20 best movies like Takva: A Man's Fear of God (2006)

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.

Iin 1930s Shanghai, 'The White Countess' is both Sofia—a fallen member of the Russian aristocracy—and a nightclub created by a blind American diplomat, who asks Sofia to be the centerpiece of the world he wants to create.

When an aging matriarch starts showing signs of dementia, her dysfunctional family in Istanbul must navigate a minefield of unresolved issues to care for her.

A cavalcade of English life from New Year's Eve 1899 until 1933 seen through the eyes of well-to-do Londoners Jane and Robert Marryot. Amongst events touching their family are the Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, the sinking of the Titanic and the Great War.

A Russian poet and his interpreter travel to Italy to research the life of an 18th-century composer.

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.

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

Drawing some intriguing parallels between the work of the prostitute and that of the psychiatrist-both have clients, both charge for sessions, both take on roles that serve the needs, psychological or otherwise, of those they serve, Jeanne Labrune's drama stars Isabelle Huppert and Bouli Lanners as, respectively, Alice, a disaffected call girl and Xavier, a shrink with a crumbling domestic situation.

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.

Two young men — a Palestinian grad student and an Israeli lawyer — meet and fall in love amidst personal and political intrigue in this striking debut feature from Israeli director Michael Mayer.

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.

About existence from the perspective of 20 nameless black females. Each of the women portray one of the characters represented in the collection of twenty poems, revealing different issues that impact women in general and women of color in particular.

The wife of a British Judge is caught in a self-destructive love affair with a Royal Air Force pilot.

Araf is the story of Zehra and Olgun whose lives are caught in a vacuum. The world in which they live and work is a place of throwaway culture and constant change. They too are waiting for a chance to change and escape from their empty, monotonous lives.

1921 New York. An immigrant woman is tricked into a life of burlesque and vaudeville until a dazzling magician tries to save her and reunite her with her sister who is being held in the confines of Ellis Island.

Head On is German director Fatih Akin’s story of the alcoholic Cahit and Turkish Sibel. Akin tells the story of a love that can never be between two people who are too alike to not be together.

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.

The classic story of Emma Bovary, the beautiful wife of a small-town doctor in 19th century France, who engages in extra marital affairs in an attempt to advance her social status.

It is the summer of 1980 in East Germany and, alone, Barbara is confined to living and working as a doctor in a small provincial town - her punishment for attempting to emigrate to the West. She has only one focus; to escape and for this, she has to wait patiently. Until Andre, her supervisor in the hospital, takes her off course. Are his motives of love or duty to the authorities? The day-to-day pretense, and content supervision slowly take their toll as the tension builds.

Aydin, a retired actor, owns a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal and his sister Necla, who is coping with her recent divorce. During the winter, snow covers the ground and boredom brings the return of old memories, pushing Aydin to flee…

A poor boy of unknown origins is rescued from poverty and taken in by the Earnshaw family where he develops an intense relationship with his young foster sister, Cathy. Based on the classic novel by Emily Bronte.

Country girl Yu Hong leaves her village, her family and her lover to study in Beijing. At university, she discovers an intense world of sexual freedom and forbidden pleasure. Enraptured, compulsive, she falls madly in love with fellow student Zhou Wei. Driven by obsessive passions they can neither understand nor control, their relationship becomes one of dangerous games - betrayals, recriminations, provocations - as all around them, their fellow students begin to demonstrate, demanding democracy and freedom.

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.

Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defence minister and his wife move next door, forcing the Secret Service to order the trees' removal for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority, Israeli army, and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?

In late 19th-century England, Jude aspires to be an academic, but is hobbled by his blue-collar background. Instead, he works as a stonemason and is trapped in an unloving marriage to a farmer's daughter named Arabella. But when his wife leaves him, Jude sees an opportunity to improve himself. He moves to the city and begins an affair with his married cousin, Sue, courting tragedy every step of the way.

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.

Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who wears an old wedding dress and lives in the dilapidated Satis House, asks Pip's "Uncle Pumblechook" (who is actually Joe's uncle) to find a boy to play with her adopted daughter Estella. Pip begins to visit Miss Havisham and Estella, with whom he falls in love,then Pip a humble orphan suddenly becomes a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor.

The night of August 24, 1572, is known as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. In France a religious war is raging. In order to impose peace a forced wedding is arranged between Margot de Valois, sister of the immature Catholic King Charles IX, and the Hugenot King Henri of Navarre. Catherine of Medici maintains her behind-the-scenes power by ordering assaults, poisonings, and instigations to incest.

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

Uzak/Distant chronicles the numbing loneliness, longing, and isolation in the lives of two men who are consumed by their own problems. Istanbul photographer Mahmut reluctantly receives his relative Yusuf, but the mingling of their lives does little to alleviate their detachment.

A young field administrator for the TVA comes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam on the Tennessee River. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of an elderly woman from her home on an island in the River, and the young man's love affair with that woman's widowed granddaughter.

An old shepherd lives his last days in a quiet medieval village perched high on the hills of Calabria, at the southernmost tip of Italy. He herds goats under skies that most villagers have deserted long ago. He is sick, and believes to find his medicine in the dust he collects on the church floor, which he drinks in his water every day.

A young unemployed man finds work at a nuclear power plant and begins an illicit affair with the fiancée of one of his senior workmates.

The O'Neills lived happily in their house in the Australian countryside. That was until one day fate struck blindly, taking the life of Peter, the father, leaving his grief-stricken wife Dawn alone with their four children. Among them, eight-year-old Simone denies this reality. She is persuaded that her father still lives in the giant fig tree growing near their house and speaks to her through its leaves. But the tree becomes more and more invasive and threatens the house. It must be felled. Of course, Simone won't allow it.

Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.

A recently released ex-con gets involved in a fake kidnapping scheme that turns very real.

In the Salinas Valley in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother for the love of their father. Cal is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, how to get ahead in business and in life, and how to relate to his estranged mother.

A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.

Jane Eyre is an orphan cast out as a young girl by her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and sent to be raised in a harsh charity school for girls. There she learns to be come a teacher and eventually seeks employment outside the school. Her advertisement is answered by the housekeeper of Thornfield Hall, Mrs. Fairfax.

Lisbon Story is Wim Wenders' homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterious postcard from a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him.

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

Spans 300 years in the life of one famed musical instrument that winds up in present-day Montreal on the auction block. Crafted by the Italian master Bussotti (Cecchi) in 1681, the red violin derives its unusual color from the human blood mixed into the finish. With this legacy, the violin travels to Austria, England, China, and Canada, leaving both beauty and tragedy in its wake.

She is a scientist. He is a Lebanese doctor. They meet at a banquet and fall into a carefree, passionate relationship. But difficulties abound because of his heritage and her loveless marriage. She flies to Havana to sort things out on the beach and in the cabarets. She sends him a ticket, but harbors no illusions that He will join her in this Caribbean melting pot.

In Majdal Shams, the largest Druze village in Golan Heights on the Israeli-Syrian border, the Druze bride Mona is engaged to get married with Tallel, a television comedian that works in the Revolution Studios in Damascus, Syria. They have never met each other because of the occupation of the area by Israel since 1967; when Mona moves to Syria, she will lose her undefined nationality and will never be allowed to return home. Mona's father Hammed is a political activist pro-Syria that is on probation by the Israeli government. His older son Hatten married a Russian woman eight years ago and was banished from Majdal Shams by the religious leaders and his father. His brother Marwan is a wolf trader that lives in Italy. His sister Amal has two teenager daughters and has the intention to join the university, but her marriage with Amin is in crisis. When the family gathers for Mona's wedding, an insane bureaucracy jeopardizes the ceremony.

As a young couple stops and rests in a small village inn, the man is abducted by Death and is sequestered behind a huge doorless, windowless wall. The woman finds a mystic entrance and is met by Death, who tells her three separate stories set in exotic locales, all involving circumstances similar to hers.

English-language adaptation of Albert Cohen's epic Swiss tale of a tortured love affair between a high-ranking Jewish official and the protestant wife of one of his employees.

One day, driving aimlessly around the outskirts of town after a trivial domestic quarrel, a writer named Tomas accidentally hits and kills a child. Will he be able to move on?

After falling in love in Paris, Marina and Neil come to Oklahoma, where problems arise. Their church's Spanish-born pastor struggles with his faith, while Neil encounters a woman from his childhood.

Thousands of activists arrive in Seattle, Washington in masses to protest the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 (World Trade Organization). Although it began as a peaceful protest with a goal of stopping the WTO talks, it escalated into a full-scale riot and eventually, a State of Emergency that pitted protesters against the Seattle Police Department and the National Guard.

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