Best movies like Troubled Water
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A man convicted in his teens for killing a child is released on parole. He finds work as a church organist and develops a rewarding relationship with a priest and her young son. However, his caring for the boy catches the attention of his old victim's mother, bringing to the surface her bad memories and unanswered questions. This draws them both into troubled waters, having to learn when to hold on and when to let go.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Norway, Sweden, Germany
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: sincere, disturbing, contemplative, serious, realistic, sad, controversial, independent film, mind twisting, social
Best tv shows and movies like Troubled Water (2008):
Similar in 83%
BlackJack (1990)
Plot Summary:
Kaj, Lennart and Robert are 30-somethings who goes out to dance every weekend. At one dance they meet Inger, whom Kaj falls in love with. Kaj has some friends who are playing in a band. The drummer Tommy is known for being the local Casanova, seducing women when ever he gets the chance. It doesn't take him long to have an affair with Inger, behind Kaj's back. Plot by Mattias Thuresson.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Sweden
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 90%
Magic Mirror (2005)
Plot Summary:
Luciano, fresh out of jail, was taken by his brother, Flórido, to serve in the home of wealthy Alfreda. He was surprised when she told him that her greatest desire was to see the Virgin Mary. Now comes this rich land owner with her sublime pretensions. Isn't it enough for her to have an Aston Martin and a Jaguar in the garage and ten different dresses per season? It was all professor Heschel's fault. Or someone else's. Anyway, to go beyond the promise is heresy. Alfreda said that she wouldn't rest until she saw the Virgin and made her some questions. Filipe Quinta, the Forger, says he has a solution. Meanwhile, Bahia, her husband, listens do music.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 362
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Portugal
Duration: 137 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, disturbing, offbeat
Similar in 77%
A Love Bewitched (1986)
Plot Summary:
In a Gypsy village, the fathers of Candela and José promise their children to each other. Years later, the unfaithful José marries Candela but while defending his lover Lucía in a brawl, he is stabbed to death. Carmelo, who secretly loves Candela since he was a boy, is arrested while helping José and unfairly sent to prison. Four years later he is released and declares his love for Candela. However, the woman is cursed by a bewitched love and every night she goes to the place where José died to dance with his ghost.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 960
Genere: Music, Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: art house, serious, captivating, realistic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 84%
Circles (2013)
Plot Summary:
Circles (Serbian: Krugovi) is a Serbian movie based on the true story of a Serbian soldier who risked his life to protect a Muslim civilian during the war in Bosnia. During the war in Bosnia in 1993, a Serbian soldier pays for his life after protecting a Muslim civilian from being attacked by three other soldiers. 12 years later, the consequences of this act of heroism are still having their repercussions.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Serbia, Germany, France, Slovenia, Croatia
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: serious, sincere, thought provoking, captivating, twisted, tense, atmospheric, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Ripple Effect (2007)
Plot Summary:
Believing that bad karma is keeping him from realizing his dream, hip clothing designer Amer Atrash (Philippe Caland) attempts to orchestrate salvation -- with unexpected results -- in this indie drama. Pushed to the edge of financial disaster and facing marital woes, Atrash resolves to right a wrong he committed years earlier when his car accidentally struck Philip Blackman (Forest Whitaker), leaving him paralyzed.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 763
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, serious, emotional, spiritual, realistic, crying
Similar in 78%
I Used to Be Darker (2013)
Plot Summary:
When Taryn, a Northern Irish runaway, finds herself in trouble in Ocean City, MD, she seeks refuge with her aunt and uncle in Baltimore. But Kim and Bill have problems of their own: they’re trying to handle the end of their marriage gracefully for the sake of their daughter Abby, just home from her first year of college. A story of family revelations, people finding each other and letting each other go, looking for love where they’ve found it before and, when that doesn’t work, figuring out where they might find it next.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: realistic, sincere, touching, serious, contemplative, mumblecore, independent film
Similar in 79%
Restless City (2011)
Plot Summary:
Tells the story of an African immigrant surviving on the fringes of New York City where music is his passion, life is a hustle and falling in love is his greatest risk.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 274
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, contemplative, captivating, psychological, intelligent, independent film, sincere, serious
Similar in 90%
Sinner (2007)
Plot Summary:
A Catholic priest, Father Anthony Romano (Nick Chinlund), intervenes with the police when his colleague attacks a drifter named Lil (Georgina Cates). When Anthony reluctantly provides her asylum in his rectory, the brash hustler soon discovers a secret he has hidden from his diocese and parish. Through this unlikely muse, Anthony finds a path to regain his honor and calling in a post-scandal world where priests are guilty until proven innocent.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 122
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, tense, contemplative, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 77%
Stanley's Gig (2000)
Plot Summary:
An emotionally dysfunctional ukulele minstrel lands a gig at a nursing home where he strikes up an unlikely relationship with an ancient jazz chanteuse and awakens from a lifetime of loneliness and inconsequence.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 213
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, touching, independent film
Similar in 85%
One Day of Betty (2014)
Plot Summary:
Betty and her friend V have a major project: the open-air music festival, Sziget Festival held every summer on one of the Danube islands in Hungary. Instead of money the teenagers have a stash of grass waiting for a buyer. Food? Nothing wrong with the leftovers from other people’s plates. Tent? Why bother when you can sleep under the stars. Sleep? No way: the party goes on all night. V is a pretty girl who knows how to use her charms to the best advantage. Betty, more reserved and shy, never quite knows what to do with her hands, how to hold a cigarette, what to say to the boys they meet. But the tables are turned when the pair go their separate ways after an argument.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 107
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Hungary
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, realistic, captivating
Similar in 75%
The Sandy Bottom Orchestra (2000)
Plot Summary:
The young-adult novel by Garrison Keillor and Jenny Lind Nilsson gets a lively update in this Showtime feature about an unusual family in Sandy Bottom, Wisconsin. The Greens share musical aspirations, but daughter Rachel (Madeline Zima), a talented violinist, is the one most likely to achieve them. Norman (Tom Irwin) is a dairy farmer and Ingrid (Glenne Headly) is a choir director who abandoned the piano when she married and settled down, but the Greens are a happy family, for the most part. The trick is finding a way to reconcile their dreams with a reality that may hold more riches than they realize. When Norman gets a chance to conduct the local orchestra for the Dairy Days celebration, it's an opportunity for the family to come together, not just with each other, but with a community they had never fully appreciate.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 267
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, feel good, serious, realistic
Similar in 85%
The Mountain (2011)
Plot Summary:
This is the story of Nora and Solveig, a grief-stricken couple on a hike through the mountain range where they had a traumatic experience two years prior. Nora and Solveig are hiking through a snow-covered, rough, but beautiful scenery on a tour of several days that will take the two young women to the top of a mountain. Solveig, three months pregnant, seems incapable of doing anything the way Nora wants her to. The further the women advance on their trip, the closer they come to the place where a tragic incident happened two years earlier; one that changed their lives completely.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 268
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: emotional, sincere, atmospheric, serious, realistic, gloomy, queer cinema
Similar in 86%
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 78%
America Brown (2004)
Plot Summary:
A coming-of-age drama that centers on a young quarterback from West Texas, a priest in New York, and the two women in their lives.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 314
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, serious, realistic, sincere, contemplative, independent film
Similar in 77%
Hawaii, Oslo (2004)
Plot Summary:
Hawaii, Oslo is the story of a handful of people who cross each other's path without necessarily knowing each other, during the hottest day of the year, in Oslo. We follow Frode and Milla. They are having their first child, who they are told will not live long. We follow Bobbie-Pop, a faded singer who tries to commit suicide. We follow Leon, an institutionalized kleptomaniac who is loking for Åsa, to whom he has a ten year old deal to get married. We meet Leon's brother, Trygve, who fetches Leon at the institution to celebrate his birthday, but who himself has plans to use his leave from prison to run away. And most of all we meet the angel Vidar, Leon's best buddy at the institution, who sees things no one else can see, and who may be able to save everyone - except himself?.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway, Denmark, Sweden
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, disturbing, anthology, art house, cult classic, bleak, cult film
Similar in 87%
Emile (2003)
Plot Summary:
In a story weaving the past and present together, Emile seeks redemption from the family he abandoned.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 797
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, UK
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 78%
Paju (2009)
Plot Summary:
A young woman living in the South Korean town of Paju recalls the last 8 years of her life, since a young man on the lam escaped to it from Seoul and married her older sister.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 550
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, touching, serious, realistic, sexy, controversial, contemplative
Similar in 80%
The Reunion (2013)
Plot Summary:
A film between fiction and reality, highlighting questions about group dynamics and established hierarchies. A group of people meet for their high school reunion 20 years later. One of them talks about her being bullied and outcast and soon the former classmates fall back to the roles they used to have back in school. But this is just half of the film.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, serious, realistic, thought provoking, disturbing, independent film
Similar in 77%
Little Soldier (2008)
Plot Summary:
A soldier returning from war is hired by her own father to drive his prostitutes around town. She calls upon herself to help one of them.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 672
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, touching, serious, tense, realistic
Similar in 86%
Lisbon Story (1994)
Plot Summary:
Lisbon Story is Wim Wender’s homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterous postcard of a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Germany, Portugal
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, serious, sentimental, sincere, inspirational, road movie, visual, psychological, contemplative
Similar in 82%
Sofie (1992)
Plot Summary:
From 1886 to 1907 in the life of Sofie, a Jew in Copenhagen who is nearly 29, with no marital prospects, living with her loving parents.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 240
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark, Norway, Sweden
Duration: 151 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, talky, masterpiece
Similar in 80%
Broken Bridges (2006)
Plot Summary:
A fading country music star (Keith) returns to his hometown, where he reunites with his childhood sweetheart and also meets his 16-year-old daughter for the first time.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sentimental, realistic, serious, touching, independent film
Similar in 82%
Tender Mercies (1983)
Plot Summary:
Alchoholic former country singer Mac Sledge makes friends with a young widow and her son. The friendship enables him to find inspiration to resume his career.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, emotional, realistic, atmospheric, sincere, serious, christian film, depressing, philosophical
Similar in 89%
Autumn Sonata (1978)
Plot Summary:
After a seven-year absence, Charlotte Andergast travels to Sweden to reunite with her daughter Eva. The pair have a troubled relationship: Charlotte sacrificed the responsibilities of motherhood for a career as a classical pianist. Over an emotional night, the pair reopen the wounds of the past. Charlotte gets another shock when she finds out that her mentally impaired daughter, Helena, is out of the asylum and living with Eva.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 37000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: West Germany, UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: art house, depressing, emotional, philosophical, sincere, touching, mind bending, psychedelic, spiritual, ironic
Similar in 88%
Don't Come Knocking (2005)
Plot Summary:
Howard Spence has seen better days. Once a big Western movie star, he now drowns his disgust for his selfish and failed life with alcohol, drugs and young women. If he were to die now, nobody would shed a tear over him, that's the sad truth. Until one day Howard learns that he might have a child somewhere out there.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK, France, Germany, USA
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, road movie, talky, sentimental, sad, cult classic, stylized, compassionate, psychological
Similar in 80%
Personal Belongings (2006)
Plot Summary:
Young Doctor Ana lives alone because she couldn't bear to leave Cuba when her family sailed away on a raft to the US. Ernesto lives in his car with his belongings in a small case, traveling from embassy to embassy trying to fulfill his dream of leaving Cuba. These Star-crossed lovers long to be together, they are pulled apart by different dreams rooted in different countries. In his directorial debut, Alejandro Brugués offers his personal view on the insistently revisited theme in Cuban art and literature - emigration and the laceration that it implies.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 105
Genere: Drama
Country: Cuba
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 77%
When the Night (2011)
Plot Summary:
After meeting during their vacation, two young people with solitary lives suddenly come into a relationship that could benefit both of them.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 334
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 77%
I Travel Alone (2011)
Plot Summary:
Jarle Klepp is a 25-year-old student of literature with a passion for Adorno, Proust and grown-up women - and definitely not Tamagochi's, Lady Di and small kids. The news that he is the father of a seven year old girl - and that she will come visiting next week - enters his life like a nuclear bomb. Jarle Klepp has to become an adult.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, emotional, contemplative, captivating, psychological, sincere, touching, serious
Similar in 88%
Four Minutes (2006)
Plot Summary:
Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Germany
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, captivating, emotional, sincere, sad, independent film, serious, realistic, gay cinema
Similar in 79%
Vitus (2006)
Plot Summary:
Vitus tells the story of a highly-gifted boy (played by real-life piano prodigy Teo Gheorghiu) whose parents have demanding and ambitious plans for him.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Switzerland
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, feel good, realistic, semi serious, inspirational, spiritual, educational, cute, contemplative