Best movies like The Life of Aleksis Kivi
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872) was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, "Seven Brothers/Seitsemän veljestä". Although Kivi was among the very earliest authors of prose and lyrics in Finnish language, he is still considered one of the greatest of them all.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 584
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Finland
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, realistic, cult film
Best tv shows and movies like The Life of Aleksis Kivi (2001):
Similar in 84%
The Rose of the Rascal (2001)
Plot Summary:
The life of Irwin Goodman, a Finnish singer.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Music
Country: Finland
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 85%
Paulo Coelho's Best Story (2014)
Plot Summary:
Paulo Coelho is the world’s most translated living author, his books having sold over 165 million copies. But he was not always the inspirational global phenomenon he is today. Like the heroes in his spiritual classics THE ALCHEMIST and THE PILGRIMAGE, he long-searched for his calling, flirting with death, escaping madness, falling in love, and making rock ’n’ roll history in Brazil, all-the-while striving for success as a writer. A wild ride through a lifetime of stranger-than-fiction adventures, PAULO COELHO’S BEST STORY is a profoundly moving film that goes straight to the heart of the most beloved literary guru of our time, revealing the most incredible wonder of all: the man behind the masterpieces.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 683
Genere: Biography, Drama, Music
Country: Brazil, Spain
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, thought provoking, disturbing
Similar in 82%
The Wolf at the Door (1986)
Plot Summary:
This biographical film, based on the life of French artist Paul Gauguin, follows the painter as he returns to Paris after a long stay in Tahiti and must confront his wife, his children, and his former lover.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 459
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Denmark, France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 89%
Lovers of the Café Flore (2006)
Plot Summary:
In 1924, Simone de Beauvoir, a girl with polished appearance, prepares for her final examination in philosophy and meets Jean-Paul Sartre. He seems to know her true personality and considers her the only woman worthy of his intellect. Their chaotic love serves as the premise for her magnum opus The Second Sex.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 629
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, emotional, sexy, captivating, factual, sincere, serious, realistic, sexual
Similar in 90%
Pandemonium (2000)
Plot Summary:
Set in England during the early 19th century, Pandaemonium evokes late-1960s America in its depiction of the relationship between Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Linus Roach) and William Wordsworth (John Hannah). Instead of going to Vietnam, Wordsworth goes off to fight against the French while Coleridge stays at home and promotes utopianism. After the war, the poets live and work together with Coleridge's wife, Sara (Samantha Morton), and Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy (Emily Woof). At first this communal arrangement works to the advantage of Coleridge--who does some of his best writing while Wordsworth stagnates--until Coleridge becomes addicted to opium. Wordsworth, meanwhile, doesn't find his voice until he abandons his friend. In 20th-century vernacular, Wordsworth is the yuppie, Coleridge the hippie.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 875
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, captivating, costume drama, cult classic, crying, independent film, period drama
Similar in 83%
The Golden Era (2014)
Plot Summary:
The story of writer Xiao Hong comes alive through memories of her great love affair, literary influence and escape from China during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: China, Hong Kong
Duration: 177 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, psychological, captivating, romantic drama, touching, realistic, stylized
Similar in 81%
Vysotsky: Thank God I'm Alive (2011)
Plot Summary:
Russian poet, singer and actor Vladimir Vysotsky was an idol of the 1970s and '80s. In 1980, at the age of 42, he passed away during the Moscow Olympic Games. This is the story of his last great love as handed down to his son from a family friend. Written by nitorch.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, captivating, dramatic, emotional, suspenseful, gloomy
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From a Far Country (1981)
Plot Summary:
The film is a biography of Pope John Paul II. It starts in 1926 when the boy Karol Wojtila was celebrating Christmas with his father in Poland. Some years later Nazi Germany attacks Poland and invades the country while Wojtila seeks refuge at the house of Cardinal Wyszynski. Also appear all the other important stations of the life of the Pope.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 199
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Italy, UK, Poland
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: uplifting, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, disturbing, contemplative, gloomy
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11.25: The Day He Chose His Own Fate (2012)
Plot Summary:
On November 25th 1970, a man committed ritual suicide inside the Tokyo headquarters of the Japanese Ministry of Defence, leaving behind a legacy of masterpieces and a controversy that echoes to this day. The man was Yukio Mishima, one of Japan's greatest and most celebrated novelists. With four members of his own private army - the Tatenokai - Mishima had taken the commandant hostage and called upon the assembled military outside the Ministry to overthrow their society and restore the powers of the Emperor. When the soldiers mocked and jeered Mishima, he cut short his speech and withdrew to the commandant's office where he committed seppuku - the samurai warrior's death - tearing open his belly with a ceremonial knife before being beheaded by one of his colleagues. What was Mishima truly trying to express through his actions? And what did he witness during his final moments?.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 249
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, serious, exciting, tense, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, offbeat, contemplative
Similar in 87%
Black Butterflies (2011)
Plot Summary:
Confronted by Apartheid and a father who was Minister of Censorship, Ingrid Jonker searched for a home, searched for love. With men like Jack Cope and André Brink she found much love, but no home. Later, in his first speech to the South African Parliament Nelson Mandela read her poem "The Dead Child of Nyanga" and addressed her as one of the finest poets of South Africa.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Netherlands, Germany, South Africa
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, captivating, sexy, edutainment, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Will There Really Be a Morning? (1983)
Plot Summary:
This is the story of actress Frances Farmer, her struggles with mental illness and involuntary confinement in an insane asylum.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 125
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Cezanne and I (2016)
Plot Summary:
They loved each other with the ardor of thirteen-year-old boys. Rebellion and curiosity, hopes and doubts, girls and dreams of glory – they shared it all. Paul was rich, Emile poor. They went skinny-dipping, drank absinthe, starved, only to overeat. Sketched models by day, caressed them by night... Now, Paul is a painter and Emile a writer. Glory has passed Paul by. But Emile has it all: fame, money, the perfect wife, whom Paul once loved. They judge each other, admire each other, confront each other. They lose touch, meet up again, like a couple who cannot stop loving each other.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: exciting, atmospheric, captivating, realistic, contemplative, factual, artsy
Similar in 88%
The Outlaw (2010)
Plot Summary:
A chronicle of the life of Spanish playwright and poet Lope de Vega, who dominated Spain’s early Golden Age of Theatre in the 16th Century. Lope returns home from war and enters the theatre world when a producer’s beautiful daughter takes a shine to him. They embark on a passionate affair as his plays begin to win popular acclaim.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Spain, Brazil, France
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, clever, realistic, stylized, baroque, weird
Similar in 85%
Enid (2009)
Plot Summary:
Edwardian child Enid Blyton begins to tell stories to her brothers as an escape from their parents' rows before the father deserts the family.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, costume drama, cult classic, period drama, weird
Similar in 75%
Nora (2000)
Plot Summary:
In 1904, in Dublin, James Joyce chats up Nora Barnacle, a hotel maid recently come from Galway. She enchants him with her frank, direct and uninhibited manner, and before long, he's convinced her to come with him to Trieste, where he has a job with Berlitz. Over time, Nora pulls him through phobias, tolerates his drinking, takes in his brother Stan, and bests Joyce at 'the writin' game' to bring him back to Italy from Dublin where he's gone to open a cinema. But his sexual jealousy threatens the relationship and sends her back to Galway with the children. Is there any way to tame Jim's green-eyed monster? And, will the lad ever get his stories published?.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Ireland, UK, Italy, Germany
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, sentimental, sincere, atmospheric, serious, sexual, sexy, period drama
Similar in 89%
Lou Andreas-Salomé, The Audacity to be Free (2016)
Plot Summary:
Lou Andreas-Salomé, the woman who enraptured 19th century Europe’s greatest minds, recounts her life to Ernst Pfeiffer in this German film directed by Cordula Kablitz-Post. A published novelist, poet and essayist, Salomé’s desire to live a life free from convention scandalized society but spurred genius and passion in others, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Rée and her lover, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Under the tutelage of Sigmund Freud, she became the first female psychoanalyst.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 620
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, Romance
Country: Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: psychological, thought provoking, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 77%
Leopardi (2014)
Plot Summary:
A luminously beautiful biopic of the celebrated eighteenth-century Italian poet, essayist and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi, who created immortal verse whilst struggling with a debilitating illness.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Italy
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic, captivating, historical drama
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Anton Chekhov 1890 (2015)
Plot Summary:
Summer 1890. In order to make some money to feed his family, Anton Chekhov, modest physician, wrote short stories for newspapers to sign Antosha Tchékhonté. Important characters, writer and editor, just make him aware of his talent. His situation is improving and Anton Chekhov gets the Pushkin prices and admiration of Tolstoy. But when one of his brothers died of tuberculosis, Anton saw it as a personal failure and wants to escape his fame and his love.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 297
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: France
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, psychological, captivating, gloomy, costume drama
Similar in 86%
Set Fire to the Stars (2014)
Plot Summary:
An aspiring poet in 1950s New York has his ordered world shaken when he embarks on a week-long retreat to save his hell raising hero, Dylan Thomas.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, atmospheric, realistic, psychological, captivating, black and white, serious, stylized, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley (2008)
Plot Summary:
A light hearted look at future Prime Minister Margaret Thatchers rise from research chemist in 1949 to becoming MP for Finchley in 1959 encompassing her early relationship and marriage to Oil Millionaire Denis Thatcher.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 447
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: sincere, captivating, emotional, realistic, political, thought provoking, serious
Similar in 77%
El Greco (2007)
Plot Summary:
The story of the uncompromising artist and fighter for freedom, Domenicos Theotokopoulos, known to the world as "El Greco".
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Greece, Spain, Hungary
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, stylized, captivating, disgusting, epic, realistic, non-linear, light, period piece
Similar in 88%
My Nikifor (2004)
Plot Summary:
From his birth in 1895 through his death in 1968, the gifted Polish naïve artist Nikifor Krynicki (AKA Epifan Drowniak) lived his life and eked out a career cloaked in obscurity - a casualty of both his extreme speech impediment (his tongue was attached to the roof of his mouth, which prompted others to errantly tag him as mentally incapacitated) and his self-effacing decision to sell the majority of his work for meager amounts. Krzysztof Krauze's biopic My Nikifor travels to the tail end of Krynicki's (Krystyna Feldman) life journey, dramatizing the period that surrounded his interaction with the well-established artist Marian Wlosinski (Roman Gancarczyk).
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 866
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, captivating, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Seraphine (2008)
Plot Summary:
The tragic story of French naïve painter Séraphine Louis aka Séraphine de Senlis (1864-1942), a humble servant who becomes a gifted self-taught painter. Discovered by prominent critic and collector William Uhde, she came to prominence between the wars grouped with other naïve painters like Henri Rouseau only to descend into madness and obscurity with the onset of Great Depression and World War II.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: touching, sincere, sentimental, surprise ending, heartbreaking, avant garde, independent film, art film, visual, visually stunning
Similar in 88%
An Angel at My Table (1990)
Plot Summary:
Janet Frame grows up in a poor family. She is different than the other kids. She is considered abnormal and locked away in a mental institution for eight years. Everything changes when she starts writing books.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK, Australia, New Zealand, USA
Duration: 158 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, erotic, depressing, spiritual, ironic, neurotic, cult classic, spooky, sincere
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Magic Beyond Words: The J.K. Rowling Story (2011)
Plot Summary:
Magic Beyond Words: The J.K. Rowling Story is a made-for-TV film starring Australian actress Poppy Montgomery. The film, which was shot in B.C. Canada locations altered to look like British locations, details the journey of struggling single mother J. K. Rowling, her bid to become a published author, and her rise to fame that followed the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The film aired on Lifetime on July 18th and was criticized for being too lacklustre (mainly down to the fiercely private author having no say in the production) but it also shed some light on her personal life and featured scenes such as her highly abusive first husband and the death of her mother. The eponymous J.K. Rowling is the world's first billionaire (in terms of US dollars) author and the films inspired by her books have been the highest grossing films of all time. Poppy Montgomery reportedly got blue contact lenses to play the role of the highly influential author.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sentimental, serious, sincere, touching, realistic, inspirational, art film, ridiculous
Similar in 75%
Pinero (2001)
Plot Summary:
"Piñero" tells the story of the explosive life of a Latino icon, the poet-playwright-actor Miguel Piñero, whose urban poetry is recognized as a pre-cursor to rap and hip-hop. After doing time in hard-core Sing-Sing for petty thefts and drug dealing, Piñero's prison experiences developed into the 1974 Tony-nominated play Short Eyes. The resulting notoriety and fame was too much for the Latino bad-boy genius who retreated to the darker corners of New York City.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: disturbing, stylized, intense, factual, sincere, touching, serious, independent film, sentimental, realistic
Similar in 84%
Life (2015)
Plot Summary:
In 1955, young photographer Dennis Stock develops a close bond with actor James Dean while shooting pictures of the rising Hollywood star.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, psychological, thought provoking, independent film, cult classic, road movie
Similar in 77%
Last Call (2002)
Plot Summary:
Renowned writer F. Scott Fitzgerald is living the last months of his life with his youthful secretary, confidant, and protégé who later wrote a memoir of their time together.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 963
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: clever, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, spiritual, masterpiece
Similar in 89%
The Brooke Ellison Story (2004)
Plot Summary:
Rendered a quadriplegic since a child from a near-fatal neck injury, a young girl fights against all odds to succeed in life from grade school to her acceptance into college under the assistance of her loyal and dedicated mother.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, sentimental, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, saga
Similar in 84%
To Walk Invisible (2016)
Plot Summary:
To Walk Invisible takes a new look at the extraordinary Brontë family, telling the story of these remarkable women who, despite the obstacles they faced, came from obscurity to produce some of the greatest novels in the English language.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: UK
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: captivating, dark, cult classic, historical drama, gothic, period drama