20 best movies like Short Stories (2012)

Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, a place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers, and where the normal laws of physics are victim to frequent anomalies. A Stalker guides two men into the Zone, specifically to an area in which deep seeded desires are granted.

After 11-year-old Zachary Cowan strikes his classmate across the face with a stick after an argument, the victim's parents invite Zachary's parents to their Brooklyn apartment to deal with the incident in a civilized manner.

This film presents a contemporary view on modern Russian upper-class youth. The film genre is a social drama. The main five characters of the movie are financially secured and socially successful - producing, managing and hosting a popular TV show. They are beautiful, happy and satisfied with their lives. They are good friends to each other and the others. The glass world they surrounded themselves by is full of love and smiles... Until one day something happens to the leading character and suddenly they all face the real world. The glass shatters. Their lives are changed forever. They will never be the same

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.

Six short stories that explore the extremities of human behavior involving people in distress.

Indifferent to the notion of inheriting his father's estate, a restless, aging New Yorker passes time with his friends in games of mock sincerity, irreverence, and recreational cruelty towards those around them.

Along with her husband and three children, Marthe lives in an eden of her own creation, nearly isolated from the rest of the world. The arrival of a construction vehicle, however, pierces their tranquil, hermetic existence—before long a disused highway has been re-opened, and the family finds their home situated in the midst of rush-hour traffic. While the privileges of clean air, quietude and privacy are thus denied them, Marthe remains determined to stay no matter the cost.

Black marketeers Marko and Blacky manufacture and sell weapons to the Communist resistance in WWII Belgrade, living the good life along the way. Marko's surreal duplicity propels him up the ranks of the Communist Party, and he eventually abandons Blacky and steals his girlfriend. After a lengthy stay in a below-ground shelter, the couple reemerges during the Yugoslavian Civil War of the 1990s as Marko realizes that the situation is ripe for exploitation.

A modern fairy tale with scientists, partisans, cosmonauts, officials, and the Motherland. The scientist and his assistant are collecting the ingredients for an elixir that can resurrect dead people to life. At the same time, officials are looking for the carpenter who has a power to transmute water into oil.

William Thacker is a London bookstore owner whose humdrum existence is thrown into romantic turmoil when famous American actress Anna Scott appears in his shop. A chance encounter over spilled orange juice leads to a kiss that blossoms into a full-blown affair. As the average bloke and glamorous movie star draw closer and closer together, they struggle to reconcile their radically different lifestyles in the name of love.

Four very different people live in the same building but avoid each other because of differences in how they live their lives, what they believe in, and where they come from. They would probably never exchange a word, but misfortune pushes them towards each other. Their lives entangle in ways that profoundly challenge deep-held beliefs and prejudices surrounding material status, sexual orientation, nationality and religion. Slowly, and even painfully, they begin to open up to each other and recognize the essential humanity each of them possesses.

The Ciraulo family lives in the miserable district of Palermo called "Zen". When one of their children dies in a shootout between mafia gangsters they receive compensation and buy a luxury black Volvo. Things go wrong when Trancredi, another son, takes the car out and damages the car door.

On a small town college campus, a philosophy professor in existential crisis gives his life new purpose when he enters into a relationship with his student.

This drama centers on Hank Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of "Factotum" author Charles Bukowski, who wanders around Los Angeles, CA trying to live off jobs which don't interfere with his primary interest, which is writing. Along the way, he fends off the distractions offered by women, drinking and gambling.

In 1970, a few days before Christmas, Elvis Presley showed up on the White House lawn seeking to be deputized into the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs by the President himself.

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.

A 50-year-old single father faces disapproval from his family and his ex-wife when he falls in love with a 26-year-old woman.

Long-term couple Owen and Hallie are breaking up—or maybe not?—and just as their relationship reaches a turning point, Matt and Willa embark on a romance of their own.

Natha a poor farmer from Peepli village in the heart of rural India is about to lose his plot of land due to an unpaid bank loan. A quick fix to the problem is the a government program that aids the families of indebted farmers who have committed suicide. As a means of survival Farmer Natha can choose to die. His brother is happy to push him towards this unique 'honour' but Natha is reluctant. Local elections are around the corner and what might have been another unnoticed event turns into a 'cause celebre' with everyone wanting a piece of the action. Political bigwigs, high-ranking bureaucrats, local henchmen and the ever-zealous media descend upon sleepy Peepli to stake their claim. The question on everyone's lips - "Will he or Won't he?" As the mania escalates, nobody seems to care how Natha really feels.

Julia, Lucas, Aaron, Nora and Lola live in a building in the chaotic Mexico City, . Everything changes when Felix moves to the unoccupied apartment next to them. Félix comes to know their neighbors and this changes the dynamics of the lives of the characters.

In a bleak Inverness midwinter, Luisaidh is careening off the rails after the suicide of her best friend. She medicates her misery with joyless sex, chips and a belief in the power of positive drinking. Surrounded by bittersweet memories, she struggles to find someone to talk to or some reason to make life worthwhile at the most stressful time of the year.

Jerusalem, Israel. Professors Eliezer and Uriel Shkolnik, father and son, have dedicated their lives to the study of the Jewish scriptures. Eliezer is a stubborn and methodical scholar who has never been recognized for his work; Uriel is a rising star, someone admired and praised by his colleagues. The fragile balance that has kept their personal relationship almost intact is broken in an unexpected way by a simple phone call.

A superintendent of a school district works for the betterment of the student’s education when an embezzlement scheme is discovered, threatening to destroy everything.

Young journalist Sebastian Zöllner is writing an article on artist Manuel Kaminski. Zöllner hopes that Kaminski dies soon, so that he can cash in on his article.

A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.

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.

A woman moves into a retirement community and starts a cheerleading squad with her fellow residents.

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Bill McKay is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. He has no hope of winning, so he is willing to tweak the establishment.

15 minutes of fame destroys the life of a man who works as a clapper in television.

A computer hacker's goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.

Igor and Alexandra are 30 -years old lovers.She is a theater production designer.He is an actor.She works hard,he drinks.They cannot leave and cannot get on.This story is about eternal problem of choice and talent to listen to ones heart .About a dangerous illusion of the youth that there is a lot of time to make mistakes and that is too early to make decision,to get married,to give birth to a child.The main characters have to realize that there is no time and there is no rough copy we have to live present moment because tomorrow may never come.

One day, Tamara went out to throw out the garbage and met Pasha at the entrance with a bottle of wine and a desire to talk. After a visit, the man gets into the apartment of a new acquaintance, and she tells him how much she loves her husband Lenechka, who took her "rejected" from the village, planted her at home for a sewing machine and called "gupeshka" - in honor of an aquarium fish, submissive , silent, unwittingly devoted to the owner.

In Milagro, a small town in the American Southwest, Ladd Devine plans to build a major new resort development. While activist Ruby Archuleta and lawyer/newspaper editor Charlie Bloom realize that this will result in the eventual displacement of the local Hispanic farmers, they cannot arouse much opposition because of the short term opportunities offered by construction jobs.

Follows the journey of a 90-year-old atheist and the quirky characters that inhabit his off-the-map desert town. He finds himself at the precipice of life, thrust into a journey of self-exploration.

Paul Raymond builds a porn, entertainment and real estate empire that makes him the wealthiest man in Britain, but drugs doom his beloved daughter, Debbie.

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.

Calvin is a young novelist who achieved phenomenal success early in his career but is now struggling with his writing – as well as his romantic life. Finally, he makes a breakthrough and creates a character named Ruby who inspires him. When Calvin finds Ruby, in the flesh, sitting on his couch about a week later, he is completely flabbergasted that his words have turned into a living, breathing person.

Ned (Liev Schreiber) is in the throes of a mid-life crisis. His work as a writer on an outrageous, semi-pornographic TV show is less than satisfying. His fifteen year old son has just told him he is gay and his eleven year old is afraid of, well pretty much everything. When his wife, Jeannie (Helen Hunt), moves her sick and embittered father (Brian Dennehy) from Detroit into their home in NY, it puts added stress on an already strained marriage. And when a sexy female co-worker (Carla Gugino) puts the moves on Ned, the temptation sends him spiraling. EVERY DAY is about one family's struggle to survive the unexpected curve-balls that are simply part of real life; aging and death; commitment and freedom; love and acceptance. It's an uncompromising look at an ordinary family making an extraordinary journey towards themselves and towards each other.

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.

A drama about a life of ordinary people in a small mining town.

Five novels about a radio network in our life. Someone use it as a tool for influence, someone for an expression of feelings and someone just for cynical calculation.

After the PTA of a conservative high school in Indiana bans same-sex couples from attending the annual prom, a gang of flamboyant Broadway stars try to boost their image by showing up to support two lesbian students.

In 1843, despite the fact that Dickens is a successful writer, the failure of his latest book puts his career at a crossroads, until the moment when, struggling with inspiration and confronting reality with his childhood memories, a new character is born in the depths of his troubled mind; an old, lonely, embittered man, so vivid, so human, that a whole world grows around him, a story so inspiring that changed the meaning of Christmas forever.

A young woman decides to make positive changes in her life by training for the New York City Marathon.

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.

Inspired by global phenomenon of military wives choirs, the story celebrates a band of misfit women who form a choir on a military base. As unexpected bonds of friendship flourish, music and laughter transform their lives, helping each other to overcome their fears for loved ones in combat.

The drama based on hidden implicit faith in miracle unfolds between the members of the family with an unhappy love story of a desolate teenage girl who tries to withstand this family madness after their devotee grandmother came to their flat from upcountry.

In November 1918, a few days before the Armistice, when Lieutenant Pradelle orders a senseless attack, he causes a useless disaster; but his outrageous act also binds the lives of two soldiers who have nothing more in common than the battlefield: Édouard saves Albert, although at a high cost. They become companions in misfortune who will attempt to survive in a changing world. Pradelle, in his own way, does the same.

A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.