Best movies like The Pier
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
After 20 years of no contact with his father, Jack McCarthy (played by Hurley) travels from New York to his father Larry's death bed in Cork. Upon arrival he is furious to find his father alive and well and even more so when he then discovers he can't leave. Soon, father and son are forced to deal with a painful history. At the core of their conflict is Larry's denial about the death of his wife, Jack's mother. The story explores the difficult and painful, but often very hilarious ways they try to communicate. Forging a begrudging peace, the reality of life sets in when Larry discloses to Jack another truth that leads to a final reconciliation.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 275
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Ireland
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: realistic, sentimental, contemplative, captivating, psychological, sincere, serious
Best tv shows and movies like The Pier (2011):
Similar in 86%
Love Me No More (2008)
Plot Summary:
Antoine Méliot is around 40 years old and has everything he needs to be happy: a beautiful wife, two adorable children, friends he can count on, a pretty house in the Yvelines and money. But one day he decides to ruin everything in one weekend.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, sincere, realistic, philosophical, touching, contemplative, gloomy, beautiful
Similar in 88%
Christmas Comes Home to Canaan (2011)
Plot Summary:
When Bobber undergoes experimental surgery to help him walk again, Daniel Burton falls in love with his beautiful rehabilitation doctor and invites her to spend Christmas at the farm.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 495
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, psychological, sentimental, visually appealing
Similar in 75%
Love and Lies (1981)
Plot Summary:
Vam i ne snilos... A movie about two high school kids who meet in class and fall madly in love with each other. Unfortunately, His father and her mother had a history of their own between them which creates uneasiness in both of them. Also because of that, the boy's mother is very jealous and tries to separate them. The only person that tries to help them is their teacher who has relationship problems of her own.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: captivating, touching, sincere, sentimental, psychological
Similar in 85%
Song of my mother (2014)
Plot Summary:
Nigar (Zübeyde Ronahi) is not accustomed to living in the big city of Istanbul and longs to return to her village in Southeastern Turkey from where she was supposedly forced to leave after the incidents of ethnic clashes in 90s. Her son Ali (Feyyaz Duman), on the other hand, has pretty much settled in the city and works ironically as a teacher of Turkish language as a Kurd. Will Nigar be able to convince Ali to take her back to their village? - Written by bennikov.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 539
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: Turkey, France, Germany
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: serious, atmospheric, realistic, captivating, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 83%
Changing Hearts (2012)
Plot Summary:
A modern Prodigal Son story starring Brian McNamara, Daphne Zuniga, and Brad Johnson. James Reed, quite content with his current life, reluctantly returns home to the family business, a sick father, and a brother with whom he's always at odds.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 213
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, psychological, thought provoking, captivating, christian film, serious, independent film, entertaining
Similar in 87%
Messages from the Sea (2010)
Plot Summary:
A man witnesses the drastic changes in society as he goes back to the Alexandria of his youth.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Egypt
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, sentimental, captivating, islamic, sincere, serious
Similar in 77%
Bloodworth (2010)
Plot Summary:
E.F. Bloodworth has returned to his home - a forgotten corner of Tennessee - after forty years of roaming. The wife he walked out on has withered and faded, his three sons are grown and angry. Warren is a womanizing alcoholic, Boyd is driven by jealousy to hunt down his wife and her lover, and Brady puts hexes on his enemies from his mamma's porch. Only Fleming, the old man's grandson, treats him with the respect his age commands, and sees past all the hatred to realize the way it can poison a man's soul. It is ultimately the love of Raven Lee, a sloe-eyed beauty from another town, that gives Fleming the courage to reject this family curse.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 79%
The Day I Was Not Born (2010)
Plot Summary:
During a stopover in Buenos Aires on her way to Chile, 31-year-old Maria recognizes a nursery rhyme. Maria doesn't speak a work of Spanish, but without understanding what she is singing, she remembers the Spanish lyrics. Disturbed and thrown off course, she decides to interrupt her journey and wander through the unfamiliar city.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 837
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Argentina
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, captivating, contemplative, sentimental, sincere, serious
Similar in 88%
The Run of the Country (1995)
Plot Summary:
An Irish lad (Matt Keeslar) who fled from his oppressive, widowed father (Albert Finney) falls for a girl (Victoria Smurfit) from an affluent family.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Ireland, USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, sexy, thought provoking, brutal, enigmatic
Similar in 80%
The One That Got Away (2008)
Plot Summary:
Joanna, recently divorced, decided to return with her daughter to the town where she was born. There, she confronts the memories of the past when he meets his former lover, now married.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 152
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Canada
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: captivating, sentimental, psychological, emotional, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 84%
The American Standards (2008)
Plot Summary:
At a crossroads in his life, Doc Jennings goes home to celebrate his mother's birthday and uncovers dramatic family secrets. Lies, affairs and afflictions bubble to the surface of his seemingly perfect family. Can they come back together or is it too late?.
IMDB Rating: 4.1
IMDB Votes: 654
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating
Similar in 75%
Maria's Lovers (1984)
Plot Summary:
Ivan Bibic returns to his Pittsburgh PA suburb after surviving a Japanse POW camp, causing regular nightmares. All the time he remained faithfully devoted to his childhood love, fellow ethnic Yugoslavian virgin Maria Bosic. She dates him again, thus ruining a virtual engagement to captain Al Griselli. Against Ivan's dad's advice, they get married. But Ivan became psychologically impotent, feels unworthy of her and starts wondering, even looking for another girl. Meanwhile slick guitar-and-song-busker Clarence Butts moves in to South-Western PA, and seduces Maria.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA, Israel
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: sincere, emotional, erotic, sentimental, captivating, controversial, grindhouse, sexual, psychological, serious
Similar in 89%
Unanswered Prayers (2010)
Plot Summary:
After his football career, Ben Beck returned to his Virginia small town and joined the family building firm. His family happiness with wife Lorrie and adolescent son Jessie is suddenly tested by the return of Ben's first high-school love, Ava Andersson, who visits from Chicago, after a failed marriage, to bury her ma. Ava seduces Ben into reliving their courtship, which she traumatically broke off without a goodbye. Jesse reacts furiously, even backseats his own football scholarship bid, rather pa's projected ambition, in favor of a writing summer course.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, atmospheric, captivating, touching, serious, sexual, sexy
Similar in 77%
The Reception (2005)
Plot Summary:
The complex relationship between a wealthy French woman and her best friend a, gay black American, is thrown into turmoil when her estranged daughter comes to visit them with her new husband for the weekend in upstate New York. Through a series of drunken evenings and daytime squabbles it becomes apparent that no one involved is what they seem.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 197
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, captivating, sentimental, sexy, psychological, sincere, clever, serious, contemplative
Similar in 89%
Another House (2013)
Plot Summary:
Mathieu Roy's L’Autre maison is an intimate and powerful family drama featuring three generations of great Quebec Actors. Marcel Sabourin plays Henri Bernard, an 86 year-old man with a failing grip on reality. His sons, a jet setting middle aged photo-journalist (Roy Dupuis) and a younger pilot-in-training (Emile Proulx-Cloutier) disagree on a course of action, leaving the father and the younger son inhabiting a rustic cottage in the woods. As the older man's health deteriorates, options become more limited; when an IED accident in Afghanistan kills the photo-journalist's translator, the family must come together like never before. Shot in Quebec, Iceland, Africa and Asia, Another House blends elements of memory, perception and lyricism into a remarkable cinematic mix that moves the story well beyond direct domestic issues into a visual realm that balances nature and humanity.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 124
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, realistic, psychological, sincere, serious, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Liverpool (2008)
Plot Summary:
A sailor takes a short leave to visit his hometown and see if his mother is still alive.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, France, Netherlands, Germany, Spain
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, contemplative, psychological, captivating, road movie, dread, slow cinema, aesthetic, sincere
Similar in 90%
Back to You & Me (2005)
Plot Summary:
Dr. Syd has a good practice in the big city but a bad day when her terminal patient finally passes away. Her surgeon boyfriend, who has been sarcastically nick named "Mr. Personality" and "Settle For" by Syd's best friend (Nurse Brenda), takes this opportunity to offer support and destroys it by telling Syd dying is part of life and she'd be a better doctor if she stayed more remote from her patients and, oh, by the way, "can I come over tonight"? He is surprised when she says "not tonight." Brenda tells Syd to get away for a few days and suggests Syd change her mind and go back to her small hometown for her school reunion.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 616
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: realistic, sentimental, touching, feel good, semi serious, sex comedy
Similar in 83%
Erratum (2010)
Plot Summary:
Michał jedzie do miasta swojego urodzenia, aby załatwić sprawę o którą prosi go szef i od razu wracać. Sprawy przybierają jednak inny obrót. Michał musi pozostać tu parę dni dłużej. Chodząc po mieście spotyka bliskie mu niegdyś osoby, natrafia na znajome miejsca. Powoli odzywa się w nim coś, o czym dawno zapomniał.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 564
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, contemplative, realistic, psychological, captivating, sincere, serious, gloomy
Similar in 84%
The Last Rites of Joe May (2011)
Plot Summary:
Now in his sixties, Joe is released from the hospital after a long battle with pneumonia and forced to confront the harsh reality of his legacy: everyone he knew had assumed he was dead, and life had gone on around him without missing a beat. Returning to his old neighborhood in Chicago's "Patch" district, he finds his car gone, all his worldly possessions pawned by his landlord, and the apartment he's lived in his entire adult life rented out to a single mother named Jenny and her eight year-old daughter Angelina.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 774
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, contemplative, psychological, captivating, sincere, touching, independent film
Similar in 83%
Stay (2013)
Plot Summary:
A woman finds out she's pregnant and returns home when the expected father wants nothing to do with her.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 819
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, Ireland
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, touching, serious, psychological, captivating, teen, sincere
Similar in 88%
Rust (2010)
Plot Summary:
In the midst of a midlife crisis of faith, a man finds hope where he least expects it – his hometown. James Moore (Golden Globe nominee Corbin Bernsen) is a former pastor who returns home to discover a family new to the area has been killed in a mysterious fire, and his childhood friend is implicated in the murder. Convinced of his friend’s innocence, James sets out on a mission to find the truth… and in the process, rediscovers his own lost faith. An uplifting drama about faith, family, and the powerful ties that bind a community together.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 501
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: realistic, contemplative, psychological, captivating, sentimental, serious
Similar in 84%
Don't Let Me Drown (2009)
Plot Summary:
In a post-September 11th world overflowing with fear and hate, two Latino teens discover that sometimes the only thing that can keep them from drowning is love.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 428
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, sentimental, captivating, touching, serious, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 75%
This Is My Father (1998)
Plot Summary:
When schoolteacher Kieran Johnson (James Caan) discovers that his father was not a French sailor (as he had been led to believe) but rather an Irish farmer, Kieran looks to his mother (Moya Farrelly) for answers. When she refuses to provide any, Kieran travels to Ireland. In flashbacks, we watch a romance develop between Kieran's mother, a college girl, and his father (Aidan Quinn), an inarticulat.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Ireland, Canada
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, realistic, sincere, serious, independent film, psychological, light, romantic, sexy
Similar in 75%
American Wake (2004)
Plot Summary:
A musician and a fireman work against certain expectations in order to pursue their respective dreams.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 43
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration:
Plot tags: psychological, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
No Looking Back (1998)
Plot Summary:
Charlie returns to his old town where he meets his ex-girlfriend again and tries to get her back.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: emotional, disturbing, sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy, scary, light
Similar in 75%
Volcano (2011)
Plot Summary:
Hannes is an old man who has grown apart from his children. Recently retired when his wife gets ill he tries to reconcile with them and to atone for his cold demeanor in the past.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iceland, Denmark
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, emotional, psychological, captivating, uplifting, touching, serious
Similar in 80%
Mothers (2010)
Plot Summary:
Two nine-year-old girls report a flasher to the police even though they never saw him. Three filmmakers meet the only residents of a deserted village - an elderly brother and sister who have not spoken to each other in 16 years. Retired cleaning women are found raped and strangled in a small town. The fiction slowly turns into a documentary.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 804
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Bulgaria
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: captivating, realistic, disturbing, psychological, thought provoking, serious, anthology, emotional, contemplative, entertaining
Similar in 82%
Be Sure to Share (2009)
Plot Summary:
Shiro’s struggle with his father’s cancer and impending death leads to a realization that he must communicate his love and admiration for him before it’s too late. A series of flashbacks reveals their relationship over time, and the trouble Shiro faced connecting to his strict father who was also his teacher and soccer coach. With a consuming secret of his own, Shiro, now in his late twenties and about to get engaged, must eventually learn how to share the pain of it with his loved ones.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 463
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, emotional, contemplative, psychological, sentimental, sincere, serious, gloomy
Similar in 75%
The Playboys (1992)
Plot Summary:
A young woman, Tara Maguire (Robin Wright) scandalizes her provincial Irish village in the 1950s by having a baby out of a wedlock, and refusing to name the father. She has a rare beauty and every man in town desires her, especially Sergeant Hegarty (Albert Finney). The arrival of a dramatic troupe stirs things up even more, especially when she falls in love with one f the "Playboys", Tom Casey (Aidan Quinn).
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA, UK, Ireland
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, sentimental, sincere, captivating, independent film
Similar in 84%
Pandora's Box (2008)
Plot Summary:
When an aging matriarch starts showing signs of dementia, her dysfunctional family in Istanbul must navigate a minefield of unresolved issues to care for her.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Turkey, France, Germany, Belgium
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, psychological, sincere, atmospheric, captivating, emotional, realistic, contemplative