20 best movies like Godard's Passion (1982)

A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens.

Emile Chenal and his wife, Françoise, leaned on boxing manager Jim Fox Warner to cough up the considerable sum of money that he owes them, with both the police and the mob circling the situation. In the same hotel, Inspector Neveu looks into a murder that took place years before, and his storyline overlaps with the arc of the Chenals.

Agathe Villanova is a self-centered, workaholic feminist politician who, upon reluctantly returning to her home in the south of France to sort out her mother's affairs, runs for a local election. Upon her arrival, Agathe grudgingly agrees to take part in a documentary being made by the blundering duo of Karim, an aspiring filmmaker, and self-professed "reporter" Michel, on the subject of "successful women." As Agathe's life hilariously unravels, the camera is there to capture it all.

Marcel Marx, a former bohemian and struggling author, has given up his literary ambitions and relocated to the port city Le Havre. He leads a simple life based around his wife Arletty, his favourite bar and his not too profitable profession as a shoeshiner. As Arletty suddenly becomes seriously ill, Marcel's path crosses with an underage illegal immigrant from Africa, who needs Marcel's help to hide from the police.

Antoine is a joyful but disenchanted photographer. His only true friend, Mateo, is 7 years old and the son of his neighbor, who is often absent. One day, he hears a piano sonata coming from the building across the courtyard. Mesmerized by the music, he becomes obsessed by Elena, the beautiful but mysterious pianist, and starts to photograph her at every opportunity. An intense relationship develops between fragile and idealistic Elena and Antoine, who is transformed by this encounter.

Muriel Bayen, a divorced beautician and mother of two, loves to tell stories. She is a huge fan of this singer Vincent Lacroix, in fact she is a dedicated fan. One day Vincent knock on her door and ask for her help.

Paris, France, December 1897. The young playwright Edmond Rostand feels like a failure. Inspiration has abandoned him. Married and father of two children, desperate and penniless, he persuades the great actor Constant Coquelin to perform the main role in his new play. But there is a problem: Coquelin wants to premiere it at Christmas and Edmond has not written a single word.

Orson Welles' unfinished masterpiece, restored and assembled based on Welles' own notes. During the last 15 years of his life, Welles, who died in 1985, worked obsessively on the film, which chronicles a temperamental film director—much like him—who is battling with the Hollywood establishment to finish an iconoclastic work.

Bahia Benmahmoud, a free-spirited young woman, has a particular way of seeing political engagement, as she doesn't hesitate to sleep with those who don't agree with her to convert them to her cause - which is a lot of people, as all right-leaning people are concerned. Generally, it works pretty well. Until the day she meets Arthur Martin, a discreet forty-something who doesn't like taking risks. She imagines that with a name like that, he's got to be slightly fascist. But names are deceitful and appearances deceiving.

Toby, a cynical advertising director finds himself trapped in the outrageous delusions of an old Spanish shoe-maker who believes himself to be Don Quixote. In the course of their comic and increasingly surreal adventures, Toby is forced to confront the tragic repercussions of a film he made in his idealistic youth.

Paris in the 1920s. Marguerite Dumont is a wealthy woman with a passion for music and the opera. For years, she has performed regularly for a circle of guests. But Marguerite sings tragically out of tune and no one has ever told her. Her husband and her close friends have always encouraged her in her illusions. Things become very complicated the day she gets it into her head to perform in front of a genuine public, at the Opera.

Serge Pilardosse vient d'avoir 60 ans. Il travaille depuis l'âge de 16 ans, jamais au chômage, jamais malade. Mais l'heure de la retraite a sonné, et c'est la désillusion : il lui manque des points, certains employeurs ayant oublié de le déclarer ! Poussé par Catherine, sa femme, il enfourche sa vieille moto des années 70, une " Mammut " qui lui vaut son surnom, et part à la recherche de ses bulletins de salaires. Durant son périple, il retrouve son passé et sa quête de documents administratifs devient bientôt accessoire...

Paris 1930. Paul has only ever had one and the same horizon: the high walls of the orphanage, an austere building in the Parisian working class suburbs. Entrusted to a joyful country woman, Célestine, and her husband, Borel, the rather stiff gamekeeper of a vast estate in Sologne, the city child, recalcitrant and stubborn, arrives in a mysterious and disturbing world, that of a soverign and wild region. The huge forest, misty ponds, heaths, and fields all belong to the Count de la Fresnaye, an elderly taciturn man who lives alone in his manor.

A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.

A man's obsession with owning the designer deerskin jacket of his dreams leads him to turn his back on his humdrum life in the suburbs, blow his life savings, and even turn him to crime.

A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.

Serge Tanneur (Fabrice Luchini) is at the pinnacle of his acting career when he decides to turn his back on show business and become a hermit living off of France’s Atlantic coast. Three years later, Gauthier Valence (Lambert Wilson), a beloved TV actor, shows up on the island to offer Serge a role in his directorial debut – a rendition of Molière’s classic play, “The Misanthrope”. Serge refuses at first, but then suggests that they rehearse the first scene and after five days he’ll decide if he wants to dothe play or not. What ensues is a battle of brawn and wits and peculiar encounters with a hotel maid who longs to be a pornstar and an Italian divorcée.

Lucas, a wealthy, 43 year-old divorced businessman, is irresistibly attracted to Elsa, a 38 year old renowned sculptor from whom he has commissioned a piece to decorate the reception at his office.

Isabelle Adjani and Gerard Depardieu star in director Jean-Paul Rappenau's amusing farce set on the eve of World War II, which follows the intersecting lives of four Parisians as they cope with the impending invasion of their city by German forces. As the French government braces for impact, the lives of a young writer, a vain movie star, a French politician and a young scientist are examined as they attempt to deal with war and evade German spies.

A hotel clerk searches all over Le Havre for the fairy who made two of his three wishes come true before disappearing.

In Memphis, Tennessee, over the course of a single night, the Arcade Hotel, run by an eccentric night clerk and a clueless bellboy, is visited by a young Japanese couple traveling in search of the roots of rock; an Italian woman in mourning who stumbles upon a fleeing charlatan girl; and a comical trio of accidental thieves looking for a place to hide…

Three stories about the pleasure. The first one is about a man hiding his age behind a mask to keep going to balls and fancying women - pleasure and youth. Then comes the long tale of Mme Tellier taking her girls (whores) to the country for attending her niece's communion - pleasure and purity. And lastly, Jean the painter falling in love with his model - pleasure and death.

Tokyo! is an anthology of three short films by Gondry (France), Carax (France) and Bong (Korea), each of whom offers an imaginative and trans-/super- natural glimpse into the Tokyo Megapolis.

Mona, a prisoner on work release, meets Clément, a shy actor. Desperate to impress Mona, Clément recruits his extroverted friend, Abel, to help. When Mona becomes more interested in Abel, it sets off a conflict between the two friends. Meanwhile, Mona attempts to keep her past hidden.

In a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.

Two whimsical, aimless thugs harass and assault women, steal, murder, and alternately charm, fight, or sprint their way out of trouble. They take whatever the bourgeois characters value: whether it's cars, peace of mind, or daughters. Marie-Ange, a jaded, passive hairdresser, joins them as lover, cook, and mother confessor. She's on her own search for seemingly unattainable sexual pleasure.

During the Blitz of World War II, a female screenwriter (Gemma Arterton) works on a film celebrating England's resilience as a way to buoy a weary populace's spirits. Her efforts to dramatise the true story of two sisters (Lily Knight and Francesca Knight) who undertook their own maritime mission to rescue wounded soldiers are met with mixed feelings by a dismissive all-male staff.

An elderly Charlie Chaplin discusses his autobiography with his editor, while is depicted his amazing journey from his poverty-stricken childhood to world-wide success after the ingenious invention of the Little Tramp.

After a bull is killed in a bullfight, its body parts are transported across Spain, France, Italy and Belgium. The bull's parts fall into the wide variety of people, including: an Italian actress selling the bones in a supermarket promotion, a Spanish woman who dines on its steaks, a little girl in France who imagines a world where animals are much larger than humans, and a taxidermist whose wife is simultaneously giving birth to quintuplets.

Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

A former world-famous conductor of the Bolshoï orchestra, known as "The Maëstro", Andreï Filipov had seen his career publicly broken by Leonid Brezhnev for hiring Jewish musicians and now works cleaning the concert hall where he once directed. One day, he intercepts an official invitation from the prestigious Théâtre du Châtelet. Through a series of mad antics, he reunites his old orchestra, now composed of old alcoholic musicians, and flies to perform in Paris and complete the Tchaikovsky concerto interrupted 30 years earlier. For the concerto, he engages a young violin soloist with whom he has an unexpected connection.

A semi-autobiographical account of Makhmalbaf's experience as a teenager when, as a 17-year-old, he stabbed a policeman at a protest rally. Two decades later, he tracks down the policeman he injured in an attempt to make amends.

In this lively French remake of Humpday, best buds reunite and revive their friendship on a questionable dare. Can two straight guys really make a gay sex film, together?

Every year, Bruno makes a tour of all the wine stands, without setting foot outside the Show’s premises and without ever finishing his wine trail. This year, his father suggests they finish it together, but a real wine trail, across the French countryside. Accompanied by Mike, a young, quirky taxi driver, they set off in the direction of France’s major wine regions. Together, they are going to discover not only the wine trails, but also the road that leads back to Love.

Formerly successful television producer Joachim Zand returns from America to his native France, where he previously has left everything behind, including friends, enemies and his own children. In his company is a burlesque striptease troupe whom he has promised a grand performance in Paris. Together they tour the French port cities, staying at cheap hotels and making success along the way. Old conflicts are however reignated upon the return to the French capital. Joachim is betrayed by people from his past, making him lose the venue where they were to perform, and the Paris finale comes to nothing.

Pierre, a professional dancer, suffers from a serious heart disease. While he is waiting for a transplant which may (or may not) save his life, he has nothing better to do than look at the people around him, from the balcony of his Paris apartment.

Giuseppe Tornatore traces three generations of a Sicilian family in in the Sicilian town of Bagheria (known as Baarìa in the local Sicilian dialect), from the 1930s to the 1980s, to tell the story of the loves, dreams and delusions of an unusual community.

Alain, a successful Parisian publisher struggling to adapt to the digital revolution, has major doubts about the new manuscript of Léonard, one of his long-time authors - another work of auto-fiction recycling his love affair with a minor celebrity. Selena, Alain’s wife, a famous stage actress, is of the opposite opinion.

Victor, a disillusioned sexagenarian, sees his life turned upside down on the day when Antoine, a brilliant entrepreneur, offers him a new kind of attraction: mixing theatrical artifices and historical reconstruction, this company offers his clients a chance to dive back into the era of their choice. Victor then chose to relive the most memorable week of his life: the one where, 40 years earlier, he met the great love.

For twenty years, Bruno and Malik have lived in a different world—the world of autistic children and teens. In charge of two separate nonprofit organizations (The Hatch & The Shelter), they train young people from underprivileged areas to be caregivers for extreme cases that have been refused by all other institutions. It’s an exceptional partnership, outside of traditional settings, for some quite extraordinary characters.

In a bizarre Breton library that collects rejected, never published manuscripts, a young editor discovers a novel that she considers a masterpiece. It was written by a certain Henri Pick, a cook who died two years earlier and who, according to his widow, had never read a book in his life or written anything but a shopping list... Did he have a secret life? When the book becomes a huge best-seller, Jean- Michel Rouche, a skeptical and stubborn literary critic, teams up with Joséphine, Pick’s daughter, to unravel the mystery.

Octave Parango, the former concept creator/editor of 99 francs has become a model scout in Moscow. This cynical hedonist leads a very pleasant life in the arms of young Russian models and in the private jets of his oligarch friends... until the day that he is contacted by The Ideal, the world's leading cosmetic's firm, embroiled in a huge media scandal. Our antihero has seven days to find a new muse by traveling through the confines of post-Communist Russia, under the orders of Valentine Winfield, a hard and authoritarian visual director.

An ageing punk-with-a-dog and his brother the conformist decide to get their revenge on a shopping mall. Directing duo Benoit Delepine and Gustave Kervern, longstanding comic crusaders against capitalism, again set out to surprise and shock the bourgeois audience.

A deadpan, picaresque buddy comedy about two old friends through a series of urban adventures, loosely connected by the skull of an executed French aristocrat. Winter Song is a typically irreverent Iosselianian jaunt through a classy Paris apartment block contemplating the past, present and future.

In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.

Danny, a commercial editor and documentary filmmaker attempts to finish his film, a study on relationship while navigating the relationships in his own life. Will he continue to chase the unattainable Theresa a hippy new age dancer(Caitlin Fitzgerald) or will he finally admit he's in love with his best friend Carla (Katherine Waterston) who is in an unfulfilling relationship with a political strategist(Gaby Hoffman). Manhattan Romance is a funny insightful look at contemporary life in Manhattan. It explores new age ideas and open relationship as well as true friendship and connection.

During the making of one of his films, French film director Jean-Luc Godard falls in love with 17-year old actress Anne Wiazemsky and later gets married.

A successful film composer falls in love when he travels to India to work on a Bollywood retelling of Romeo and Juliet.

Nora is a young housewife and mother, living in a quaint little village with her husband and their two sons. The Swiss countryside is untouched by the major social upheavals the movement of 1968 has brought about. Nora’s life is not affected either; she is a quiet person who is liked by everybody – until she starts to publicly fight for women’s suffrage, which the men are due to vote on in a ballot on February 7, 1971.

Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man, becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise - until the soldier and the show's financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle.