20 best movies like A Simple Story (2016)

In 19th century Russia a woman in a respectable marriage to a doctor must grapple with her love for a dashing soldier.

Eighteen-year-old Vasya Tikhonova is travelling with her parents to a medical resort near Moscow, seeking treatment. She has a congenital heart defect, and her mother has always been overprotective. But when the Tikhonov family arrives, a murder is committed at the resort. And within seven days, Vasya’s life will change dramatically. She will meet her first love, she will take a big risk fighting for it, and she will make a discovery that is scary, but grants her freedom.

A story based on love between Anton Chekhov and a young writer Lidiya Avilova.

By miracle he avoided death and returns to the house where he was born. In the house now lives the love of his life. But the hope for happiness turns sour with a terrible discovery: his beloved is the daughter of his enemy.

The popular rapper comes on tour in St. Petersburg. His fans adore and wait, he is at the peak of fame, he is confident in himself. Together with the star, his manager, musicians and a girl come. Suddenly an attempt is made on a musician. He miraculously manages to escape death, but his manager decides to hire a security guard. It turns out that the guard is ... a girl. She is a professional in her field, but in the brutal world of rap, a woman has a difficult time.

A drama about a doctor Arje who discovers his illness and decides to go to Israel in order to meet Sonya - the love of his life.

A very busy Moscow day can drive anyone crazy...

A widowed aeronautics engineer, who has lost his job, travels with his son hopping freight trains from Moscow to Koktebel, a town by the Black Sea, to start a new life with the father's sister.

Two lovers escape into the woods after committing a crime

Masha is determined to jump off the roof, she feels unloved and betrayed. Her last wish is to listen to her favorite song. On this day, the cynical radio DJ Alex is working in the studio. A short call on the radio turns into a long conversation, and it looks like only Alex will be able to save the unfortunate girl before the song ends.

1979: Cousins Carole and Jérôme go on an organized trip to Odessa, behind the Iron Curtain. During the day, posing as tourists celebrating their engagement, they visit monuments and museums. In the evening they slip away from the group and meet “refuseniks”, Jews persecuted by the Soviet regime for wanting to leave the country. While Carole is motivated by political commitment and a taste for risk, Jérôme’s motivation is Carole.

Him and her. A husband and a wife staying in a cozy hotel where you can come for just a couple of days with a risk to get stuck forever. It is so easy to get trapped in the daily routine. Indeed, nothing is more permanent than the temporary. Their time is like a flat circle. He has his phone calls and business meetings. She is wrapped in her dreams and doubts. All reactions are predictable, all conversations are learnt by heart. An endless LP record of life keeps playing again and again repeating itself. But a few things can break this tune, like a scratch on the record, a crack on a wine glass, a sudden glance or a meeting with a stranger. And then you know: tomorrow will come soon. Any moment something can go wrong, throw you off course, and force you to make a choice.

September 1941. In a turn of events young lovebirds Kostya and Nastya find themselves on board of a barge that will evacuate people from sieged Leningrad. At night the barge gets into the storm. When it starts sinking, enemy planes - but not rescuers - are the first to arrive at the scene.

1899, the Christmas-time St.Petersburg. Ice-covered rivers and canals of the capital seethe with festive activities. On the eve of the new century those who should not be destined to meet, come together. They are people from different worlds: Matvey, the son of a lamplighter, whose only treasure is his silver-plated skates; Alice is the daughter of a high-ranking official dreaming of science. Each of them has his own difficult life-story, but having accidentally met they rush forward together in pursuit of their dreams.

Fleabag is thrown roughly up against the walls of contemporary London, sleeping with anyone who dares to stand too close, squeezing money from wherever she can, rejecting anyone who tries to help her, and keeping up her bravado throughout.

Present days. A man and his companion go on a journey to cremate the dead body of the former beloved wife, on a riverbank in the area where they spent their honeymoon.

Five school friends seek adventure on Halloween night in an abandoned, haunted mine, only to find to their horror that the ghostly rumors may be true as they fight for survival.

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Oleg is a young gifted paramedic. His wife Katya works as a nurse at the hospital emergency department. She loves Oleg, but is fed up with him caring more about patients than her. She tells him she wants a divorce. The new head of Oleg’s EMA department is a cold-hearted manager who’s got new strict rules to implement. Oleg couldn’t care less about the rules – he’s got lives to save; his attitude gets him in trouble with the new boss. The crisis at work coincides with the personal life crisis. Caught up between their patients, alcohol-fueled off-shifts, and an evolving health care system, Oleg and Katya have to find the binding force that will keep them together.

After taking a wrong turn in their car, a young gay Russian couple witnesses what they believe is a vicious gay bashing; their quandary over what to do about it propels them into ever more dangerous territory. For Anton, the burden of what they may have witnessed outweighs Vlad's fear of probing too deeply into the incident. When the police prove indifferent, Anton talks his skeptical lover into launching their own amateur investigation into the incident. Their risky search for the truth has unexpected - and grim - consequences in this suspenseful drama that comments on the ongoing mistreatment of LGBT people in Russia.

What happens in fairy tales after the wedding of the prince and princess? Figure skater Nadia and hockey player Sasha got married and more than anything else they dream of a child. True, the price they will have to pay for this dream will be unimaginably high. After such upheavals, it seems impossible to count on a happy ending. But if you think so, you do not know anything about real tales...

Three friends are in the entrance of a luxury home in the heart of the city. They are young, full of strength and energy, they have the talent, skill and thirst for life and ... - well, they have all but one. But money...

The 1975 film by Georgi Daneliya "Afonya" was an unexpected commercial hit in USSR. The main character "Afonya" Borshev is a plumber, who spends his life partying with "buddies", many of whom he doesn't even remember after nights of heavy drinking. His wife leaves him, his boss places him on probation, his whole life is falling apart, but he doesn't realize it. Afonya met Katya at a dance club, yet didn't pay her much attention. But she is the one, who can save him... In this movie Daneliya achieves a perfect balance of satire and drama. Quotes from the movie gained a cult status in USSR.

A student is trying to build a career in theater using not his talent but looks and sexuality.

In Cold War Moscow, a female spy steals secrets from an idealistic politician – and falls in love with him. Moscow, 1959: Katya (Rebecca Ferguson, Mission Impossible- Rogue Nation, The Girl on the Train, The White Queen), is young, beautiful – and a spy for the Americans. When she and Mischa (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Emerald City), begin spying on Alexander ( Sam Reid, Anonymous), an idealistic Communist politician, the last thing she expects is to fall in love with him. Her choice between love and duty leads to a nail-biting conclusion that Alexander (Charles Dance, The Imitation Game) can only unravel decades later in 1990s New York. His journey back to the snowbound streets of Moscow uncovers a love triangle and betrayals from those he trusted most.

A hotel room in the center of Rome serves as the setting for two young and recently acquainted women to have a physical adventure that touches their very souls.

A sex therapist goes through puberty after the successful removal of a benign tumor resting against his pituitary gland. He experiences all the changes and effects of puberty over a three-week period.

The picture tells about the feat of Russian scientists who are sent to Svalbard as part of the Russian-Swedish expedition in order to measure the actual size and shape of the globe.

Vladimir is reaching the end of his life and decides to leave his wealth to his only daughter, cutting out his wife and her son from his will.

Carlos is the most prestigious tailor in Granada, but he's also a murderer in the shadows. He feels no remorse, no guilt, until Nina appears in his life and love awakens.

Dovlatov charts six days in the life of brilliant, ironic writer who saw far beyond the rigid limits of 70s Soviet Russia. Sergei Dovlatov fought to preserve his own talent and decency with poet and writer Joseph Brodsky while watching his artist friends get crushed by the iron-willed state machinery.

Sex, alcohol and violence define the people of a city in defeat in this downbeat drama from writer and director Katya Shagalova. As a teenager, Nastia (Yulia Peresild) was the star of a popular television series, but now her career is in decline and her father, an officer in the Russian army, has kicked her out of the house.

Sasha Korolev has a congenital disorder. The boy’s father has chosen what seemed to him the only correct way to put the son on his feet: to treat him like a healthy person. “You’re not a patient, you have temporary difficulties”. Eating, getting dressed, going downstairs and walking up the front door steps — every day the child spends hours on such simple household tasks. At school he is mocked by his peers, and there is no help to expect. The boy has coped with the illness, but started hating the father. When he finished school, Sasha left home and stopped all contact with the father. Over the past 15 years he has become the best business consultant in the country, who has helped hundreds of businesses out of crisis. “You have no a crisis, you have temporary difficulties”, — Sasha would say to his clients, having gone along a difficult path himself. And one day, a new order unexpectedly gives him the opportunity to settle accounts with the father...

After abandoning her newborn child a woman goes through very difficult times and starts working in a foster house.

For Sebastian Silverberg life is all about his appearance, partying and his enormous ego. Things are going smoothly when an accident leaves him blind, forcing him to re-evaluate his life and to seek meaning beyond appearances.

Douglas is a foreign entrepreneur, who ventures to Russia in 1885 with dreams of selling a new, experimental steam-driven timber harvester in the wilds of Siberia. Jane is his assistant. On her travels, she meets two men who would change her life forever: a handsome young cadet Andrej Tolstoy with whom she shares a fondness for opera, and the powerful General Radlov who is entranced by her beauty and wants to marry her.

At a picturesque lakeside estate, a love triangle unfolds between the legendary diva Irina, her lover Boris, and the ingénue Nina.

Six newly-married, diverse, honeymooning couples face marital bliss and discord, finding out more about themselves, their significant others and life in this happy-go-lucky, quirky drama.

A man falls in love with a woman because of her outlook on life. They are in a relationship for five years until a sudden turn of events causes a problem in their relationship.

A U.S. soccer star suffers a career-threatening injury in the run-up to the World Cup, and during his recovery, embarks on an epic romance with a Russian single mom.

Trapped in a loveless marriage, aristocrat Anna Karenina enters into a life-changing affair with the affluent Count Vronsky.

A historical drama that illustrates Russian author Leo Tolstoy's struggle to balance fame and wealth with his commitment to a life devoid of material things. The Countess Sofya, wife and muse to Leo Tolstoy, uses every trick of seduction on her husband's loyal disciple, whom she believes was the person responsible for Tolstoy signing a new will that leaves his work and property to the Russian people.

After journalist Mary Landers is assigned to write a Valentine's Day story about "The Meaning of Love," her long-time boyfriend breaks up with her. On her train ride home, she finds herself trading glances with a handsome stranger who, as he exits the train, leaves his phone behind.

Sasha is a young girl living in a block flat with her family in Moscow. Once she falls in love with Antonin, a bohemian artist and hard drinker. Their short love affair is pulling her down, to the bottom of her subconscious. Overwhelmed with beautiful and frightening visions, she starts to paint - violently, until she can stand on her feet.

A small town girl is caught between dead-end jobs. A high-profile, successful man becomes wheelchair bound following an accident. The man decides his life is not worth living until the girl is hired for six months to be his new caretaker. Worlds apart and trapped together by circumstance, the two get off to a rocky start. But the girl becomes determined to prove to the man that life is worth living and as they embark on a series of adventures together, each finds their world changing in ways neither of them could begin to imagine.

When the fun loving Marie sets her eyes on brooding comic book artist Paul, it sets off the kind of romantic sparks that quickly culminate in the bedroom. But the next morning brings its share of surprises as Marie crawls out of bed to discover her life flash-forwarded fifteen years down the road: Not only has she been married to Paul all this time, but she’s now the mother of a little boy the head of a powerful multinational investment firm and the proprietor of a fabulous apartment overlooking the Eiffel Tower. Quickly Marie discovers that all her achievements have not brought happiness.

In 1901, Marcela Gracia Ibeas took on the identity of Mario Sánchez to marry her lover of fifteen years, Elisa Sanchez Loriga.

In 1951, New York poet Elizabeth Bishop travels to Rio de Janeiro to visit Mary, a college friend. The shy Elizabeth is overwhelmed by Brazilian sensuality. She is the antithesis to Mary’s dashing partner, architect Lota de Macedo Soares. Mary is jealous, but unconventional Lota is determined to have both women at all costs. This eternal triangle plays out against the backdrop of the military coup of 1964. Bishop’s moving poems are at the core of a film which lushly illustrates a crucial phase in the life of this influential Pulitzer prize-winning poet.

Zachary is 20 years old. Dark and independent, he collects amorous conquests and school failure. Sarah is 18 years old. First class, fragile, she fills her emotional gaps with perfect control of his life. Nothing should close and yet, the year of the tank, for six months, they will live a love against which nothing can be, the true, the big one that marks a life forever.

In the aftermath of a family tragedy, an aspiring author is torn between love for her childhood friend and the temptation of a mysterious outsider. Trying to escape the ghosts of her past, she is swept away to a house that breathes, bleeds… and remembers.