Best movies like Wanderers of the Desert
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
The first of Nacer Khemir's highly-regarded Desert Trilogy that includes The Dove's Lost Necklace and Bab'Aziz - The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul. Khemir creates an exotic world with Wanderers of the Desert when a young teacher arrives to take over a village school isolated in the shimmering desert. Legendary figures materialize out of wells and the desert itself, groups of children hurry through a labyrinth of underground corridors, the teacher is whisked away to a mysterious rendezvous and never returns.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 660
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: Tunisia, France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like Wanderers of the Desert (1984):
Similar in 84%
The Emigrant (1994)
Plot Summary:
The biblical tale of Joseph is told from an Egyptian perspective in this interesting character study. In this film, Joseph is called Ram. Ram, tired of his family's backward superstitious life, and tired of being picked on by his brothers, wants to go to Egypt to study agriculture. His brothers travel with him across Sinai, but then suddenly sell him to Ozir, an Egyptian who works for a Theban military leader, Amihar. Amihar is impressed by Ram's drive and personal charm and so grants Ram some desolate land outside the capital. Ram soon finds himself a pawn in the political and sexual games between Amihar and his wife Simihit, a high priestess of the Cult of Amun.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt, France
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: biblical
Similar in 90%
A Son (2019)
Plot Summary:
Tunisia, summer 2011. The holiday to the South of the country ends in disaster for Fares, Meriem and their 10-year-old son Aziz, when he is accidentally shot in an ambush. His injury will change their lives: Aziz needs a liver transplant, which leads to discovery of a long-buried secret. Will Aziz and the relationship survive?.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Tunisia, France, Lebanon, Qatar
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: social
Similar in 88%
Time of Miracles (1989)
Plot Summary:
September 1945. The new communist authorities go into the church, hang the flag of the Party and paint over the old frescoes, but each time the frescoes miraculously return. A stranger comes to town and works miracles; the townsfolk are convinced he is the Messiah. Director Paskaljevic cut his TV miniseries, based on the novel by Borislav Pekic, to feature film length.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 565
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Yugoslavia, UK
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: spiritual
Similar in 76%
Head - Hands - Heart (2010)
Plot Summary:
What unfolds against the backdrop of the story of Klára Knabelová (Viktorie Cermáková) and her relationships with three Austro-Hungarian Army officers is a parable of the collapse of the old world of traditional values and the start of the proliferation of new (dis)orders. World War I becomes a trigger for this process of disintegration and an incubator for mysterious, irrational forces. The only person who can emerge from this melting-pot with a clean slate is a strong and charismatic woman who becomes a symbol of composure, as well as the promise of "new tomorrows.".
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 55
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: captivating, entertaining, ambiguous ending, psychotronic
Similar in 84%
Naufragio (1978)
Plot Summary:
One woman lives waiting for his son who is a sailor. She hasn't seen him for years although he writes to her a lot. The woman shares the letters and her grief with a co-worker and friend. This last woman begins to idealize her friend's son. One day, the mother gets sick and falls into a coma. Her son arrives but she is unconscious. He has a brief but passionate affair with her mother's friend and then disappears, as quickly as he came back from the sea.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 232
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: Mexico
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Atlantics (2019)
Plot Summary:
Along the Atlantic coast, a soon-to-be-inaugurated futuristic tower looms over a suburb of Dakar. Ada, 17, is in love with Souleiman, a young construction worker. But she has been promised to another man. One night, Souleiman and his co-workers leave the country by sea, in hope of a better future. Several days later, a fire ruins Ada’s wedding and a mysterious fever starts to spread. Little does Ada know that Souleiman has returned.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance
Country: France, Senegal, Belgium
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, captivating, disturbing, surreal, stylized, poignant, art film, cult classic, romantic drama
Similar in 81%
4L (2019)
Plot Summary:
To find Joseba, a dying friend, and see him reunite with his daughter Ely, two old friends, Jean Pierre and Tocho, embark with her on a road trip through the Sahara desert, from Spain to Mali.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
The Eve of Ivan Kupalo (1968)
Plot Summary:
Based on Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Eve of Ivan Kupala” (“St John’s Eve”).
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 71 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, spiritual, surreal, mystical, beautiful, iconic
Similar in 79%
Children of the Mountain (2016)
Plot Summary:
Against the picturesque Ghanaian backdrop, Children of the Mountain is an honest exploration of a mother’s will in the face of much adversity. When her baby is born with a cleft lip, cerebral palsy, and Down syndrome, Essuman is led to believe that she has a ‘dirty womb.’ Her promising future as a wife and mother is shattered as her lover disowns her and the community eyes her with suspicion.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 75
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Ghana
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Grandmother (1989)
Plot Summary:
A small African village. The story focuses on Bila, a ten year old boy who befriends an old woman, Sana. Everybody calls her 'Witch' but Bila himself calls her 'Yaaba' (grandmother). When Bila's cousin Nopoko gets sick it is Sana's medicine that saves her.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 739
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Burkina Faso, Switzerland, France, West Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: independent film, black cinema
Similar in 89%
Go Away, Ultramarine (2019)
Plot Summary:
An island in Japan is the site for the dumped and the refuse. Nanakusa and Yu who were childhood and school friends meet on this island that is called Kaiden, a scary name that only refers to things not normal or earthly. The reunited friends strike a bargain and are soon involved in cases most would not dare be involved in or become entangled in.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 120
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: Japan
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: crying
Similar in 76%
Harvest: 3,000 Years (1975)
Plot Summary:
In this meditative film, the everyday lives of poor Ethiopian peasants are shown using documentary as well as storytelling techniques, and the drama arises out of the timeless but still contemporary issues of their lives.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 216
Genere: Drama
Country: Ethiopia
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 85%
Evergreen Tree (1961)
Plot Summary:
Yeong-shin (played by the Choi Eun-hee–Shin Sang-ok’s wife) and Dong-hyeok (Shin Yeong-gyun) graduate from college with a cause. They plan to bring education and modernization to farmers living in the rural area of their birth. When they arrive, the pair immediately gets to work, Dong-hyeok builds a village hall and starts aiding the farmers while Yeong-shin tries to gather the children to form a school. However, the villagers at first resent and resist the pair. It is not until one child, Ok-bun, takes the inititive and and learns to read under Yeong-shin’s care that the villages trust the pair and allow their children to be taken from the fields and taught reading, writing and math.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 29
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Happy as Lazzaro (2018)
Plot Summary:
The tale of a meeting between Lazzaro, a young peasant so good that he is often mistaken for simple-minded, and Tancredi, a young nobleman cursed by his imagination. Life in their isolated pastoral village Inviolata is dominated by the terrible Marchesa Alfonsina de Luna, the queen of cigarettes. A loyal bond is sealed when Tancredi asks Lazzaro to help him orchestrate his own kidnapping.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 20000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: touching, sincere, thought provoking, exciting, inspirational, twist ending, breathtaking, social, sad, surreal
Similar in 88%
The Mirror Boy (2011)
Plot Summary:
The Mirror Boy is a mystical journey through Africa, seen through the eyes of a 12 year old boy, Tijan. After a London street fight, in which a local boy is hurt, Tijan's mother decides to take him back to their roots, to Gambia. On their arrival in Banjul, Tijan encounters a strange apparition, a boy smiling at him in a mirror and vanishing. Seeing the same boy in a crowded street market the next day sets in motion a chain of events, with Tijan finding himself lost. While Tijan's panic-stricken mother struggles to find her son, Tijan is left alone in the company of the enigmatic Mirror Boy, seemingly only visible to him. After a bruising spiritual rite of passage, The Mirror Boy takes Tijan on a mystical journey, but not all is what it seems.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 150
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: UK, Nigeria
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, sincere, twisted, independent film
Similar in 89%
Brightness (1987)
Plot Summary:
A young man with magical powers journeys to his uncle to request help in fighting his sorcerer father.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Mali, France, Burkina Faso, West Germany
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, captivating, light
Similar in 85%
The Story of Marie and Julien (2003)
Plot Summary:
Julien lives alone with his cat. He dreams of Marie, and a few minutes later, he sees her on the street and makes a date. He asks her to move in with him, and she does. Her boyfriend is dead, the rest of her past a mystery. Although they quickly seem to fall in love, she sometimes pulls away suddenly from Julien, is distant, and spends the night in a hotel. She also dreads something imminent and warns Julien that if he missteps, he will lose her and all memory of her. Julien responds by digging into her past: what explains her remodeling an upstairs garret room, her nightly dreams, her fears? What can Julien, now desperately in love, do when he learns why? Can either rescue the other?.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, emotional, erotic, sexy, slasher, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 79%
Gabbeh (1996)
Plot Summary:
An elderly couple go about their routine of cleaning their gabbeh (a intricately-designed rug), while bickering gently with each other. Magically, a young woman appears, helping the two clean the rug. This young woman belongs to the clan whose history is depicted in the design of the gabbeh, and the rug recounts the story of the courtship of the young woman by a stranger from the clan.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Romance
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: melancholic, lyrical, sentimental, touching, serious, surreal, stylized, spiritual, independent film, islamic
Similar in 88%
The Silences of the Palace (1994)
Plot Summary:
The death of a prince brings a young woman back to the palace where she was born into servitude. The lingering legacy of the harem is brought into light from behind frosted windows and velvet curtains.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Tunisia, France
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: islamic, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 81%
Adanggaman (2000)
Plot Summary:
In West Africa during the late 17th century, King Adanggaman leads a war against his neighboring tribes, ordering his soldiers to torch enemy villages, kill the elderly and capture the healthy tribesmen to sell to the European slave traders. When his village falls prey to one of Adanggaman's attacks, Ossei manages to escape, but his family is murdered except for his captured mother. Chasing after the soldiers in an effort to free her, Ossei is befriended by a fierce warrior named Naka.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 197
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Switzerland, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: disturbing, thought provoking, serious, suspenseful, tense, atmospheric, captivating, realistic, contemplative, baroque
Similar in 84%
Horses of God (2012)
Plot Summary:
The film follows two brothers over the course of a decade. While they begin as kids in search of thrills in the sprawling slums of Morocco’s Sidi Moumen, we witness their gradual, and ultimately shocking, radicalisation.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Belgium, Tunisia, Morocco
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, disturbing, social, islamic, tense, bleak, suspenseful
Similar in 88%
Moolaadé (2003)
Plot Summary:
When a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female genital mutilation, she starts a conflict that tears her village apart.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Senegal, Burkina Faso, Morocco, Tunisia, Cameroon, France
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: disturbing, sincere, thought provoking, touching, political, art house, serious, realistic, contemplative, light
Similar in 87%
Bab'Aziz: The Prince That Contemplated His Soul (2005)
Plot Summary:
The story of a blind dervish named Bab'Aziz and his spirited granddaughter, Ishtar. Together they wander the desert in search of a great reunion of dervishes that takes place just once every thirty years. With faith as their only guide, the two journey for days through the expansive, barren landscape.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Tunisia, Hungary, France, Germany, Iran, Switzerland, UK
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, atmospheric, road movie, sentimental, philosophical, spiritual, inspirational, visually stunning, christian film
Similar in 80%
Alexandria... Why? (1979)
Plot Summary:
Set against the panoramic backdrop of war-torn Egypt, director Youssef Chahine tells a highly personal tale of love and determination. Amid the poverty, death and suffering caused by World War II, 18 year-old Yehia, retreats into a private world of fantasy and longing. Obsessed with Hollywood, he dreams of one day studying filmmaking in America, but after falling in love and discovering the lies of European occupation, Yehia profoundly reevaluates his identity and allegiances.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt, Algeria
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: semi autobiographical, psychological, serious, captivating, realistic, crying
Similar in 85%
About Elly (2009)
Plot Summary:
The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 56000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, atmospheric, captivating, realistic, depressing, suspense, existential, inspirational, philosophical
Similar in 90%
The Magus (1968)
Plot Summary:
A teacher on a Greek island becomes involved in bizarre mind-games with the island's magus (magician) and a beautiful young woman.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: psychological, mind bending, serious, atmospheric, captivating, melancholic, retro, independent film, crying, freeze frame
Similar in 83%
House of Voices (2004)
Plot Summary:
In 1958, in the French Alp, the young servant Anna Jurin arrives in Saint Ange Orphanage to work with Helena while the orphans moved to new families. Anna, who is secretly pregnant, meets the last orphan , Judith, left behind because of her mental problems, and they become closer when Anna find that Judith also hear voices and footsteps of children.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
Country: France
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: scary, psychological, suspenseful, bleak, suspense, surprise ending, atmospheric, serious, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Son of Babylon (2009)
Plot Summary:
A willful young boy follows his just as obstinate grandmother in a journey across Iraq, determined to discover the fate of her missing son, Ahmed's father, who never returned from war.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Iraq, UK, France, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Egypt
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, touching, captivating, emotional, independent film, islamic, tense, serious, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 86%
Sounds of Sand (2006)
Plot Summary:
On the one hand, there's the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there's the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality. Rahne and his family travel across hostile lands under a lethal sun, walking endlessly onwards and frequently crossing paths with death. But "Sounds of sand" is also a parable about determination and eternity that takes us in the footsteps of Shasha, a nomad child full of the joys of life, whose tenacity and strength will conquer her father's love.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 553
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, serious, captivating, bleak, realistic
Similar in 79%
The Secret of Roan Inish (1994)
Plot Summary:
10-year-old Fiona is sent to live with her grandparents in a small fishing village in Donegal, Ireland. She soon learns the local legend that an ancestor of hers married a Selkie - a seal who can turn into a human. Years earlier, her baby brother was washed out to sea and never seen again, so when Fiona spies a naked little boy on the abandoned Isle of Roan Inish, she is compelled to investigate.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, Family, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: USA, Ireland
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: scenic, fairy tale, touching, melancholic, sentimental, atmospheric, mystical, inspirational, offbeat, spiritual