20 best movies like Paradise: Faith (2012)

A dozen foreigners are kidnapped by a terrorist group in the Philippines.

A nurse from the Ukraine searches for a better life in the West, while an unemployed security guard from Austria heads East for the same reason. Both are looking for work, a new beginning, an existence, struggling to believe in themselves, to find a meaning in life..

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)

Vera Farmiga's directorial debut, HIGHER GROUND, depicts the landscape of a tight-knit spiritual community thrown off-kilter when one of their own begins to question her faith. Inspired by screenwriter Carolyn S. Briggs' memoir This Dark World, the film tells the story of a thoughtful woman's struggles with belief, love, and trust - in human relationships as well as in God.

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

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.

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

Circles (Serbian: Krugovi) is a Serbian movie based on the true story of a Serbian soldier who risked his life to protect a Muslim civilian during the war in Bosnia. During the war in Bosnia in 1993, a Serbian soldier pays for his life after protecting a Muslim civilian from being attacked by three other soldiers. 12 years later, the consequences of this act of heroism are still having their repercussions.

A woman struggles with love and personal loss against the backdrop of a land torn by civil war in this drama from filmmaker Ozcan Alper. Sumru (Gaye Gursel) is a Turkish woman who studies ethnic music at a college in Istanbul and frequently makes field recordings of artists who practice rare and unusual forms. Sumru is struggling with loneliness after the disappearance of her Kurdish boyfriend, and for her latest project, she sets out on a lengthy road trip recording the stories of Kurdish women who have survived the murder of their Turkish husbands or lovers, hoping she might track down her man in her travels. After making her first stop in the city of Diyarbaki, Sumru meets Ahmet, who makes a living selling black market goods and shares her love of music and history. The two become fast friends, and as Ahmet joins Sumru on her travels, their relationship grows deeper, though she also becomes more aware of the tragedy that has gripped her country and the consequences of the civil war.

In a war ridden country a woman watches over the husband reduced to a vegetable state by a bullet in the neck, abandoned by Jihad companions and brothers. One day, the woman decides to say things to him she could never have done before.

A portrait of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt whose lavish, sexual paintings came to symbolize the art nouveau style of the late 19th and early 20th century.

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

A morality tale of xenophobia, religious prejudice, mob violence, poverty, and their effect on two children in Liverpool during the Depression. When a shipyard closes, Liam and Teresa's dad loses his job. Liam, who's about 8, making his first Holy Communion, gets a regular dose of fire and brimstone at church. Teresa, about 13, has a job as a maid to the Jewish family that owns the closed shipyard. The lady of that house is having an affair, and Teresa becomes an accomplice. Liam stutters terribly, especially when troubled. Dad comes under the sway of the Fascists, who blame cheap Irish labor and Jewish owners. A Molotov cocktail brings things to a head.

Lore leads her four younger siblings across a war-torn Germany in 1945. Amidst the chaos she encounters a mysterious refugee who shatters her fragile reality with hatred and desire.

Inspired by “One Thousand and One Nights,” the celebrated collection of Middle Eastern and Indian folk tales, “About Endlessness,” in its juxtaposition of tableaux capturing moments in life, explores the preciousness and beauty of our existence, awakening in us the wish to maintain this eternal treasure and pass it on.

A drama set at a Swiss ski resort and centered on a boy who supports his sister by stealing from wealthy guests.

A man and a woman share their musings on love and freedom one summer night. The couple’s conversation meanders through memories, unspoken desires and passion through poetic dialogue.

François van Heerden, a mid-40's, white, Afrikaans-speaking family man, has become devoid of any care or concern for his own measure of happiness, and so convinced of his ill-fated existence, that he is wholly unprepared when a chance encounter unravels his clean, controlled life.

Judas, a seasoned thief, finds himself in the market square where Christ is giving a sermon and his apostles are collecting alms. He follows them and steals their money, only to be caught red-handed. Nevertheless, the Teacher forgives him. What is more, He invites the thief to become one of His followers and offers him a position as the group’s treasurer. Shocked by Christ’s unexpected offer, Judas decides to join the apostles, if only to figure out what is going on. He gradually starts to comprehend Christ’s message, but feels that the apostles are blindly following their teacher. Judas argues with them, and tries to defend his right to divine the truth of God. But when he fails to make them understand, he realizes that Christ’s teachings may sink into oblivion without benefiting humanity. His solution is to betray Christ. “By killing a man, have I not saved a God?”

A sex and drug addicted young man who is forced into a Christian-run ministry in an attempt to cure him of his "gay affliction", where instead he is faced with the truth in his heart and spirit.

Meeting his handicapped son for the first time, a young father attempts to forge a relationship with the teenager.

During the 1970s a student named Gilles gets entangled in contemporary political turmoils although he would rather just be a creative artist. While torn between his solidarity to his friends and his personal ambitions he falls in love with Christine.

During a stopover in Buenos Aires on her way to Chile, 31-year-old Maria recognizes a nursery rhyme. Maria doesn't speak a work of Spanish, but without understanding what she is singing, she remembers the Spanish lyrics. Disturbed and thrown off course, she decides to interrupt her journey and wander through the unfamiliar city.

Christine is a wheelchair-using woman with severe multiple sclerosis. In order to escape her isolation, she makes a journey to Lourdes, the iconic site of pilgrimage in the Pyrenees Mountains, along with other people with varying disabilities. During her stay she begins to regain the use of her limbs. This is in contrast with others, who appear to have stronger faith than Christine but experience only slight, passing improvement. Her fellow pilgrims are eager to call it a miracle; however, as the pilgrimage draws to a close, exactly how accurate a claim this is becomes uncertain.

On a remote, isolated, unnamed Lebanese village inhabited by both Muslims and Christians. The village is surrounded by land mines and only reachable by a small bridge. As civil strife engulfed the country, the women in the village learn of this fact and try, by various means and to varying success, to keep their men in the dark, sabotaging the village radio, then destroying the village TV.

During the early 16th Century idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.

Augustine is a two-part, Italian-made mini-series about the influential theologian and church father Augustine of Hippo. The piece tells the story of his life from a teenager to his death at the age of 69.Much of the content for the scenes of him as a young and middle-aged man come from his Confessions, which is probably the earliest extant autobiography.

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.

When a pastor is shaken by the visible faith of a street-corner preacher, he is reminded that true belief always requires action. His response ignites a journey that impacts everyone it touches in ways that only God could orchestrate.

In a godforsaken Kazakh village four adolescent teenagers try to find their place in the world...

Johan and his family are Mennonites from the north of Mexico. Against the law of God and Man, Johan falls in love with another woman.

Quentin and Antoine are 18-year-old twins. Without their father knowing it, they set out on a voyage to Spain, where their mother's funeral is to take place. The two brothers barely knew their mother. Their hitchhiking journey is full of encounters, arguments, reconciliations, and experiences. Their time on the road also reveals their differences, the splits in their attractions, and the confusion of their feelings.

Against the tumultuous backdrop of Iran's 1953 CIA-backed coup d'état, the destinies of four women converge in a beautiful orchard garden, where they find independence, solace and companionship.

Andreas and Stefan lead a happy and passionate life: Together with their beloved tomcat Moses, they live in a beautiful old house in Vienna's vineyards. They work as a musician and as a scheduler in the same orchestra and they love their large circle of friends. An unexpected and inexplicable outburst of violence suddenly shakes up the relationship and calls everything into question - the blind spot that resides in all of us.

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?

As law enforcement officers, Adam Mitchell, Nathan Hayes, and their partners are confident and focused. They willingly stand up to the worst the streets have to offer. Yet at the end of the day, they face a challenge that none of them are truly prepared to tackle: fatherhood. They know that God desires to turn the hearts of fathers to their children, but their children are beginning to drift further and further away from them. When tragedy hits home, these men are left wrestling with their hopes, their fears, their faith, and their fathering. Can a new found urgency help these dads draw closer to God ... and to their children? COURAGEOUS is the fourth release of Sherwood Pictures, the movie making ministry of Sherwood Church in Albany, Georgia.

In World War II, the widow Barny sees the Italian soldiers arriving in occupied Saint Bernard while walking to her job. Barny lives with her daughter and works correcting tests and feels a great attraction toward her boss Sabine. When the Germans arrive, Barny sends her half-Jewish daughter to live in a farm in the countryside and finds that Sabine's brother has been arrested and sent to a concentration camp. The atheist Barny decides to baptize her daughter to protect her and chooses priest Léon Morin to discuss with him themes related to religion and Catholicism and Léon lends books to her. Barny converts to the Catholicism and becomes closer to Léon, feeling an unrequited desire for him.

A French family with two daughters, 10-year-old Laure and 6-year-old Jeanne, moves to a new neighborhood during the summer holidays. With her tomboy ways, Laure is immediately mistaken for a boy by the local kids and passes herself off as Mickaël.

A Belgian teenager hatches a plot to kill his teacher after embracing an extremist interpretation of the Quran.

During the Gorbachev years, Platon Makovski and his four buddies are university students who jump on the private capitalism movement. Fast-forward 20 years, Platon finds himself the richest man in Russia, having sacrificed his friends to get to the top. But with this cynical rise, comes a brutal fall.

Bilal is 17 years old, a Kurdish boy from Iraq. He sets off on an adventure-filled journey across Europe. He wants to get to England to see his love who lives there. Bilal finally reaches Calais, but how do you cover 32 kilometers of the English Channel when you can't swim? The boy soon discovers that his trip won't be as easy as he imagined... The community of struggling illegal aliens in Calais

Set in the 17th-century, an Italian nobleman weds an impoverished countess, who is wooed by the King of Piedmont and faces pressure from his entire court to succumb to his wishes.

11-year-old Eliza is the invisible element of her family unit: her parents are both consumed with work and her brother is wrapped up in his own adolescent life. Eliza ignites not only a spark that makes her visible but one that sets into motion a revolution in her family dynamic when she wins a spelling bee. Finding an emotional outlet in the power of words and in the spiritual mysticism that he sees at work in her unparalleled gift, Eliza's father pours all of his energy into helping his daughter become spelling bee champion. A religious studies professor, he sees the opportunity as not only a distraction from his life but as an answer to his own crisis of faith. His vicarious path to God, real or imagined, leads to an obsession with Eliza's success and he begins teaching her secrets of the Kabbalah. Now preparing for the National Spelling Bee, Eliza looks on as a new secret of her family's hidden turmoil seems to be revealed with each new word she spells.

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.

Drawing inspiration from the death-squad murders of several Gypsy families in Hungary in 2008, director Bence Fliegauf's chilling and unforgettable real-life horror story follows a family whose dreams of emigration and escape are suddenly, horribly destroyed.

After the death of Lama Dorje, Tibetan Buddhist monks find three children — one American and two Nepalese — who may be the rebirth of their great teacher.

A lonely telephone operator leading an empty, amoral life finds God — only to have her faith continually tested in ways beyond what she could have imagined.

A widowed metro conductor, approaching retirement, lives with his beautiful grown daughter – the object of a neighbor’s romantic interest. The man’s former girlfriend also lives in their building and plays a role in their closely-knit lives.

An ambitious female attorney wallows in excess and meaningless sex with both male and female partners, while dealing with her personal life problems including helping her kleptomaniac sister.

It is 1984. Frank (Layke Anderson) is a determined English teenager who runs away from high school to find an alternative gay lifestyle in Amsterdam. He finds a home and a job at the "House of Boys", a bar-cum-brothel run by a strict Madame (Udo Kier) who has an eye for what his punters crave. Frank works his way up from barman to on-stage dancer and falls in love with some of his housemates Jake (Ben Northover). The first intimations of what is described as 'the gay cancer', casts a long shadow over Frank's tight-knit group of friends. Yet despite the troubles that cloud the hopes and dreams of young Frank, his perseverance, along with support from a willing doctor (Stephen Fry), will carry him through. House of Boys is a glamorous, colourful coming-of-age story that lifts the lid on an exciting world of sex and music, where deep passions suddenly turn into a struggle for courage.