
Similar in 76%
David Copperfield (1970)
Plot Summary:
A made for TV movie of the Charles Dickens' classic novel, turns Dickens' picaresque tale into an extended flashback, with David Copperfield Robin Phillips as a young man, brooding on a deserted beach, recalling his youth. The characters are all trotted out in choppy flashbacks as David remembers his life as a young orphan, brought to London and passed around from relatives, to guardians, to boarding school.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 585
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy, period drama
Similar in 76%
Here and There (2012)
Plot Summary:
Pedro returns home to a small mountain village in Guerrero, Mexico after years of working in the US. He finds his daughters older, and more distant than he imagined. His wife still has the same smile. Having saved some earnings from two trips to the US, he hopes to now finally make a better life with his family, and even to pursue his dreams on the side by starting a band: Copa Kings. He cherishes the everyday moments with his family. The villagers think this year's crop will be bountiful. There is also good work in a growing city an hour away. But the locals are wise to a life of insecurity, and their thoughts are often of family members or opportunities far away, north of the border. While working in the fields, Pedro meets and begins to mentor a teenager who dreams of the US. That place somehow always feels very present, practically knocking at the door. "Aquí y Allá" is a story about hope, and the memories and loss of what we leave behind.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 238
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Spain, Mexico
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, serious, psychological
Similar in 78%
No One Writes to the Colonel (1999)
Plot Summary:
Every Friday, the Colonel puts on his only suit and goes to the dock to await a letter announcing the arrival of his pension. But the townsfolk all know that this pension will never come. His wife also knows it, and even he knows it. But he is still waiting, living with the pain of the death of his son.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico, France, Spain
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, atmospheric, realistic, psychological, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Ismael (2013)
Plot Summary:
An 8-year-old boy tracks down his father.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, serious, emotional, psychological, captivating, feel good
Similar in 79%
David Copperfield (2000)
Plot Summary:
An orphan with a rough childhood becomes a barrister.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Ireland, USA
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, captivating, costume drama, juvenile, period drama
Similar in 78%
A Simple Heart (2008)
Plot Summary:
Unable to forget her first love, Félicité, a simple and kind maid, devotes herself completely to her new master, Mathilde Aubain. As the passing of time doesn't heal her wounds, she gives love to all those who surround her: Mathilde's children, her nephew Victor. But fate seems to always deny her from any love in return. Still she tries to find someone who'll accept her unconditional love.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 342
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sentimental, serious, touching, emotional, realistic
Similar in 78%
The God of Wood (2010)
Plot Summary:
Yao (Madi Diocou) and Moroccan Rachid (Soufiane Ouaarab) arrive illegally in Valencia, Spain, and separate. Yao sells pirated DVDs in the street and wanders disconsolately around the barrio until he glimpses divorcee Maria Luisa (Marisa Paredes) working in her boutique. High-strung and irritable, Maria lives with her gay son, Rober (Nao Albet), who, like many other things in life, is a disappointment to her. Rachid, meanwhile, is doing just fine working as a hairstylist in a beauty salon; Rober is hopelessly in love with him. When Yao starts sleeping in Rober's flat, a confrontation between him and Maria suddenly becomes inevitable, and when it comes, what could have been an embarrassment is actually handled with grace.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 152
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: realistic, emotional, sentimental, psychological, captivating, touching, serious, sexual, sexy
Similar in 83%
Small World (2010)
Plot Summary:
Conrad Lang, a handyman in a rich family - he has been raised like a brother with Thomas, who has the same age -, accidentally puts fire to the big holiday house he keeps. He returns to the town he grew up in, to the family home, where Philippe, Thomas's son, and Simone are getting married. Conrad's frequent memory loss and behavioural problems rapidly reveal a neurological disease (Alzheimer's is suggested by doctor Cohen when he examens Elvira) which leads Elvira, Thomas's stepmother, to install Conrad in a guesthouse on the property, with the help of a nurse. When Conrad looses more and more his landmarks in present and past, memories of his youth come back to surface. They intrigue Simone, since these memories do not entirely fit together with the official family history.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 636
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Germany
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, serious, captivating, suspenseful, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Common Ground (2002)
Plot Summary:
In Buenos Aires, a few days before traveling to Spain with his beloved wife Liliana Rovira to visit their son Pedro, the leftist Literature professor Fernando Robles is compulsory retired in the University, and he concludes that it is impossible to live with his pension. The crisis in Argentina does not allow Fernando to get a new job, and his wife decides to sell her family's apartment and move to a small farm near Villa Dolores to reduce their expenses. Fernando comes up with the idea to grow lavender and sell the oil to the perfume industry.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain, Argentina
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, clever, touching, realistic, contemplative, semi serious
Similar in 82%
Buddenbrooks (2008)
Plot Summary:
Mid-19th-century, Baltic Sea port city of Lubeck, Germany. Follows the fourth generation of the Buddenbrook mercantile family as Tony and Thomas reach the age of marriage. Fatefully impeded every step of the way, the Buddenbrooks struggle as economic hardship and personal defeats weigh down family relations.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 151 min
Plot tags: saga, realistic, emotional, psychological, captivating, political, family saga, sad, costume drama, sentimental
Similar in 80%
Black Bread (2010)
Plot Summary:
In the harsh post-war years' Catalan countryside, Andreu, a child that belongs to the losing side, finds the corpses of a man and his son in the forest. The authorities want his father to be made responsible of the deaths, but Andreu tries to help his father by finding out who truly killed them. In this search, Andreu develops a moral consciousness against a world of adults fed by lies. In order to survive, he betrays his own roots and ends up finding out the monster that lives within him.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, serious, emotional, suspenseful, disturbing, controversial, bleak
Similar in 90%
Long Road Home (1991)
Plot Summary:
A drama depicting the trials of a family of share croppers.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 219
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 78 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic