Best movies like The Wishing Tree
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
This poetic parable is part of Tenghiz Abuladze’s cinematic triptych: “The Supplication” – “The Wishing Tree” – “Repentance”. The place is Georgia at the beginning of the 20th century. That’s how director Tenghiz Abuladze described his film: “’The Wishing Tree’ is a film about the people lit up by a dream. Every character has its own ideal. One is worshipping the skies, another the earth, some idolize the body, others elevate the spirit. Some destroy the body, others the soul…” Marita, the film’s heroine, arrived here to live with her aunt. She meets a poor young lad, Gedia, and falls in love with him. But her relatives are determined to marry the girl off to a local rich man….
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like The Wishing Tree (1976):
Similar in 85%
Pastorale (1975)
Plot Summary:
In the mountain village comes a group of young musicians in Tbilisi. Here they are going to relax and rehearse. Sad story about the final rupture occurred, the peasants do not sing beautiful old songs, the musicians play music incomprehensible to them ... Far from the idyllic image of rural life.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 543
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 85%
Byelorussia Station (1971)
Plot Summary:
The heroes of the movie last seen each other on the Belarusian railway station in the summer of 1945. A quarter-century, they meet at the funeral of comrade.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, touching, disturbing, smart
Similar in 75%
The Confession (1990)
Plot Summary:
The Confession (1990) survives in Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) in its original camera negative. It remained unfinished due to the death of Sergei Parajanov. The Confession (1990) was his favorite screenplay, which was written in the 1960s and was his film-memory of the childhood, student years, marriage, imprisonment and more as the fantasist Parajanov perceived it. Parajanov gifted the screenplay to Mikhail Vartanov, made a drawing on the cover and wrote: "The Confession will only be made by a director born in 1924 in Tiflis, Georgia." He predicted that he would not finish it.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 79
Genere: Short, Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 9 min
Plot tags: experimental, independent film
Similar in 90%
The Entreaty (1967)
Plot Summary:
Based on the poems “Aluda Ketelauri” and “The Guest and the Host” by the classic of Georgian literature Vazha Pshavela This film opens Tengiz Abuladze’s trilogy (“The Plea”, “The Wishing Tree”, “Repentance”), which discusses the subject of common human values using original national material. The death of heroes, the knights of truth and good, leads the Poet to the conclusion that the evil is invincible. Exhausted by struggle and privations, the Poet lays down his arms. He is visited then by all of his favorite heroes. They put out candles by dipping them into a beer cup – a ritual Khevsuri gesture meaning renunciation. And only after seeing what misfortune and harm the rejection of fighting the evil results in, the Poet takes up arms again.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 869
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: spiritual, crying, avant garde
Similar in 83%
Falling Leaves (1966)
Plot Summary:
A young idealist takes a job at a local state run winery only to discover and become disillusioned by the corruption of the Soviet State.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 955
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: spiritual
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Love at First Sight (1975)
Plot Summary:
Murad, a Muslim guy brought up in the noisy yard of Tbilisi, falls in love with a Belorussian girl Anya, who lives in the same neighborhood, though Anya is impervious to Murad’s feelings.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 92
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
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Once Upon a Time There Was a Singing Blackbird (1970)
Plot Summary:
Gia is a carefree young percussionist who works at a theater in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia. He lives in a small apartment with his mother. Gia spends his days flitting from friend to friend, lover to lover, avoiding any responsibility, and never staying still for five minutes. However, he always manages to arrive at the theater just in time to play the drums at the end of the ballet.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: spiritual
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The Legend of Suram Fortress (1985)
Plot Summary:
A film version of a well-known Georgian folk-tale. A young boy has to be immured into the walls of a fortress in order to stop it from crumbling to pieces.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: art house, spiritual, surreal, contemplative, poetic, serious, stylized, gloomy, folk tale, weird
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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 79%
Private Life (1982)
Plot Summary:
Mikhail Ulyanov is the Bergmanesque protagonist of the Russian Private Life. A government-appointed factory executive, Ulyanov is reduced to quivering confusion when he is dismissed. Recovering from this blow, he decides to review and realign his life. In so doing, he discovers that there's plenty left in the world to make life worth living. Private Life was nominated for the "best foreign picture" Academy Award in 1983.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 253
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
The Red Snowball Tree (1974)
Plot Summary:
A former thief is released from a prison. He tries to start a new life with his penfriend - a good village woman, but his past doesn't let him go.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: ironic, sentimental, thought provoking, touching, disturbing, sad, cynical
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Monologue (1973)
Plot Summary:
Professor Sretenski is a scientist and director of a research center in Russia. He is separated from his wife and lives alone. His daughter, who lives with the mother, comes to his home and stays with him for a period, leaving her daughter with him. He raises his granddaughter, feeling a great affection for her.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 387
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Night Over Chile (1977)
Plot Summary:
A Soviet docudrama chronicling the events surrounding the military coup which toppled the leftists Chilean government of Salvador Allende. This film confines its efforts to the main events themselves and is based on interviews with eyewitnesses, including many who resisted the takeover.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 81
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
Don't Grieve (1968)
Plot Summary:
Benjamin, the local doctor is a soul of a local society, the educated, friendly, democratic person who often treats the poor for free. It makes him very popular with the locals but most certainly does not help with his bank account. He is in love with a beautiful Manette who is also crazy about him but is being watched closely by her father who called his daughter "his small capital" and is determined to protect her virginity until the moment the marriage contract has been signed.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Blue Mountains, or Unbelievable Story (1983)
Plot Summary:
An author - a passive young man - enters the Soviet-controlled bureaucracy of Georgia attempting to get his novel published only to be neglected and compartmentalized at every turn.
IMDB Rating: 8.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: absurd
Similar in 82%
Ashik Kerib (1988)
Plot Summary:
Wandering minstrel Ashik Kerib falls in love with a rich merchant's daughter, but is spurned by her father and forced to roam the world for a thousand and one nights - but not before he's got the daughter to promise not to marry till his return. It's told in typical Paradjanov style, in a series of visually ravishing 'tableaux vivants' overlaid with Turkish and Azerbaijani folksongs.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: spiritual, art house, surreal, fairy tale, atmospheric, serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, allegory
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The First Teacher (1965)
Plot Summary:
Dyuishen is assigned to the mountainous Kirghiz region of Central Asia by the Young Communist League after he is discharged from the Red Army. It is 1923 and the Civil war has ended. The former soldier becomes a teacher, bringing the Leninist doctrine to the remote Moslem area where elders did not allow children to go to school. He falls in love with one of his students, but the young woman is sold by her father to a wealthy chieftain. When the school is burned down, the majestic poplar trees that are a source of local pride are cut down to rebuild the new structure.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 601
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: political
Similar in 82%
Repentance (1984)
Plot Summary:
The day after the funeral of Varlam Aravidze, the mayor of a small Georgian town, his corpse turns up in his son's garden. Although it is secretly reburied, the corpse keeps returning until the police capture the local woman who is responsible. This woman says that Varlam should never be laid to rest since his Stalin-like reign of terror led to the disappearance of her family and friends.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 153 min
Plot tags: christian film, parody, captivating, manga, independent film, art film, dark comedy, thought provoking, bleak, serious
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King Lear (1970)
Plot Summary:
King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: spiritual, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 88%
Flights in Dreams and in Reality (1983)
Plot Summary:
On the eve of his fortieth anniversary Sergei Makarov looks back at his life and learns that he has achieved nothing. He was not able to be happy and to bring happiness to the closest people in his life, neither to his long-suffering wife nor young mistress nor friends nor work... It is about the men who never grew up and could not find themselves in the time of stagnation – gifted, charming, but infantile and lost, they never were able to realize themselves.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
You and Me (1971)
Plot Summary:
A neurosurgeon returns back to the USSR from Sweden and has to deal with rejection - both at work and at home.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 431
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
War and Peace: Part II (1965)
Plot Summary:
In the end of 1809, Natasha attends her first ball. Andrei falls in love with her and intends to marry her, but her father demands they wait. The prince travels abroad, and Natasha desperately longs for him. But she then meets Anatol Kuragin and forgets of Andrei. At the last minute, she regrets and abandons her plans to elope with Anatol. Bolkonsky hears of this and declares their betrothal is over. Pierre, trying to calm her down, suddenly announces he loves her.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: historical drama, period drama
Similar in 86%
My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1985)
Plot Summary:
Russian provincial town in the middle of the 1930s Stalin's Great Purge. Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police, does what he has to do. And he does it well.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: slow cinema, spiritual, aesthetic
Similar in 87%
The Lonely Voice of Man (1987)
Plot Summary:
The film is Sokurov's feature film debut and is based on the novel The River Potudan by Andrei Platonov. It's a story about the lives of people in the Russian countryside in the beginning of the 20th century. The film was completed in 1979 as a graduation film, but was banned by the Soviet state and didn't premiere until 1987.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 716
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: poetic, spiritual, contemplative, avant garde
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The Second Circle (1990)
Plot Summary:
A man tries to come to terms with his father's death and to deal with the mundane details of his burial in a society cut off from spirituality.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 767
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: spiritual, avant garde
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The Asthenic Syndrome (1989)
Plot Summary:
In the old days it was called hypochrondria, or black melancholia. Now, apparently, it's termed the Asthenic Syndrome. Whatever it is, Nikolai, a teacher of epicly indifferent pupils, has got it, and it's not much fun.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 153 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 78%
War and Peace: Part IV (1967)
Plot Summary:
As Moscow is set ablaze by the retreating Russians, the Rostovs flee their estate, taking wounded soldiers with them, and unbeknownst to them, also Andrei. Pierre, dressed as a peasant, tries to assassinate Napoleon but is taken prisoner. As the French are forced to retreat, he is marched for months with the Grande Armée, until being freed by a raiding party. The French are defeated by Kutuzov in the Battle of Krasnoi. Andrei is recognized and is brought to his estate. He forgives Natasha on his deathbed. She reunites with Pierre and they marry as Moscow is being rebuilt.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: period drama
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The Criminal Shall Not Escape (1965)
Plot Summary:
Mukhtar comes to live and work at the police kennels through rather unusual circumstances. Together with his handler, Glazychev, Mukhtar helps to solve large and small crimes.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 622
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977)
Plot Summary:
At the dilapidated country estate of Anna Petrovna Voinitseva, a group of feckless Russian aristocrats whiles away a summer afternoon. Unbeknownst to their respective spouses, local schoolteacher Platonov and the wife of Anna's stepson, Sophia, are former lovers whose meeting revives both passion and regret. Thrilled to see each other, they are nevertheless haunted by the loss of their youthful ideals.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, spiritual, psychological, thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative, talky
Similar in 75%
Collapse (1990)
Plot Summary:
1986, Chernobyl disaster. Couples, friends, and a risk-taking journalist are woven into the larger framework of the disaster. Panic follows.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 253
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Soviet Union
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: