Best movies like The Merchant of Four Seasons
Last updated March 2024
Looking for movies similar to The Merchant of Four Seasons? Contribute your familiarity to steer others to tv shows and movies you've viewed previously that might interest them too. Assist in widening the network of individuals proposing videos to each other. We appreciate your involvement!
Plot Summary:
Hans is a street fruit peddler and born-loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family, causing him to turn to drinking and violence. After recovering from a debilitating heart attack, his business finally begins to take off. However the more he becomes a credit to his family, the more depressed he becomes.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: art house, psychological, philosophical, depressing, neo noir, sad, sincere, serious, realistic, gloomy
Best tv shows and movies like The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972):
Similar in 90%
Pioneers in Ingolstadt (1971)
Plot Summary:
German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder directs the made-for-TV melodrama Pioneers in Ingolstadt, based on the play by Marieluise Fleisser. The film opens as a parade of soldiers are marching through a town square singing patriotic songs. Alma (Irm Hermann) and Berta (Hanna Schygulla) are watching them and musing about their ideas on men and relationships. The soldiers (often referred to as pioneers) have been given the task of building a bridge in the town. Alma seems to understand that the soldiers only want her for short sexual encounters, so she's prepared to live her life accordingly. Meanwhile, romantic Berta falls in love with self-centered soldier Karl (Harry Baer), who all but tells her to get lost. The soldiers get drunk and beat up a random passerby. The women grow to hate Alma for her acceptance of life as a sex object. Naïve Berta is ultimately humiliated.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 618
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: West Germany
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: art house, rough, crying
Similar in 78%
The Niklashausen Journey (1970)
Plot Summary:
Can a small group of people start a proletarian revolution, asks the "Black Monk" in a leather jacket. The medieval shepherd, Hans Boehm, claims to have been called by the Virgin Mary to create a revolt against the church and the landowners. The "Black Monk" suggests that he would have more success if he dressed up Johanna and had her appear as the Virgin Mary.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 607
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: art house
Similar in 88%
Veronika Voss (1982)
Plot Summary:
In Munich 1955, German film star Veronika Voss becomes a drug addict at the mercy of corrupt Dr. Marianne Katz, who keeps her supplied with morphine. After meeting sports writer Robert Krohn, Veronika begins to dream of a return to stardom. As the couple's relationship escalates in intensity, Veronika begins seriously planning her return to the screen -- only to realize how debilitated she has become through her drug habit.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: noir, black and white, art house, stylized, neo noir, psychological, serious, realistic, gloomy, depressing
Similar in 84%
Gods of the Plague (1970)
Plot Summary:
A man is released from prison and finds the society on the outside less than appealing. With several women as well as the police on his tail, he sets out to find an old friend.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: art house, offbeat, serious, realistic, stylized, neo noir
Similar in 85%
Whity (1971)
Plot Summary:
"Whity" is the mulatto butler of the dysfunctional Nicholson family in the American southwest in 1878. The father, Ben Nicholson, has an attractive young wife Katherine, and two sons by a previous marriage; the homosexual Frank, and the retarded Davy. Whity tries to carry out all their orders, however demeaning, until various of the family members ask him to kill some of the others.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: West Germany
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: art house, thought provoking, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, contemplative
Similar in 77%
The Third Generation (1979)
Plot Summary:
A mogul merrily funds terrorists to boost his computer sales, by panicking West German government and industry c. 1980, as the third generation of Western European left-wing activists forms, after crippling of the violent Red Army Faction. Released in 1979, largely unavailable until 2004. International kapitalist PJ Lurz's secretary is a gang member, while her Polizeikommissar father-in-law/lover hired Lurz' corporate security force.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: political, art house, black comedy, postmodern, cult classic, clever, offbeat, serious, realistic, controversial
Similar in 79%
Arrhythmia (2017)
Plot Summary:
Oleg is a young gifted paramedic. His wife Katya works as a nurse at the hospital emergency department. She loves Oleg, but is fed up with him caring more about patients than her. She tells him she wants a divorce. The new head of Oleg’s EMA department is a cold-hearted manager who’s got new strict rules to implement. Oleg couldn’t care less about the rules – he’s got lives to save; his attitude gets him in trouble with the new boss. The crisis at work coincides with the personal life crisis. Caught up between their patients, alcohol-fueled off-shifts, and an evolving health care system, Oleg and Katya have to find the binding force that will keep them together.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia, Finland, Germany
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: art house, depressing, melancholic, disturbing, sad, crying
Similar in 81%
Effi Briest (1974)
Plot Summary:
A German-made film based on one of the most famous German novels by Theodor Fontane. Effi Briest (Hanna Schygulla) is a socially ambitious, 17-year-old German girl who accepts a proposal of marriage from Baron Geert Von Instetten, a much older diplomat. Unfortunately, neither the Baron's family nor anyone in the secluded town she now calls home accept Effi as an equal. Starved for companionship, Effi begins an innocent friendship with a well-known womanizer that may jeopardize her position as the Baron's wife.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: West Germany
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: art house, black and white, postmodern, costume drama, serious, realistic, stylized, gloomy
Similar in 86%
The Stationmaster's Wife (1977)
Plot Summary:
The lackluster and plodding Bolweiser has the (mis)fortune to be married to the town's siren; his trusting nature leads him into serious trouble when she beds nearly every available guy.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 780
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 201 min
Plot tags: avant garde, art house, realistic, semi serious, sexual, sexy
Similar in 90%
Chinese Roulette (1976)
Plot Summary:
A husband and wife lie to each other about their weekend travel plans, only to both show up at the family's country house with their lovers.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: West Germany, France
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: psychological thriller, art house, aesthetic, psychological, bleak, serious, realistic, confusing
Similar in 83%
Martha (1974)
Plot Summary:
A single woman in her early thirties, Martha (Margit Carstensen) is on vacation with her father in Europe when he has a heart attack and falls down dead.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: West Germany
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: disturbing, art house, psychological, serious, realistic, suspenseful, neurotic
Similar in 78%
Under the Volcano (1984)
Plot Summary:
Against a background of war breaking out in Europe and the Mexican fiesta Day of Death, we are taken through one day in the life of Geoffrey Firmin, a British consul living in alcoholic disrepair and obscurity in a small southern Mexican town in 1939. The Consul's self-destructive behaviour, perhaps a metaphor for a menaced civilization, is a source of perplexity and sadness to his nomadic, idealistic half-brother, Hugh, and his ex-wife, Yvonne, who has returned with hopes of healing Geoffrey and their broken marriage.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Mexico
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, depressing, psychological, serious, realistic, grim, sexy, political thriller, independent film, contemplative
Similar in 76%
Katzelmacher (1969)
Plot Summary:
In this unflinching German drama by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a group of young slackers, including the couple Erich and Marie, spend most of their time hanging out in front of a Munich apartment building. When a Greek immigrant named Jorgos, moves in, however, their aimless lives are shaken up. Soon new tensions arise both within the group and with Jorgos, particularly when Marie threatens to leave Erich for the outsider.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: art house, contemplative, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, gloomy, biting
Similar in 77%
Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1970)
Plot Summary:
Herr Raab is a technical draftsman. His wife pushes him to seek a promotion, which may be a long shot after he gives a dull and tipsy toast at an office dinner. But why would Herr Raab run amok?.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: art house, controversial, existential, cult classic, psychological, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing
Similar in 80%
Fear of Fear (1975)
Plot Summary:
After having her second child, a German housewife suffers from post-partum depression before inexplicably falling into a continually misdiagnosed mental state, befuddling her relatives.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: philosophical, depressing, art house, dread, psychological, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, avant garde
Similar in 78%
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)
Plot Summary:
Near the end of World War II, Maria marries Hermann, who is immediately sent off to battle. When the war concludes, Maria believes that Hermann is dead. She starts working at an Allied bar, where she meets American soldier Bill. They start a relationship that is interrupted when Hermann returns alive. During a scuffle between the men, Maria accidentally kills Bill. Hermann takes the blame and goes to jail, while Maria begins a hard new life.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, touching, serious, realistic, surreal, art house, thought provoking, retro, neo noir
Similar in 78%
The Touch (1971)
Plot Summary:
A seemingly happy Swedish housewife and mother begins an adulterous affair with a foreign archaeologist who is working near her home.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: art house, independent film, psychological, serious, realistic
Similar in 75%
The Bench (2000)
Plot Summary:
Kaj is a stubborn man with a great deal of pride. The former chef lives in a council flat. He has wasted his life and is now on a council job training scheme for the long-term unemployed, where he refuses to let the foreman of the activation project boss him about. When Kaj's daughter, with whom he has not been in touch for nineteen years, moves into the same council estate on the run from her violent husband, a change comes over Kaj. His initial instinct is to avoid her, but by chance he ends up helping to look after Jonas, her six-year-old son. For the first time for years Kaj need not survive on his own devices. Now he has responsibilities and a family of his own.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark, Sweden
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, inspirational, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 85%
In a Year with 13 Moons (1978)
Plot Summary:
This drama follows the last few days in the life of Elvira (formerly Erwin) Weisshaupt. Years before, Erwin told a co-worker, Anton, that he loved him. "Too bad, you aren't a woman," he replied. Erwin took Anton at his word. Trying to salvage something from the wreckage love has made of his life, he now hopes that Anton will not reject him again.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: disturbing, philosophical, depressing, controversial, art house, psychological, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 78%
The Policeman's Wife (2013)
Plot Summary:
The story of a young couple who live in a small town with their four-year-old daughter. The husband is so caught up in his work as a policeman that he gradually becomes increasingly alienated from his wife and daughter who become ever closer to one another as they discover the new town. It is only a matter of time before the conflicts within the family manifest themselves.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 494
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 175 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sexy, sincere, gloomy
Similar in 90%
The Fire Within (1963)
Plot Summary:
Alain Leroy is a recovering alcoholic who decides to end his life, but first decides to visit his friends in Paris one last time, in an attempt at finding a reason to continue living.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: philosophical, depressing, art house, independent film, existential, bleak, touching, sad, anthology, powerful
Similar in 87%
All or Nothing (2002)
Plot Summary:
Penny's love for her partner, taxi-driver Phil, has run dry. He is a gentle, philosophical guy, and she works on the checkout at a supermarket.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, France
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: depressing, emotional, bleak, serious, realistic, meditative, sentimental, sincere, talky, offbeat
Similar in 90%
Shattered Spirits (1986)
Plot Summary:
Martin Sheen plays an alcoholic father who loses his family.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 355
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: spiritual, sincere, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, sexy
Similar in 78%
Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962)
Plot Summary:
The film follows one day in the lives of the Tyrone family, each member is troubled and has been damaged by alcohol and/or drugs. In addition, they have issues with each other that lead to fights and an inability to reconcile completely with one another.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 174 min
Plot tags: tense, depressing, talky, psychological, serious, realistic, grim, clever, retro, spiritual
Similar in 75%
Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
Plot Summary:
An alcoholic falls in love with and gets married to a young woman, whom he systematically addicts to booze so they can share his "passion" together.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: sexy, poignant, realistic, depressing, black and white, bleak, emotional, social, offbeat, spiritual
Similar in 83%
The Mighty Angel (2014)
Plot Summary:
A shocking story about addiction and attempts to overcome it. The script is based on Jerzy Plich’s excellent novel “The Mighty Angel” (alternative title: "The Strong Angel Inn"). Jerzy (Robert Więckiewicz) is a writer and a heavy drinker. We meet him at the point when he believes that he can beat his addiction. He falls in love with a young girl (Julia Kijowska) and finally feels that he has got the person and the reason to live for. But soon he yields to his addiction.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland, Hungary
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, cynical, psychological, captivating, thought provoking, touching, gloomy
Similar in 87%
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)
Plot Summary:
Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer -- arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer). Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: West Germany
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: art house, sexual, erotic, philosophical, sexy, depressing, surreal, avant garde, stylized, postmodern
Similar in 76%
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
Plot Summary:
Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi's family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 23000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: West Germany
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: art house, atmospheric, political, emotional, stylized, serious, realistic, black and white, bleak, contemplative
Similar in 90%
Sex, Lies & Obsession (2001)
Plot Summary:
A high-school drama teacher struggles to keep her family together after she discovers her husband's sexual addiction.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 389
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: sincere, rough, serious, realistic, independent film, sexual, sexy
Similar in 85%
I Only Want You to Love Me (1976)
Plot Summary:
The story of the young man Peter, who grew up during the economic miracle, bereft of parental care and love. Learning early on that interpersonal relationships are based on the principles of exchange or purchase, he abides by these rules and gives generous presents to his family and his wife Erika. But when he is unable to keep up this life-style, his story takes a horrendous turn.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: art house, psychological, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, gloomy