20 best movies like Heading South (2006)

Put in charge of his young son, Ali leaves Belgium for Antibes to live with his sister and her husband as a family. Ali's bond with Stephanie, a killer whale trainer, grows deeper after Stephanie suffers a horrible accident.

A stroke-afflicted filmmaker is manipulated by a notorious con man.

A summer day in Italy. The camera follows the deaf-mute Giacomo and a childhood girlfriend Stefi closely – in the woods, by the river – without wanting to disrupt the mystery of their relationship, between restrained sensuality and childhood games.

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.

From his childhood in Poland to his adolescence in Nice to his years as a student in Paris and his tough training as a pilot during World War II, this tragi-comedy tells the romantic story of Romain Gary, one of the most famous French novelists and sole writer to have won the Goncourt Prize for French literature two times.

The inspiring true story of Seretse Khama, the King of Bechuanaland (modern Botswana), and Ruth Williams, the London office worker he married in 1948 in the face of fierce opposition from their families and the British and South African governments. Seretse and Ruth defied family, Apartheid and empire - their love triumphed over every obstacle flung in their path and in so doing they transformed their nation and inspired the world.

Gloria is a 58-year-old divorcée. Her children have all left home but she has no desire to spend her days and nights alone. Determined to defy old age and loneliness, she rushes headlong into a whirl of singles’ parties on the hunt for instant gratification – which only leads to repeated disappointment and enduring emptiness. But when Gloria meets Rodolfo, an ex-naval officer seven years her senior, she begins to imagine the possibility of a permanent relationship.

French adaption of DH Lawrence's infamous novel about forbidden passion across the class divide. Winner of the 2007 Cesar Award for Best Film.

Survivors of a nuclear attack are grouped together for days in the basement of their apartment building, where fear and dwindling supplies wear away at their dynamic.

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.

The story of a long-lost book that mysteriously reappears and connects an old man searching for his son with a girl seeking a cure for her mother's loneliness.

A man named Seligman finds a fainted wounded woman in an alley and he brings her home. She tells him that her name is Joe and that she is nymphomaniac. Joe tells her life and sexual experiences with hundreds of men since she was a young teenager while Seligman tells about his hobbies, such as fly fishing, reading about Fibonacci numbers or listening to organ music.

Yann Madec, long-time best mate of Frank Drevil, the star skipper of Global System Insurance, sees his dream come true when he replaces the injured Frank at the last minute for the start of the Vendée Globe. Nine days into the race and leading, Yann is forced to stop in Cape Verde to repair his broken center-board. Back in the race, Yann discovers a stowaway on board, a Senegalese teenager named Moussa. Faced with the risk of disqualification because of Moussa’s presence, Yann hesitates… Their encounter leads to the most unforgettable round-the-world race ever.

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.

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.

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

Lea and her husband Marc have known Francis and his wife Karine for a very long time. Over the years, each one of them has been assigned a specific role. The balance and dynamic of the group is blown up when Lea decides to write a novel, which turns into an immediate bestseller…

A young man who lives with his mother and has never known his father, heads off to look for him. He finds a cynical and Machiavellian man who works as a publisher in Paris. After he attempts to kill him, he finds filial love thanks to his uncle.

France, around 1900. Coming from the vibrancy of Paris, pert Célestine is procured as a chambermaid in Normandy. In the Lanlaire's villa she encounters the lecherous man of the house and his asexual, tyrannical and jealous wife. Célestine is determined to avoid the fate suffered by the cook Marianne who has already secretly killed one child born out of wedlock and now despairingly realises she is pregnant again. The lively maid is intrigued by what the mysterious manservant Joseph is up to: he distributes anti-Semitic leaflets and suggests that she could work for him as a prostitute in Cherbourg…

Born out of wedlock early in the last century, Violette Leduc meets Simone de Beauvoir in postwar Saint-Germain-des-Près. An intense lifelong relationship develops between the two women authors, based on Violette's quest for freedom through writing and on Simone's conviction that she holds in her hands the destiny of an extraordinary writer.

As we follow a mother and her son, we delve into a past marred by an accident that tears them apart. She will become a renowned artist and healer, and he will grow into his own and a peculiar falconer who bears the marks of a double absence. In the present, a young journalist will bring about an encounter between the two that puts the very meaning of life and art into question, so that we may contemplate the possibility of living life to its fullest, despite the uncertainties littering our paths.

About three generations of a family grappling with a life-changing experience during one day of a vacation in the historic town of Sintra, Portugal.

A brilliant and determined female engineer is approached by a network of powerful women with an offer to help become the head of a CAC 40 firm. The conguest, which was at first thrilling, turns to complete war with the men who still dominate.

Havana, Cuba, 1990. René González, an airplane pilot, unexpectedly flees the country, leaving behind his wife Olga and his daughter Irma, and begins a new life in Miami, where he becomes a member of an anti-Castro organization.

Doctor Knock is a former thug who has become a doctor and arrives in the small village of Saint-Maurice to make his fortune according to a particular method. It will make the villagers believe that they are not as healthy as they might think. It is thus that he will find in each one an imaginary symptom, or not, and thus will be able to exercise his profession lucratively. Under his seductive looks and after gaining the confidence of the village, Knock is on the verge of achieving his ends. But his past catches up with him and an old acquaintance disrupts the doctor's plans.

She’s the most beautiful, most short-sighted, most sentimental, most perplexing, most obstinate, most untrustworthy and most troubling of heroines. The lady in the car has never seen the sea. On the run from the police, she keeps telling herself that she’s not crazy… Only...

Roméo and Juliette are two young actors. They fall in love at first sight, move in together and make a baby. A love story and the founding of a home like millions of others. Except that their little boy, Adam, behaves abnormally. The young parents try hard to persuade themselves that everything is okay but, with the passing of time, they cannot delude themselves anymore: their son has a problem. From now on, war is declared. A war against illness. A war against Death. A war against despair.

During a book tour in the United States, Max meets and falls in love with a young woman. Many years later, Max returns to the United States, hoping to reunite with his young lover.

Divided into chapters, the film first chronicles Hemel's many sexual conquests, but then takes on a different tone as it explores her complicated relationship with her father, Gijs. A dapper auctioneer, Gijs has dated a series of younger women since Hemel's mother's death. But when Gijs starts seeing the charming Sophie, for the first time Hemel feels that her special relationship with her father is threatened...

A hot young Wall Street trader finds a formula based on climatology to play the market and win big... but at what cost?

Spans the period from 1958 to the present day and tells the story of an unconditional love between a mother and her daughter which is endangered by an unsteady and manipulative father.

Thomas, a father in his fifties, returns by chance to the town where he grew up. He collapses and wakes up forty years earlier in the body of his teenage self. Thrown back into his past, Thomas will not only have to re-live his first love, but also try to understand the reasons for his father’s mysterious departure. Can you change the past by living it again?

When Betty is caught en flagrante, her bourgeois in-laws and husband force a divorce settlement upon her and bar her from seeing her two daughters. She is rescued from an alcoholic stupor by Laure, a middle-aged woman who takes Betty to her hotel lodgings, extends friendship and care, and listens to her story. Laure's lover, Mario, the proprietor of the bar where Betty and Laure met, is first a friend, then Betty's next conquest.

Paulo, a young pianist, meets Ilir, a double-bass player originally from Albania. It's love at first sight. Confronted by Anka, Paulo finds himself out on the street. Despite Ilir's misgivings, Paulo moves in with him. One day, when Paulo promises that he will love Ilir for the rest of his life, Ilir leaves the city and doesn't return. A few days later, Paulo finds out that Ilir is in jail, and the two lovers embark on an heart-breaking relationship.

The muse of Andy Warhol, Christa Päffgen, stage name Nico, singer with the band Velvet Underground and a woman of legendary beauty. She gained a new lease of life after the story everyone knows, when she launched her solo career.

Brussels, early '60s. Alice and Céline live in twin bourgeois houses. They are best friends as are their children, Theo and Maxime, who have grown up like brothers. Both families spend all their time together. This perfect harmony is broken when an accident creates strong divisions between the two families.

Victoria Spick, a criminal lawyer who is single, turns up at a wedding and meets three men there: David, the father of her daughters; Vincent, a friend of hers; and Sam, a former drug dealer who she bailed out. The next day, Vincent is accused of attempted murder by his partner.

A former stripper's talent with numbers lands her a job with a professional gambler who runs a sports book in Las Vegas.

When librarian Taylor Harris suddenly loses her job, she decides to visit her brother in a small town in Montana. There, she gets involved in the fight to help save her brother's hotel from tycoon Joel Sheenan, who wants to renovate it.

Detective Yvonne is the widow of police chief Santi, a local hero in a town on the French Riviera. When she learns he was in fact a crooked cop, she tries to right his wrongs. Crossing paths with Antoine, a victim of Santi, sets off a series of wild events.

A housewife struggles with her husband after he is possessed by a ghost.

In the short break between performances in Calais, stage actress Alix makes a quick escape to Paris. On the train she meets a mysterious English stranger and, for the most fleeting of afternoons, imagines what the future could hold down a different road.

An American couple, Paul and Marianne, spend their vacation in Italy and experiences trouble when the wife invites a former lover and his teenage daughter to visit, which leads to jealousy and dangerous sexual scenarios.

People and life can be cruel, and in their face, Fannette is cool: toward an old acquaintance, to her daughter, to colleagues. Beneath the surface, she roils with passion for a lost love, Philippe. She watches "An Affair to Remember" again and again, and when she receives a letter from Philippe asking her to meet him atop the Empire State Building, she swoons. She's writing a book on an aged painter, so she organizes a trip to New York ostensibly to secure photographs of some of his pieces. The publisher assigns her a photographer, Matt, on the surface spontaneous and flip, but also aggressive about his attraction to her. Will she be with the one she loves? Will she smile? Written by

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.

A washed-up musician befriends a reclusive artist with an unusual name.

A kindhearted seventeen-year-old in the American Southwest turns to prostitution to fulfill her dream of a new life in San Francisco.

With their golden era long behind them, comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy embark on a variety hall tour of Britain and Ireland. Despite the pressures of a hectic schedule, and with the support of their wives Lucille and Ida – a formidable double act in their own right – the pair's love of performing, as well as for each other, endures as they secure their place in the hearts of their adoring public

The film centres on a retired, widowed professor living in Paris who develops a special relationship with a younger French woman.

Biopic of the great French ocean-going adventurer and filmmaker