Best movies like The Long Absence
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
The Long Absence (French: Une aussi longue absence) is a 1961 French film directed by Henri Colpi. It tells the story of Therese (Alida Valli), a café owner mourning the mysterious disappearance of her husband sixteen years earlier. A tramp arrives in the town and she believes him to be her husband. But he is suffering from amnesia and she tries to bring back his memory of earlier times.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 967
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Best tv shows and movies like The Long Absence (1961):
Similar in 87%
Sign of the Lion (1962)
Plot Summary:
An American in Paris lives by sponging off his working friends, and throws a party using borrowed money when his rich American aunt dies, believing firmly in his horoscope.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: sincere, humorous, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, semi serious
Similar in 85%
Above Us Only Sky (2011)
Plot Summary:
A woman discovers the man she has lived with for years is not who she thought he was.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 733
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, contemplative, sincere
Similar in 89%
The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988)
Plot Summary:
La leggenda del santo bevitore (literally "The legend of the holy drinker") is a 1988 Italian film directed by Ermanno Olmi. It tells the story of a drunken homeless man (played by Rutger Hauer) in Paris who is lent 200 francs by a stranger as long as he promises to repay it to a local church when he can afford to; the film depicts the man's constant frustrations as he attempts to do so. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It is based on the 1939 novella by the Austrian novelist, Joseph Roth.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: spiritual, artsy, neorealism, anamorphic, psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 81%
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 79%
Like a Cast Shadow (2015)
Plot Summary:
Sibylle, a pragmatic architect, mother and wife, witnesses a suicide of a woman her age while on vacation in Italy. Devastated by this incident, it causes the perception of her life and her family to change. Something inside of her has been set in motion that seems to endanger everything which she has defined herself by.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 89
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Germany
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: contemplative, psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 84%
You Can't Write a Letter (2013)
Plot Summary:
Julien and Nina sign a pact with the universe: they must enjoy life, whatever the cost. Will that decision lead them to happiness, or to their disappearance?.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 30
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, offbeat
Similar in 77%
An Open Heart (2012)
Plot Summary:
Mila and Javier, both renowned surgeons and both passionate about their work, have been madly in love for the past 10 years. They have always taken great care to preserve their extraordinary love for each other and refuse to succumb to the routine of everyday living. But Mila’s unexpected pregnancy, combined with increasing pressure from work at the hospital, drives Javier to drink more heavily and he ends up being suspended. Faced with his demons, Javier drifts further and further away from Mila. Yet, when their relationship is under serious threat, Javier is ready to do whatever it takes to win Mila back.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 740
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Argentina
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, emotional, captivating, gloomy, entertaining
Similar in 80%
G.H.B. (2014)
Plot Summary:
A reflection on love and pleasure experienced by three women, set in France, New York, and Shanghai.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 25
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, captivating, psychological, gloomy
Similar in 79%
Exit: A personal history (2010)
Plot Summary:
A young man travels to Holland for an assisted suicide. The young man was convinced that this was his only way of ending an existence that he considered to lack any dignity.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 22
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: experimental, atmospheric, contemplative, psychological, sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, surreal, gloomy
Similar in 84%
The Girl on the Train (2009)
Plot Summary:
The Girl on the Train is a 2009 French drama film directed by André Téchiné. Jeanne is a young woman, striking but otherwise without qualities. Her mother tries to get her a job in the office of a lawyer, Bleistein, her lover years ago. Jeanne fails the interview but falls into a relationship with Franck, a wrestler whose dreams and claims of being in a legitimate business partnership Jeanne is only too happy to believe. When Franck is arrested, he turns on Jeanne for her naivety; she's stung and seeks attention by making up a story of an attack on a train. Is there any way out for her?.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, emotional, thought provoking, sincere, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Les corps impatients (2003)
Plot Summary:
Paul and Charlotte are in love. Charlotte discovers she has a grave malady and Paul supports her. But Paul is also attracted to Ninon, another girl. Charlotte accepts Paul to have an affair with her, and the three start a difficult and ambiguous relationship.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 613
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: serious, psychological, sincere, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, sexy
Similar in 87%
The Mouth Agape (1974)
Plot Summary:
The portrait of a woman going through a terminal illness and the tumorous lives of her husband and son.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 79%
A Few Days of Respite (2010)
Plot Summary:
Mohsen teaches French at the University of Tehran, and Hassan is a photographer. Mohsen and Hassan are also lovers, and in Iran they live in fear, as homosexuality is punishable by death. Tired of denying their love, Mohsen and Hassan flee Iran to head to Paris, where they'll be illegal aliens but can at least live openly as a couple. To avoid arousing suspicion until they arrive in Paris, Mohsen and Hassan keep their distance while traveling, and during a train stop, Mohsen helps a sixty-ish women, Yolande, with her luggage. The two strike up a conversation and she clearly enjoys his company; over dinner, she offers to help him find work in town and let him stay at her apartment. It's clear to Yolande that Mohsen is an illegal immigrant, but she doesn't realize that he's gay, and he finds himself wondering if he should stay with Hassan or live with Yolande, where he would not have love but would enjoy safety, security and could easily become a French citizen through marriage.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 43
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Algeria
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: emotional, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, queer cinema
Similar in 79%
Sandra (1965)
Plot Summary:
Sandra comes back to Volterra, in Tuscany, the little town where she spent her childhood. She is with her American husband, Andrew. She wishes to pay homage to her father who died in Auschwitz where she was still a little child. In Volterra, Andrew meets for the first time Gianni, Sandra's brother. He soon realizes that Sandra and Gianni have a secret since their childhood. (IMDb).
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: neo noir, psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Headwinds (2011)
Plot Summary:
Sarah tells Paul that she wants out of their marriage; the next day she disappears. A year later and Paul along with their children return to his childhood town to start anew after the loss of his wife and their mother.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 86%
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 83%
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 76%
L'Immortelle (1963)
Plot Summary:
A sad man meets a beautiful, secretive woman who may or may not be involved in some conspiracy ring dealing in kidnapped women used as prostitutes. After several days of their sadly passionate relationship she disappears. The sad man is unable to locate her as all the local Turkish people pretend not to remember any such woman. He suddenly finds her again (she finds him?) and before she can explain her disappearance she is killed in a car crash while he is in the passenger seat. He replays the accident over and over in his mind trying to remember how she died if he caused the accident himself by grabbing the wheel.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: France, Italy, Turkey
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, psychedelic, experimental, avant garde, psychological, atmospheric, offbeat, serious, realistic
Similar in 86%
The Spider's Stratagem (1970)
Plot Summary:
Athos Magnani, a young researcher, returns to Tara, where his father was killed before his birth, at the request of Draifa. The father, also named Athos Magnani and looking exactly like the son, was killed by a fascist in 1936 -- or so says Draifa (his mistress), the town statue, and everyone in town. As the son untangles the web of lies this story is constructed from, he finds himself ensnared in the same web.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: metafiction, psychological, atmospheric, serious, realistic, surreal, contemplative, talky, stylized, non-linear
Similar in 80%
Muriel, or The Time of Return (1963)
Plot Summary:
A chamber drama about a widow and her son who live in an antique shop in Boulogne. The widow invites a man whom she loved twenty-two years earlier to visit. Her son is haunted by Muriel, a young woman whose death he may have caused while serving as a soldier in Algeria. As in Resnais' earlier films, memory is deflected, fragmented, enshrined, and imagined.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, psychedelic, anthology, psychological, tense, atmospheric, thought provoking, clever, touching
Similar in 88%
To Life (2014)
Plot Summary:
Helen, Rose and Lili have survived the Holocaust and have never seen each other since the war has ended. In 1960, they meet again in Berck, France. They learn to enjoy together simple pleasures in life: nice meals, ballads on the beach, playing in the waves.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 238
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sincere, uplifting, captivating, contemplative
Similar in 88%
The Moon Child (2011)
Plot Summary:
David, a professor of dermatology, has been treating 13-year-old Romain since he was a baby. Afflicted with a rare skin condition, Romain must avoid sunlight and is condemned to live in the shade. David and Romain have become the closest of friends and nothing can separate them. But then David learns that he is about to be transferred to another clinic in another town. How will he be able to break the news to Romain? And how will Romain cope with this new crisis in his life?.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 256
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 78%
Phantom Pain (2009)
Plot Summary:
Marc is a passionate cyclist and urban slacker who avoids work and responsibility. Marc's life changes from one moment to the next when he suffers a life-changing accident. He can either wallow in self-pity or tackle the beast called life with the help of love and willpower.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 930
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, psychological, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 88%
Everyday (2012)
Plot Summary:
This film charts the relationship between a man imprisoned for drug smuggling and his wife and is being shot over the course of five years, a few weeks at a time.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 834
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, independent film, sincere, touching
Similar in 82%
Belleville-Tokyo (2010)
Plot Summary:
Un couple se dirige vers un train en partance pour Venise. Sur le quai, Julien annonce à Marie qu’il part en rejoindre une autre et s’en va, la laissant seule à Paris, enceinte. Bouleversée, Marie se refuse à être victime de cette situation. Elle trouve du réconfort dans son travail auprès de ses deux « cow-boys » de patrons, Jean-Jacques et Jean-Loup, qui dirigent un cinéma du quartier latin spécialisé dans les films classiques américains….
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 140
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags: realistic, sentimental, psychological, captivating, sincere, touching, serious
Similar in 83%
Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud (1995)
Plot Summary:
Nelly leaves her lazy, unemployed husband to work for retired judge Mr Arnaud, forty years her senior, after he offers to clear her bills for her. While she types his memoirs the two develop a close friendship, but Arnaud becomes jealous when Nelly begins dating his good-looking young publisher.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy, Germany
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, light, atmospheric, sexy
Similar in 83%
Providence (1977)
Plot Summary:
Clive Langham (Sir John Gielgud) spends one tormenting night in his bed suffering from health problems and thinking up a story based on his relatives. He is a bitter man and he shows, through flashbacks, how spiteful, conniving and treacherous his family is. But is this how they really are or is it his own vindictive slant on things?.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Switzerland, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, thought provoking, serious, emotional, philosophical, anthology, black comedy, metafiction, contemplative
Similar in 77%
Cet amour-l? (2001)
Plot Summary:
Cet Amour-là is an intimate portrait of a legendary love affair. Set against the beauty of the Breton seaside, it is also a film that revels in the insights that Marguerite Duras' writing affords.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 367
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, sentimental, sincere, serious, captivating, clever, realistic, talky, gloomy
Similar in 90%
Under the Sand (2000)
Plot Summary:
When her husband goes missing at the beach, a female professor begins to mentally disintegrate as her denial of his disappearance becomes delusional.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: France, Japan
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: bleak, enigmatic, melancholic, atmospheric, stylized, psychological, sincere, suspenseful, surreal, art house
Similar in 86%
Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Plot Summary:
Takes place in a chateau, an ambiguous story of a man and a woman who may or may not have met last year at Marienbad.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 24000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, psychological, atmospheric, philosophical, visual, experimental, non-linear, talky, black and white