Best movies like The Navigators
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In South Yorkshire, a small group of railway maintenance men discover that because of privatization, their lives will never be the same. When the trusty British Rail sign is replaced by one reading East Midland Infrastructure, it is clear that there will be the inevitable winners and losers as downsizing and efficiency become the new buzzwords.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, Germany, Spain
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, social, bleak, gloomy, thought provoking
Best tv shows and movies like The Navigators (2001):
Similar in 82%
My Name Is Joe (1998)
Plot Summary:
Two thirtysomethings, unemployed former alcoholic Joe and community health worker Sarah, start a romantic relationship in the one of the toughest Glasgow neighbourhoods.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK, Germany, France, Spain
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, thought provoking, serious, contemplative, gloomy, social, independent film, enigmatic, feel good
Similar in 90%
Unknown Pleasures (2002)
Plot Summary:
Three disaffected youths live in Datong in 2001, part of the new "Birth Control" generation. Fed on a steady diet of popular culture, both Western and Chinese, the characters of Unknown Pleasures represent a new breed in the People's Republic of China, one detached from reality through the screen of media and the internet.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: China, Japan, South Korea, France
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, sincere, serious, realistic, contemplative, neo noir, gloomy
Similar in 83%
The Good Heart (2009)
Plot Summary:
Brian Cox stars as Jacques, the curmudgeonly owner of a gritty New York dive bar that serves as home to a motley assortment of professional drinkers. Jacques is determinedly drinking and smoking himself to death when he meets Lucas (Dano), a homeless young man who has already given up on life. Determined to keep his legacy alive, Jacques deems Lucas is a fitting heir and takes him under his wing, schooling him in the male-centric laws of his alcoholic clubhouse: no new customers, no fraternizing with customers and, absolutely no women. Lucas is a quick study, but their friendship is put to the test when the distraught and beautiful April (Isild Le Besco) shows up at the bar seeking shelter, and Lucas insists they help her out.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Iceland, Denmark, USA, France, Germany
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, sincere, realistic, independent film, thought provoking, social, sad, crying, psychological
Similar in 79%
Human Resources (1999)
Plot Summary:
Set in Limoges, the movie tells the story of "good son" Franck (Jalil Lespert), who returns to his hometown to do a trainee managerial internship in the Human Resources department of the factory where his anxious, taciturn father has worked for 23 years.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France, UK
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: melancholic, sincere, thought provoking, emotional, touching, political, psychological, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 85%
Looks and Smiles (1981)
Plot Summary:
Thatcherism and the Irish troubles provide the backdrop for this study of Mick, a well-meaning youth in Sheffield, who has, unlike Dickens' Pip, no expectations. Mick lives with his parents, works on his motorbike, looks for work, and every two weeks gets his check from the dole. There are no jobs. His best mate Alan joins the army to fix tanks and is sent to Belfast to quell Catholics. At a disco, Mick meets Karen, who works at a shoe shop and lives with her recently-separated mom. Karen misses her dad. She offers Mick emotional stability and a route to adulthood; Alan pitches the army. Does Mick have a future?.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 482
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: independent film, black and white, psychological, serious, realistic, gloomy, biting, suspense
Similar in 78%
It's a Free World... (2007)
Plot Summary:
The film focuses on Angie (Kierston Wareing), a working class woman who, after being fired by the agency that she works for, decides to set up a recruitment agency of her own, running it from her kitchen with her friend Rose (Juliet Ellis). Taking advantage of the desperation of immigrants, Angie is able to build a successful business extremely quickly.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, disturbing, thought provoking, epic, political, social, bleak
Similar in 84%
If Nothing Else Works Out (2008)
Plot Summary:
In 2006, a journalist in financial problems, a woman who dresses as a man and a troubled taxi driver become friends, and gradually, an awkward, strong emotional bond emerges among them, especially when they decide to play a confidence game.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 281
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sincere, rough, touching, serious, clever, offbeat, bleak, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 90%
Boys from the Blackstuff (1982)
Plot Summary:
Alan Bleasdale's hugely acclaimed mini-series echoes the misery and despair of long-term unemployment. Set in Liverpool, these profoundly moving human dramas follow in turn the attempts of five working-class heroes to survive.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Sheep (2013)
Plot Summary:
The life of a small French town is rocked by a bizarre incident.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 137
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, contemplative, stylized, offbeat, realistic, gloomy, freeze frame
Similar in 85%
Lulu the Tool (1971)
Plot Summary:
A conscientious factory worker gets his finger cut off by a machine. The accident causes him to become more involved in political and revolutionary groups.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: sincere, emotional, realistic, serious, political, philosophical, surreal, grindhouse, contemplative
Similar in 76%
The Storage (2011)
Plot Summary:
Antero Rousku is a storeman in a paint store. His job requires raw muscle power, mixing paints and carrying house repair materials around to earn his daily bread. But the basic salary is not enough for Rousku. He also sells a lot of stuff on the side from the storeroom directly to Jylhäkorpi, a frequent visitor, bypassing company bookkeeping. Rousku's colleague in the cellar storeroom is Raninen whose life consists of work, quarreling with his wife, and lottery. Raninen wants to win the main prize but he wants to have the right numbers in exactly the order in which they appear from the lottery machine. Raninen is not the sharpest pencil in the pencil box. Rousku's freedom is threatened by his relationship to the saleswoman Karita. Rousku wants to keep a distance to the woman except in bed. Karita has decided otherwise.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Finland
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: sexy, sincere, touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, witty
Similar in 78%
It's Winter (2006)
Plot Summary:
The struggle to survive, for a generation, torn between wanting to leave its country, yet bound by blood to home.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 650
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, touching, serious, bleak, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Red Light Revolution (2010)
Plot Summary:
A luckless Beijinger opens an adult shop to make ends meet, sparking a sexual revolution in his conservative neighborhood.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 103
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Australia, China
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, not serious
Similar in 89%
Riff-Raff (1991)
Plot Summary:
The story of Stevie, a construction worker, and his girlfriend, an unemployed pop singer, serves to show the living conditions of the British poor class.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: political, social, independent film, humorous, realistic, gloomy, semi serious
Similar in 88%
Raining Stones (1993)
Plot Summary:
This Ken Loach film tells the story of a man devoted to his family and his religion. Proud, though poor, Bob wants his little girl to have a beautiful (and costly) brand-new dress for her First Communion. His stubbornness and determination get him into trouble as he turns to more and more questionable measures, in his desperation to raise the needed money. This tragic flaw leads him to risk all that he loves and values, his beloved family, indeed even his immortal soul and salvation, in blind pursuit of that goal.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: independent film, bleak, sentimental, sincere, touching, offbeat, realistic, gloomy, semi serious, social
Similar in 79%
Sub terra (2003)
Plot Summary:
In 1897, in Lota, Chile, in the face of long days, low pay, debts to the company store, unsafe and deadly working conditions, and widespread child labor, men try to establish a miners' association at one of the largest coal mines in the world. They must face Davis, an iron-fisted and murderous supervisor; there's at least one turncoat, willing to inform on their fellow workers; and, there are passions on all sides, including one between Fernando, a leader of the miners, and Virginia, the godchild of the mine's owners. Can the miners win a victory, and at what cost? Baldomero Lillo, a grocery clerk, records it all.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 373
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, Spain
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, captivating, epic, contemplative
Similar in 78%
Dance Me Outside (1994)
Plot Summary:
Explores the sensitive, and tense, relationship between life on an First Nations reservation and life in the outside world. When Native Canadian Silas Crow is forced to write a personal essay in order to get a much-desired job, he tells the story of the rape and murder of an Indian girl by a drunken thug. When the killer received a lenient two-year sentence for manslaughter, the First Nations community felt shock and anger -- and tried desperately to deal with the after-effects of this lack of justice.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: independent film, sincere, atmospheric, clever, serious, realistic, contemplative, stylized, gloomy, cult film
Similar in 89%
Strike (2006)
Plot Summary:
In poverty, she found strength. In oppression, she found courage. In solidarity, she found a reason to believe again. Acclaimed German actress Katharina Thalbach (THE TIN DRUM, SOPHIES CHOICE) stars in this hard-hitting historical drama set during the rise of Polands Solidarity movement. An illiterate single mother, Agnieszka Kowalska is a Socialist "heroine of labor" for working long hours as a shipyard welder until her superiors deny compensation to the widows of 21 workers killed in an industrial disaster. Risking her job, her life, and the love of her son to defy the bureacracy, Agnieszka inspires the largest labor strike in world history and becomes a national hero. Volker Schlöndorff adapted this "ballad based on historical events" from the biography of Anna Walentynowicz, the free trade activist who mobilized a million Poles for Solidarity and helped hasten the fall of Communism. Filmed entirely on location at Polands Lenin Shipyard, where history was made.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 490
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Poland
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sincere, captivating
Similar in 88%
Eat Sleep Die (2012)
Plot Summary:
A young Eastern European immigrant working in Sweden is faced with a painful choice when she's laid off from her factory in the name of "efficiencies.".
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: realistic, thought provoking, serious, psychological, crying, sincere, touching
Similar in 79%
Work Hard, Play Hard (2003)
Plot Summary:
Philippe Seigner starts his career in business consulting at the posh Paris seat of McGregor. His first serious task is delicate: An audit at a factory, which is about to be taken over. As he soon realizes, this will mean sacking about 80 employees. However, his girl friend reproaches him collaborating with ruthless capitalism, as if any of the downsizing could be mitigated by him bowing out.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 600
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, captivating, humorous, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 88%
The Security Men (2013)
Plot Summary:
Duckers, Jimmy and Ray are three work-shy security guards at a shopping mall who spend much of their time mocking their Jobsworth boss Kenneth. One night they bunk off to watch and bet on a boxing match at the electrical shop, only to find on their return that the mall's jewellers has been robbed. To save face - and their jobs - they bring in computer ace Rhys to help concoct a new CCTV film in which two of them pose as robbers and the other two pursue them but lose them. It looks very genuine but P.C. Greaves has his doubts. Can they get away with it?.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 88
Genere: Comedy
Country: UK
Duration: 43 min
Plot tags: humorous, talky, semi serious, realistic, sitcom
Similar in 87%
Entry Level (2007)
Plot Summary:
After losing his restaurant, chef CLAY MAGUIRE must start his career all over--at the bottom. Pushing forty with no "corporate skill-set", Clay enters the strange world of the Unemployable Interviewees of America. Clay and his fellow job-seekers strive for dignity, success, or at least a job taking customer service calls from prison inmates for minimum wage. A hilarious, insightful look at job interviews, finding the courage to start all over, and life at the ENTRY LEVEL.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 390
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 85%
Groenten uit Balen (2011)
Plot Summary:
The story of the laborer family Debruycker during the turbulent strike by Vieille Montagne in 1971.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Belgium
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Taking Back Our Town (2001)
Plot Summary:
A true story about a concerned housewife, Pat Melancon, who tries to block Shintech, a massive Japanese petrochemical conglomerate, from building a plant in her toxic township already known as "cancer alley". Pat and a few newly recruited, fledgling activitsts face the full force of Shintech's wealth and influence peddling, which has bought the cooperation of the government from the local level all the way up to the Governor's office.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 123
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, serious, realistic
Similar in 88%
Mondays in the Sun (2002)
Plot Summary:
After the closure of their shipyard in Northern Spain, a few former workers: Santa, José, Lino, Amador, Sergei and Reina keep in touch. They meet mainly at a bar owned by their former colleague Rico. Santa is the most superficially confident and the unofficial leader of the group. A court case hangs over him relating to a shipyard lamp he smashed during protest against the closure. José is bitter that his wife, Ana, is employed when he is not. The gap between them is widening and he is fearful that she will leave him for a co-worker. Despite arthritic legs, Ana endures night shifts at a fish factory and thinks her looks are now lost. Not everyone seems to agree including her boss. Lino, an aging family man doggedly pursuing positions beyond his qualifications. The oldest member of the group, Amador, has degenerated into alcoholism after being abandoned by his wife; maintaining an increasingly transparent pretense that his wife will soon return from holiday.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Spain, France, Italy
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: touching, sincere, realistic, political, psychological, serious, feel good, bleak, comedy drama, social
Similar in 86%
The Rising Place (2001)
Plot Summary:
The close friendship of two young women, each of a different race, and their struggle to find purpose in their lives during this time of social injustice and world war.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 208
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 80%
Crossing Borders (2006)
Plot Summary:
Spain 1960, the dawn of the country's economic development. Industrial "reorganization" means that many workers have lost their jobs and are forced to emigrate. Martin is one of them. Martin, his wife Pilar and their son Pablito live with Martin's parents in a basement apartment that comes with their job as superintendents of the building. Encouraged by Marcos, his friend and co-worker, Martin decides to emigrate to Switzerland. The whole family has to admit that for the time being this is the most promising plan. Unable to obtain a work contract from the Swiss Consulate, Martin and Marcos decide to go anyway, pretending they are tourists to get past the border police. Pablito will experience drastic changes in a short period of time: his father's departure, a new way of life in a different country with a different environment and learning another language. But afterwards, in Switzerland, they will face new experiences which will allow them to live with renewed happiness.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, semi serious, humorous, feel good, intercultural
Similar in 88%
Cemetery Junction (2010)
Plot Summary:
In 1970s England, three blue-collar friends spend their days joking, drinking, fighting and chasing girls. Freddie wants to leave their working-class world but cool, charismatic Bruce and lovable loser Snork are happy with life the way it is. When Freddie gets a new job as a door-to-door salesman and bumps into his old school sweetheart Julie, the gang are forced to make choices that will change their lives for ever.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 24000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: witty, inspirational, stylized, funny, humorous, talky, semi serious, melancholic, atmospheric, clever
Similar in 76%
The Full Monty (1997)
Plot Summary:
Sheffield, England. Gaz, a jobless steelworker in need of quick cash persuades his mates to bare it all in a one-night-only strip show.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 113000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, Italy, USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: feel good, funny, humorous, black comedy, hilarious, light, touching, realistic, witty, social
Similar in 90%
Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise (2001)
Plot Summary:
Tommy is a vacuum cleaner salesman gripped by the fever of closing the deal. He lives on puffa rice stored in his glove compartment, listens to motivation tapes of his own voice shouting 'Sell, sell, fucking sell' and his punters are up to their eyes in debt. Even Tommy admits his 'soul's in holes'. He's sure the Golden Vac (the holy grail of vacuum salesmanship) can be his - if only he hadn't been saddled with Pete, a meek sales trainee trying to help his girlfriend quit stripping.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 76 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, talky, semi serious, offbeat, surreal, witty, cynical, biting, fast