20 best movies like Occident (2002)

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.

A hedonistic bachelor, falls for an escaped mental patient. Til Schweiger comes up with a slickly-made off-the-wall romantic comedy drama "Barfuss" (Barefoot), his first solo directing effort in nearly a decade. Punchy, anti-establishment tone, with Schweiger playing a hedonistic bachelor - he is his rich family's black sheep - who falls for a suicidal mental patient (Johanna Wokalek). An offbeat, strangely tender love story develops as Nick struggles with responsibility for the first time in his life.

A Romanian police officer teams up with a small crew of bank robbers to pull off a heist by convincing everyone at the scene of the crime that they are only filming a movie.

The true story of a young woman whose lust for life means she is determined to be so very much more than just another cancer patient.

A romantic drama set in 1961 that follows a young studio extra's ambitious efforts to reunite with the French girl he loves after being separated by the construction of the Berlin Wall.

Once upon a time an old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Toto, enters an orphanage. Toto leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. The squatters discover oil in the land and Toto sees a vision of the old woman who gives him a magic dove that will grant him anything he wishes.

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.

At a predominantly white Ivy League college, a diverse group of students navigate various forms of racial and other types of discrimination.

The principal of an elementary school calls a special parents meeting after it’s alleged that the seemingly empathetic and kindly-looking teacher Mrs. Drazděchová uses her students to manipulate their parents.

Set during World War II, somewhere in Eastern Europe. A German soldier is found dead near the village. The local authorities must find the culprit, or they will be all shot by the Nazis the morning after. There's no way to find the guilty one, but there's Ipu, the madman of the village, whom they promise a hero's funeral if he will claims responsibility and agrees to die in their place. He must decide, and time is running out.

A woman named Kit moves back to her parent's house, where she receives a mysterious invitation that would fulfill her childhood dreams.

When her husband is kicked in the groin by the village head, Qiu Ju, a peasant woman, despite her pregnancy, travels to a nearby town, and later a big city to deal with its bureaucrats and find justice.

A working girl from New Jersey looks for love with a fast-lane Manhattan salesman from Queens.

After leaving Washington D.C. hospital, plastic surgeon Ben Stone heads for California, where a lucrative practice in Beverly Hills awaits. After a car accident, he's sentenced to perform as the community's general practitioner.

An undertaker gets married to an old executioner's daughter and, although he doesn't like it, must continue the profession of his father-in-law after his retirement.

Climb aboard for an extraordinary version of Mark Twain's sweeping adventure when Walt Disney presents The Adventures of Huck Finn, starring Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings). Directed by Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns), it's the unforgettable saga of a mischievous youngster and a runaway slave

A mentally disabled man gets help from a sociopath when he tries to reunite with his dying father, who years earlier disowned him.

After their mother ends up in jail, two sisters turn to train robbery in order to support their family.

A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.

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.

Dispatched from his basement room on an errand for his mother, slacker Jeff might discover his destiny (finally) when he spends the day with his brother as he tracks his possibly adulterous wife.

The 1992 Danish football team competes for the European Championship.

Leroy Lowe, grand dragon of the Texas Ku Klux Klan confronts everything he's been taught to hate when he's sentenced to three years of hard labor on a prison work farm, where Warden Merville, dead set on rehabilitating Leroy, chooses Emilio, a Hispanic field worker imprisoned for fighting for labor rights, to be his cell-mate. Leroy, confined in a small cell with the enemy, far from the KKK comrades who deserted him, finds the chatty Emilio slowly chipping away at his anger and prejudice. His weekly rehabilitation meetings with the warden, barely tolerable as the man drones on about farm labor and field crops, take on a different meaning when Madalena, a beautiful Mexican maid is hired to clean the warden's office. An unconventional love story develops that opens Leroy's eyes to the possibility of a different life. And a man who was a born and bred racist finds himself heading down a completely different path to salvation.

After five failed attempts to go to the United States, 18-year-old Ramón decides to look for a friend’s aunt in Germany, but never finds her. With no papers or money, and without knowing the language, he barely survives living on the street until he meets Ruth, an old retired nurse who doesn’t speak Spanish. Beyond language barriers and prejudices, they discover that solidarity and humanity make life bearable.

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.

A "romantic comedy" based loosely on the suicide of the poet Henrich von Kleist in 1811.

Set in early 19th century Wallachia, Romania, a policeman, Costandin, is hired by a nobleman to find a Gypsy slave who has run away from his estate after having an affair with his wife.

A study of the friendship between a Chinese woman and a fisherman who came to Italy from Yugoslavia many years ago, who live in a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon.

A 19-year-old is coming out of prison and trying to build a new life but he can't deal with his guilt.

He is cute. He's shrewd. The girls love him. The cops hate him. He can't speak but is always talked about. His naughty antics will make you scream, but he will never listen. Cos he can't! Next summer ride a rollercoaster of emotions with Barfii - the Chalu Chaplin!

A terminally ill teen upsets her parents when she falls in love with a small-time drug dealer.

While traveling abroad, a guy falls for a Romanian beauty whose unreachable heart has its origins in her violent, charismatic ex.

This film charts the relationship between a man imprisoned for drug smuggling and his wife and is being shot over the course of five years, a few weeks at a time.

Eva meets Tudor on the day of her 16th birthday. It is Tudor who is to make her feel whole as a woman. He becomes for her a source of both love and suffering through his constant mysterious departures and reappearances.

When Sanlian's ex-husband passes away, she discovers he has altered his insurance policy, cutting out their son in favor of a stranger named Jay.

On the rocky path to sobriety after a life-changing accident, John Callahan discovers the healing power of art, willing his injured hands into drawing hilarious, often controversial cartoons, which bring him a new lease on life.

High school student Yuki Hase (Kento Yamazaki) wants to become close with classmate Kaori Fujimiya (Haruna Kawaguchi) who is alway by herself. Kaori Fujimiya refuses to become close with Yuki Hase, because she forgets her friends every new Monday. Even though Kaori tells Yuki why she doesn't want to become friends, Yuki still wants to become close to her.

Koistinen is a sad sack, a man without affect or friends. He's a night-watchman in Helsinki with ideas of starting his own business, but nothing to go with those intentions. He sometimes talks a bit with a woman who runs a snack trailer near his work. Out of the blue, a young sophisticated blonde woman attaches herself to Koistinen. He thinks of her as his girlfriend, he takes her on her rounds.

After learning that a brain aneurysm will kill him in about 90 minutes, a perpetually unhappy man struggles to come to terms with his fate and make amends with everyone he has ever hurt.

Claire is a midwife and has devoted her life to others. At a moment when she is preoccupied by the imminent closure of the maternity clinic where she works, her life is further turned upside down when Béatrice, her father's former mistress, turns up on the scene. Béatrice is a capricious and selfish woman, Claire's exact opposite.

On his quest for happiness, Per decides to leave Jutland and an upbringing in a strict religious home. He runs from his family and his patriarch father, and sets sail towards Copenhagen to become an engineer. Parallel to his studies, he works on a visionary energy project based on wind and wave energy, a project so much ahead of its time, that professors consider him insane and far too self-confident. However, Per’s project becomes a success and he marries the beautiful Jakobe who is a part of a wealthy Jewish family. One would imagine that Per’s happiness now is made. But Per’s childhood keeps haunting him and his dogmatic family cannot accept his new life. Despite his luck and success, Per is unable to fully cut the strings to his strict religious background, and he now fears that he will repeat his father’s patriarchist behavior.

A group of crotchety codgers attempt to revive the punk-rock band they all played in 17 years earlier in "Punk Is Not Dead".

An abused wife heads to California to become a movie star while her nephew back in Alabama has to deal with a racially-motivated murder involving a corrupt sheriff.

Adeline's Chinese housekeeper suddenly disappears, leaving behind a little boy who doesn't speak a word of French. Helped by her sister, she takes care of the child and proceeds to locate the mother.

A young Israeli man absconds to Paris to flee his nationality, aided by his trusty Franco-Israeli dictionary.

The directorial debut of Dustin Hoffman, Quartet is a high-drama comedy about temperamental divas and old grudges, passion and pride, romance and Rigoletto. At a home for retired musicians, the annual concert to celebrate Verdi's birthday is disrupted by the arrival of Jean, an eternal diva and former wife of one of the residents. Expect poignancy and plenty of laughs.

Single mom Laura, along with her awkward 14 year-old son Henry is forced to drive Jack, her estranged, care-free pot dealing father across country after he's kicked out of yet another nursing home.

The movie portrays the story of an Italian family emigrated in Germany in the 1970s. Romano (Gigi Savoia), the father, decides to open a pizzeria which, by mutual decision with the wife Rosa (Antonella Attili), will call Solino, leaving his sons Gigi and Giancarlo to work there. A hostile relationship comes to life between the father and his sons, which will end up in the escape of the boys from family.

Mr. Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu) is a retired Romanian engineer, spending his time in the company of his cats and booze. When he starts feeling unusually ill, he first seeks painkillers from his neighbors. It soon becomes apparent that Lazarescu is indeed sick, and an ambulance arrives with a nurse (Luminita Gheorghiu) who has a few ideas about what could be the problem. However, a major traffic accident and poor organization leaves little room in Romanian hospitals for the fading Lazarescu.

When Manny Singer's wife dies, his young daughter Molly becomes mute and withdrawn. To help cope with looking after Molly, he hires sassy housekeeper Corrina Washington, who coaxes Molly out of her shell and shows father and daughter a whole new way of life. Manny and Corrina's friendship delights Molly and enrages the other townspeople.