20 best movies like The Guardians (2017)

From his childhood in Poland to his adolescence in Nice to his years as a student in Paris and his tough training as a pilot during World War II, this tragi-comedy tells the romantic story of Romain Gary, one of the most famous French novelists and sole writer to have won the Goncourt Prize for French literature two times.

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.

Set in a dugout in Aisne in 1918, a group of British officers, led by the mentally disintegrating young officer Stanhope, variously await their fate.

In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious French man who visits the fiance’s grave to lay flowers.

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 story that revolves around three sisters who live in their grandmother's home and the arrival of their 13-year-old half sister.

A young Englishman plots revenge against his mysterious, beautiful cousin, believing that she murdered his guardian. But his feelings become complicated as he finds himself falling under the beguiling spell of her charms.

David, who gets by doing odd jobs, meets Lena, who has just moved up to Paris, and falls in love. But soon after, his life is brutally interrupted by the sudden death of his sister. Beyond the shock, and the pain, David now finds himself alone with his young niece Amanda to care for.

Summer of 1939. Zosia is a young Polish girl who is deeply in love with Ukrainian Petro. Their great love will be put to the test when her father decides to marry her to a wealthy widower Skiba. Right after wedding she is left alone because her husband is drafted to the Polish army for the war with Germany. Meanwhile, tensions grow due to Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians living side by side.

In 1950, amidst the ravages of the Korean War, Sergeant Süleyman stumbles upon a a half-frozen little girl, with no parents and no help in sight. Frantic, scared and on the verge of death, this little girl captures the heart of Süleyman, who risks his own life to save her, smuggling her into his Army base and out of harms way. Not knowing her name and unable to communicate with her, Süleyman names her Ayla, in reminiscence of the moon on the fateful night during which they met. The two form an instantaneous and inseparable bond, and Ayla, almost effortlessly, brings an uncanny joy to the Turkish brigade in the grip of war. As the war comes to a close however, Süleyman's brigade is told that they will be returning home. Süleyman cannot bear abandoning Ayla, and does everything within his power to take her with him. After repeated failure, he is forced to give Ayla to an orphanage, but doesn't give up on the hope of one day reuniting with her. Will the two ever get back together?

Marianne leaves Abel for Paul, his best friend and the father of her unborn child. Eight years later, Paul dies and Marianne returns to Abel. However, things have changed for the both of them and feelings of jealousy surround their new relationship.

Thirty years after serving together in the Vietnam War, Larry "Doc" Shepherd, Sal Nealon and the Rev. Richard Mueller reunite for a different type of mission: to bury Doc's son, a young Marine killed in Iraq. Forgoing burial at Arlington National Cemetery, Doc and his old buddies take the casket on a bittersweet trip up the coast to New Hampshire. Along the way, the three men find themselves reminiscing and coming to terms with the shared memories of a war that continues to shape their lives.

Yesterday's Leningrad schoolgirl Masha Yablochkina, after a fierce blockade winter of 1941-1942, comes to the railway courses hoping to survive and gain strength. From there, the girl is sent to the construction of the Shlisselburg highway, which connects the city with the mainland and is in direct sight of German artillery. So the heroine gets into the 48th locomotive column of the special reserve NKPS, which, at the cost of the deadly risk, will have to deliver 75% of all cargo and military equipment to Leningrad.

England, early 20th century. The future writer and philologist John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) and three of his schoolmates create a strong bond between them as they share the same passion for literature and art, a true fellowship that strengthens as they grow up, but the outbreak of World War I threatens to shatter it.

The story of the women and relationships that define a family across a century.

In 1914, World War I, the bloodiest war ever at that time in human history, was well under way. However on Christmas Eve, numerous sections of the Western Front called an informal, and unauthorized, truce where the various front-line soldiers of the conflict peacefully met each other in No Man's Land to share a precious pause in the carnage with a fleeting brotherhood.

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), man of the people, autodidact and revolutionary sculptor - the most brilliant of his era. At 42, Rodin meets Camille Claudel, a young woman desperate to become his assistant. He quickly acknowledges her as his most able pupil, and treats her as an equal in matters of creation.

In the post–World War II South, two families are pitted against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad.

Igor, a Russian oligarch gets into a heated argument with Eva, his estranged daughter whilst traveling on his private jet. Igor orders the plane to land. As the plane touches down Eva disappears into the Goan jungle. Thus begins Igor's desperate search for his only daughter. A search that will bring him and Eva into contact with various characters who in turn are trying to find their own paths through life. Makar, a guy from Novosibirsk, who is desperately searching for enlightenment. Alexey and Kristina are ending their marriage here, while Dimon and Lenya are raising hell and pushing Goa to its partying limits. Kosmos the Guru ("just don't call him that") dispenses the chemicals that in a bat of an eyelid will take you to an alternate reality. There are different destinies here. There are a myriad of people. But all of them have one Motherland, which is easy not to love as long it is close to you

Saul is a great native hockey player who overcomes racism in the 1970s then ultimately becomes tempted by alcoholism.

Pio Amato, a 14 year-old member of a small Romani community in southern Italian town of Gioia Tauro in Calabria, is in a hurry to grow up. Pio follows his older brother Cosimo everywhere and from him he learns how to hustle and how to navigate the streets of his hometown. One night Pio sets out to prove to his brother that he is as good or better than him but, when things go wrong, a series of events will forever change the way he sees the world.

A young girl of about 10 years lives in a solitary peasant's house on the edge of the jurassic mountains in the East of France. One day in autumn, when she is on her way to school through the forest, she observes a hunting fox. Of course, the fox flees from her, but the girl feels a strong desire to meet the fox again.

Fabienne is a star; a star of French cinema. She reigns amongst men who love and admire her. When she publishes her memoirs, her daughter Lumir returns from New York to Paris with her husband and young child. The reunion between mother and daughter will quickly turn to confrontation: truths will be told, accounts settled, loves and resentments confessed.

Indochina, 1945. While the French are harassed by both the Japanese army and the Vietnamese rebels, private Robert Tassen, driven by the memory of a tragedy of which he is the only survivor, embarks on the search for the mysterious and cruel Võ Bình Yên, one of the leaders of the insurrection.

Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, they are impatient to start again, to turn the page – even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha. Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears...

Based on the true story of two young men, David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, who won a $300 million contract from the Pentagon to arm America's allies in Afghanistan.

During the Blitz of World War II, a female screenwriter (Gemma Arterton) works on a film celebrating England's resilience as a way to buoy a weary populace's spirits. Her efforts to dramatise the true story of two sisters (Lily Knight and Francesca Knight) who undertook their own maritime mission to rescue wounded soldiers are met with mixed feelings by a dismissive all-male staff.

In Paris during WWII, an Algerian immigrant is inspired to join the resistance by his unexpected friendship with a Jewish man. Based on not very known facts about the Muslim community in Paris during WWII, when the Paris Mosque and its dynamic leader played a pivotal role in supporting the resistance and rescuing Jews.

An adaptation of the successful stage musical based on Victor Hugo's classic novel set in 19th-century France, in which a paroled prisoner named Jean Valjean seeks redemption.

Beirut, 1982: a young Palestinian refugee and an Israeli fighter pilot form a tentative bond in their attempt to make their way across war-torn Lebanon back to their home.

Pierre, in his thirties, is a breeder of dairy cattle. His life revolves around his farm, his veterinarian sister and his parents whose livestock he took over. As the first cases of a zoonotic outbreak are reported in France, Pierre discovers that one of his animals is infected. He cannot cope with the perspective of losing the whole herd. They are everything he has and he will do whatever it takes to save them.

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.

Erik, a lecturer in architecture, inherits his father’s large old house in Hellerup, north of Copenhagen. His wife Anna, a well-known television newscaster, suggests that they invite their friends to come and live with them. In this way she hopes to evade the boredom that has begun to seep into their marriage. Before long, a dozen women, men and children move into the country house, make collective decisions, engage in discussions and go swimming together in the nearby Øresund strait. They also rub each other up the wrong way on account of their smaller and larger idiosyncrasies. Their fragile equilibrium threatens to come undone when Erik falls in love with his student Emma and the young woman moves into the house. Fourteen-year-old Freja, daughter of Erik and Anna, aloofly observes these goings-on and seeks her own way.

Set in the beautiful high Pyrenees in south-west France, Damien lives with his mother Marianne, a doctor, while his father, a pilot, is on a tour of duty abroad with the French military. At school, Damien is bullied by Thomas, who lives in the farming community up in the mountains, nut learns to fight back. The boys find themselves living together when Marianne invites Thomas to come and stay with them while his mother is ill in hospital. Damien must learn to live with the boy who terrorised him.

A teenage girl helps an escaped fugitive flee Germany into France, after extracting a promise that he will help her commit suicide.

In 1971, Carole and Delphine meet and fall in love in Paris. When Carole follows Delphine back to her family farm in Limousin, the two find lesbianism and feminism are not as easy in the countryside.

Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.

An Algerian man's life-long dream finally comes true when he receives an invitation to take his cow Jacqueline to the Paris International Agriculture Fair.

A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's rape of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.

WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Set in post-WWII Leningrad as two female soldiers return from war and attempt to rebuild their lives in the ravaged city.

In an attempt to flee Nazi-occupied France, Georg assumes the identity of a dead author but soon finds himself stuck in Marseilles, where he falls in love with Maria, a young woman searching for her missing husband.

Seyolo Zantoko is a doctor from Congo who wants to get away from dictatorship and he is hired by the mayor of a small village in the north of France. The locals fear Seyolo and his family as they have never seen African people before, and Seyolo and his family struggle to adapt to this new life. But Seyolo is determined to succeed and to win the trust of the villagers.

Marie and Boris decide to get a divorce after 15 years of marriage. Tensions rise when cash-strapped Boris must continue to live with Marie and the two children while trying to figure out how to divide the assets.

The Wild West, circa 1870. Samuel Alabaster, an affluent pioneer, ventures across the American frontier to marry the love of his life, Penelope. As his group traverses the west, the once-simple journey grows treacherous, blurring the lines between hero, villain and damsel.

A veteran soldier returns from his completed tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return to field duty by the Army.

Poland, 1945. Mathilde, a young French Red Cross doctor, is on a mission to help the war survivors. When a nun seeks for her help, she is brought to a convent where several pregnant sisters are hiding, unable to reconcile their faith with their pregnancy. Mathilde becomes their only hope.

An Arab surgeon living in Tel Aviv discovers a dark secret about his wife in the aftermath of a suicide bombing.

Ombline, a 20-year-old woman, is sent to prison for three years after committing a violent assault on a police officer. Just when she has lost all hope for the future, she discovers that she is pregnant. The law allows her to rear her newborn for the first 18 months of its life, after which time the child must be given up and placed into state care. Ombline has no intention of surrendering her beloved little boy and is prepared to do anything to convince the authorities that she is capable of rearing the child after she has left prison. As her maternal instincts assert themselves, the young woman finds she has a cause worth fighting for, and an opportunity to rebuild her shattered life…

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?