20 best movies like So Close, So Far (2005)

Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Rakshan Banietemad ends her eight-year hiatus from feature filmmaking with this ingenious, mosaic-like narrative, which knits together the stories of seven characters to create a microcosm of Iranian working-class society.

Newly widowed Frank Fogle embarks on a journey to Ireland to scatter his late wife’s ashes. His estranged son, Sean, recently released from prison, agrees to join only when his father promises that they’ll never see each other again following the trip. After revelations surface about an old flame of Frank’s wife and a charming hitchhiker with plans of her own intervenes, father and son find themselves drawn together in unexpected ways.

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.

Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?

Inspirational true story of Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, who risked his life for his dream to become a dancer despite a nationwide dancing ban.

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.

A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim student, asking them to take on the job, but initially he has little luck. Eventually, Badii finds a man who is up for the task because he needs the money, but his new associate soon tries to talk him out of committing suicide.

After their father dies, a family of five are forced to survive on their own in a Kurdish village on the border of Iran and Iraq. Matters are made worse when 12 year old Ayoub, the new head of the family, is told that his handicapped brother, Madi, needs an immediate operation in order to remain alive. This heartbreaking tale shows the lengths to which a family will go in order to survive in the harshest of conditions, where even the horses are fed liquor in order to work.

Marzieh is a young female actress living in Tehran. The authorities ban her theatre work and, like all young people in Iran, she is forced to lead a secret life in order to express herself artistically. At an underground rave, she meets Iranian born Saman, now an Australian citizen, who offers her a way out of her country and the possibility of living without fear.

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 biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class.

Matt Ryder is convinced to drive his estranged and dying father Benjamin Ryder cross country to deliver four old rolls of Kodachrome film to the last lab in the world that can develop them before it shuts down for good. Along with Ben's nurse Zooey, the three navigate a world changing from analogue to digital while trying to put the past behind them.

Strangers in their own birthplace, a camp 16-year-old, lollipop-sucking Dany and his 18-year-old brother Odysseus cross the entire country (along with pet rabbit Dido ) in search of their Greek father, who they only know as “The Nameless”, after the death of their Albanian mother. They hope to get Greek passports and citizenship but on the journey they encounter racism and prejudice.

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.

After an Afghanistan-born woman who lives in Canada receives a letter from her suicidal sister, she takes a perilous journey through Afghanistan to try to find her.

A Canadian doctor finds her sympathies sorely tested while working in the conflict ravaged Palestinian territories.

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.

When their drug abusing mother is released from prison determined to rebuild their family, Rey kidnaps his younger brother Oliver and escapes their desert home for the California coast.

Amir and Sara are a young couple on their way to Melbourne to continue their studies. However, just a few hours before the departure of their flight, they are unintentionally involved in a tragic event.

The trial story of Viviane Amsalem's five year fight to obtain her divorce in front of the only legal authority competent for divorce cases in Israel, the Rabbinical Court.

The picture is dedicated to the exploits of the Soviet underground fighters and partisans who heroically fought against the German invaders during the Great Patriotic War. The image of the main character of the railway worker Ales Arlovich is collective, but it is based on the fate of the Soviet underground fighter Fyodor Krylovich, who committed the largest land sabotage of the Second World War at the Osipovichi railway station.

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.

Bacurau, a small town in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants notice that their community has vanished from most maps.

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 mother of a poor family, has guests coming over, yet doesn't know how to get the dinner party altogether with limited resources.

Waldemar Nods, a young man from Suriname, meets the older Dutch woman Rika van der Lans and they fall in love. In pre-WWII Netherlands they could not be more different. The one black, the other white, 17 years between them and on top of that Rika already has four children with another man. They love each other, but then Rika appears to be pregnant...

Ajami is an area of Tel Aviv in Israel where Arabs, Palestinians, Jews and Christians live together in a tense atmosphere. Omar, an Israeli Arab, struggles to save his family from a gang of extortionists. He also courts a beautiful Christian girl: Hadir. Malek, an illegal Palestinian worker, tries to collect enough money to pay for his mother's operation. Dando, an Israeli cop, does his utmost to find his missing brother who may have been killed by Palestinians.

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.

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.

Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.

Based upon the final confession of Adolf Eichmann, made before his execution in Israel, of his role in Hitler's plan for the final solution.

55 Steps is based a the inspiring true story of Eleanor Riese, a mental illness patient herself, who brings a class action suit to give competent mental patients the right to have a say in their medication while they’re in a hospital, and Colette Hughes, the lawyer appointed to her case.

When 17-year-old Ben visits his father Heinrich in Marrakech, it is the start of an adventurous journey through a foreign country with a picturesque charm and a rough beauty where everything appears possible — including the chance that father and son will lose each other for good, or find one another again.

After 19 years on Death Row for the rape and murder of his teenage girlfriend, Daniel Holden is going home. His conviction has been vacated due to new DNA evidence. Now he has to return to a world he no longer knows and his reentry into the outside world may be as unforgiving as prison. Daniel is haunted by the past, dogged by the present, and uncertain of the future. As he struggles to adapt to his new life, his homecoming reignites the fears of a small town and threatens to shatter his family’s fragile peace. Daniel’s alleged crime divided a community. Will his freedom tear it in half?

Lachlan MacAldonich is a self-described “lazy Scotsman” and former guitar player for a once-popular 1990s rock band. No longer famous, he now lives a comfortably numb existence working on an organic farm outside Los Angeles. He drinks himself into a stupor every night and retires to his shabby apartment to record his podcast, recounting the tragic deaths of great musicians. After a particularly heavy night of drowning his sorrows at a local watering hole, he is arrested for driving under the influence. This snag, coupled with a long-ago conviction for a drug offense, means Lachlan faces possible deportation. His only hope of remaining stateside is proving that his absence would cause extreme hardship for a spouse or relative – forcing him to confront relationships he thought were buried forever.

Rules must be followed. For the "supervisors" of the Bat Yam neighbourhood in Israel, this means ensuring that women are dressed appropriately, that people respect Shabbat, or that Arabs from Jaffa don't enter the neighbourhood with music blaring from their cars. Avi, Kobi and Yaniv are young and know how to fight. They want to force their neighbours to become religious, without hesitating to be violent in the name of God. The inhabitants admire the gang and are afraid of them at the same time. One day a new girl, Miri, arrives. She is not familiar with the strict rules of modesty. The gang's leader Avi is going to be torn between his feelings for Miri and his dedication to the gang.

The epic story of a family that's involved in the Oklahoma Land Rush in 1889.

Grandmother Mi Ja works part-time as a caretaker, and struggles to raise a teen grandson by herself. Despite her tough situation, she speaks softly, dresses fashionably, and approaches the world with child-like curiosity. Enrolling in a poetry class, she endeavors to capture life in verse form, but her simple dream of completing a poem is stalled by the early signs of Alzheimer's disease and the heavy financial and emotional burden of her grandson's shocking wrongdoing.

Paris, France. Fred and his colleagues, members of the BPM, the Police Child Protection Unit, dedicated to pursuing all sorts of offenses committed against the weakest, must endure the scrutiny of Melissa, a photographer commissioned to graphically document the daily routine of the team.

After his family is evicted from their home, proud and desperate construction worker Dennis Nash tries to win his home back by striking a deal with the devil and working for Rick Carver, the corrupt real estate broker who evicted him.

The patriarch of a religious Muslim family refuses to accept his transgender son, which creates a conflict within the family and ends up tearing them apart.

Eighteen-year-old Shira is the youngest daughter of the Mendelman family. She is about to be married off to a promising young man of the same age and background. It is a dream come true, and Shira feels prepared and excited. On Purim, her twenty-eight-year-old sister, Esther, dies while giving birth to her first child, Mordechay. The pain and grief that overwhelm the family postpone Shira's promised match. Everything changes when a match is proposed to Yochay-Esther's late husband-to a widow from Belgium. Yochay feels it's too early, although he realizes that sooner or later he must seriously consider getting married again. When the girls' mother finds out that Yochay may marry the widow and move to Belgium with her only grandchild, she proposes a match between Shira and the widower. Shira will have to choose between her heart's wish and her family duty. She will find out that the void which she must choose exists only within her heart.

PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.

After the Portuguese government demolishes his slum and relocates him to a housing project on the outskirts of Lisbon, 75-year-old Cape Verde immigrant Ventura wanders between his new and old homes, reconnecting with people from his past.

Al Stump is a famous sports-writer chosen by Ty Cobb to co-write his official, authorized 'autobiography' before his death. Cobb, widely feared and despised, feels misunderstood and wants to set the record straight about 'the greatest ball-player ever,' in his words.

The story of Joseph a man plagued by violence and a rage that is driving him to self-destruction. As Joseph's life spirals into turmoil a chance of redemption appears in the form of Hannah, a Christian charity shop worker. Their relationship develops to reveal that Hannah is hiding a secret of her own with devastating results on both of their lives.

Determined to leave the ravages of war behind, 38 year old Gian Singh resigns from the British Indian Army to a quiet life. His world is soon thrown in turmoil, when he suddenly finds himself responsible for the life of a 17 year old girl, traumatized by the events that separated her from her family.

Orense, Spain, 1940, just after the end of the Civil War. Every time Elena locks the door of her home, she and her children become the faithful guardians of a sacred secret: Ricardo, her husband, their father, hides in the house, trying to avoid the brutal political persecution of the victors, who hunt, as if they were wild animals, and imprison or execute, those who have lost the bloody and tragic struggle…

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

The time is the late '80s, a crucial period in the history of South Africa. President P.W. Botha is hanging on to power by a thread as the African National Congress (ANC) takes up arms against apartheid and the country tumbles toward insurrection. A British mining concern is convinced that their interests would be better served in a stable South Africa and they quietly dispatch Michael Young, their head of public affairs, to open an unofficial dialogue between the bitter rivals. Assembling a reluctant yet brilliant team to pave the way to reconciliation by confronting obstacles that initially seem insurmountable, Young places his trust in ANC leader Thabo Mbeki and Afrikaner philosophy professor Willie Esterhuyse. It is their empathy that will ultimately serve as the catalyst for change by proving more powerful than the terrorist bombs that threaten to disrupt the peaceful dialogue.