Best movies like The Return of the Prodigal Son
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Engineer Jan Sebek (Jan Kacer) is undergoing treatment in a mental home after his unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide. His therapist, via discussions both with the patient and with people who know him, tries to find out what made the young and seemingly satisfied man decide to end his own life. Jan's pretty wife Jana (Jana Brejchová) claims not to know about anything but she is conducting an affair with a family friend, almost publicly and with the blessing of her parents.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 357
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like The Return of the Prodigal Son (1967):
Similar in 90%
Almost a Man (1966)
Plot Summary:
Jacques Perrin was awarded Best Actor at the 1966 Venice Film Festival for his gripping portrayal of a young writer's descent into madness. Alienated, neurotic, and plagued by guilt, Perrin retreats from reality, loses interest in work, and comes to the brink of suicide before being sent to an asylum for shock therapy. Escaping from the asylum, Perrin returns to his boyhood home, where he learns the reasons for his present mental state. The strong supporting cast, including Lea Padovani and Pier Paolo Capponi, bring credence to their roles, but it is De Seta's direction, Perrin's controlled performance, and a relatively subtle score by Ennio Morricone which keep this film from becoming as overwrought as it might have become in other hands.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 223
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: existential
Similar in 86%
The Weather Forecast (1983)
Plot Summary:
The setting is an old age home run by an aging director with an authoritarian hand. In the evening many of the residents huddle in a living room, penetrated by the October cold, to listen to the news. The announcement is giving the number of expected deaths due too the coming harsh winter. In the middle of the night a truckload of coffins arrives to be stored. Dicovering the coffins the elderly assume they are marked for liquidation and they flee en masse. The next day their exodus is dicovered and the director calls the authorities. It turned out that the coffins were the overproduction from a coffin factory and were brought only for temporary storage. The panic search for the pensioners begins, including helicopters. In the meantime the group gets transported to another part of the country by a truck. They take over by a near-empty restaurant, where after mistreatment by a waiter, they tie him up and move on. A lone fisherman invites them into his house where, after initial.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 123
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night (1969)
Plot Summary:
An allegory set in an archetypal Czech village, it tells of what happens when a sequence of mysterious events take place, including the disappearance of the stationmaster. While everything has a rational explanation, collective paranoia takes hold and everyone’s worst instincts are released. Interrogations, the abolition of rights and the search for scapegoats ultimately lead to murder.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 117
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Between Summers (1995)
Plot Summary:
Torun and Mikael have been married for a few years. When vacationing on the Danish coast, their young son Melker accidentally drowns. Torun initially blames her sister, who was supposed to supervise her children. Later she turns her anger and grief against her husband. Since none of them know what to do with their feelings, they start to drift apart.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 81
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, Denmark
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Anna (1970)
Plot Summary:
A doctor, her daughter, and her young housekeeper spend their summer on a remote island.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 177
Genere: Drama
Country: Finland, Sweden
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Behind The Wall (1971)
Plot Summary:
Jan is a young assistant professor in chemistry and a workaholic, Anna is an unsuccessful science writer who turns to Jan for advice and human compassion, but Jan, absorbed with his career, remains immune to Anna's clumsy efforts to pierce his defenses.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 150
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 56 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Hospital of the Transfiguration (1979)
Plot Summary:
The film is set in 1943 in a mental asylum in the country. But this is an unusual hospital: there are several incurable schizophrenic cases, staff is bit strange and a writer has voluntarily entered the clinic because he is "peculiar" and a drug addict. Then the German Gestapo arrives. The commandant asks for the list of patients, sorts out the "Aryan" doctors from the others on a return trip, and herds everyone into trucks for evacuation to the extermination camps. A young doctor momentarily escapes by covering himself under a pile of laundry in the basement, and then escapes to the woods just as the Nazi soldiers appear.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 426
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Too Far to Go (1979)
Plot Summary:
Love and passion, anger and heartbreak, laughter and happiness, all complex textures woven into the fabric so many have come to know as marriage. For behind the seemingly comfortable well-trimmed hedges of suburban Americana, live and often love, Richard and Joan Maple. Adapted from a series of stories appearing in the New Yorker Magazine over a period of twenty three years by Pulitzer Prize winning author John Updike ("The Witches of Eastwick", "Rabbit Run"), "Too Far To Go" garnered overwhelming critical praise in its theatrical debut. With its exceptional cast, this film envelops us in a poignant, sometimes funny, sometimes exasperating journey through this most important relationship.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 91
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Incomplete Eclipse (1983)
Plot Summary:
Marta (Lucie Patikova) was blinded in an accident brought on by her careless and indulgent younger sister. Now in a school for the blind, Marta keeps up her hope that she will one day see again, mainly because her mother - out of good intentions - has led her to believe that the blindness is only temporary. Before long, Marta comes to realize that her condition will last until she dies, and she begins to despair, hating her mother for giving her false hope. Only a dedicated psychologist, Dr. Mos (Oldrich Navratil) seems to have the means of retrieving Marta from her depression.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 92
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: non-linear, crying
Similar in 80%
The Cry (1964)
Plot Summary:
While a woman is in the hospital preparing to deliver her child, her husband has all day to reflect upon his wife and their relationship. As he tends to his job as a television repairman, Slavek fondly remembers how he first met Ivana and the days they spent getting to know one another. Slavek also grows increasingly aware of the environment that surrounds him and questions the society his new child will be entering. Loaded with a repeated plea for social change, this is the first feature from Czech writer/director Jaromil Jires.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 218
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: freeze frame, non-linear
Similar in 76%
Gra (1969)
Plot Summary:
About an existentialist alienation drama between a bourgeois couple caught in a stationary environment. Between a man and a woman lost in themselves.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 67
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Something Different (1963)
Plot Summary:
Vera Chytilova wrote and directed this two-part story that took the Grand Prix at the Mannheim Film Festival. Part one deals with the rigorous training of Olympic champion gymnast Eva Bosakova. She contemplates retirement as she goes through a gruelling training schedule known only by world-class athletes. The second story concerns a housewife who is unappreciated and ignored by her husband. Done in a combination of feature and documentary styles, this is the first full-length effort from Vera Chytilova.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 848
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: avant garde
Similar in 81%
The Moth (1980)
Plot Summary:
This is psychological drama by Tomasz Zygadlo begins as a straightforward story. Jan (Roman Wilhelmi) is the host of a nightly talk show in which he counsels people who call in with their problems. He is dedicated to helping these lonely souls but becomes increasingly disturbed when his co-workers and supervisors at the radio station do not appreciate his program; they seem unable to grasp the importance of what he is doing. Aside from that, Jan's private life is frayed around the edges. His wife is a heavy drinker and his mistress has no comprehension about who he is or what he is doing. Jan's frustration over this lack of recognition builds to an explosive level, threatening to upset the balance of his daily life.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 205
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: experimental
Similar in 76%
Spiral (1978)
Plot Summary:
In what appears to be an inexplicable incident, a man drives up to a resort hotel in midwinter, throws away his car keys, enters, and proceeds to agitate everyone he meets with his urgency -- a message he is somehow unable to communicate. Then he leaves, disappearing in the snow. Later, the people he appeared to have upset have gathered to search for him and find him frostbitten, but alive. Visiting him at the sanatorium to which he has been taken, they gradually discover what was really happening.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 515
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: intellectual
Similar in 90%
The Joke (1969)
Plot Summary:
In the 1950s, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend. Fifteen years later, he tries to get his revenge by seducing Helena, the wife of one of his accusers.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: disturbing, experimental, controversial, avant garde, sincere, rough, emotional, realistic, semi serious, non-linear
Similar in 87%
The Sting of Death (1990)
Plot Summary:
Miho and Toshio, putting their children and household at stake, duel for control in their degrading, middle-aged marriage.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 341
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Coming Apart (1969)
Plot Summary:
A psychiatrist secretly films his female patients as an experiment; he pushes both him and his customers in ways that induce his own mental breakdown.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 515
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: independent film, mockumentary, experimental, avant garde, fake documentary
Similar in 80%
Until a Man Lives (1963)
Plot Summary:
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IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 8
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
The Illumination (1973)
Plot Summary:
Krzysztof Zanussi's groundbreaking film chronicles a decade in the life of a young physics student whose absolute faith in the primacy of rationality and science is shaken by tragedy and affairs of the heart.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: philosophical, existential, poetic
Similar in 87%
My First Wife (1984)
Plot Summary:
My First Wife is about the dramatic collapse of the marriage between John and Helen. It is also a film about our children and the future we offer them. Helen has decided to leave, and it is John who lacks the inner resources to cope with the impending tragedy. Slowly he is sucked into a tunnel of despair – fighting his conservative nature and the romantic memories of his married life.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 170
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 84%
Down the Ancient Stairs (1975)
Plot Summary:
A mental hospital somewhere in Tuscany during the thirties. Far away from fascism, this closed world is rules over by Dr. Bonaccorsi, a passionate benevolent psychiatrist whose dream is to isolate the germ of madness. He is also a very active ladies'man and makes three women benefit from his sexual itch: Francesca the hospital manager's wife, Bianca, his devoted nurse and Carla, a nymphomaniac doctor's wife. His well-ordered universe starts being challenged with the coming of Anna, a trainee psychiatrist, who disapproves of his theory on the origin of madness. Worse, she resists his advances. As Bonaccorsi is more insecure than he looks, what will become of him.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 405
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Kontrakt (1980)
Plot Summary:
Bearing traces of the old Anton Chekhov play The Wedding, The Contract is set during an "arranged" ceremony. The bride and groom barely know each other, but this matters not at all to their tradition-bound families. At the last minute, the bride balks. Only slightly nonplused, the groom's father, a status-seeking doctor, decides to go ahead with the expensive reception anyway. Polish director Krzysz Zanussi uses this scenario to stick it to capitalist corruption, and to society's destruction of the individual spirit. Leslie Caron, the one recognizable member of the cast, is outstanding as a wealthy, over-the-hill ballerina who happens to be a kleptomaniac.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 226
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Heritage (1979)
Plot Summary:
Shipowner Kai Skaug is dead. The parson in his funeral speech speaks of a man who passed away in his prime, only 54 years old. The flower-decorated crematorium is filled with mourners. In the first row sits his old mother, his brother and sister, his brother- and sister-in-law, his nephews and cousings - his next of kin.... Up till now they have had only occasional contact with one another - superficial and unbinding. Now the inheritance binds them together with unloosable bonds. The will assums that the company shall be run by the united family. Should this prove impossible, everything is to be donated to cancer research. The inheritance changes the lives of all of them and brings hidden conflicts into the open. And when they all have been stripped naked, one fundamental question remains: Who has in fact created the values? Who deserves the inheritance?.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 86
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
The Kerosene Lamps (1971)
Plot Summary:
In 1900, Stepha, the vivacious 30 year old daughter of a wealthy couple, agrees to marry her cousin Paul, who has accumulated large debts as an Austrian army officer. Paul refuses to work or to consummate the marriage, and then his health steadily declines.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 390
Genere: Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: crying
Similar in 82%
Safe (1995)
Plot Summary:
Carol, a typical upper middle-class housewife, begins to complain of vague symptoms of illness. She "doesn't feel right," has unexplained headaches, congestion, a dry cough, nosebleeds, vomiting, and trouble breathing. Her family doctor treats her concerns dismissively and suggests a psychiatrist. Eventually, an allergist tells her that she has Environmental Illness.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: independent film, atmospheric, disturbing, bleak, allegory, surreal, cerebral, cult classic, psychological, thought provoking
Similar in 78%
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 75%
Daybreak (2003)
Plot Summary:
Sweden, shortly before Christmas. Surgeon Rickard is told the job he expected goes to a Dane, because of his substance abuse. It's too late to cancel dinner with his in-laws. The guest couple announces their in-vitro is a success. Then Richard's wife learns he cheated her with Sofie. Meanwhile ugly hag Anita trades drugs to afford a taser to use on her ex Olof and his former physiotherapist. Workaholic builder Anders is disgusted by his grieve-deranged client Knut's plan and decides to spend time on his family, not just money.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, bleak, realistic, serious, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Filthy Envy (2022)
Plot Summary:
Four great friends turn a celebration dinner into a complete nightmare; things turn toxic when friendship and envy sit together at the table.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 145
Genere: Drama
Country: Colombia
Duration: 30 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Betrayal (2012)
Plot Summary:
While examining one of her patients, a doctor reveals that her husband is cheating with the patient's wife.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 948
Genere: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, sexy, detective, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Ordinary People (1980)
Plot Summary:
Beth, Calvin, and their son Conrad are living in the aftermath of the death of the other son. Conrad is overcome by grief and misplaced guilt to the extent of a suicide attempt. He is in therapy. Beth had always preferred his brother and is having difficulty being supportive to Conrad. Calvin is trapped between the two trying to hold the family together.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 56000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, depressing, realistic, sentimental, compassionate, crying, serious, existential, inspirational