Best movies like The Way We Laughed
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Studying to become a teacher in Turin, Italy, Pietro is joined by his older brother, Giovanni, who has moved up from Sicily. While Giovanni is a worker with no schooling, Pietro shows considerable promise in academics, prompting the elder sibling to seek employment to support his brother's academic pursuits. Unfortunately, things don't go well for Giovanni and Pietro, and they face significant hardships as they try to improve their lives.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 825
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, juvenile
Best tv shows and movies like The Way We Laughed (1998):
Similar in 87%
Family Portrait (1962)
Plot Summary:
Marcello Mastroianni gives a sensitive, finely judged performance as Enrico, a struggling journalist in the Rome of 1945. He receives a phone call informing him that his younger brother Lorenzo (Jacques Perrin) has died. Enrico recalls their long and difficult relationship; he was brought up by their poor but warm-hearted grandmother (Sylvie), Lorenzo was raised as a gentleman by a wealthy local aristocrat. Reunited in the Florence of the 1930s, Enrico becomes his spoilt brother's keeper, forever haunted by a sense of guilty responsibility towards a man he both hates and loves. Beautifully photographed by Giuseppe Rotunno, this austere, deeply-felt masterwork has been acclaimed as one of Zurlini's greatest achievements.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, serious, realistic, non-linear
Similar in 89%
Lamerica (1994)
Plot Summary:
Fiore, an Italian conman, arrives in post Communist Albania with Gino, his young apprentice, to set up a shoe factory that will never open. The con requires a native Albanian, so they designate Spiro, an impoverished and confused former political prisoner as chairman of the board. When Fiore returns to Italy to get government funds for the project, Spiro unexpectedly disappears and Gino sets out on a journey to find him. The search leads him to discover Spiro's tragic personal history and witness Albanian poverty firsthand.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: sincere, political, sad, sentimental, serious, realistic, gloomy, road movie, thought provoking, enigmatic
Similar in 84%
Goodbye Gary Cooper (2009)
Plot Summary:
Au milieu de nulle part, une cité ouvrière vidée de sa population depuis quelques années déjà. Pourtant, certains habitants ont décidé d'y rester, plus par choix que par nécessité, parce que c'est là qu'ils sont nés et qu'ils ont grandi. Parmi eux il y a Francis, l'ouvrier consciencieux qui continue d'entretenir la machine sur laquelle il a travaillé toute sa vie ; Samir, son fils.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 271
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, realistic, emotional
Similar in 76%
Illegal (2010)
Plot Summary:
Tania, a young Russian woman who lives illegally in Belgium with her 13-year-old son Ivan. Constantly on her guard, she dreads police checks until the day she is arrested.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 936
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, Luxembourg, France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, captivating, emotional, political, serious, realistic
Similar in 76%
A Simple Curve (2005)
Plot Summary:
Caleb is 27, and was raised in the majestic Kootenays by his bush hippie parents. He loves his father Jim and understands his reverence for wood working, coriander and Soya products, but he just doesn't get Jim's determined effort to achieve economic disaster at every turn. His father is a relentlessly unsuccessful business man, and as the junior partner in their carpentry shop, Caleb is powerless to stop the fiscal self sabotage. When Matthew, an old friend of Jim's, arrives in the valley to develop a high-end fishing lodge, Caleb sees fortune looming, provided he can keep his father distracted long enough. But a small deception leads to colossal betrayal, and soon Caleb must face the fact that he's reached that treasured day when a boy becomes man enough to tell his father get lost.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 496
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, independent film
Similar in 78%
The Stolen Children (1992)
Plot Summary:
Antonio, a policeman (carabiniere), has an order to take two children (Rosetta and her brother Luciano) from Milan to Sicily to an orphanage. Their mother has been arrested for forcing Rosetta (11 years old) to work as a prostitute. First the relation between Antonio and the children is tough, but it relaxes so they become temporary friends.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy, France, Switzerland
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, touching, captivating, road movie, philosophical, spiritual, sad, serious, emotional
Similar in 81%
Magnificent 7 (2005)
Plot Summary:
Inspired by the life of Jacqui Jackson. Helena Bonham Carter stars as Maggi, a mother with seven children - three 'normal' daughters and four sons who are each, in one form or another, autistic.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 331
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: sentimental, uplifting, touching, realistic, semi serious, humorous
Similar in 78%
The Nanny (1999)
Plot Summary:
Rome, early 20th century: a wealthy psychiatrist, who runs an asylum for women and lacks imagination in his practice, must find a wet nurse for his infant when his wife panics after childbirth. He brings a peasant, Annette, to Rome, forcing her to leave her own baby behind. To the consternation and increasing anger of the wife, the nanny immediately bonds with the couple's infant son - Annette's a natural. Against a backdrop of leftist demonstrations, Annette, who's lover is a teacher jailed for subversion, asks the doctor to teach her to read and write. Her nature and curiosity, the doctor's bland ideas, he and his wife's problems, and the two infants bring the story to a head.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 572
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 86%
Yasmin (2004)
Plot Summary:
In England, the Pakistanis Yasmin lives two lives in two different worlds: in her community, she wears Muslin clothes, cooks for her father and brother and has the traditional behavior of a Muslin woman. Further, she has a non-consumed marriage with the illegal immigrant Faysal to facilitate the British stamp in his passport, and then divorce him. In her job, she changes her clothes and wears like a Westerner, is considered a standard employee and has a good Caucasian friend who likes her. After the September, 11th, the prejudice in her job and the treatment of common people makes her take side and change her life.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 786
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, UK
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, touching
Similar in 77%
Orphan (2009)
Plot Summary:
A Chilean family deals with the new values in a quickly changing world.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 207
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, France, Germany
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, sincere
Similar in 81%
On the Edge (2009)
Plot Summary:
Alfredo and Susanna are two well-off fifty-year-olds who lead a stimulating cultural life. He is an architect and she is a psychologist; they live in Rome but spend their weekends at their country home in Umbria, where they love to spend their days walking in the forests or relaxing poolside with a good book. One day, as she goes into town, Susanna sees a girl prostituting herself in the bushes on the side of the road and decides to save her from her unhappy existence, despite the enormous differences that separate their ways of life.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 580
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, emotional, realistic, erotic
Similar in 87%
Raise Your Head (2009)
Plot Summary:
Mero, a skilled shipyard worker, is a single father. His son Lorenzo, born from a relationship with an Albanian girl, is his only reason for living. The father dreams that the boy will become a champion boxer, to make up for his own anonymous career as an amateur in the ring. This is why he puts him through a tough training program, teaching him day after day to throw punches and protect himself from life's low blows. The balance of this relationship is disturbed by the return of Lorenzo's mother Denisa and by the son's meeting with young Ana. Mero's trials are not over and he must face up to pain, his prejudices and the remoteness of Italy's north east.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 202
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 87%
Blame It on Mum (2009)
Plot Summary:
Mady Celliers, an attractive housewife of 60, he spends his life speaking ill of her two daughters and her husband, a man who shows a strange behavior since has retired. Antoine, the eldest son, company director, is unable to make a success of a business: out of a bankruptcy to get into another, her sister Alice madonnas obsessively paints sad. Annabelle, a nurse in an intensive care unit, tries desperately to save his family pronosticándole the future. When Alice meets by chance Jacques, a lonely police pessimistic explode all family neurosis.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 417
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, touching
Similar in 82%
Zion and His Brother (2009)
Plot Summary:
Zion, aged 14 and his brother Meir, 17, are facing a crisis in their relationship after a terrible accident. They keep the secret to themselves and it haunts them until, finally, Zion re-examines his loyalty towards his older brother and decides that he is ready to take responsibility for his own life.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 147
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel, France
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 85%
Children of Invention (2009)
Plot Summary:
Two young children living illegally in a model apartment outside Boston are left to fend for themselves when their hardworking mother disappears.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 657
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, touching, realistic, sad, independent film, moody
Similar in 85%
Profoundly Normal (2003)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story. Donna Lee Shelby (Kirstie Alley), a mentally retarded girl who lives in Forest Haven, an institution for the developmentally disabled, meets Ricardo Thornton (Delroy Lindo), a fellow resident. When Forest Haven is closed by a court order, Donna and Ricardo venture into the real world on their own. Their friendship and dependency on each other blossoms into love. They marry and have a child together, who does not suffer from mental retardation.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 360
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, sentimental, sincere, uplifting, touching, realistic
Similar in 82%
A Simple Heart (2008)
Plot Summary:
Unable to forget her first love, Félicité, a simple and kind maid, devotes herself completely to her new master, Mathilde Aubain. As the passing of time doesn't heal her wounds, she gives love to all those who surround her: Mathilde's children, her nephew Victor. But fate seems to always deny her from any love in return. Still she tries to find someone who'll accept her unconditional love.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 342
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sentimental, serious, touching, emotional, realistic
Similar in 83%
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Heart Within (2001)
Plot Summary:
Michaela and Sully travel by train to Boston with their children Brian and Katie to be at Colleen's graduation. Upon arriving they find that Michaela's mother just about to be released from the hospital but instructed that she needs complete bedrest. Colleen must face the fact that a woman doctor will not be welcomed at any Boston medical office. Brian gets a job while everyone is busy with Colleen's graduation and his Grandmother's failing health.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 674
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, touching, serious, juvenile, feel good, realistic
Similar in 80%
A Touch of Fate (2003)
Plot Summary:
One night in a small town in North Carolina, fate brings together three lives: an entertainment lawyer returning home to his dying mother after years in escape of his past, a woman trying to reclaim her supposed love, and a boy with a penchant for the sixth sense who struggles with the death of his father and overbearing love of his single mother. When the past and future suddenly bind these people together on a journey of need, forgiveness and discovery, they realize they've gained something when they least expected it.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 216
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, independent film
Similar in 87%
The Dust of Time (2008)
Plot Summary:
A, an American film director of Greek ancestry, is making a film that tells his story and the story of his parents. It is a tale that unfolds in Italy, Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan, Canada and the USA. The main character is Eleni, who is claimed and claims the absoluteness of love. At the same time the film is a long journey into the vast history and the events of the last fifty years that left their mark on the 20th century. The characters in the film move as though in a dream. The dust of time confuses memories. A searches for them and experiences them in the present.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece, Italy, Germany, Russia, France
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, atmospheric, touching, serious, postmodern, slow cinema, aesthetic, epic, realistic
Similar in 82%
Common Ground (2002)
Plot Summary:
In Buenos Aires, a few days before traveling to Spain with his beloved wife Liliana Rovira to visit their son Pedro, the leftist Literature professor Fernando Robles is compulsory retired in the University, and he concludes that it is impossible to live with his pension. The crisis in Argentina does not allow Fernando to get a new job, and his wife decides to sell her family's apartment and move to a small farm near Villa Dolores to reduce their expenses. Fernando comes up with the idea to grow lavender and sell the oil to the perfume industry.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain, Argentina
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, clever, touching, realistic, contemplative, semi serious
Similar in 77%
Our Life (2010)
Plot Summary:
Claudio works on a site in the suburbs of Rome. He is madly in love with his wife who is pregnant with their third child. However, a dramatic event comes to upset this simple and happy life. In a rage for life, Claudio energetically fights against the injustice that fell upon him. Love and support from his friends and family as well as the laughter of his children will help him to triumph against the odds.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: emotional, sincere, serious, realistic, captivating, touching, gloomy
Similar in 79%
Blame it on Fidel (2006)
Plot Summary:
A 9-year-old girl weathers big changes in her household as her parents become radical political activists in 1970-71 Paris.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, political, epic, historical drama, sincere, crying
Similar in 80%
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (2002)
Plot Summary:
In the later years of the nineteenth century Latin master Mr. Chipping is the mainstay of Brookfields boys boarding school, a good teacher and a kindly person but he is considered to be married to the job so that it is a surprise when, on a walking holiday, he meets and marries the vivacious Kathie,who becomes his helpmate at the school but sadly pre-deceases him. Just before World War One insensitive new headmaster Ralston tries to edge Chipping out but the boys rally and Sir John Rivers, an old pupil of Chipping's and now head of the board of governors, invites him to stay and,when the war breaks out and Ralston joins up, Chipping becomes the new head.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 898
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 84%
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 76%
The Autumn Heart (1999)
Plot Summary:
When a school bus driving woman (Tyne Daly) has a heart attack, she makes one request of her three daughters (Ally Sheedy, Marla Sucharetza, Marceline Hugo) - she wants them to find their long lost brother, who was taken away by their father (Jack Davidson) 16 years ago. What they discover is that while they have struggled, their father has become a wealthy man and their brother is in school at Harvard.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 230
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: independent film, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, talky, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Of Boys and Men (2008)
Plot Summary:
Robert Townsend stars as the patriarch of a family devastated when his wife is killed in a senseless auto accident. Reeling with grief, each family member must find courage and vision to carry on, ultimately eager to do the mother proud.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, sentimental, captivating, touching, serious, independent film
Similar in 76%
Red Doors (2005)
Plot Summary:
The Wongs struggle to cope with life, love, and family dysfunction in the suburbs of New York.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, independent film
Similar in 83%
...And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him (1994)
Plot Summary:
Twelve-year-old Mexican-American Marcos (Jose Alcala) recalls the hardships of the previous year, reflecting on the arduous trek his migrant-worker family made from Texas to the Midwest during harvest season. Along the way, Marcos learns plenty about the harsh realities of bigotry and the power of family in America of the 1950s. The coming-of-age Chicano drama is based on Tomas Rivera's semiautobiographical 1971 novella.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 165
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: independent film, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 75%
Face (2002)
Plot Summary:
Genie, a Chinese-American teenager, develops feelings for a charming African-American DJ, but her grandmother forbids their romance forcing Genie to choose between family and love.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 350
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, emotional, sentimental, serious, realistic, contemplative