20 best movies like Narcissus and Goldmund (2020)

Since early childhood Peter has been obsessed with the world of puppets, but his greater obsession is with a real girl, Lisa. He crafts his perfect woman out of her. But Lisa isn't a docile marionette. She's a living human being and she rebels against her creator. Based on the critically-acclaimed, brilliant and poignant novel by one of the best contemporary Russian writers, Dina Rubina, "Petrushka Syndrome" is a multidimensional metaphor, where a sense of duality pervades everything. People and dolls, life and art, the Creator and the creation depend on one another. And where does one draw the line between them?

Beirut, 1982: a young Palestinian refugee and an Israeli fighter pilot form a tentative bond in their attempt to make their way across war-torn Lebanon back to their home.

Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple's bond of love is severely tested.

In Barrow, Alaska, teenagers Qalli and Aivaaq find their bond tested when a seal-hunting trip goes wrong, resulting in the death of their friend.

Igor, a Russian oligarch gets into a heated argument with Eva, his estranged daughter whilst traveling on his private jet. Igor orders the plane to land. As the plane touches down Eva disappears into the Goan jungle. Thus begins Igor's desperate search for his only daughter. A search that will bring him and Eva into contact with various characters who in turn are trying to find their own paths through life. Makar, a guy from Novosibirsk, who is desperately searching for enlightenment. Alexey and Kristina are ending their marriage here, while Dimon and Lenya are raising hell and pushing Goa to its partying limits. Kosmos the Guru ("just don't call him that") dispenses the chemicals that in a bat of an eyelid will take you to an alternate reality. There are different destinies here. There are a myriad of people. But all of them have one Motherland, which is easy not to love as long it is close to you

Stingo, a young writer, moves to Brooklyn in 1947 to begin work on his first novel. As he becomes friendly with Sophie and her lover Nathan, he learns that she is a Holocaust survivor. Flashbacks reveal her harrowing story, from pre-war prosperity to Auschwitz. In the present, Sophie and Nathan's relationship increasingly unravels as Stingo grows closer to Sophie and Nathan's fragile mental state becomes ever more apparent.

Eka and Natia leave their childhood behind and ignore societal customs to escape from their turbulent family lives.

Based on Keigo Higashino's international bestseller The Miracles of the Namiya General Store comes director Han Jie's take on the fantastical novel. TFBoys' Karry Wang stars as Xiao Bo, one of three orphans on the run who take refuge in a derelict corner store. Once there, they find a mysterious letter seeking advice, leading to an emotional adventure through time and unexpected connections with their own past.

In a monastery set on the top of sandstone pillars young monk Theodoros and nun Urania find themselves physically drawn to one and other after devoting their lives to the strict rituals and practises of the monasteries. Below them the eternal cycle of farm-life provides a strong contrast to their lives and they are forced to choose between human desire and spiritual devotion

An uptight English writer traveling to Crete on a matter of business finds his life changed forever when he meets the gregarious Alexis Zorba.

A girl struggling with asthma is taken to a clinic in South Tyrol to be cured. After some time she decides to get out of this hell (that's how she feels about it) and soon she'll meet a new friend. Together they try to reach the peak of a mountain where, according to an old custom, she can be healed.

King Henry II of England has trouble with the Church. When the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, he has a brilliant idea. Rather than appoint another pious cleric loyal to Rome and the Church, he will appoint his old drinking and wenching buddy, Thomas Becket, technically a deacon of the church, to the post. Unfortunately, Becket takes the job seriously and provides abler opposition to Henry.

Thirty years after serving together in the Vietnam War, Larry "Doc" Shepherd, Sal Nealon and the Rev. Richard Mueller reunite for a different type of mission: to bury Doc's son, a young Marine killed in Iraq. Forgoing burial at Arlington National Cemetery, Doc and his old buddies take the casket on a bittersweet trip up the coast to New Hampshire. Along the way, the three men find themselves reminiscing and coming to terms with the shared memories of a war that continues to shape their lives.

While filing for a divorce, beautiful ex-stripper Roslyn Taber ends up meeting aging cowboy-turned-gambler Gay Langland and former World War II aviator Guido Racanelli. The two men instantly become infatuated with Roslyn and, on a whim, the three decide to move into Guido's half-finished desert home together. When grizzled ex-rodeo rider Perce Howland arrives, the unlikely foursome strike up a business capturing wild horses.

The most famous Museum in Vienna appears in the film as a mysterious intersection where the characters explore their own lives, the city and how art reflects the world.

Jack Dodd was a London butcher who enjoyed a pint with his mates for over 50 years. When he died, he died as he lived, with a smile on his face watching a horse race on which he had bet, with borrowed money. But before he died he had a final request, 'Last Orders', that his ashes be scattered in the sea at Margate. The movie follows his mates, Ray, Lenny and Vic and his foster son Vince as they journey to the sea with the ashes. Along the way, the threads of their lives, their loves and their disappointments are woven together in their memories of Jack and his wife Amy

After the bizarre death of her brother, Johana Burwood must return home after four years, to face her strange siblings, her out of touch father and her very touchy past.

Billy Crystal plays a Hollywood agent who stumbles upon Max, a giant living in Romania, and tries to get him into the movies.

Dorottya is a young Hungarian actress with a burning desire: to make it on the English stage. Legendary actor, Sir Michael Gifford suffers from an incurable disease, and has one desire: be left alone. When Dorottya becomes his carer they both hope their wish will be fulfilled.

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.

Before Dawn charts the years of exile in the life of famous Jewish Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, his inner struggle for the "right attitude" towards the events in war torn Europe and his search for a new home.

Korea, 1950. A child's vow to take care of his family marks the beginning of a lifelong promise spanning sixty years.

Captain Jahan Bakshi rescues a Punjabi girl, Suhani. This starts a friendship that evolves into a passionate love affair.

Bank manager Frank and writer Patrizia meet by coincidence again and again at the airport. They commute between Dusseldorf and Paris, but behind their travels are two fateful stories. Frank wants to complete the business of his life, Patrizia visits her lover, who is in a coma since a car accident. For both life comes out of joint and they each suffer heavy losses. What connects them is the search for hold, a listener, the need to be needed and the hope that there is a beginning in each end.

A woman's consuming love forces her to bear the clone of her dead beloved. From his infancy to manhood, she faces the unavoidable complexities of her controversial decision.

Jake Taylor has everything. He has a beautiful girl, he's the champion in basketball and beer pong, and everyone loves him. Then, an old childhood friend, whom Jake used to be friends with, commits suicide. Jake begins to think. He wonders what he could've done to save his friend's life. A youth minister tells him that Jake needs God. So Jake becomes a Christian. However, things begin to spin out of control. His dad is cheating on his mom, his girlfriend is pregnant, and his former friends ridicule and mock him. During all this, Jake is going to realize just what it means to be a Christian and how, to save a life.

In a small Turkish town, two young tuberculous poets try to survive while publishing their poems. As they both fall in love, their life would never be the same.

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.

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

Seventeen talented Australian directors from diverse artistic disciplines each create a chapter of the hauntingly beautiful novel by multi award-winning author Tim Winton. The linking and overlapping stories explore the extraordinary turning points in ordinary people’s lives in a stunning portrait of a small coastal community. As characters face second thoughts and regret, relationships irretrievably alter, resolves are made or broken, and lives change direction forever.

A love story situated in the Himalayas. A Buddhist monk can't choose between life and the way of the Buddha.

An epic tale of three brothers and their father living in the remote wilderness of 1900s USA and how their lives are affected by nature, history, war, and love.

A drama centered on a young woman who takes a summer job caring for a bed-ridden older man, and the intimate secrets they begin to share with one another.

Three musically talented children look to the future, but their hopes crumble when Germany and Russia enter into war.

A mosaic of stories about love and loss, exploring our relationship to the objects, artifacts, and memories that shape our lives.

Sixteen year-old Nisha lives a double life. At home with her family she is the perfect Pakistani daughter, but when out with her friends, she is a normal Norwegian teenager. When her father catches her in bed with her boyfriend, Nisha's two worlds brutally collide. To set an example, Nisha's parents decide to kidnap her and place her with relatives in Pakistan. Here, in a country she has never been to before, Nisha is forced to adapt to her parents' culture.

Just days before Rhett (Chris Pine) is leaving for Nashville to pursue a lifelong dream of being a singer/songwriter, his girlfriend Samantha (Bre Blair) realizes that "his" future may not be "their" future. This news comes as a shock to Rhett, and he is faced with having to choose between following his dream and staying in his hometown in order to be with the woman he loves.

There was once a young girl named May who felt alienated from everyone around her. May is worried about her mother and father, whose marriage is on the rocks, and she yearns to return to the woods where her grandfather lives. One day, May befriends a boy as lonely as she is. When reality catches up, they run away to a beautiful world that belongs only to them. Both imaginatively escapist and heartbreakingly realistic, their journey speaks to kids and adults alike with the pain of solitude, the sorrow of loss, and the warmth of hope.

A teenage girl helps an escaped fugitive flee Germany into France, after extracting a promise that he will help her commit suicide.

Two first-year students at Oxford University join the infamous Riot Club, where reputations can be made or destroyed over the course of a single evening.

In the near future, as humanity prepares to set foot on Mars, Jacob Obus, an elderly musician, takes pride in slowing down time by playing instruments inspired by women's bodies, designed by his friend Arthur. A love triangle develops when Jacob and Arthur both fall in love with Avril, a young photographer. Enter Eugène Spaak, Arthur's father, an inventor and cosmologist who unveils a new theory about man's desire to reach Mars and helps Jacob find the true meaning of life and love.

A caregiver at a small retirement home takes one of her patients for a drive to the country, but the two wind up stranded in a forest where they embark on an exhausting and enlightening two-day journey.

A young woman joins the military to be part of something bigger than herself and her small-town roots. Instead, she ends up as a new guard at Guantanamo Bay, where her mission is far from black and white. Surrounded by hostile jihadists and aggressive squadmates, she strikes up an unusual friendship with one of the detainees.

When an acclaimed music producer goes off his medication for schizophrenia, his friends chase him though the LA music scene to help commit him to a psychiatric hospital, revealing the troubling inadequacies of the mental health care system.

A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.

A portrait of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s young adulthood, set in the 1940s and 50s, in the electric capital city of Santiago. There, he decides to become a poet and is introduced, by destiny, into the foremost bohemian and artistic circle of the time.

According to the legend of the Shangaan, white lions are the messengers of the gods, but it has been years since one has been seen in their remote African valley. When a white lion is miraculously born into that valley, a young Shangaan named Gisani, finds himself destined to protect this rare and magnificent creature at all costs. This young lion, whom will be known as Letsatsi, is cast from his pride and forced to embark upon a perilous journey of survival.

Suzanne Simonin describes her life of suffering in letters. As a young woman she is sent to a convent against her will. Since her parents cannot afford the dowry required for a marriage befitting her rank they decide she must instead become a nun. Although a kind and understanding Mother Superior helps her to learn the convent’s daily routine, Suzanne’s desire for freedom remains unabated. When the Mother Superior dies, Suzanne finds herself faced with reprisals, humiliation and harassment at the hands of the new Abbess and the other Sisters. For many years, Suzanne is subjected to bigotry and religious fanaticism. (Berlinale.de)

International art dealer Ron Hall must befriend a dangerous homeless man in order to save his struggling marriage to his wife, a woman whose dreams will lead all three of them on the journey of their lives.

Vienna, 1937, on the eve of the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany. The young and inexperienced Franz Huchel begins to learn about both the joys and hardships of life by working as an apprentice to the mutilated war veteran Otto Trsnjek in a small tobacco shop, where he meets the famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, a regular customer, who will become a valuable friend in times of chaos and uncertainty.