Best movies like The Son of Joseph
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A young man who lives with his mother and has never known his father, heads off to look for him. He finds a cynical and Machiavellian man who works as a publisher in Paris. After he attempts to kill him, he finds filial love thanks to his uncle.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 888
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: allegory, biblical
Best tv shows and movies like The Son of Joseph (2016):
Similar in 80%
Tea in the Harem (1985)
Plot Summary:
The story of two youths - one Algerian, one French - who become juvenile delinquents in a Paris suburb.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 452
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
The Hunter (2004)
Plot Summary:
A Kakakh kid (12) commits a robbery with a pistol he stole from a hunter. The hunter gives him a choice: either he goes to jail or they undertake a harsh journey through the mountains. Poetic Central Asian horse opera about the laws of nature.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 113
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Japan, Kazakhstan, Switzerland
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Paul's Case (1980)
Plot Summary:
Captures the essence of Willa Cather's haunting story of Pittsburgh circa 1900. Lost in a world of fantasy, young working-class Paul dreams of escaping his dreary existence in turn-of-the-century Pittsburgh. As fate would have it Paul gets his chance by stealing some money and subsequently running off to glamorous New York City.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 719
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 54 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
The Park (2016)
Plot Summary:
Summer time. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, have their first date in a park. Hesitant and shy at first, they soon discover each other, get closer as they wander, and end up falling in love. But as the sun goes down, it is time to separate... And a dark night begins.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 333
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 71 min
Plot tags: art house
Similar in 79%
Experience Preferred... But Not Essential (1982)
Plot Summary:
A shy, introverted young girl takes a summer job at a seaside resort in Wales, where she finds the staff, the owners and patrons unlike anyone she has ever met before.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 267
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: independent film, tense, funny, light, sexy, clever, feel good, unusual plot structure, humorous, sweet
Similar in 88%
A Place Among the Living (2003)
Plot Summary:
A mediocre pulp novelist is approached by a stranger claiming to be a serial killer with a proposition to chronicle his crimes.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 114
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Stop Me Here (2015)
Plot Summary:
Samson Cazalet, Taxi driver in his thirties, picks up a client at the airport. The same evening, the daughter of the woman disappears and the overwhelming evidence points to Samson. How can he prove his innocence when he is the ideal suspect?.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 236
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
A Kid (2016)
Plot Summary:
Matthieu, a 33 year old Parisian who finds out that the father he never knew has died and decides to go to his funeral in order to meet his two siblings in Quebec. But once in Montréal, he realizes that nobody is aware of his existence or even interested in it. He is alone, in hostile territory…Filled with secrets, this story about one man’s coming to term with the foreign family he never knew he had is complex with interconnected themes such as masculinity, family, paternity and filial devotion coiling in the layers underneath.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Canada
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 75%
Why (Not) Brazil? (2004)
Plot Summary:
A film director, whose career is going downhill, reluctantly decides to adapt an inadaptable best selling novel. Will she succeed or will the book adapt her in the process?.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 112
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
A Long Goodbye (1971)
Plot Summary:
A single woman has put all her efforts into raising her only son, Sasha. When Sasha grows up to become a teenager, she thinks that she can have some time for herself, so she responds to the courtship of Nikolai Sergeyevich. One summer, Sasha goes to visit his real father in Novosibirsk, on the other side of the country. When he returns, his mother notices that Sasha has changed. She secretly reads a letter sent to Sasha from his father and finds out that Sasha doesn’t want to live with her any longer. She doesn’t have enough wisdom to understand this desire on someone else’s part. Sasha is shown to have a more delicate and understanding nature than his mother, for when he realizes that she is suffering because of his wish to leave, even though he is tired of her nagging, he decides to stay.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 948
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Conviction (2018)
Plot Summary:
Ever since she served on the jury during his trial, Nora has been convinced that Jacques Viguier is innocent, despite him being accused of murdering his wife. Following an appeal by the public prosecutor’s office, and fearing a miscarriage of justice, she convinces a leading lawyer to defend him during his second trial, on appeal. Together, they will put up a tenacious fight against injustice.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: serious, tense, atmospheric, suspense, realistic
Similar in 89%
Land Legs (2015)
Plot Summary:
Dom, 36 years old, is a sailor on board of the fishing boat Petit Gael II from the port of Les Sables d'Olonne, a small town in western France. He is used to leave for the open sea for at least three weeks in a row. Despite of his absences, his teenaged children decided to live with him since the divorce of the parents. But when his daughter Mailys gets pregnant, Dom understands that he will have to choose between the sea and his family.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 132
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, thought provoking, touching, unusual plot structure, captivating, contemplative
Similar in 88%
The Forgettable Life of Liam White (2021)
Plot Summary:
Liam White's career has peaked—to put it kindly. Uninspired and burnt-out, the titular character loses his will to finish his next novel and even shirks his public appearance commitments. To top it all off, Liam is told by his oncologist that his cancer has returned. Resigned to the fact that his life will soon come to an end, he begins a journey of reflection as he comes to grips with his life thus far and the people who shaped him, for better and worse.
IMDB Rating: 9.0
IMDB Votes: 20
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Circle of Lies (2012)
Plot Summary:
Once the most popular girl at Short Beach High, Denise Dixon finds her life turned upside-down after one night of terror. Rumours and violent backstabbing run rife. Life in Short Beach will never be the same.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 249
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
On the Wandering Paths (2023)
Plot Summary:
Pierre, a famous explorer and writer, travels regularly through the world. Someday, climbing a hotel frontage while drunk, he falls from high and into a deep coma. When he awakes, he has difficulties walking but, against everyone's advices, he decides to walk through France, following forgotten pathways.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 806
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: non-linear
Similar in 84%
Concurs (1982)
Plot Summary:
An outdoors orientation contest turns into a journey to the participants' self and conscience.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 364
Genere: Drama
Country: Romania
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: allegory
Similar in 87%
I'm Going to Change My Name (2012)
Plot Summary:
Based on the Armenian ‘Sharakan’, a nine-part song that brings us gradually closer to meaning, Maria Saakyan’s new film further develops the poetic invention apparent in her first feature, The Lighthouse. Focusing on the world of a 14-year-old girl, Evridika, who is experiencing the first extremes of adolescent emotion, it makes effective and imaginative use of her private world centred on internet chat rooms and mobile phone recordings.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 94
Genere: Drama
Country: Armenia, Germany, Russia
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: romantic, captivating, entertaining
Similar in 79%
Marcelo Zona Sul (1970)
Plot Summary:
In Rio de Janeiro, more specifically in Copacabana, the sixteen year-old rebel and reckless teenager Marcelo is a terrible student that plays hooky from school and a liar. He dreams on leaving his home and move to São Paulo to work hard, make money and travel abroad to visit the world. When Marcelo schedules to spend the afternoon in Floresta da Tijuca with Zé Miguel, Renata and her friend Carmen, they steal the jeep of Miguel's cousin and Marcelo drives to a remote area. Meanwhile, their parents call the school and find that they had lied about the exams at school triggering consequences for their acts. Marcelo is spelled from school, Renata breaks with him and he decides to hitchhike to São Paulo with Miguel.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 110
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: crying
Similar in 75%
Raging Rose (2015)
Plot Summary:
Jozef travels from Poland to France to work and to find his son Roman, who he abandoned 15 years earlier. Jozef works for a Polish immigrant family that has successfully settled in France. Rose, the family’s teenaged daughter, volunteers to help him find his son. Roman happens to go to the same school as Rose, and she finds him attractive. After an unexpectedly wonderful experience with Roman, she falls desperately in love with him.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 143
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Poland
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 87%
Lola and the Sea (2019)
Plot Summary:
Just when Lola, 18 years old and transgender, learns that she can finally have surgery, her mother, who is her only financial support, passes away. Abiding by her mother’s last wishes, Lola and her father, who are permanently in conflict and have not seen each other for two years, undertake a journey all the way to the Belgian coast. They realize the outcome of the journey may not be the one they were both expecting.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 663
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: road movie, queer cinema
Similar in 89%
The Genesis Children (1972)
Plot Summary:
A charismatic leader and a high-spirited student group are on holiday in Italy. The surreal adventures of these friends are a free-flowing, four-part "multi-sensual symphony," bereft of traditional story line. One national critic described the boys' anarchic revelry as a "dream-like descent from civilization into the chaos reminiscent of Lord of the Flies.".
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 463
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: independent film, art film, gay cinema
Similar in 84%
An Independent Life (1992)
Plot Summary:
This is the second installment of a three-part series of autobiographical films about the director's life. The first, which won various awards for its maker, was entitled Zamri Oumi Voskresni and was later retitled Zari, Umri, Vokresni ("Freeze-Die-Come to Life"). At the end of that film, set at the conclusion of World War II, the young Valerka was striving hard to overcome the inertia of just getting by, along with his sometime friend Galiya. In this one, he is adjusting to Galiya's death and is back in school and is living with his mother, a prostitute. After a girl at the school is found to have been gang-raped, the headmaster chooses Valerka to be one of the scapegoats, though he had nothing to do with the deed. The punishment seems mild enough, he was simply expelled from school. However, after quarrelling with his mother about the incident, he takes to the road, and discovers a society so bleak, degraded and hopeless that it is a wonder he remained alive.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 200
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Russia, UK
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
The Good Son (2001)
Plot Summary:
Bonjour tristesse: Teenager Luc lives with his mother Liliane and his little brother Paul in Paris, has to cope with the fact that his mother is a prostitute and practically raise his brother alone. Luc is disillusioned. One day, little Paul wants to phone his grandmother in Nord-pas-de-Calais, one thing leads to another and suddenly the whole family finds themselves in a holiday in northern France. For Liliane it means a reunion with her mother, for Luc and Paul the reunion with their grandmother. And then someday on the beach Luc gets to know Manu(el) who teaches him lessons in love, life, fun, teenagerhood and friendship.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 59
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 85%
Princes In Exile (1990)
Plot Summary:
Diagnosed as having a brain tumor, seventeen-year-old Ryan is angrily resigned to the fact that he may not live to see another year. With time running out, he clings to two goals: publishing his journal and losing his virginity. But as Ryan finds fresh strength from his new friends' optimism and defiant refusal to surrender to cancer, his perspective changes.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 162
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 82%
Every Thing Will Be Fine (2015)
Plot Summary:
One day, driving aimlessly around the outskirts of town after a trivial domestic quarrel, a writer named Tomas accidentally hits and kills a child. Will he be able to move on?.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Canada, France, Sweden, Norway
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, psychological, emotional, teen, atmospheric, realistic, contemplative, stylized, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Welcome Home (2015)
Plot Summary:
This is the story of two childhood friends - Lucas (a 16-year-old high-schooler) and Bert (a mechanic’s apprentice) - who flee the suffocating fish bowl that their killjoy families’ lives have become. Lucas, still quite immature, finds a “big brother” in Bert, a guide who is going to take him straight to the brink of catastrophe. But very quickly, boredom resurfaces and the freewheeling sense of being on an adventure evades them. Should they return to the fold, or keep moving on? Their drifting logic compels them to blindly forge ahead.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 60
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: captivating, disturbing, homoerotic
Similar in 88%
West Coast (2016)
Plot Summary:
Four inseparable teenagers in a small town in Brittany (France). As lifelong fans of the West Coast, they think are real gangstas. Together as a "gang", they are invincible, respected, fearless and nothing can reach them, certainly not the teasing and contempt of their fellow classmates. So when Fle-O, the leader of this merry gang, learns that he has to leave his town and his friends at the end of the year, his whole world falls apart leaving him vulnerable when the most popular kid in school decides to make fun of them in front of everyone. Humiliated, our protagonists decide to take their revenge through one last expedition together that will lead them further than they would have imagined. Through incongruous situations and successive meetings, they will grow and learn.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 792
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 79%
The Portuguese Nun (2009)
Plot Summary:
A young French actress in Lisbon to shoot a movie is intrigued by a nun she sees kneeling in the chapel where she is filming.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 666
Genere: Drama
Country: Portugal, France
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: realistic, sincere, atmospheric, serious, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 87%
The Moon Child (2011)
Plot Summary:
David, a professor of dermatology, has been treating 13-year-old Romain since he was a baby. Afflicted with a rare skin condition, Romain must avoid sunlight and is condemned to live in the shade. David and Romain have become the closest of friends and nothing can separate them. But then David learns that he is about to be transferred to another clinic in another town. How will he be able to break the news to Romain? And how will Romain cope with this new crisis in his life?.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 256
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 76%
Rosetta (1999)
Plot Summary:
Young and impulsive Rosetta lives with her alcoholic mother and, moved by despair, she will do anything to maintain a job.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: serious, bleak, art house, realistic, contemplative, emotional, spiritual, suspense, social, sad