20 best movies like A Wanderer's Notebook (1962)

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (1884-1943) was the Japanese Naval commander who was given the order to attack Pearl Harbour, an order he was duty bound to obey which went against his own personal beliefs. While this infamous attack is a low point in Japanese and US history it wouldn’t have happened if the Japanese government had listened to Yamamoto in 1939 and searched for a more peaceful way to end their war campaign, proving his many ominous presages of the outcomes of the attack to come true.

Inspired by actual events, a group of fame-obsessed teenagers use the Internet to track celebrities' whereabouts in order to rob their homes.

In the lush tradition of the glorious films of Merchant and Ivory, comes the true life story of Leonie Gilmour (Emily Mortimer), whose life crossed continents, wars and cultures, embodied with courage and passion in search of art and freedom. A tender and inspiring story of a remarkable woman who nurtures the amazing artistic talent of her son who has only one way to succeed and one person to guide him, as he grows into the world renown artist, Isamu Noguchi.

A young girl named Oshin is sent to work for another family, because of her own family's financial condition. Nevertheless, the young girl lives strongly.

When a devastating attack shatters Mark Hogancamp and wipes away all memories, no one expected recovery. Putting together pieces from his old and new life, Mark meticulously creates a wondrous town named Marwen where he can heal and be heroic. As he builds an astonishing art installation — a testament to the most powerful women he knows — through his fantasy world, he draws strength to triumph in the real one.

Control is the biography of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, taking his story from schoolboy days of 1973 to his suicide on the eve of the band's first American tour in 1980.

When Gerda Wegener asks her husband Einar to fill in as a portrait model, Einar discovers the person she's meant to be and begins living her life as Lili Elbe. Having realized her true self and with Gerda's love and support, Lili embarks on a groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.

The stage director Shimamura, who is bringing western theatre to Japan, falls in love with the outspoken actress Sumako Matsui, and leaves his family to be with her, while trying to keep his Art Theatre solvent.

A movie about reporter W. Eugene Smith and his research on mercury poisoning in Minamata, Japan, resulting in severe neurological symptoms.

Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger's charm and audacity endear him to much of America's downtrodden public, but he's also a thorn in the side of J. Edgar Hoover and the fledgling FBI. Desperate to capture the elusive outlaw, Hoover makes Dillinger his first Public Enemy Number One and assigns his top agent, Melvin Purvis, the task of bringing him in dead or alive.

A military explorer meets and befriends a Goldi man in Russia’s unmapped forests. A deep and abiding bond evolves between the two men, one civilized in the usual sense, the other at home in the glacial Siberian woods.

The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend Bakin.

In 1924, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo, took in Hachikō, a golden brown Akita, as a pet. During his owner's life, Hachikō walk with him in the morning and greeted him at the end of each day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925, when Professor Ueno did not return. The professor had suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage and died, never returning to the train station where Hachikō was waiting. Every day for the next nine years the dog waited at Shibuya station. Hachikō Monogatari is a melodramatic film that tells the true story of friendship, trust and affection of Japan's most faithful dog "Hachi", whose bronze statue, to this day, stands watch over Shibuya Station, Tokyo.

The story of journalist, Edward R Murrow's stand against Senator McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts in the early 1950s.

In Part I we see the young would-be swordsman setting out to achieve greatness in war, achieving nothing because fighting on the losing side, & then beginning his long period of wandering & training, with the goal always in mind of his duel with Kojiro. Part II builds toward that great duel on Ganryu Island, with considerable focus on Musashi's planning & forethought as to how to gain an advantage.

Fact and fiction are combined in this story about Jack Ruby and a stripper, Candy Cane, and how they become involved in a conspiracy to kill J.F.K.

A look at the life of the astronaut, Neil Armstrong, and the legendary space mission that led him to become the first man to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

The life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle -- a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.

The Theory of Everything is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.

The story of Oscar Wilde, genius, poet, playwright and the First Modern Man. The self-realisation of his homosexuality caused Wilde enormous torment as he juggled marriage, fatherhood and responsibility with his obsessive love for Lord Alfred Douglas.

A fictional account of the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima told in four parts. The first three parts relate events in three of his novels: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko's House, and Runaway Horses. The last part depicts the events of 25th November 1970.

A humble and simple Takezo abandons his life as a knight errant. He's sought as a teacher and vassal by Shogun, Japan's most powerful clan leader. He's also challenged to fight by the supremely confident and skillful Sasaki Kojiro. Takezo agrees to fight Kojiro in a year's time but rejects Shogun's patronage, choosing instead to live on the edge of a village, raising vegetables. He's followed there by Otsu and later by Akemi, both in love with him. The year ends as Takezo assists the villagers against a band of brigands. He seeks Otsu's forgiveness and accepts her love, then sets off across the water to Ganryu Island for his final contest.

Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi facility in Japan risk their lives and stay at the nuclear power plant to prevent total destruction after the region is devastated by an earthquake an tsunami in 2011.

The ukiyo-e (woodblock print) artist Sharaku is an enigmatic puzzle in the world of Japanese art. Working at an age when such masters of the trade as Hokusai and Utamaro were at their zenith, Sharaku suddenly emerged out of obscurity and produced roughly 140 strikingly brilliant portraits of Kabuki performers, only to disappear just as suddenly. To date, no one knows about his true identity or about his post-ukiyo-e career. Veteran director Masahiro Shinoda tries to fill in the blanks with this lavish period production. Set in the 1790s, the film centers on Tombo (Hiroyuki Sanada), a lowly Kabuki player who gets dumped from his troupe after breaking his foot. He joins a ragged traveling outfit run by former courtesan Okan. While not on-stage, he takes up drawing, for which he realizes he has considerable ability. His talents are noticed by Tsutaya Juzaburo, a ukiyo-e publisher who is desperate for a replacement after his star artist Utamaro defected to his rival's stable.

Biography of the British painter Francis Bacon. The movie focuses on his relationship with George Dyer, his lover. Dyer was a former small time crook.

A dying pianist composes one final song for his childhood friend.

The story of Yoshinaka and the three women who love him