Best movies like The Return

Similar in 76%

Elena (2011)

Plot Summary:

Vladimir is reaching the end of his life and decides to leave his wealth to his only daughter, cutting out his wife and her son from his will.

Similar in 83%

Landscape in the Mist (1988)

Plot Summary:

Road movie about two children searching for their father who is supposed to live in Germany. Their obsession for this father figure will take them to the boundaries between childhood and adolescence.

Similar in 87%

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Plot Summary:

Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, we witness the delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden.

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Ida (2013)

Plot Summary:

Anna, a young novitiate in 1960s Poland, is on the verge of taking her vows when she discovers a family secret dating back to the years of the German occupation.

Similar in 83%

Nostalgia (1983)

Plot Summary:

The Russian poet Andrei Gorchakov, accompanied by guide and translator Eugenia, is traveling through Italy researching the life of an 18th-century Russian composer. In an ancient spa town, he meets the lunatic Domenico, who years earlier had imprisoned his own family in his house for seven years to save them from the evils of the world. Seeing some deep truth in Domenico's act, Andrei becomes drawn to him. In a series of dreams, the poet's nostalgia for his homeland and his longing for his wife, his ambivalent feelings for Eugenia and Italy, and his sense of kinship with Domenico become intertwined.

Similar in 90%

The Turin Horse (2011)

Plot Summary:

A monumental windstorm and an abused horse's refusal to work or eat signals the beginning of the end for a poor farmer and his daughter.

Similar in 82%

The Italian (2005)

Plot Summary:

Set in 2002, an abandoned 5-year-old boy living in a rundown orphanage in a small Russian village is adopted by an Italian family.

Similar in 90%

Siberia, Monamour (2011)

Plot Summary:

Siberia. Late autumn. In taiga, in the deserted village there lives an old man Ivan & his seven-year-old grandson Leshia. A pack of feral dogs devours everything alive in the neighborhood. One of these dogs is Leshia's best friend. Sometimes their relative uncle Yuri brings food to them. Once on his way back from Ivan's village uncle Yuri is attacked by dogs & perishes. Ivan & Leshia stay without supply. Once Leshia witnesses Ivan shooting at 'his' dog & runs away. The old Man finds him in a dry well, but he fails to get him out on his own. Ivan sets out through taiga in search of help. Now the dogs are hunting him... And the boy is waiting for his father.

Similar in 87%

The Sacrifice (1986)

Plot Summary:

Alexander, a journalist, philosopher and retired actor, celebrates a birthday with friends and family when it is announced that nuclear war has begun.

Similar in 79%

In This World (2002)

Plot Summary:

Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.

Similar in 75%

The Thief (1997)

Plot Summary:

In 1946, a soldier fathers a child then dies before its birth. Jump to 1952: on a train, the child and his mother meet a handsome soldier who makes a play for her. She accepts. Posing as a married family, the soldier finds them a rooming house where he becomes everyone's favorite through his good looks and generosity. Meanwhile he gives the boy, Sanya, lessons in life: to fight back, to win at all costs. The child's mother, Katya, is head-over-heels in love with Tolyan, the soldier, but the relationship becomes rocky when Tolyan's true plans for the rooming house become clear. It starts them on a treadmill of flight that risks Katya's life, Tolyan's liberty, and Sanya's trust.

Similar in 80%

Ratcatcher (1999)

Plot Summary:

James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.

Similar in 78%

The Kid with a Bike (2011)

Plot Summary:

Abandoned by his father, a young boy is left in the hands of an unqualified childcare provider.

Similar in 79%

Mud (2012)

Plot Summary:

Two teenage boys encounter a fugitive and make a pact to help him escape from an island in the Mississippi.

Similar in 83%

The Island (2006)

Plot Summary:

Somewhere in Northern Russia in a small Russian Orthodox monastery lives an unusual man whose bizarre conduct confuses his fellow monks, while others who visit the island believe that the man has the power to heal, exorcise demons and foretell the future.

Similar in 82%

Nobody Knows (2004)

Plot Summary:

In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.

Similar in 83%

Paris, Texas (1984)

Plot Summary:

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.

Similar in 85%

Radio Flyer (1992)

Plot Summary:

A father reminisces about his childhood when he and his younger brother moved to a new town with their mother, her new husband and their dog, Shane. When the younger brother is subjected to physical abuse at the hands of their brutal stepfather, Mike decides to convert their toy trolley, the "Radio Flyer", into a plane to fly him to safety.

Similar in 80%

Leviathan (2014)

Plot Summary:

In a Russian coastal town, Kolya is forced to fight the corrupt mayor when he is told that his house will be demolished. He recruits a lawyer friend to help, but the man's arrival brings further misfortune for Kolya and his family.

Similar in 76%

The Hunt (2012)

Plot Summary:

A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

Similar in 78%

Sling Blade (1996)

Plot Summary:

Karl Childers is a mentally disabled man who has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 for killing his mother and her lover. Although thoroughly institutionalized, Karl is deemed fit to be released into the outside world.

Similar in 90%

Taste of Cherry (1997)

Plot Summary:

A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim student, asking them to take on the job, but initially he has little luck. Eventually, Badii finds a man who is up for the task because he needs the money, but his new associate soon tries to talk him out of committing suicide.

Similar in 88%

A River Runs Through It (1992)

Plot Summary:

A River Runs Through is a cinematographically stunning true story of Norman Maclean. The story follows Norman and his brother Paul through the experiences of life and growing up, and how their love of fly fishing keeps them together despite varying life circumstances in the untamed west of Montana in the 1920's.

Similar in 87%

The Keys to the House (2004)

Plot Summary:

Meeting his handicapped son for the first time, a young father attempts to forge a relationship with the teenager.

Similar in 82%

Boyhood (2014)

Plot Summary:

The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.

Similar in 88%

The Road (2009)

Plot Summary:

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind and water. It is cold enough to crack stones, and, when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the warmer south, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there.